Bridges/canals/dams

[darkdude]

Interesting topic. So what do we have: Bridges/canals/tunnels in or out? It's a nice thought experiment how you could put them in if you want them at all. So I'll give it a try.

- Bridges; being done in part already over rivers. But how about bridges over coast/sea/ocean squares? Realistic bridges go from one landmass to another landmass closeby. You could put it in and then restrict it to only allow building across coastal and sea squares with a start and end point on different land masses, only allowed to build in a straight line, and comprised of no more than 3 connected bridge squares. Also, they are directional, meaning you cannot use them to travel other than over the intended direction (the straight line between start and end point).

- Canals; to connect two seas (like Panama canal). High cost. Create where two seas are separated by exactly one land tile; define tiles of being in two different oceans by the minimum moves required by sea to go from one square to the other and only allow building when minimum distance is greater than 20. Canals over land: possible to create starting at a coastal square for not-too-large boats; end point not in a coastal square. Limit to length of two squares. Medium cost.

- Tunnels; to connect to land masses (like England-France tunnel) or to go through a mountain. Again, directional, only build in a straight line, maximum of 3 or 4 squares (including start and end point). Start and end point outside the mountain. High cost.

I guess this will be very hard to mod in if at all possible (because it uses some new concepts; so maybe this should be in the Civ 5 suggestions) and you have to take care it's not easily exploitable. It will probably be the hardest of all to teach the AI how to properly use these options.

Another possible civil engineering improvement: claiming some land from the sea. Example: the Netherlands is over 30% below sea level. With levees, dunes, dams and pumping out water the land was claimed and protected over many centuries. Possible implementation by only allowing this for coastal tiles. High cost.

The costs in shields/hammers should prevent abundant use of these improvements.

Well, that was fun

 

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

bridges and tunnels, no, too impractical for the reasons of square sizes, that and the tunnels and bridges that exsist today on such a massive scale are so rare they'd be in the productive cost almost that of a great wonder I would think.

But the canals and dams idea is a very good one. One of my biggest issues with all civ games has been the ship movement rates, and the obsurd travel time and paths associated with getting a navy into an aggressive stance. Since when does it take 100 years to bring a carrier full of air support from hawaii to japan? Navies play an important role in warfare and civilization games have always underemphasized this. By providing the ability to construct canals at key locations will help to emphasize the use of the navy, instead of just relying on the 'conquer distant city, build airport, airlift massive amounts of troops' strategy commonly employed in many civ games.

The dam idea is also a good one, as it can be both critical to civs with a crapload of otherwise useless desert land in the middle of their core territory, but the one thing that may be a hitch in the idea is that rivers are inbetween squares [due to the associated defensive bonuses], so which square is used to dam the river? Which is used to defend the dam? Both? One? What if the river is the dividing line between to nations? Would damming the river be cause for war? But I do like the idea, the ability to transform desert [without floodplain] into a more manageable plains, or being able to clear a swamp instantly after a dam is completed. Sheilds available on the dammed square as a bonus maybe after hydro electric power is discovered?

 

[NorthNovas]

I have to agree that canals would be an excellent feature. However, making it an approriate cost/investment just like Panama Canal or the St. Lawrence Seaway. There is nothing more frustrating then having a Naval Strike Force and it will take 15 turns to get to where the action is taking place. Those 2 or 3 land tiles blocking the way. A canal would cut the travel time to a third. Also the expense of building the canal would off set building 2 large naval fleets in each of your respective waters. Unless you want 2 large naval fleets.

 

[Vidar]

Most people seem to agree that canals would be a very good idea, but it would have to be expensive. What about 200 workerturns (WT's) pr. square? That is your basic grassland/plain/tundra square. Forrest squares would require twice as many WT's, and jungles 3 times that number (as with roads). Building canals through hills would come at 5 times as costly (because of all the locks), and it would be absolutely impossible to build one through mountains.

With this system you can build canals anywhere (that is not a mountain), but you can't build it everywhere. It would only be practical to build it in thouse cases, where a short canal (2 or 3 squares) would save your navy a substantial amount of time. Just like in real life.

Now, what do you guys think?

 

[Innawerkz]

I like the idea of dams being built as far back as the AA or MA. Simply the ability to block commerce, hastened travel via the riverbed (like roads, yes?), and eliminate any bonuses gained by rivers to that civilization.

The Nile has repeatedly been threatened to be blocked which has caused many nations to become involved throughout history to develop treaties or threaten war.

The effects would be pretty drastic on developing civs in the early going... losing access to the increased mobility & trade would hurt. In the later stages of the game, dams could be developed for commerce/production benefits to the civ(s) that created it and be a target of many air strikes/sabotage/pillaging.

Add more variety to military campaigns besides simple city-takeovers, IMHO.

 

[gryphius]

I like the idea of bridges and canals... Obviously this would have to be very far along in the tech tree... maybe around physics or later, as some knowledge of physics would certainly be necessary to develop extremely long bridges such as ones that would bridge 1 square in Civ IV. I would definitely limit bridges to only be able to gap 1 square of water, and it would have to be coastal, and I would even suggest that it would prevent larger ships from being able to cross underneath, until a future tech development to allow for a drawbridge, giving a major downside to building it. Also, it would have to take an extremely long time to build (at least 3 to 4 times longer than a road), and would cost significant maintenance, be subject to attack, and degrade over time to the point where you need to specifically tell a unit to repair it.

As for canals, they should have the same basic rules as I outlined for bridges, except they should be able to span a few squares (greatly increasing the time to build... i.e. an exponential increase: 1 square costs 4 turns, 2 squares cost 16 turns, 3 squares costs 64 turns, or 3, 9, 27, etc.). destroying one square of a canal could kill the whole thing (you'd have to start from scratch to rebuild it, instead of just repairing the one square). Again, larger boats would not be able to fit, until a future tech advancement. You could implement it in a similar manner to the current 'build a road to:' feature in civ 3.

Also, what about landfills? A good amount of New York is built on landfill, so maybe they could add the ability to fill some coastal waters with not-very-productive land mass. There would (again) have to be some serious limitations, like maybe only 1 square in any city's sphere of influence, and the city would have to be extremely large (20+?) to support a landfill square. it could add an interesting element to city placement.

 

[Atreides]

If bridges were implemented then they should only be for costal tiles.
If you can build a bridge from europe to america in real life then you should be able to do it in civ. if you haven't built a bridge from europe to america then why should you be able to do it in civ?
however if the water is shallow enough then you can build a bridge from Denmark to Sweden.

 

[Atreides]

Also, what about landfills? A good amount of New York is built on landfill, so maybe they could add the ability to fill some coastal waters with not-very-productive land mass. There would (again) have to be some serious limitations, like maybe only 1 square in any city's sphere of influence, and the city would have to be extremely large (20+?) to support a landfill square. it could add an interesting element to city placement.

What about the Netherlands?

God created the world.... And the Dutch created Netherlands.

Bomb the Dyke, blow up the windmills, flood Holland!!!!

 

[Red Door]

If bridges were implemented then they should only be for costal tiles.
If you can build a bridge from europe to america in real life then you should be able to do it in civ. if you haven't built a bridge from europe to america then why should you be able to do it in civ?
however if the water is shallow enough then you can build a bridge from Denmark to Sweden.

But really you could build a bridge from Europe to America. It just would be almost impossible to build and you would have to use the way of Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, U.K., and then to France.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

But really you could build a bridge from Europe to America. It just would be ... impossible to build and you would have to use the way of Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, U.K., and then to France.

Text edited for correctness (almost changed to ...)

 

[MattII]

I like the idea of dykes, you could build cities on the tiles, if you dare.

 

[Kissamies]

Logically, if there was canals upon which naval units could move, there would also be rivers or some parts of rivers passable to the ships also, and perhaps technology to futher dredge rivers for such purpose. This is something I would have liked since before there was rivers in these games (Strategic Conquest & Empire). Sadly, the rivers run on the edges of the squares and not on the squares themselves these days.

 

[Schaefespeare]

Maybe I'm wrong but I thought rivers in civ4 were/are going to be in civ2 mode ( ie. in middle of one square and routed through a succession of individual sqwuares) not civ3 mode ( ie, between 2 adjacent squares ), with bridges being automatic once the correct Civ.Advance was researched.
Ignoring any programming/AI complexities, it would be useful to implement :-
1. Canals. River to river or River to Coastal-city/Inland-Lake or canal to canal/river.
2. Land Bridges over Coastal Squares from City to City in straight-lines only.

These seem feasable from a programming aspect - they are overlays which could act as "roads" but not railways, ie. have transport and tile-improvement consequences only.

Dams, however seem impractical as they would alter surrounding and river route-mapped squares, providing negative consequences only. It doesn't seem logical for a dammed-square to produce a change from dessert to pasture in an adjacent square without worker irrigation at an advanced level, which is something acheivable with an adjacent river tile anyway.

And a comment on the scale/distance element of map-squares. Modern Cities like London (and New York), taking in the suburban periphery of Greater London not just the "core city", the inner square mile; well, such cities are approximately Twenty-Five MIles diameter. That 25-miles has always been represented by five map-squares ( in each of the two dimensions). A map-sqwuare can only be approximately 5 square-miles.

No Geographical feature on earth has ever measured 50 square-miles, and even on Mars the largest feature is only 5-miles high! My Civ. maps have always seemed small places no matter where sourced/originated, even when my Civ3 generated maps have been say 240x200 or so.

Therefore Canals & Bridges of 10-plus squares seems quite acceptable to me. Being English, and used to having several Centuries of development to my nations history, canals first arose before railways as a commercial network for the transportation of goods ( between cities) prior to the development of Railways, which evolved in the early and late stages respectively of the British Industrial Revolution.

To be pedantic about the development of transport, apart from the Romans famous roads which always led to Rome, Roads did not exist before the development of the motor-car. Tracks and glorified-tracks (Turnpikes) were superceded by Canals, which were in turn superceded by Railways, which were in turn were superceded by modern roads, which were superceded by Motorways ( here endeth the sermon).

But then again, Civ is a game which is meant to be rewarding not bogged down with unneccessary realism ( which has destroyed the enjoyment of other comparable games [ eg. Europa Univerasalis II ]).

Bythe way. Anyone know the UK release date of Civ4 ? Please ? (Pretty Please!) so Tell Me, okay.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

And a comment on the scale/distance element of map-squares. Modern Cities like London (and New York), taking in the suburban periphery of Greater London not just the "core city", the inner square mile; well, such cities are approximately Twenty-Five MIles diameter. That 25-miles has always been represented by five map-squares ( in each of the two dimensions). A map-sqwuare can only be approximately 5 square-miles.

No Geographical feature on earth has ever measured 50 square-miles, and even on Mars the largest feature is only 5-miles high! My Civ. maps have always seemed small places no matter where sourced/originated, even when my Civ3 generated maps have been say 240x200 or so..

Let's see the Rocky Mountains, the Sahara, The Serengeti, Forests of Siberia, Amazon, all of those are Well over 50 square miles (and those are the types of things made up of collections of map squares). The Alps for example would be one tile on a civ map.

You are right in tht the Civ maps seemed small, but remember the 'city and all of its surrounding suburbs, are what I regarded as the City square in civ (ie all of the Southern 1/2 of California would be in one city radius and LA and all the surrounding developed area would be the City square.)
In a proper Civ Map, Great Britain would have the cities of England, Wales and Scotland... Canal/Bridges should not be more than one square long.

 

[Junuxx]

.

No Geographical feature on earth has ever measured 50 square-miles, and even on Mars the largest feature is only 5-miles high!

Olympus Mons on Mars is approximately 16 miles high

 

[Schaefespeare]

Okay I'm prepared to be corrected about the size of Olympus Mons ; but as for the rest of the City-square/Tile size issue I believe it is a matter of interpretation. To me a Tile will always represent 5 square-miles.

The Geographical feature of Everest, at approx. three miles high, would reasonably be represented by one mountain Tile, whereas the Geographical feature of the Himalayas would need many mountain Tiles for its representation. As I said its a matter of interpretation; something that was almost agreed to in the case of the Rockies and the Amazon Basin and on which I forgot how loosely the term "Geographical feature" could be interpreted. Anyway 'Realism' isn't the culprit here.

Regardless of this wasteful point-scoring , most Civ. players would/should be asking "does the ideas implementation bring something useful to the game without taxing too much amyone's suspension of disbelief ?"

My opinion remains that (for up-to 10+ squares) :-
1. Canals. River to river or River to Coastal-city/Inland-Lake or canal to canal/river. [ But perhaps just City to City ].
2. Bridges over Coastal Squares from City to City in straight-lines only or a la Florida Keys mode [ which is a Highway, a Suspension Bridge or a succession of these ?].
that both would be useful and fairly realistic when introduced by appropriate Civ. Advances.

And for Chronological Realism, Civ. Games' Civilizations should start with the ability to build Trade-routes, Irrigation and Mines. Trade-Routes should then develop with Construction into Roman Roads / Turnpikes, with say Engineering comes Canals, with Steam-Power and Coal comes Railways, With Motorised-Transport comes Modern Roads, and finally with {some Tech that's currently lacking in Civ3} would come Motorways. Incidentally I always missed the Refridgeration Advance that was left out of Civ3.

Transport improvements should always bring increases in Trade to affected squares and perhaps double the movement rate along them (rather than abolish it as Railways do usually).

 

[Junuxx]

I feel like I'm making too much of a point of this, but you're really underestimating the height of big mountains. Mt. Everest is 8848 meters high, something like 5.5 miles.

The roads in Civ, by the way, have always been brownish lines which to me seemed to represent tracks, more than brick roads. This might explain why you don't need any tech for building roads, although I never liked to see the muddy track graphics in the Modern Age.

But to get back to the topic of the size of a square: I always thought that the line of sight, normally and from mountains, plus the requirement that triremes/galleys stick to the coastal waters, were the best clues the game gives as to square size.

If you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/horizon, you can see that from eye height, the horizon is 4.7km (3 miles) away, and from 100 meters high you can see 36 km (~22 miles) far. If we assume that an elevation difference of 100 meters would be represented by a hill in Civ, we can say that a square must be something between 4.7km and 18km wide (3 to 11 miles, that is). Your estimate of 5 miles seems quite consistent with mine, then .

I agree that canals in reality can be many times longer than 3-11 miles, and bridges a few times. But I think that especially long bridges can be extremely unbalancing in this game, just like land reclaimation. If you can build bridges anywhere, what's the point of ships anyway?

Oh, railways now allow any unit to move 20 squares, I believe.