[GS] Canals, rivers and roads

[Disgustipated]

Of course there is that bug of naval units not pathing correctly through canal cities. I just manually move them one hex at a time just to be sure. And of course the naval pathing at the poles is no better. Any waterway that is only 1 tile wide seems to have this problem. Very annoying. And doubtful this will be fixed before Feb.

 

[AriochIV]

Of course there is that bug of naval units not pathing correctly through canal cities. I just manually move them one hex at a time just to be sure. And of course the naval pathing at the poles is no better. Any waterway that is only 1 tile wide seems to have this problem. Very annoying. And doubtful this will be fixed before Feb.

And this brings up the inevitable questions of whether the AI will be able to use canals, or whether they will be essentially a player-only feature. My suspicion is the latter.

 

[NukeAJS]

Now that they've added canals, we have to pester them about letting ships sail up and down rivers.

Funny ... when I wrote that I meant it as a joke. Now that I think about it though ...

 

[Kinestic]

For me canals are a nice addition. But canals reaching up to 7 tiles seems a bit silly.

Wait until you see the 11+ tile canals that people will start making by using lake tiles.

 

[Kurtbob]

Now that they've added canals, we have to pester them about letting ships sail up and down rivers.

Funny ... when I wrote that I meant it as a joke. Now that I think about it though ...

If not FXS, a modder may be able to use the canal as the foundation to a navigable river mod.

 

[AriochIV]

The rivers would have to be a full hex wide. It wouldn't work without completely changing the map system.

 

[Tech Osen]

I wonder if a canal to a lake will provide fresh water like the aquaduct. Would be tricky if you have to choose in certain situations.

 

[AriochIV]

I wonder if a canal to a lake will provide fresh water like the aquaduct. Would be tricky if you have to choose in certain situations.

If you've ever seen a real industrial canal, you wouldn't want to drink from it. Canals are for moving vehicles; the water is usually not potable.

 

[Leyrann]

For me canals are a nice addition. But canals reaching up to 7 tiles seems a bit silly.

There's a reason there's an achievement for that particular feat. It's not supposed to be easy.

Wait until you see the 11+ tile canals that people will start making by using lake tiles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göta_Canal

 

[Siptah]

If lakes can be used to elongate canals, I wonder if we can link landlocked cities. It would be nice anyway to be able to build a canal to a city that is one or two tiles away from the shore. Disadvantage: can be conquered by naval units ;-)

 

[Leyrann]

If lakes can be used to elongate canals, I wonder if we can link landlocked cities. It would be nice anyway to be able to build a canal to a city that is one or two tiles away from the shore. Disadvantage: can be conquered by naval units ;-)

And next question: if you have a canal to a landlocked city without harbor, can it then build naval units?

 

[Sykes179]

Wait until you see the 11+ tile canals that people will start making by using lake tiles.

This is what China was intending to fund through Nicaragua as an alternative to the Panama Canal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_Canal

 

[Disgustipated]

There's a reason there's an achievement for that particular feat. It's not supposed to be easy

He he, now I can't help but start pre planning this achievement.

Relying on a random map for ideal conditions isn't ideal. I don't have access to the game right now, or I would check the Firaxis Earth tsl map. Would be awesome if I could canal all the way from Baltic sea to Black sea. I am guessing canals can only be placed on flat land. I think one of Firaxis maps should work, maybe that balanced star map for multi player.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Making Canals count like rivers (which can be bridged with roads), seems like the way to go here.

 

[Tomice]

The canal hex will effectively be a water hex. Either naval units will act like they currently currently do when in city center hexes (attacks go against the district rather than the unit), or they'll act like they do in water tiles. Nothing else needs to change, though hopefully the animations will make this look as clean as possible.

This does raise the question of if or how land units will cross a canal hex. They might have to embark to do so.

There is a second possibility:
Naval units in cities and canals could be considered "docked", which would be similar to the "embarked" state.
They would be unable to attack (neither ranged nor melee) and would suffer damage when attacked just like embarked land units on water.

IMO, that's a very realistic solution (even gun-armed ships may not be able to use their larger weapons due to recoil throwing them against the canal wall) - see picture below.
Also, it was always weird that docked ships could use their ranged attack from within the city without exposing themselves to counterfire. They should just add to the cities combat strength instead.

This would also save us the headache of land units needing to embark. Instead, canals could count as road for land unit movement.

A land unit could protect a ship in a canal just like ships protect embarked land units (separate layer). A ship that's attacked while being alone on a canal tile would defend the tile (albeit poorly).

 

[Tomice]

Another wild idea, meant to replicate the importance of rivers for transport:
--> Building a road along a river shouldn't require a military engineer, a builder charge should be enough.

 

[MrRadar]

Canals are a nice feature, because there was many a time when one tile canal city just wasn't enough to cut through two or three tile isthmus to join two oceans across a continental landmass or open an access to some huge inner sea, or a better city spot had to be sacrificed in order to get the passage, so I am really glad that now this problem will be no more.
7-tile long canal might be a bit of an overkill, but fun nonetheless

Tunnels - whoa! Finally a way to get to those so far inaccessible Yeti valleys and learn some things from them in +6 campuses. Mr Galileo will certainly approve such locations

And, of course, my wet dream - railroads! Though here it remains much to be learned yet - how will they be built and what will they do. My biggest fright is that they can only be a graphic update of the modern roads, but I hope not. They are being mentioned next to tunnels and the wording is "create both Mountain Tunnels and Railroads" and "making improvements like canals, dams, tunnels and railroads". So what are they - tile improvements? Built by who - military engineers? We'll see.

 

[altayrneto]

This is the river the Meuse (Maas in Dutch) in the south of the Netherlands. Just right of it? A canal:

Spoiler :

View attachment 509749

(...)
Now, I'll say there's good reasons for all of them, but my point is, just because there's a river doesn't mean you don't want a canal separate from it.

In many cases is easier to build a canal than to make a river proper to be navigable. In rivers, you would need to keep dredging the ground, get rid of some natural curves and take care with the impact on the environment, and bigger ships wouldn't be able to sail on it. (Of course, it is for modern times' fleets, not for smaller ships like the vikings' ones)
Personally, I think canals should work as normal land tiles (and so, roads would work normally) where ships can cross over, I just don't want to see the tiles with canals becoming unusable for other purposes, like build farms or maybe districts.

 

[Xefjord]

My question is: is the 7 tile canal long enough to connect the Eastern United States to the great lakes on YNAEMP's giant earth map? The is definitely the most realistic use I thought of for it.

 

[Leyrann]

And, of course, my wet dream - railroads! Though here it remains much to be learned yet - how will they be built and what will they do. My biggest fright is that they can only be a graphic update of the modern roads, but I hope not.

Actually, I noticed in the screenshots that the districts themselves didn't have railroads, but still used normal roads, so I'm assuming they're not just a graphic update.