Mark Anthony
Chieftain
I have been playing Civ since CivI (in B&W on a Mac!) some 12 or 13 years ago. I have always been a casual player and had actually not played for quite a few years until finding a copy of CivIII at a discount store for $3.99. Now, I am getting more serious about my Civ playing and am looking forward to CivIV.
Anyhow, about my question. I seem to remember earlier versions of Civ having land bridge tiles wherein a land unit or a sea unit could both move or rest. I think these were indicated by a cluster of small islands or something.
Jump forward to today. It has occured to me that CivIII does not offer such tiles and I am confused as to why. Furthermore, why does the game not allow for the construction of canals and mega-bridges. I can understand perhaps if this is an ability granted through a Late Industrial or Modern Civ Advance that I have not reached as I have yet to finish the game but am instead playing around with it at this time, learning the intrinsics of the game and testing strategies. However I do not think so.
If it is not a part of the game, I must ask why not? Since the Late Industrial age (in the real world, I might add), various civilizations have spanned the San Francisco Bay, Chesapeake Bay, the Florida Keys, the Dardenelles, the English Channel, several straits in Japan and more. Via man made canals, we have connected Lake Erie and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Suez. The Chinese began buiding navigational canals as early as the 5th Century BC.
So, why can't we do it in our Civ games?
I am not talking about some mammoth construction project, but just to be able to link two tiles separated by an impassable (per unit type) pixel. Most of he examples I have do not involve, say, a water tile sandwiched between to land or vice versa. Instead, they are two coastal land tiles who but up against each other with no water tile between them, yet they cannot be connected. Or, two water tiles with (in one example) not so much as a sandbar separating them.
It would be nice to not have to waste a galley to serve as a ferry one side of a strait to another as in points A, B and C below:
This spit of land even looks as though it is made of islands, yet ships cannot pass from east to west here.
If the game can bridge a bay (see below), why can't it bridge a channel? What about chunnel a channel?
A solution to making my own landbridges, but this is not always convenient or the best solution
This unique lake is nothing more than a wide river in many places. Surely a bridge or two could be placed here?
The most frustrating example of all. WHY can't I get a boat from St. Paul to Santa Barbara? There are three (the top most obscred by the cultural boundary) spits of land amounting to not much more than rivers of dirt flowing through a sea -- sand bars even! Why can't ships pass?
Finally, here is an example of the game accidentally doing exactly what I want to be able to tell it to do:
Thanks for putting up with my rant about canals and bridges. Until next time!
Anyhow, about my question. I seem to remember earlier versions of Civ having land bridge tiles wherein a land unit or a sea unit could both move or rest. I think these were indicated by a cluster of small islands or something.
Jump forward to today. It has occured to me that CivIII does not offer such tiles and I am confused as to why. Furthermore, why does the game not allow for the construction of canals and mega-bridges. I can understand perhaps if this is an ability granted through a Late Industrial or Modern Civ Advance that I have not reached as I have yet to finish the game but am instead playing around with it at this time, learning the intrinsics of the game and testing strategies. However I do not think so.
If it is not a part of the game, I must ask why not? Since the Late Industrial age (in the real world, I might add), various civilizations have spanned the San Francisco Bay, Chesapeake Bay, the Florida Keys, the Dardenelles, the English Channel, several straits in Japan and more. Via man made canals, we have connected Lake Erie and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Suez. The Chinese began buiding navigational canals as early as the 5th Century BC.
So, why can't we do it in our Civ games?
I am not talking about some mammoth construction project, but just to be able to link two tiles separated by an impassable (per unit type) pixel. Most of he examples I have do not involve, say, a water tile sandwiched between to land or vice versa. Instead, they are two coastal land tiles who but up against each other with no water tile between them, yet they cannot be connected. Or, two water tiles with (in one example) not so much as a sandbar separating them.
It would be nice to not have to waste a galley to serve as a ferry one side of a strait to another as in points A, B and C below:
This spit of land even looks as though it is made of islands, yet ships cannot pass from east to west here.
If the game can bridge a bay (see below), why can't it bridge a channel? What about chunnel a channel?
A solution to making my own landbridges, but this is not always convenient or the best solution
This unique lake is nothing more than a wide river in many places. Surely a bridge or two could be placed here?
The most frustrating example of all. WHY can't I get a boat from St. Paul to Santa Barbara? There are three (the top most obscred by the cultural boundary) spits of land amounting to not much more than rivers of dirt flowing through a sea -- sand bars even! Why can't ships pass?
Finally, here is an example of the game accidentally doing exactly what I want to be able to tell it to do:
Thanks for putting up with my rant about canals and bridges. Until next time!
I stand corrected. Should not respond at work. 
