Suggested settler function: canals

[TijuanaSmalls]

Of course, they would take a looong time to build, but could add a cool strategic element when naval units come into play.

[shirleyrocks]

Yes. I remeber a Firaxian saying they considered canals but couldn't figure out how to implement them...or something to that effect.

[Cartouche Bee]

In a sense a settler can build a one tile canal. I have built cities at bottlenecks and used the city to move ships from one ocean to the other. I've also built cites on islands and peninsulas that shorten the route to an invasion point.

But I know what you mean. Longer canals would be nice.

[alamo]

I usually devote a major city on each coast to building a fleet.

Ah, the good-old terraforming abilities.

In SMAC you could lower terrain into the ocean, and raise it too. I would build land-bridges to my islands, or just make more land when I needed it.

[Zcylen]

every time I see a shock point that idea comes to my mind, canal would be a great help, and I'm sure all civs will declare war to the owner of the canal

[CiviLord]

Agreed. I've thought canals would add a new element to the game for some time. By the way, has anyone ever played Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri? That is, sort of, Civ4. Just wondering.

[HotDog Fish]

Well, canals would be amazing, I'm very surprised that they where not implemented, they would make naval combat mch more useful. But then again, naval combat is so completely cumbersome and pointless that any improvement to it would be a big positive

[Cantankerous]

Some type of canals would be nice.

Much like Cartouche Bee was saying, I like to build cities on the thin (one-tile wide) peninsulas that connect continents together. That allows you as the owner of the city to control the flow of ships from one ocean to the other without having to traverse all the way around an entire continent to get to the other side.

[Oakes]

I agree with the Dev's... as stated earlier in this thread.. how would you implement a canal? Are you seeing this as a worker command? I can't imagine a canal as a city improvement. Would canals only be allowed along river tiles? How would it affect the f/s/c rating of a tile? I think the implementation of that feature would be complex and possibly lead to a useless feature (or used at a minimum). Good thinking though.. the more creative the better.

[Hygro]

a cannal lke the Erie Cannal could be a road that ships could go on, or somehow connectig your trade route like a road. As for Cannals like the Suez and Panama, I build cities and have my ships go on through.

[Gingerbread Man]

I always thought canals would be great. But how would I implement them?

They could act just like rivers, just boats can travel on them. Same trade bonuses, same defence bonus, same effects on roads before engineering. Since rivers are on the grid lines, this would case problems of implementation.

Maybe instead it could become a new terrain type that doesn't occur naturally, that both land and sea units can travel on. The only way to get the terrain type would be via worker actions.

[The Last Conformist]

I think they should basically work like roads, only ships can also move on them.

Unfortunately, we'd be in grave risk of getting ridiculous canal systems streching across entire continents. One partial solution'd be to make their construction very expensive, and to disallow canals on mountains and hills.

[HotDog Fish]

Canals also had a very important military use. The Rideau Canal in my home town was built to prevent American Invasion as a barrier, also canals are made for military vessels, moving frigates and battleships from York (Toronto) to the Gulf of St. Lawrence to London and back and forth was important aswell

[DaDrunkenFish]

Just basically make them as rivers

[HotDog Fish]

Yes, but you can't move ships through rivers though in Civ3, therefore defeating the whole purpose of proposing the idea of canals in the first place

[Suki]

Originally posted by alamo
In SMAC you could lower terrain into the ocean, and raise it too. I would build land-bridges to my islands, or just make more land when I needed it.

or raising all your own land then bribing the senate to vote to raise the sea level and flooding so many enemy sities...

it was also fun planting rivers in SMAC...

The Last Conformist: "Unfortunately, we'd be in grave risk of getting ridiculous canal systems streching across entire continents. One partial solution'd be to make their construction very expensive, and to disallow canals on mountains and hills."

and give them a very large upkeep too, that tends to limit these things. it fits in a little with something I was thinking about for the theoretical "Civ 4" was to basically not have terrain improovments tied so much to cities. I mean what's the difference between a fortress and a city wall? or an airport and an airbase? or the workers who work from "inside" the cities or the ones who work outside...
but a simple wat to put the canals in if they got the rest of it working() would be just a string of harbours...

yeah, right....

[Sim_One]

If you were allowed to build cities adjacent (meaning not even one tile between two cities) to each other you could build canals that are as long as you want.