i have 3 ideas

[GeneralBender]

i have 3 ideas, 1- there should be canals, man-built water transports, or 2-, make rivers passable with ships, and 3-, make lines of supply so an enemy's or your unit can slowly loe strentgh do to lack of supplies

 

[donsig]

I've often thought about these as well.

Didn't Civ 2 have a movement bonus on the rivers? That should be brought back. It would make quite a difference in the ancient era.

Canals that functioned something like railroads would be interesting to have. If you can't build railroads because of a lack of resources you could still build canals.

I like the line of supplies idea. Would prevent the AI from roaming around inside your borders. I'd also tie military units to population in two ways. First, they'd have to be supported by food. Second, when ever a city builds a military unit it's population goes down one citizen (like when building a worker). Being able to create a Stack of Doom and only have to pay gold for excess units is quite unrealistic.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

Yeah, but in Civ 2 the rivers ran down the middle of the tiles, not along the edges. I like the change, even though that means rivers are unnavigatable (and I would like to send boats down some rivers every now and then). As for the other two, I've also wondered about those. Supply lines though would need to made in a simplistic way (they shouldn't be an issue in the game, just something to limit idiocy with unit movement). As for canals, I've always wondered why they never put them in. It's a really good idea.

 

[Dragonsbain]

Its probably a scale thing.

If a canal ran down the middle of a tile then putting down a canal would be like digging a see.

Still this did not stop them from building roads like that so I say go for it.

 

[toh6wy]

Maybe it should be possible to make rivers that go along the sides or straight through tiles. Good idea?

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

Yeah, but before when you didn't research Bridge Building (I think that bridges now come with Construction), you couldn't build bridges on the river tile, making a two turn loss of movement for a one-move unit. In Civ 2, they tried (and failed) to make up with this by making rivers give movement like roads, but that move didn't work very well since people wanted to move across the river instead of along it, and people correctly pointed out it wasn't logical; if anything they should be losing movement points. Then when you got Bridge Building, you then had to get your settlers all the way back to the rivers and start building roads all along the rivers' length (very slow and tedious). The Civ 3 way of putting the rivers along the edges of the tile is much better, and I hope they never put them back in the middle again.

 

[rhialto]

If you want to move across a river instead of along it, in an era when you don't have the technology to build bridges, I think it is entirely realistic that it should slow you down.

I think civ3 has the right implementation for river movement.

 

[kingpenguin]

A canal feature would be good. Right now, you have to build a city that connects bodies of water to get a canal which is unrealistic.

 

[rhialto]

Why does everyone think a canal would be realistic. There are only two real world examples of canals that could reasonably be represented on a civ scale world map. In both cases, the manpower cost in building the canals was more than equal to the manpower needed to found an entire new city. In any model that makes such canal building realistic, it would be far cheaper to just build a city there.

 

[croxis]

I agree with rhialto, a city at the right spot can function as a canal, however there has been cases when the map gave me a big landlocked sea, and the closest spot was two tiles form the ocean. If canals are included, they should be difficult to build meaning you would at most make one or two a game.

Now currently you and a friendly nation you can't occupy the same space as their units or cities. So if there is a canal city you are unable to use it. THis can be fixed by perhaps allowing right of passage and military allied civs to occupy the same tiles.

 

[Dragonsbain]

Maby canals should be a wonder feature so that once you completed it you could just place one (straight) line within a city radius (on the map).

This would be like a small wonder that would require a city to have two see tiles in the city radius that are non connected or have a certain number of see tiles between them.

 

[kingpenguin]

BTW, rhialto, I didn't specify how many could be made, really. I think it should only be made in one-tile land straits, which could easily make the number of canals close to 1. It should definitely take as long as it takes to clear a jungle or longer, and be a rather significant achievement. I don't think they would work well as a wonder, but should take a long time and be rare.

 

[eromrab]

i think that you should definately be able to build them... and to say that a canal is a rare thing is ludicris... has anyone looked at a map of florida? it has like 4 canals going from the eastern side (the atlantic) to a lake in the middle, which is connected to the gulf on the west... i mean... and that's IN A SWAMP!

i'm sick of having a map like the mediterranean map where i can't connect the red sea with the mediterranean... why not? or like new york state that has a canal going from the hudson all the way over to buffalo?

i think there should be certain terrain limitations... and they should take a really long time to build... but they should definately be implemented.

not just that, i think they need a new terrain feature that would be like a coast hex and a land hex in one... for map making purposes... it would have enough water to drive a boat through, but also be short enough of a gap to cross troops...

an example of when you'd wanna use this terrain would be if you were going to put something like the mississippi river or the st lawerence river in a map... they were both big enough for boats to enter... but also troops could cross them... it should take a good terrain movement cost (3 mps?) but i think it would be beneficial.

 

[kingpenguin]

Yeah, but they are rare on a Civ style map in the case of scale. I do think you should have them.

 

[eromrab]

i agree... have them... but make them take a really long time to build... so that they'd only get built if they were really needed... don't give any other benefits to a canal other than being able to move ships... i would really enjoy connecting the black see to the caspian sea in a mediterranean battle... they always seem to end up with a ton of ships in them...

if you started out as a country near it and just built ships in there until it was time to build a canal... you could have a huge uncontested fleet ready to enter into the mediterranean

 

[rhialto]

But if it takes a really long time to build etc, then you hit my original point that, in the civ engine, it would become cheaper and faster to get the same effect by building a city there instead.

 

[eromrab]

but that only works for a 1 tile canal... which is fine... but in alot of maps it's 2 or 3... and sometimes even more...

let's be honest... in today's world a canal from the caspian to the black sea is pointless... but if it happened to be hitler next to the caspian and he had a huge fleet waiting there... he would make sure he had that canal built and the ships got into the mediterranean... and eventually to the atlantic...

all i know is that i play on a mediterranean map alot and the gap between the medit and the red sea is 2 spaces... too far for a "city canal"... but we know that one actually exists there... so why not have one in the game?

i just think it would help game play alot strategically to be able to build the things...