Water Settlers/Workers/Cities

1. Do they work? If the terrains are made colonizable/developable, and sea units are given the right abilities can a Human player use them?

2. Can the AI use them?

3. How would they be invaded, etc.?

I am fairly sure they would technically work, but I am absolutely certain the AI can't use them. If you want to make a water-scenario of some sort, you'd have to make 'water graphics' for land terrain files.

It works. The AI can't use it. Don't remember how the invasion experiment turned out.

Thanks, about what I expected (wanted to make a Random mappable Scenario with the ability to colonize sea...I'll just go with adding big econ bonuses for water then I guess)

I tried to add a sea-based luxury resource to the game the other day, then realized I needed to have a road going to the resource to get it. Can you actually make a sea-going worker that can build ROADS over the water? How d'you do that?

I think it would be a better idea to make some sort of Boat that can build Water Tunnels (Roads). In order to do this you would have to replace Roads or Railroads with Water Tunnels. I think this could work very well in a futuristic Mod if you change the name of the Railroads to something else that sounds futuristic and give it new look and replace Roads with Water Tunnels. BTW yes it is possible.

It sounds neat to do, but it doesn't work (water roads). First, the AI doesn't use the water workers, because you can't flag any naval units with the terraform ability (even though you can flag the worker jobs). Second, and most interesting, is that once you build just one tile of sea road, harbors completely stop working in the game. It is very strange. From then on, you have to connect all cities with roads or airports in order to have trade routes. Also, IIRC, sea roads when built do allow you to connect your cities to sea-based luxury and strategic resources.

The invasion of sea cities works the same as invading a city built on a 1-tile island. It requires units with the amphibious assault ability. But the AI won't use sea settlers (again, because naval units can't have the right flags checked), so the question is moot. There are a lot of cool things you can do in the editor that the AI can't use. My favorite are planes with the immobile flag unchecked have the ability to move over land or water, but the AI won't ever take them onto the water.

If you are making an MP-only scenario, then go ahead and do all kinds of crazy things, just make sure that all players understand the special features of units.