We need Canals

G

gunslinger6792

Warlord
Joined
Feb 7, 2012
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282
We need the ability to create a canal. I'm sure many of you have had the misfortune of not being able to create a city on the coast with good production. sometimes though you have a city thats just one hex away from the ocean and it has great production, thats where a canal would be helpful. perhaps it should take an entire turn just go through the one hex and the canal costs alot to maintain. i know this idea has probably been tossed around for civ5 but i haven't been able to find any talk of it actually becoming a reality. i think this idea is more important than ever before since having a navy is more crucial than ever.
 
I think a great way to implement a canal into the game would be if it was given to the great admiral as a tile improvement he can create just like the other great people can also create tile improvements.
That's the feature the great admiral is missing and it would give him something to do in peace times.
 
Death Dragon said:
I think a great way to implement a canal into the game would be if it was given to the great admiral as a tile improvement he can create just like the other great people can also create tile improvements.
That's the feature the great admiral is missing and it would give him something to do in peace times.
Click to expand...

+1 to this. The heal all naval units is really situational.
 
Death Dragon said:
I think a great way to implement a canal into the game would be if it was given to the great admiral as a tile improvement he can create just like the other great people can also create tile improvements.
That's the feature the great admiral is missing and it would give him something to do in peace times.
Click to expand...

I to like this idea. it would make harder than just delegating a worker to build a canal and force the player to make a bigger choice.
 
Canals made by Great Admirals would be awesome. It is not OP but fun, and more useful than the current ability of the Admiral. Maybe giving them a normal medic promotion wouldn't hurt either (+5HP for adjacent units
 
Death Dragon said:
I think a great way to implement a canal into the game would be if it was given to the great admiral as a tile improvement he can create just like the other great people can also create tile improvements.
That's the feature the great admiral is missing and it would give him something to do in peace times.
Click to expand...

As long as the canal is allowed to be two (possibly three?) hexes long, this is the perfect solution. A strategically placed canal would be important, so the Admiral would not be wasted. Limiting canal-building to just Great People would make it possible to avoid canal-spamming. And on maps with long, thin continents the ability to build a canal would be a great military advantage in terms of travel speed.

As long as units would lose all their remaining movement points upon entering a canal, I see no way canals could become overpowered.

All in all, a great idea.

EDIT: one thing I wonder about - assuming that building a Canal sort of "turns" a tile into an ocean tile - as in, building it next to a city makes the city able to build Lighthouses, ships etc. (which seems like a given), how to handle the situation when the tile gets pillaged or destroyed (e.g. replaced by a farm)? Disabling the building of new units/buildings is fine, but an inland city with a ship stationed sounds... weird. It'd allow the possibility of using up an Admiral just to get a free "siege unit" in the city, and then getting rid of the Canal, so that the city can't be taken by naval units anymore.
 
oddtail said:
As long as the canal is allowed to be two (possibly three?) hexes long, this is the perfect solution.
Click to expand...

I'd much rather see it limited to one hex, similar to the way bases functioned in CiV. When I envision this, I basically see a citadel that ships can enter (which would rock)...not connecting landlocked cities to the ocean, but providing a way to get there from an inland sea or a shortcut between two oceans (like the Panama & Suez Canals).

Biggest issue to implementation is figuring out how to get the AI to use it correctly, I'd imagine.
 
oddtail said:
EDIT: one thing I wonder about - assuming that building a Canal sort of "turns" a tile into an ocean tile - as in, building it next to a city makes the city able to build Lighthouses, ships etc. (which seems like a given), how to handle the situation when the tile gets pillaged or destroyed (e.g. replaced by a farm)? Disabling the building of new units/buildings is fine, but an inland city with a ship stationed sounds... weird. It'd allow the possibility of using up an Admiral just to get a free "siege unit" in the city, and then getting rid of the Canal, so that the city can't be taken by naval units anymore.
Click to expand...

The tile would become a marsh, I imagine, and any naval unit inside would be destroyed.

Of course, a naval unit in the canal could defend it.
 
oddtail said:
As long as the canal is allowed to be two (possibly three?) hexes long, this is the perfect solution.

...

EDIT: one thing I wonder about - assuming that building a Canal sort of "turns" a tile into an ocean tile - as in, building it next to a city makes the city able to build Lighthouses, ships etc. (which seems like a given), how to handle the situation when the tile gets pillaged or destroyed (e.g. replaced by a farm)? Disabling the building of new units/buildings is fine, but an inland city with a ship stationed sounds... weird. It'd allow the possibility of using up an Admiral just to get a free "siege unit" in the city, and then getting rid of the Canal, so that the city can't be taken by naval units anymore.
Click to expand...

This is a great idea and would be perfect for the Great Admiral.

However, I think you need to keep it simple. 1 Great Admiral = 1 tile canal, but allow them to chain. I'd also simply ignore any possibility of the city suddenly being able to build ships/lighthouses etc just because its beside a canal. It simply opens up too many issues and potential abuses like the free siege unit garrison tactic.
 
I had never thought of the AI problems. perhaps getting them to see it as a road would work? IDK im no modder and i definitely can't write code.
 
Harv72b said:
I'd much rather see it limited to one hex, similar to the way bases functioned in CiV. When I envision this, I basically see a citadel that ships can enter (which would rock)...not connecting landlocked cities to the ocean, but providing a way to get there from an inland sea or a shortcut between two oceans (like the Panama & Suez Canals).

Biggest issue to implementation is figuring out how to get the AI to use it correctly, I'd imagine.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. I see it as simply a way to link two different water bodies (e.g. Panama or Suez). But it needs to be limited within reason, so I think a one tile canal really keeps it as a situational ability that will not then be found at every second city/isthmus.

If you are going to suggest that canals can link cities to the sea, then you also open up the problem of 'why can't we just sail up the rivers, like on the Thames, to the city'. As someone else mentioned too, this would create extra problems and also take away from the sometimes difficult decision of whether to settle on the coast or not.

So I would vote for a one tile canal improvement that allows ships to pass through (using all movement points), but I do not think this should allow the linking of inland cities to the coast. :goodjob:
 
I like this idea of building canals with the Great Admiral.

I'll leave you all and Firaxis to work out the details. :D
 
Perhaps to avoid the issue of a canal being destroyed, you could just make it so that a naval unit passing through uses all of its movement pointss, but crosses and pops-out on the other side of the canal. This means that if a canal is removed, there's no worry about trapped naval units. The city would be able to build coastal improvements like a harbor and whatnot.

The other possibility is make canals impossible to improve-over.
 
I don't think that we need a special canal-improvement. It would be sufficient when ships could move through forts an citadels that are adjacent to water-tiles like through foreign cities (they can move through them but not be stationed in them). So two-tile-long canals would be possible, which is enough in my opinion.
 
The problem of 1 or even 2 tile(s) canals is that this does not take into account the size of the map. Imagine a really big Earth map, then not sure that Panama and Suez could even be built. Not to mention the fact of random earths with maybe no lands as thin as the ones of those.

No I think that canals of infinite lenght could be built, but they would cost instant money, like 700 gold per tile. On the upside, they would yield money per turn in the future. They would be a little like a loan. Of course, you can build them only between two areas of water, and they have to pass near a city in order to yield money. (tiles have to be worked)
 
Canals are problematic in that unless it is treated like a road for ships with a direct benefit on tiles hosting them, the humans will use it so much better than the AI and perhaps attack in places where the AI is not setup to anticipate (ships coming through routes the AI consider land tiles)

That said, road for a ship idea is I think the most feasible. It should cost significantly more gold per tile to maintain (say 2-4 gold) as a base cost with the cost increasingly exponentially per tile as it grows longer. The Panama Canal national wonder giving each civ free tiles to work with, say 5 tiles.
 
dexters said:
Canals are problematic in that unless it is treated like a road for ships with a direct benefit on tiles hosting them, the humans will use it so much better than the AI and perhaps attack in places where the AI is not setup to anticipate (ships coming through routes the AI consider land tiles)
Click to expand...

It don't know about how the AI would be able to handle what, but I don't think it would be a problem.

That said, road for a ship idea is I think the most feasible. It should cost significantly more gold per tile to maintain (say 2-4 gold) as a base cost with the cost increasingly exponentially per tile as it grows longer. The Panama Canal national wonder giving each civ free tiles to work with, say 5 tiles.
Click to expand...

I am far more favourable to instant costs. They are much more controllable. 700 golds per canal tiles with Civ5 in mind, or maybe 750, would be OK. Plus, it should yield money with time, not cost money.
 
Yes but I have doubt that it will be implemented as Civ V was developed to be dumbed down in order to attract a larger audience.
 
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