Canal Tile Improvement

[ELRACj]

Let me just say that I am not a modder nor do I know how to mod so please forgive me if I saying anything stupid. I also apologize for spelling/grammer mistakes. I was up all night typing a rough draft.

So as of right now, canals do not appear to be in the game. I can't quite trust my memory but I think Ed Beach said something about Teddy and his contribution to the Panama Canal. My guess is that the AI isn't smart enough to use canals correctly so they probably withheld it (IDK I am most certainly not an expert). I would really prefer to build canals instead of building a whole city have one because honestly it seems like a waste.

MAIN IDEA:

Anyways, I feel like the community could make a canal tile improvement. Similarly to the China's Great Wall, the player would have to Connect 1-3 canal tile improvements. Maybe they provide gold yield or they give the city an extra trade modifier. One thing that is important is that the bonuses do not kick in until the canal is completed (successfully links one coast to the next) to prevent it from being abused.

BASIC MECHANICS:

If canals turn out to be really handy and exploitable I have a decent idea. (To prevent people from making a canal that just lines a single shore)

A hex has 6 sides that we will label 1-6.

ONE CANAL LONG:
If the canal is placed on a tile that has two or more coasts and those coasts are not connect to each other, the canal is complete. For example their is coast on sides 1,2,4. Since 4 is separate from the connected 1&2, the canal is complete.

TWO CANAL LONG:
If the canal is placed on a tile that doesn't have more than two unconnected coasts then it remains incomplete until it is connected to another canal under the same circumstances whose has coast on the only the remaining sides. So if we had a canal A with coast at 1,2 and canal B with coast at 2,3,4, the canal would be incomplete since they both have side 2 in common. If we had canal A with coast at 1,6 and canal B with coast at 3, the canal would be complete.

THREE CANAL LONG:
Works like TWO CANAL LONG but the middle section cannot be touching coast.

END:

Any and all feedback is welcome. I would love to try and make this bad boy myself but I do not know where to begin. I have some programing experience so I am sure that I can google the modding process but If anyone wants to give me advice on that, it would be cool. I have a mac so I hope that isn't an issue(it probably is). If someone wants to make this themselves, that is also fine by me.

 

[ELRACj]

Side Note! Was thinking that canals could be a different district but I am not entirely sure how that would work.
Extra Side Note! I feel as if 3 tile long canals are too long but since I probably won't be able to write mods on my mac, I decided to note for this possibility.

PANANA CANAL WONDER: (Seriously feel free to make suggestions)

For this I want to cut out the headache of connecting multiple tiles together. That being said, the Panama canal wonder will allow any land tile touching it (minus mountain) to be passable by ships, unless of course people think canals should only be limited to 1 tile long then the wonder would only make its tile passable.

Bonus: Since the Panama Canal is known for GREATLY reducing a trip from Atlantic to Pacific Ocean, it should increase trade routes coming into the city with wonder by 50%. I also feel like it should provide culture, gold, and great engineer points.

 

[ELRACj]

RESERVE

 

[Feyd Rautha]

I like it! It would allow cities to not be required on those one tile continent splitting isthmuses. I think there are two routes to go with along these lines.

First, is that the improvement is a district which can only be built on one tile "isthmuses" between bodies of water. It functions as a coast tile allowing ships to pass through. This would benefit from adjacency bonuses. Which would create odd interactions given there really is no benefit to a nearby city only to the owner of the land.

The second idea is that it is a tile improvement. I like this idea better. Once Steam Power (or Steel if it should be later) is discovered, workers get the ability to build the improvement on one tile strips of land. I'm not sure what to do about yields, but perhaps it adds 1 or 2 gold to the tile if worked due to the fees (granted the fees aren't collected if not worked tho?)

 

[Arison]

When I saw this I mediately thought that it could be something more of an entire civ like the one that I designed for one of the civ v challenges (I think it was mechanics) that was based on the canal and river trust. I'll post it below, and maybe you can get some ideas from it:

The Canal and River Trust
Leader: Richard Parry

UA: Protectors of Canals and Historic Buildings: Settled river systems act as roads and provide increased culture production. Antiquity Sites provide a burst of culture when discovered and may be excavated instantly if connected by a river to a city controlled by the Canal and River Trust.

UU: Canal Boat: Unlike the Trireme it replaces, the Canal boat may travel on tiles next to a river, and gain +1 movement when connected by road to a Canal and River Trust city.

UB: Headquarters: Unlike the Castle it replaces, the Headquarters also contain a slot for a Great Work of Writing and provide a +10% combat boost to all units connected to the city by a river when it is filled.

 

[ELRACj]

Jumping on to the forum to celebrate! In Gathering Storm, they are adding the canal district. Very excited for my naval campaigns.