Current (sort of) Canal System.

On #4; I have several trade routes that are going right thru other cities (both city states & rivals) on the way to their destination. It's not needing the other city as a canal, but the shortest route passes right thru the city.

Also, I found another quirk; while icebergs block both units and cargo ships; they don't prevent city connections. (Playing Venice I bribed a coastal city state which was blocked in via icebergs, but the moment it built a Harbor, I got credited with a city connection.)

joncnunn said:

On #4; I have several trade routes that are going right thru other cities (both city states & rivals) on the way to their destination. It's not needing the other city as a canal, but the shortest route passes right thru the city.

Also, I found another quirk; while icebergs block both units and cargo ships; they don't prevent city connections. (Playing Venice I bribed a coastal city state which was blocked in via icebergs, but the moment it built a Harbor, I got credited with a city connection.)

Click to expand...

Trade by submarines... Or dogsleds! I like it!

@Katzenkrimis: Ingame Editor mod to the rescue! You can enable it, make the necessary canal, and then disable it again. In these kinds of situations, 'cheating' with it is a mere technicality. It will still disable your achievements though, if you care about those things.

Alternatively, you could try my world map, where I made Panama into open water specifically to combat this issue.

Got an update on this. In my current game I'm able to sail through my CS allies of Ormus and Melbourne. I cannot sail through others. The difference is I liberated them. So apparently if you liberate a CS it removes the restriction of not being able to pass through them. Ormus is a friendly CS and Melbourne is a Hostile, so disposition and influence is immaterial just whether or not you have ever liberated them.

My experience before the last patch or 2 was greatly dependent of CS units being in the city acting as a canal. If there was a civilian or military unit stationed in the city my units could not pass through but with no CS units in the city I could sail right through. May have changed with the latest patch as I haven't had a canal situation come up for a while.

Nah, I can sail through Ormus and Melbourne despite there being military units (even ships) stationed in the city. The facet seems to be entirely related to liberation removing the flag. As for non-CS, I can sail through major Civ cities with Open Borders regardless of garrison in city as well.

It drives me crazy that forts were not given their civ4 ability to serve as canals when adjacent to the sea and a city. Why oh why was this taken out? It actually gave forts some purpose.

Ending the rant, I can also confirm that trade routes can pass through foreign cities regardless of open borders.

Barghaest said:

Nah, I can sail through Ormus and Melbourne despite there being military units (even ships) stationed in the city. The facet seems to be entirely related to liberation removing the flag. As for non-CS, I can sail through major Civ cities with Open Borders regardless of garrison in city as well.

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Maybe you're onto something there. There must be coding that disallows players from travelling through a CS city tile. But capturing a CS must remove that coding (since you can travel through AI city tiles if you have OB), but liberating probably doesn't reapply that coding.

That's just a hunch. I have no talent for reading lines of coding like some people (Aristos, I'm looking at you) and I'm at work now anyway.

shaglio said:

Maybe you're onto something there. There must be coding that disallows players from travelling through a CS city tile. But capturing a CS must remove that coding (since you can travel through AI city tiles if you have OB), but liberating probably doesn't reapply that coding.

That's just a hunch. I have no talent for reading lines of coding like some people (Aristos, I'm looking at you) and I'm at work now anyway.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's probably similar to the Mercantile Luxury bug... if a Merc CS is captured, it'll lose the bonus luxury (Jewelry, Porcelain) and will NOT regain it if later liberated - noticed that with Melbourne, it's not giving any luxury other than Pearls since I freed it up... and I know they used to add the luxury to captured cities when G&K first released - used to let Merc CS allies capture cities to increase the bonus luxuries which remained even if city later changed hands or was razed - so it might be related to the fix for that issue.