Can Any one tell my:: Canals --- Where are they??

[golddigger]

Why is there no way to biuld a "Canal" in any Civ., Colonization, or Alpha Centauri; (or even the Call To Power's)? At least in Civ.1 you could build cities next to each other with a city @ ea. end of the group having access to a body of water and they funtion as a canal. (In Colonization you could not even enter a lake or 'land-locked-sea' with a ship.

Canals have been in use by the current progression of civilization for no less then 6,000 years. Canals connected the Tigris & Euphrates of the Sumer / Babylonia / Chaldi / Persa, et al.. Cananl brought ships form the Persain Golf to acient Babylon & later to Baghdad. The earliest Kings of Egypt had their own canal across the isms of Suez. They used canals to portage the rappeds of the upper Nile. They used canals in shallow areas of the Nile delta. The Romens used canals in Rome & other parts of their empire. Pre-Romens; Romens; and mostly every ruller since (including Charlimain, Frederic The Great, The Kizers', even Hitler) wanted to, and tried to, connect the Rine & The Danube at their closess areas.

Atlantis (~20,000 to ~10,000 B. C.) used many canals to connect waters-ways to the sea as well as each other. Mo (~60,000+ B. C.) used canals. Early Meso-Amc. cultures in North & South Amc. used canals for irigation & transport at least as far back as 9,000 B. C.. The ancient canals did not have to connect waters with a city at each end.

Canals have been used in Asia; The Fertal Cresent; Asia Minor; North, Central, & East Africa; all of Europe; Russa; Britania (U.K.); Euro & Latian Amc.; even to the present day. But not in any Civ./MPS product. Canal building is as old a tech. as road building. Canals; irigation; roads;& mining are the pillers on which civilization has been built. But not in any Civ./MPS product!!
Not in any Civ./MPS product!!!!

In ancient times as even now: other means of transportation, irrigation, farming, towns, cities, all manor of civilization can be found gracing the banks of canals. But not in any Civ./MPS product!!!!!! Can this 'OVERSITE' be corrected?; can a pacth be made of each of the other older Civ./MPS product?

As I look at it, a square of canal should take no longer to build then a square of irigation. It realy should not take much longer then road building. It should be a 'start-up' or very early tech., it should be a starting tech along with road building. It could come with Masonory or Construction, but it should be with road building. The ability to builds 'locks' (pullies, levers, et al -- i.e. Mathmatics) coulld be needed to build cananl through Montains (maybe even hills) but the Chillains of 9,000 years B. C. built transport & irigation cancls from the Andes to the coastal planes. Atlantians built canals through their mountians (which some think could have been the Andes) over 18,000 B. C.. So 'locks' are justified too.

Well that is my thoughts on canals for now; I would like to see then added to all the civ / MPS et al., products. Or have some one creat a patch to add to each product to add canals. I hope that this was the right place to post this posting. thanks to all who read & to all who respond;

 

[Headmaster]

You could use a city as a canal if the landstrip is only 1 sqr wide, but I haven't tried building 2 cities directly adjacent to each other.

A canal building working action would be nice, should be available after researching construction or something...

But I think it should take much longer than building road. Panama Canal was planned and build from 1875 to 1914. I think building canals should take as long as clearing jungle.

 

[Publius]

Originally posted by Headmaster
You could use a city as a canal if the landstrip is only 1 sqr wide, but I haven't tried building 2 cities directly adjacent to each other.

In Civ3, cities have to be separated by at least one square. Right now, a city on a one-tile isthmus is the only way to move ships into or out of an inland sea. Also, in Civ3, if two land squares touch only at one corner, a small land bridge connects them, preventing ships from moving through. In Civ2, ships move through and land units could still move across.

Oh, well, this game is still a helluvalot better than 2, but...
I definitely agree about canals, and have mentioned them in other threads. I didn't realize how far back in time they went--good research, golddigger. Before the railroad, rivers and canals were the only good way to move large amounts of cargo. There's only so much you can load onto a horse-drawn wagon.

 

[Bjorn Bjornson]

yeah i HATE having a massive world long archipelago with a 2 square thick ithsmus (sp?)

so basically without canal building, youre stuck having to send all yer ships halfway around the world to get around a long strip of land

atleast in civ CTP there was a mod where you could build improvements on land squares that would allow sea units to go on it....

i was dissapointed that this issue wasnt brought up in civ3, and the fact that civ3 has very limited terrain improvements (THEY EVEN TOOK OUT FARMLAND!), im not sure if it is possible to make canals

anyway, if it was possible to put them into civ3, they should require a semi advanced tech, like engineering, and they should take quite awhile to build - cuz canals are very large expensive projects (especially if they require seaworthy ship passage)

 

[jamesjkirk]

Early on in developing Civ3, Firaxis said that there would be a Great Canal wonder where you could pick a spot of land to dig a canal across, also, the Great Wall was to be an actual wall that you could see on the map, but later on they said they dropped these ideas because they were too difficult to implement

 

[Scipio Africanu]

Canals bring up another point in my head. Why can't smaller ships move through Rivers? The Rhine, Rhone, Mississippi, Danub, Volga, and many other rivers acted as great forms of transportation for Ships, of course you would have to limit the more modern ships from navigating these streches such as the Battleship but i'd imagine it could have been done. Shouldn't they have different depths of rivers to make some navigable and some not, oh why oh why Firaxis. Oh well though, I can live with it, perhaps even a really good mod maker out there could accomplish it. Just have to wait for Civ IV (Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo), eh hem i'm really okay with it .

 

[Headmaster]

Rivers are between 2 squares, not inside them, so you can't put a unit on the river but only next to it. And a ship which isn't directly on the river looks kinda odd

This would have been possible in Civ1 and 2, I always wondered why I couldn't put my triremes on rivers...

 

[xgentleman]

maybe we can change somethign and make it possible form workers to create seas or water..
bt then your worker will drown and die...
cause a worker will not have the ablity to move in sea square.....

 

[Cerberus]

I wondered in Civ I where the canals were. Then in Civ II, and now in Civ III.

I guess Firaxis doesn't like canals.

BTW, the Panama Canal was and is one of the Great Wonders of the World. Why is it not in the game? (The Suez Canal was a nice job, too).

MNS. Makes No Sense - Civ III.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

isthmus of Corinth - that`s where the word isthmus comes from. And before it was possible to build a canal (I think it was done in Napoleons time but they may have failed and it was done in modern times) the ancient Greek would just use ox-drawn chariots to transport ships overland. You can still see the wagon ruts several inches deep in solid rock.....

Why isn`t this possible in CivIII?

 

[Bjorn Bjornson]

yeah thatd be an idea too, having ancient age ships be able to turn into a land unit - although should be a slow defenseless land unit

 

[cephyn]

***Atlantis (~20,000 to ~10,000 B. C.) used many canals to connect waters-ways to the sea as well as each other. Mo (~60,000+ B. C.) used canals.***

Atlantis? Even assuming it did exist, its use of canals is questionable. Separating fact from fiction, if there is any fact at all, is quite difficult at this point.

Mo? What the hell is that? I couldn't even find mention of it on the net!

Otherwise, I think canals should be in the game. Civ 1 did have the city 'hack' where you built a chain together and could sail on through. In Civ3 of course, you can stick the city on the 1 tile spot. Works good for me, i use that a lot.

As for major canals though, all those ancient canals could fit galleys, but once you get bigger than that, it gets tougher. Its unlikely you could sail a battleship through an ancient canal (especially one from atlantis or Mo?!??!) so there'd have to be some sort of technological restriction. Look at the work put into the panama canal -- the ancients simply couldn't accomplish something on that scale.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Ancient era: Masonry gives the ability to built 1-tile CCST (Cross-Country Ship Transport. Thus, 3 tiles can be crossed: CCST-city-CCST.
Cross-country ship transport can be built in plains, desert, grassland, forest.
Galleys will be the only unit to that can pass.
Takes 3 movement points for 1 tile.
Ships are defenceless.
Horses must be available, horseback riding known.
Building time = 2*jungle clearing.

Construction gives the ability to built 1-tile canals.
Thus, 3 tiles can be crossed: canal-city-canal
Canals can be built as updates of CCST, cutting built time by 1/3
Canal-city movement takes 1 movement point, entering/leaving canal from open water ends movement.
Largest unit fitting into canals: Caravel
Cities on canals cannot build harbour for food, but can build veteran ships. Without harbour ship construction is limited to Galleys.

Building time = 2*jungle clearing


Middle Ages: Engineering allows update of canals so any ship available from magnetism will fit through canals.
Building time is a whopping 3*jungle clearing, though. Preexisting canals can be upgraded for 1*jungle clearing

Old canal building is still available...
Movement as before.

Industrial ages: Steam power + electricity allow canals that can extend 2 squares from a town. 5-tile crossings are possible. Except Mountains any terrain can be crossed.

building time: 4*jungle clearing, old canals can be updated for 2*jungle clearing.
resources necessary: Iron, Coal

Any ship can pass through these but movement for ships larger then Destroyers is restricted to 2 tiles/turn. Destroyers and older ships may move 3 tiles. No restrictions for them for entering/leaving canal.

Modern times:Miniturization: Unlimited canals, building time 3* jungle clearing, resources necessary iron, coal
old canals can be updated for 1*jungle clearing.



general rule: units of the same era cannot be stacked in channels (thus thex cannot cross each other). older units can (since a canal wide enough for a battleshipo will be wide enough for 2 Galleons). Stacking ends the movement of the ship since encounters in channels force ships to go very slowly
tiles with canals loose 1 food, gain 1 production and 1 commerce

 

[Ironikinit]

It seems like a city in Civ 3 is as big as a canal, certainly longer than the ancients could build.

 

[Richard III]

In civ1, civ2, SMAC and civ 3, I have never ever had the slightest problem with canals. In SMAC, by the way, you can build canals, since the "lower terrain" terraform function would allow you to lower the terrain at an isthmus enough to let the water in.

For civ, use a city. If it's longer than a city, then it's not a feasible canal point. I often build canals with two cities where there is a lake between two isthmuses (sic?). This corresponds nicely with both the Suez (which cuts through a navigable lake or two) and the unused Nicaraguan route that had been planned in the 1800s which cut a canal through Lake Nicaragua.

Seems fair to me. Anything longer would be a little absurd in game terms, nyet?

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by Richard III

Seems fair to me. Anything longer would be a little absurd in game terms, nyet?

nyet! Not because I think canals over 5 tiles are "realistic", but because the continent forms are so ridiculously irrealistic except on pangaea setting.

I want canals simple because I sometimes have to send a battleship on a 30 turn trip to move it to a city on the other coast that is 2 tiles away....

 

[vulture]

Canals are hugely expencive engineering operations.

The Erie Canal 1825
363 miles in length, 40 feet wide, 4 feet deep, max displacement 75 tons
77 locks, 90 feet by 15 feet
Total lockage 655 feet

The Panama Cannal
Started in 1875 by the french
Abandened in 1898 due to over extended funds and Malaria
Cunstructed by the US from 1904 - 1914
50 Miles

The Suez Canal 1859-1867
117 Miles

The Kiel Canal 1887-95
61 miles


These are the worlds greatest canals the longest beng the Erie but that links several lakes and actually only has about 35 miles of canal. On the huge earth map one tile is aproximatly 100 miles.

Do you really think anyone could build a 500 mile canal?

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

vulture: noone can! but that`s reality and in reality we don`t live on islands that look like dog ate somtime wrong and trailed his poop all over the place in long thin strands! And what`s more: even "primitve" bombers often can reach across the sea in between 2 continents - come on! And continents that are split up archipelago-like wouldn`t be going from somewhere about the latitude of Spitzbergen to close to Antarctica! Trsut me, I`m a geologist, I know about plate tectonics and how continents can look.

Pangäa is good, continent stting often sucks and archipelago is simply ridiculous!

So I think if they don`t fix the map generator (CivII was better in that respect though I have to admit the mountain ranges look pretty realistic) - why not introduce canals so we can actually use navies properly?

I`ll attach a zip file with three pics: one is the ingame worldmap, the other 2 show the areas marked green in the minimap. I hope you will then understand why I want canals! At least the canal-city-canal type!

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

can`t download my own zip! can someone please try it and mail me whether it works?

 

[Richard III]

Golly, Killer, I hate to say it, but you sound an awful lot like the captain of the USS Oregon in 1899, complaining that it took him several weeks sailing from California to Florida because he had to go all the way around South America. And guess how the US solved that problem? A canal in Panama, through, say, the Rio Grande to California.

Which is ok, especially f you think about it, since there were only two points on the "unrealistic" American continent - which goes from frozen arctic to frozen antarctic - where a canal could feasibly be built. #1 nicaragua (2 tiles split by a lake?) and Panama (1 tile that could be covered by one city).

So I'm sorry - partly because I haven't played with the patched map generator yet, long story - but it's hard to see how the lousy situation you're dealing with is in any way an unfair one.

R.III