stfoskey12
Emperor of Foskania
I like that idea.
Dear Fixaris: In this tactical game, are we EVER going to get canals?!
- Thread starter vra379971
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I like that idea.
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
Interesting. I suppose that's one difference. Although they can always just disembark and reembark if possible (which it might not be).
The challenge for that is you have to think about how the AI will handle it as well. Will the above work with humans? Oh yes. Will it work with AI......
I'd imagine that there would be two factors for the AI to consider:
- Economic - what trade route or toll opportunities does this open up?
- Military - how many movement points would this save from nearby coastal cities (where navies would be built) to a planned target?
If you could convert the movement points to an equivalent gold amount, then you can come up with a conclusion on whether building the canal is cost-effective. Getting it to a gold # would let it use the same decision tree it uses for deciding whether to build a road.
There can still be value to a 1 tile canal just from the fact there are structural/empire wide costs to adding 1 more city to your empire. Oftentimes, you fan out and settle your cities and later discover the narrow strip of land next to one of your cities is actually a crucial shortcut if you could just turn it into a canal. It's not so easy to settle a new city if there's another one closeby. Not being able to amend that issue is what has caused the calls for canals.
Civ3 explored and abondoned the idea of colonies/outposts/radar towers that I think should be explored agian. Upgrades along those lines should be the next step for the franchise to take.
Cities should have a specific purpose - population centres, areas of commerce, research.
That doesn't mean some of its functionality - like allowing naval units to move into the tile it is sitting on, acting as a stationary bombardment tower, shouldn't be offloaded to other tile improvements. There is room for tile improvements to take some of the functionality of a city.
My idea is that Forts should have independent bombard capabilities, and along those lines, act like a city to allow ships to pass through them or dock inside them and heal when built next to water. This means if a fort is built on a choke area, you have a canal.
Granted they should COST something to maintain and limits placed on how many can be built to avoid abuse, but I just don't neccessarily agree with the 'just build a city to do X' argument because it discourages exploration of creative solutions to oft requested vanity features like canals, or oft ignored improvements, like forts.
MaximusK
Warlord
I think this could be solved simply by redesigning maps.
There needs to be a map out there that is scripted to include a series of snaky 1-2 tile across water tiles emptying into larger lakes or oceans. In this case the harbor should work as a river port. Of course this might lead to battleships and submarines up river, oh well.
Wouldn't be a problem if my related suggestion (see the thread about navies) is adopted.
Just allow people to build ships in-land and ship them accross their road network to a port city.
It is not uncommon in pangea/larger maps to build an empire and never actually own a port that is your own (native) city or unpuppeted conquered one, due to the extra structural cost to the civ of adding +1 city, settled or unpuppeted.
This would also create more strategic choices in terms of warfare on in-land lakes, seas, where it would be unprofitable to dedicate a port just to build ships. In most cases, player controlled ports would be ocean facing to allow ships access to the largest body of water.
I see little use for Canals - want a canal? Build a city on the single tile that conjoins two bodies of water. I wouldn't object to a fort serving this purpose, as long as they couldn't be stringed together to make a 5 fort wide canal. That'd just be silly.
I have in many a Civ game moved a city a hex over in order to serve as a bridge between two water bodies. This still works, and is likely enough. Anything wider is not really sensible in this game.
I have in many a Civ game moved a city a hex over in order to serve as a bridge between two water bodies. This still works, and is likely enough. Anything wider is not really sensible in this game.
RTFT
Problems with using cities instead of canals:
- Location may not be ideal. E.g. perhaps a 2-tile canal would be more beneficial 3 tiles closer than the 1-tile narrow isthmus location.
- Overhead associated with the city. City's location is likely to be suboptimal, making it a happiness, maintenance, and cultural/SP drain.
- Embarked units of friendly nations cannot pass though city, even with open borders.
Canals also open up new gameplay possibilities, as they could be a source of income (via "tolls" or some gpt formula based on usefulness, and/or used in trade routes).
Thorburne
Centurion
RTFT
Problems with using cities instead of canals:
- Location may not be ideal. E.g. perhaps a 2-tile canal would be more beneficial 3 tiles closer than the 1-tile narrow isthmus location.
- Overhead associated with the city. City's location is likely to be suboptimal, making it a happiness, maintenance, and cultural/SP drain.
- Embarked units of friendly nations cannot pass though city, even with open borders.
Canals also open up new gameplay possibilities, as they could be a source of income (via "tolls" or some gpt formula based on usefulness, and/or used in trade routes).
Excellent points!!!
Take that canal haters!
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