Canal Improvement [IMPLEMENTED]

[raystuttgart]

Hi guys,

the next small feature is implemented.
Improvement "Canal"

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Credits for 3D graphics:
@hrochland

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Basically the pictures say all about it.

1. Canals can only be 1 Plot length. (So no 2 canals in a row to prevent inland city exploits.)
2. Canals need an adjacentWater Plot (Coast, Lake, Ice Lake, Large River, Shallow Coast) to be built
3. Canals allow only Coastal Ships and Fishing Boats to pass. (So no giant Galleons on colonial canals.)

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Further Info:

• Canals need Flatland but otherwise have no Terrain restrictions
• Canals will remove all Terrain Features (e.g. Forrests) from the Plot when built
  
• Canals can be built outside City Radius and have no owner (once built every Player can use it)
• Of course it is in your cultural borders other Players need to have "Open Borders" to use your Canals (normal cultural borders rules)
• It is not really cheap and gives only +1 Food (so consider wisely if you do not rather build another Improvement instead)
• Land Units can cross canals

Summary:

• Unless you really need a canal, you most likely not build it.
• Other improvements for increasing Yields will normally be more valuable.

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You can use Canals to e.g. connect a City / Fort / Native Village a Lake / Coast / Large River which is 1 plot away.
If you are smart or lucky you can repeat that. (Without having to clutter the map with Forts.)

e.g.: this would work:
City -> Canal -> Lake -> Canal -> Native Village -> Canal --> Lake --> Canal --> Fort --> Ocean

Explanations in Colopedia of Improvement:

Here you see the Pioneer Build Action Button:
(If the Pioneer is allowed to build a canal of course.)

The Carrack can not use the Canal:

The Coastal Ship however can:

 

[Mr. ZorG]

can land units cross the channel? if yes, which ones? and will there be any penalties for moving?

 

[nci]

Will Forts retain the ability to accept ships, or will it be taken away?

 

[raystuttgart]

Can land units cross the channel?

Yes, all land Units can cross canal.

Will there be any penalties for moving.

Thanks for reminding me.
I wanted to give movement modifiers. (slowing down).

Will Forts retain the ability to accept ships

Since you guys wanted it that way, Sips can still enter Forts.

 

[jooe]

Is it possible to allow building docking infrastructure in a city connected via canal? Otherwise the inland city can not build the small ships that can travel there.
If the restriction is possible without big changes, it might even be restricted to just the first two or three levels (harbor or shipyard = no)
And another question: Can we/Should we disable razing for canals? (Would probably cause weird situation when a city loses sea access it had before ...)

 

[raystuttgart]

Is it possible to allow building docking infrastructure in a city connected via canal?

No, a City that is not at the coast should not have a harbour in its City center.

A) It would look very stupid on the map
B) It would raise Fishing Yields for that City which I do not want to do.
C) It is unimmersive, because the city is not at the Coast.
D) It turn this into an exploit in my opinion (make it OP)

Otherwise the inland city can not build the small ships that can travel there.

I see no problem with that.
There are other Cities at the coast that can build the ships.

Can we/Should we disable razing for canals?

No, canals can be destroyed like all improvements.
(It would consider it unimmersive if they were indestructable.)

Also I see no problem if a City loses water access.
Might happen as well if a Port is blockaded.

Also it is realistic that a ship in a city may be caught once the canal is destroyed.
Might even allow interesting and fun strategies.

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There is a different concept however:
Port Districts

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Summary:

The only thing I will still change is the "movement modifiers".
(Had simply forgotten to take care of that.)

 

[raystuttgart]

Thanks for reminding me.
I wanted to give movement modifiers. (slowing down).

I will not implement this after checking the code.
Canals will not impact movement speed at all.

Reason:
Improvements currently do not have the functionality to modify movement speed. And I am not going to implement it just for canals.
(The gameplay benefit is too small for the effort required and it would impact peformance too much for such a tiny gameplay effect.)

 

[raystuttgart]

Edit:
I now use the new graphics of @hrochland so it fits all directions.
(It is now a "Canal-Cross".)

The previous version used to be just a "North-South" canal in the last version that did not fit "East-West".
So I asked @hrochland to create a "cross version" which can be used for both "North-South" and "East-West".

The "North-South" canal really looked very strange if the adjacent Water plots were "East-West".
(And there was no simply solution for an Improvement to adjust its display direction to adjacent Water-Plots.)

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The new version not look "perfect" in all situations, but it is the best solution that can be made with little effort.
(Anything else would have needed really complicated directional computation or a workaround with "tiling".)

 

[Mr. ZorG]

in my opinion this is a very strange solution ...

 

[ConjurerDragon]

in my opinion this is a very strange solution ...

Not if you want to irrigate the other two squares where the canals water flows out into the fields...
In terrain we have normal rivers that are able to be modified between running N-S or E-W when adding them in the World Editor.

Would it be possible to just have two canals (1 - N/S, 2 - E/W) and the player choses which to place according to where the water is?

Does a "canal" allow diagonal movement of ships, too? In your picture would then a ship be able to use the canal to go from the ocean to the lake without going to the city before?

 

[raystuttgart]

in my opinion this is a very strange solution ...

Improvements simply do not care about directions of adjacent plots and I can not make it care about directions without killing performance.

The "North-South" canal looks really really strange if Water plots are "East-West" ...
(In comparison this solution is really much better.)

Does a "canal" allow diagonal movement of ships, too?

Yes. It does. As I said, it does not care about directions. It does not even check them.

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Guys it is simply not possible to create Improvement graphics that care about directions without massive effort or without killing performance.
Thus this is the best solution we can get considering effort and performance.

All other solutions would be massive implementations just for a graphical aspect ...
DLL simply currently does not give the functionality. And even if it did, it would impact performance without benefit for gameplay.

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Summary:

I decided to make only 1 improvement for all directions, because of performance and effort.
I know it does not look perfect considering graphics, but it really works for gameplay.

If you do not like how it looks you really do not need to build it and you will never see it ingame.
AI will probably never build it either since it can not really decide when it needs it.

 

[raystuttgart]

By the way, I really do not feel that this looks so bad.
(It is the newest version we got.)

And just consider the amount of combinations you could have with the 8 directions possible from central plot?
Should I create a separate Improvement for each of them?

 

[modmod]

I fail to see much benefit in it.
a) Does not make much sense or realism to build a canal to connect a city with the ocean - much more real and prosperious when a city founded on the shores itself.
b) Because canals not permit ports again no real benefit from it for shipping (shipbuilding).
c) The + 1 food again not much gain, other improvements or mainly a port city with fishing is far better.
d) Large canal systems inland, like: canal-city-canal-native village (continue) just carry large risk in case native village (or fort) abadoned (connection broke) by cultural borders, razed, get to war, similars.

Did think about the Panama canal, but again in that age that is hardly real, and because canals cannot support large ships also hardly carry notable benefit.

The only beneficial use I can think of is to connect fairly large lakes, and make shipping routes on them.

So ok, it is in, but what is the benefit/ strategic use?

 

[nci]

@modmod I personally see tons of benefits from canals, but would rather illustrate post-release. Depending on your strategy, however - they may be completely pointless.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

I fail to see much benefit in it.
a) Does not make much sense or realism to build a canal to connect a city with the ocean - much more real and prosperious when a city founded on the shores itself.
b) Because canals not permit ports again no real benefit from it for shipping (shipbuilding).
c) The + 1 food again not much gain, other improvements or mainly a port city with fishing is far better.
d) Large canal systems inland, like: canal-city-canal-native village (continue) just carry large risk in case native village (or fort) abadoned (connection broke) by cultural borders, razed, get to war, similars.

Did think about the Panama canal, but again in that age that is hardly real, and because canals cannot support large ships also hardly carry notable benefit.

The only beneficial use I can think of is to connect fairly large lakes, and make shipping routes on them.

So ok, it is in, but what is the benefit/ strategic use?

I agree that the Panama Canal would be a far too late example. De Lesseps failed to complete it and went bancrupt over it and it was finished only later with much more money, time and only by additionally using steam powered excavators / bagger? However the Suez Canal was successfully built by de Lesseps before - the main differences being the differences in heigth that the canal and it´s lochs would have needed to overcome and the terrain. Malaria infested jungle where parts of the canal would be filled again by avalanches of muddy earth from the sides were more difficult than the dry heat of the desert on the Sinai.

So building across hills or through jungle - impossible for the time. Through a sqaure of flat terrain without forest (or by additionally removing the forest as a first step) - sure.

Canals were however far more frequently used, not to connect two bodies of water across an isthmus, but to make a river navigable in parts that blocked shipping (e.g. falls, rapids, dangerous currents that were too strong for sailing ships to overcome like the famous Lorelay on the river Rhine. Just like the minor rivers that are already on the map.

Large Canal systems are already being (ab)used by some players. Someone posted even a picture of it where he built a canal from the ocean to the great seas (Americas map) using the seas and the onesquare blots of land to connect them wtih cities and forts (both allow passage of ships already). Adding canal as a distinct improvement would not allow something like that - it would make it more realistic than using a row of small cities with forts to allow the ships passage.

Before the best roads are connected with fast transports, shipping was and is the far faster transport option and many of the "minor" rivers were actually already navigable or made so by canals.

 

[raystuttgart]

... but what is the benefit/ strategic use?

See below - for me there is strategic usage for it, because I build my cities in very creative ways in maps with lots of lakes and large river.
It may be situational but in some cases I often wanted to have such an option.

Play e.g. "Two Continents" and you will know why I wanted to have them.
("Two Continents" is my favouriet map to play fore extremely large empires.)

I personally see tons of benefits from canals, ...

Me too.

Escpecially since I tend to build inland in my gigantic empires.
Not all of my cities are at the coast and some may not directly connect to coast, a lake, a large river or ...

So having an improvement that allows me to "channel" to the next "water road" makes the game more interesting and fun for me.
Everybody who does not like that idea simply does not have to use that improvement.

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Summary:
The "canal" is completely optional.
Build it if you like, ignore it if you do not.
I personally like it and it does not hurt anybody.

 

[modmod]

Canals were however far more frequently used, not to connect two bodies of water across an isthmus, but to make a river navigable in parts that blocked shipping

Sure.
But in this game there are no waterfalls/ similar blocks.
Also in real world there was some benefit what not in the game and hardly gets implemented/ would be pointless.

Not against canals at all - simply (other than connect large lakes) cannot find out an use for them from a gameplay/ strategy perspective.
Probably will, just don`t seen it jet.
Or it is a question of playstyle.

@nci
Would you explain your strategy with them?

@raystuttgart
I get your strategy.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

Sure.
But in this game there are no waterfalls/ similar blocks

Waterfalls are currently not possible as rivers have no direction in which they flow, they just connect two bodies of water as far as I understood Ray.
However we do not need waterfalls or other obstacles to block rivers - ALL minor rivers are not navigable by ships. Only the, very few, major rivers are navigable.

Also in real world there was some benefit what not in the game and hardly gets implemented/ would be pointless.

Not against canals at all - simply (other than connect large lakes) cannot find out an use for them from a gameplay/ strategy perspective.
Probably will, just don`t seen it jet.
Or it is a question of playstyle.

Isn´t that obvious? Say I found a 2plot city at the perfect location with lucky 7 bonus resources within city radius. But the city is at an inland lake and the lake connected to the ocean only by a minor river. Then I can use canals to connect the city to the next square if there is water.

Mind you, we could that before. With cities and forts through which ships could pass. Canals allow the same, only making more sense doing so.

 

[raystuttgart]

I genuinely fear that if I go into detailed explanations now, WTP team might be tempted to nerf things before I get to have my fun with it.

You are going to use this as an exploit ?
Now that you say it, I will have to nerf this.
How can I make it more tedious for players?

 

[raystuttgart]

Canals allow the same, only making more sense doing so.

Exactly.
You do not have to build Forts anymore, just to create a Canal.

Also you can do stuff like this if you are creative.
It is a toy for creative city placement.

City -> Canal -> Lake -> Canal -> Native Village -> Canal --> Lake --> Canal --> Fort --> Ocean

Summary:

As we already found out.

1. It is implemented now and works.
2. I love it and others like it as well.
3. It does not hurt anybody and is just optional.

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--> Give it a try, once we release.
--> Use it if you like it. Ignore it if you do not.