Bridges & Canals

[jerVL/kg]

What Civ4 really needs is...bridges & canals!

It's irritating when you get to the Modern Age and you still have to ferry units across a channel just 1 square wide. There should be an option to build bridges across those short water distances.

Old-style arch bridges date back to ancient times, so the ability to build simple stone arch bridges should begin fairly early, say with Masonry & Mathematics. Should take a long time to build (takes 5 workers 10 turns, cut in 1/2 with stone) with a max span of 1 tile, easily pillagible by enemies.

With Steel & Engineering, you can upgrade to 19th-century style cantilever bridges, max length 2, longer prod time (but 1/2 with iron), much harder to pillage. Add Plastics (and maybe Composites) will give you suspension and/or cable stay bridges, with a length up to 4, immune to pillaging except by air strikes (and possibly spies.)

Building a bridge across a water tile will reduce food output of that tile by -1 (reversible by Biology?) but increase the commerce output by a like amount.

Similarly, canals should be buildable across thin strips of land, so naval vessels can pass through without needing a city there. Like bridges, longer canals should be possible as modern techs become available.

Whaddaya think? Good idea? Possible?

 

[Lordclane]

I think the small bridges you're talking about are factored into the game and are simply invisible on the game scale. The rivers you see in the game are major rivers-- think Mississippi, Nili or Amazon. Bridging those was a bigger job....

 

[Hyronymus]

Canals were a hot issue before Civ4 was released, almost everyone seemd to like the idea to have them. I still think that's the case but I guess implementing them isn't all that easy with the design level of Civ4. I'm all for it though!

 

[eric_]

Canals are a great idea!

As for the bridges for one-square water tiles, I think scale-wise you're basically proposing something like bridging the Red Sea...

 

[bowervt]

I have wondered why this isn't an option since I began playing civ games. I think it would add a lot to the game (burning bridges, controlling canals). But, there obviously should be limitations, like no canals over certain tiles, or bridges can only be X number of tiles long, etc.

I wonder how many people are like me, and consciously look for "strategic" locations to place cities to connect bodies of water...just to have the ability to do so even if you never use it...

 

[Sidewinder00Q]

Bridging something like the Red Sea may seem unreasonable, because It's not that much to simply go around. But Bridging the English Channel has been in the minds of the English and French since Napoleon. Other bridges exist that span a considerable distance. I've had Several games where I've wanted to build the Mackinac Bridge, (or for those who want a shorter but more well known bridge Golden Gate Bridge). Building a Bridge like this should be available at about Steel, earlier types of bridges just wouldn't work, as even if it DID work, it would block any naval movement through the tile. The Maximum extent of a Bridge should be one Tile. Naval Units, Spies, Aircraft should be the only one that can pillage it.

I would say the building a bridge does not take a worker actions, but instead uses work boats, or a combination of both, these actions need to take time, a lot of time.

As for Canals, I want to see the addition of actual Ports in the game, move the Naval vessels out of the city, its rediculous that Ships can hide inside a city and be completely invunerable. If you want a City to be connected by an ocean trade route, a Worker has to build a Port in the Cities radius, and road to the port. If you were to put two ports adjacent to each other, then you would have a Canal. Since the Port is techincally part of the city, only other nations that have a right of passage with you can travel through it. Any Ships that are built by the city appear in the Port, cites can have more than one Port, but one port is designated the Primary port and is where all ships are built. The Port tile itself looses production and food, but gains commerce.

I'd also like to see the addition of visible trade routes, just a simple line across the screen to show where the trade routes are, and where they are going. Would allow for wartime raiding. A ship on or adjacent to the trade route has a chance of intercepting (for money) a freighter. Taking money from both civs and possibly denying the resource to the civ for a turn. If its a Nuetral party going to the enemy, you have a chance of bringing the nuetral party into the war on the enemies side. (they don't like you stealing their profits)

 

[jerVL/kg]

I wonder how many people are like me, and consciously look for "strategic" locations to place cities to connect bodies of water...just to have the ability to do so even if you never use it...

::raises hand::
The best situation is having a large inland lake connected to the sea by a port city, that way all the cities on the lake have ocean access but are (relatively) safe from naval invasion.

Only one-tile bridges? Maybe that's reasonable but I'd love to see two-tile, three-tile, even longer bridges. Or maybe I'm just used to playing SimCity where I'd build a bridge that spanned an ocean nearly the whole width of the map...just because I can.

Speaking of the Chunnel...how about tunnels? Under mountains and bodies of water? And hey, now that I think about it, how come there are no INTERSTATES in the game?? We get railroads, but no highways? I wanna see my tanks marching down the Autobahn!!

 

[Sidewinder00Q]

Just think of the current Railroad as Highways.

In Civ III I wanted to make a causeway on several maps, the idea would be that you could build segments of bridges connecting smaller islands that were too small for the scale of the map, as long as the causeway terminated on a land tile you could build it. The Restriction would have been that you could only build them on Coastal tiles. I suppose using the same rational you could argue longer bridges, as long as they are only built in Coastal tiles. But for game balancing I don't know if you want to make bridges longer than two or MAYBE three Tiles.

Oh yeah, strategic placing of cities to get a Canal...all the time, sometimes at the expense of a good city location too.

Hmm...A chunnel would be a good idea, only a Spy can destroy it, but what tech does it become available at? Composites? or would we want to make it earlier and put it in a Plastics or Combustion?

 

[Xanthra]

Great idea, It could even be a wonder, just look at some of the bridges around the world there impressive feats of construction that serve a major purpose.

Like a 1-2 tile max length would be cool and each civ can build only 2 of them, they can also be destroyed by bombing.

Im for it.

 

[Hyronymus]

I don't think they should be wonders, just them the construction take a large amount of turns so you won't build them easily and only make them possible after Industrialization i.e..

 

[sligo]

Don't forget the Chesapeake Bay bridge-tunnel.

 

[Hyronymus]

That was opened in 1964, well after Industrialization got the better of the US:

http://www.cbbt.com/facts.html

 

[christian_g]

Canals are a great idea!

As for the bridges for one-square water tiles, I think scale-wise you're basically proposing something like bridging the Red Sea...

And a channel will allow you to go with you battleships and carriers in Las Vegas!

Christian

 

[ECD34]

I like the idea of canals, but they should require locks of different types through out the ages to be used by ships. The earliest a flash lock for galleys, frigates and galleons require a pound lock and modern transports, battleships, etc. should require a modern steel lock. I think the lock tech should come with the ship tech or one after. Flash locks could also have a slight chance of sinking the galley. A canal must be connected to a city with an aquaduct in order to build locks on it. Mills should also be allowed on either side of the canal. ECD

 

[Stalker0]

I don't think canals would add a lot of gameplay to the game, but I do like the idea of bridges to connect close islands and the like.