Come on Firaxis, give us Canals and Safe Passage!

Not safe passage even just civilian units
you can exploit others' archaeology digs with that
the closed border is important to civ5 especially BNW for its cultural system
 
I miss the airbases from Civ 2. And canals are so obvious, I really don't know what reason they couldn't or shouldn't be in.
 
I certainly don't want my opponents knowing any more about my territory than I can help. :p

There should probably be three options:

1) Open Borders - As base game
2) 'Default' Borders - Allows Civilian and Trade units to enter your territory, but not Military units
3) Closed Borders - No one allowed to cross your borders. Reduces enemy tourism into your Civilization by 25%. All outgoing trade blocked. (Yes, this is basically a self-embargo.)
 
I really don't see why people are suggesting such small maximum canal lengths. I don't see how long canals would be overpowered at all, especially given that they would cost 3gpt and assumedly take so long to construct. I honestly don't see why limitless canal would be overpowered at all as long as it costs a lot and takes a long time to build. I'd even support it having the same bonuses as rivers do. I think that would be an interesting balance, to sacrifice a lot of GPT and turns to add a canal to your city to give the river bonuses and allow ships to be built in it. Otherwise canals would be so situational they'd be a waste of time to implement.

I totally agree with that and Rome had already done such canal as Portus, a large artificial harbor with dug up canal to Rome.

Open border to civilians? Are you mad? To allow them to settle on top of you or dig your artifacts? No, thank you. Open only to military with a built-in kind of peace treaty/ non-aggression pact for 10 turn after leaving your lands, I don't see why not. I also had to go to war just because they wouldn't allow open border for military purposes. I understand why you would refuse open borders for plenty of reasons, decrease the influence a civ have on you for example, but why not allow his military units to cross? I remember a game where Darius would ask me for open border so he could better position his troops to attack me and I knew and still allowed it, I had the great wall, so what's to fear? Oops, right the golden age thing... that was a close call! So a non-aggression pact would be alright.

Using an allied city-states as an air base is totally needed. I once puppeted an ex-ally state because I needed it as a base to forward my attack, sad necessity. It also pretty much reflects real life to be allowed to use an ally air space.
 
I think canals would work as a graduated system. Engineering allows for canals on flatland tiles adjacent to the coast, physics allows for canals on all flatland tiles, and dynamite allows canals on all passable tiles. Make them more expensive to move over (reducing cargo ship range) and give naval units in them a severe combat penalty, and you're pretty much there.

The inevitable Panama/Suez Canal wonder could eliminate the movement penalty and maybe reduce upkeep costs.
 
Canals. YES. Buy would building a canal on a land tile turn that tile into a water tile totally or
make it a land tile naval units can pass through? And what if an enemy land units moves to that canal, would the vessel be destroyed completely, would it alone be damaged or would both parties take damage? If we could hash this out to make it all balanced I'm all for it.
Would we prefer it be a city building or an improvement? Could it be pillaged or evem bombed, thus rendering the canal useless?

Other Guy, I do like your Canal wonder idea. Throw in a GE point too and ot should be just fine.
 
A 2-tile (max) canal improvement would be a good idea, especially with the new trade route system.
Canals. YES. Buy would building a canal on a land tile turn that tile into a water tile totally or
make it a land tile naval units can pass through? And what if an enemy land units moves to that canal, would the vessel be destroyed completely, would it alone be damaged or would both parties take damage? If we could hash this out to make it all balanced I'm all for it.
Would we prefer it be a city building or an improvement? Could it be pillaged or evem bombed, thus rendering the canal useless?
The most logical would be to make the canal initially a narrowed water tiles (available in medieval?) and it should be an improvement. But one which you can not easily turn into land again. This improvement should take 3 or 4 times a normal improvement would take to build. The narrowed canals should only let pre-industrial ships through. In the Industrial era you could widen the canals with worker action as result post renaissance ships can pas too. Land units turn into water units as in normal water tiles and thus pass through or battle as in normal water tiles. Also an upkeep as for roads needs to be introduced. Pillaging (and bombarding) canals should make them unpassable for land and sea units. Only workers should be able to enter these tiles to "rebuild" them.
This is the way I think a canal should work. This restrictive way will let you build canals only on spots which makes it profitable to turn into a canal. Spamming of canals should be avoided (hopefully). The only downside is that maybe the AI probably wouldn't make efficient use.
 
I don't know if I agree with a canal being a regular worker improvement, but it'd be nice to be able to give it to a great person, such as the Admiral. It'd make them much more limited to reflect the difficulties in construction, and it'd give a nice buff to admirals, who I find particularly underwhelming. Maybe it could function as a naval outpost as well, giving your ships a forward base to repair at during prolonged naval wars.

If an AI doesn't want open borders, then maybe you should've been better friends with them. Open Borders is sufficient imho.
 
I don't know if I agree with a canal being a regular worker improvement, but it'd be nice to be able to give it to a great person, such as the Admiral. It'd make them much more limited to reflect the difficulties in construction, and it'd give a nice buff to admirals, who I find particularly underwhelming. Maybe it could function as a naval outpost as well, giving your ships a forward base to repair at during prolonged naval wars.

If an AI doesn't want open borders, then maybe you should've been better friends with them. Open Borders is sufficient imho.
I like the idea about the Great admiral, but there is a little problem. In most cases you want to build a canal from a great inland sea to a neigbouring ocean. But Great admirals you will probably have only at one side. Assuming the improvement will be 1 hex long, the max length of a Great Admiral canal will be 1 or 2 with an adjacent city, if sea units can pass from the canal to the city and vice versa. But I certainly would like if Great Admirals would get improved. But they are not related to canals. A naval outpost/base kinda thing however is more realistic.
 
Yeah, it's not really related to Admirals, but they're kind of just the default option for anything naval (i'm not at a computer right now, but is there still a free one in Commerce?) And I see what you're getting at, but, say the ability works like a ranged attack so you can get the canal to where you want it to be on land, is there any reason you couldn't just daisy chain admirals (never thought I'd type that) until you're where you want to be? I feel like if you could just keep building canals you could do some pretty trolly things with them if you had the gpt to support it. With it attached to an admiral, each single tile canal is a commitment, and if you want to make something longer you'll need to use your navy enough to justify it.
 
Yeah, it's not really related to Admirals, but they're kind of just the default option for anything naval (i'm not at a computer right now, but is there still a free one in Commerce?) And I see what you're getting at, but, say the ability works like a ranged attack so you can get the canal to where you want it to be on land, is there any reason you couldn't just daisy chain admirals (never thought I'd type that) until you're where you want to be? I feel like if you could just keep building canals you could do some pretty trolly things with them if you had the gpt to support it. With it attached to an admiral, each single tile canal is a commitment, and if you want to make something longer you'll need to use your navy enough to justify it.

Now you get one free with exploration. And if you complete the whole exploration tree or choose the appopriate reformation belief you can buy it with faith. Or choose a free great people with wonder/policy. So there is enough ways to get it besides the default ship battling. I like the idea of the "range attack way" to build canals. Maybe this could work, most of the time I don't use admirals anyway.
 
I think they should implement exactly what was done in Civ4 BTS -- naval units can move onto/through forts. Up to three can be built next to each other to make a long canal.

Put a gold maintenance on forts and there you go!

Anyways, it looked a bit goofy when naval units moved through forts, but it worked really well!
 
The penalties for adding an additional city just to create a one-tile city-canal are too high in my opinion. A "canal" improvement option is needed but the technology should be restricted to the Modern Era. Yes, it should be somewhat expensive in terms of turns to build and gpt. You should have the option to build the canal on your territory or any City State territory. Ability to use the "canal" should be based upon the owning civ's agreements (Open Borders or war status). Canal's should be restricted to not being able to be built within two tiles of another canal. Canal's can only be built on land tiles that have water tiles on at least one set of opposite hex sides (limiting the exploit of building a canal to your landlocked city so you can build Frigates). Pillaging canals on City States would be an act of war against the owner (like Portugal's UI).

Safe Passage - I like the idea of this level of agreement allowing for missionaries, workers, settlers, scouts, and caravels to move within a civ's borders.

Military Alliance - The Defensive Pact needs to be improved. There should be a Military Alliance option. Currently, Defensive Pact is a one event trigger. If you have a Defensive Pact with Greece, and Korea and then Zulu declare war on you, Greece will only go to war against the first of your enemies (Korea) but not the second (Zulu). The Military Alliance should function differently. A Military Alliance would function as a Team. A civ can only be on one Team at a time. Any number of civs can be on a Team. A declaration of war on a civ on a Team would act as a declaration of war against all civs on the team. The first two Civs forming a Team need to negotiate which civ will act as Team Leader. Only the Team Leader can offer membership to another civ. Only the first Team Leader can name the alliance. Leadership of a Team goes to vote every 30 turns. You can use your Delegates to vote. A Team can declare war on a civ or another Team. Civs may leave a Team at any time by speaking with the Team Leader but the Team Leader is prohibited from leaving the Team. If Team membership falls to one civ, the Military Alliance is eliminated. The Military Alliance option would open at a Modern Era tech.
 
Oh, and about Safe Passage: Your friend could offer your enemy this privilege to invade you, in other words it's like backstabbing but it's not coded. We should also have something preventing that kind of thing.

If you bought Korea DLC pack it comes with "Samurai invasion of Korea" scenario, Toyotomi Hideyoshi asked Korea to "Open the way to attack China" with the intent of starting a war.
 
The penalties for adding an additional city just to create a one-tile city-canal are too high in my opinion. A "canal" improvement option is needed but the technology should be restricted to the Modern Era. Yes, it should be somewhat expensive in terms of turns to build and gpt. You should have the option to build the canal on your territory or any City State territory. Ability to use the "canal" should be based upon the owning civ's agreements (Open Borders or war status). Canal's should be restricted to not being able to be built within two tiles of another canal. Canal's can only be built on land tiles that have water tiles on at least one set of opposite hex sides (limiting the exploit of building a canal to your landlocked city so you can build Frigates). Pillaging canals on City States would be an act of war against the owner (like Portugal's UI).

Canals are older than you think. The Grand Canal of China (1700+ km long and 30m wide) was completed in 609 AD, and Greek engineers were using locks in the Canal of the Pharoahs in the third century BC.

I would imagine a cleaner solution to the 'landlocked cities building battleships' issue would simply to not let landlocked cities construct naval units, regardless of canals.
 
Canals would be cool. There's already a promotion somewhere that at least missionaries and GPPs get that allow for the latter. Check it out in the editor, could allow for some cool SF units.
 
Ouch. Been there mate. Venice starting on an inland sea, argh!
A canal would be perfect there, whether it be made by a worker, great admiral, wonder or city building.
 
Agree with the canals, but think it should only extend 1 tile, not 2. 2 seems a bit too easy. Also you should need a modern tech to do this (think of the Panama and Suez and how difficult construction was).

perhaps dynamite because that seems most appropriate but not sure
 
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