[IDEA] New Terrain Improvements

[Deussu]

I've been playing quite some time and often come across some situations which irritated me slightly.

Canal

As you all know, if you build a city with water on each side, a ship can pass right through. This can be a huge advantage, as the city operates as a canal. Not always is it possible to build a city at such a spot though.

Therefore I thought of a terrain improvement, 'Canal', which would grant naval units to enter the tile. Of course, those units could not move further inland. If a naval unit would end its movement on a canal, a land unit could easily 'trample' it the same way a naval unit can destroy an embarked unit.

Bridge

You'd need one work boat in order to construct a bridge. Making one would cost you the work boat, naturally. This would create a connection between two landmasses with only one water tile between them, so no chained bridges. Of course the bridge could be pillaged easily.

Outpost

Some times I've wanted to grab a resource from a distant location, but building a city so far away wouldn't prove fruitful, especially if it's located in deep snow or tundra.

An outpost would most likely be a 'mini-city', built with a worker. This mini-city couldn't grow above the population of 1, would have a sphere of influence of 0 (only the tile the outpost has been built), which could be expanded only by buying land. An outpost couldn't produce anything, nor defend itself. An outpost couldn't be annexed or conquered; only pillaged and thus, destroyed.

Tell me what you think! I doubt I'll ever see these contraptions in the game, but I'd like to know whether my designs gather any interest.

Oh and do tell your own ideas for terrain improvements if you have any!

 

[YourDeath/TSAR]

i think all three are awsome, perfect work!!
idd like to also see tunnel, so you can get through mountains.
i hope firaxis will see this thread!

 

[lolno]

One I like is growing trees back and perhaps reclaiming desert.

 

[Camikaze]

The idea to have a canal improvement seems to make perfect sense, but it'd have to be quite costly, both in initial construction time and upkeep. I'm not too sure about the bridge idea though; perhaps a tunnel (eg. the Channel Tunnel) could become available late in the game (again for a high cost). As for the outpost idea, I don't really think it's a good one. If you want the resource, you should settle near it. If you think that's too costly, well that's the tradeoff in the game that you have to deal with. Making it easier is simply negating that part of balance.

 

[FyshStyx]

I like all three of your ideas. I've been wanting canals for some time myself. As for the bridge idea, I think that harbors should be able to serve that function. It's not very often that you have two landmasses large enough within 1 water tile of each other to need a bridge. However, if harbors could maybe have some sort of ferry service to other harbors with enhanced traveling speed than just embarking, it would be neat. You'd have to build work boats that, instead of improving a water resource, become converted into ferries that stay stationed in each harbor, and activate when you send a unit from that city to another continent's city.

I also like your outpost idea. I think it could be expanded to provide a harbor function too. I've had so many games where your capital starts out like, 3 tiles away from the ocean, and you only notice AFTER you've settled it. If outposts could also be built with a road between them and a city, they could provide that city with access to the ocean.

 

[Camikaze]

Welcome to the forums, FyshStyx.

I'm not too sure harbours would suffice for fulfilling the same purposes of a bridge. The way I see it, a bridge feature would be designed to be an extension of a road or railroad, not as a type of ferry service. Now, your idea with harbours could be used in addition to a bridge-type feature, but I don't think it really could be used instead.

 

[Deussu]

The idea to have a canal improvement seems to make perfect sense, but it'd have to be quite costly, both in initial construction time and upkeep. I'm not too sure about the bridge idea though; perhaps a tunnel (eg. the Channel Tunnel) could become available late in the game (again for a high cost). As for the outpost idea, I don't really think it's a good one. If you want the resource, you should settle near it. If you think that's too costly, well that's the tradeoff in the game that you have to deal with. Making it easier is simply negating that part of balance.

I actually agree that bridges (or tunnels) and outposts wouldn't quite fit in the balance of the game. Bridges, essentially, would save you at least one turn in movement.

I didn't take a stance on building costs and such because I didn't have any clue how much they should cost. Canals and bridges/tunnels would essentially be roads, so they would indeed count towards maintenance costs.

 

[Tantor]

I`ve made a post earlier about this and I`d like to see your outpost. It`s just like the Civ3 colony wich unfortunately was a little ahead of its time.

I think CiV would benefit from having a outpost/colony terrain improvement. In my opinion one shoud have to sacrifice a worker and a get an outpost/colony with a influence radius of one hex. Since it is a colony it should not be possible to expand this radius. It should also have a nice upkeep to prevent outpost/colony spamming.
But there should also be a policy tree called colonialization with policies like colonial wars (no DOW needed to whup colonies), increased happiness from colonies, slavery (reduced upkeep) etc. I think this could make a new interesting game strategy.

And I miss the airfield and a harbour too.

 

[CGG1066]

My 2 cents on the canal: Lots of people have wanted them for a long time. But honestly, I don't see the point unless there is some sort of trade-route distance function that earns money to the builder. Otherwise, the ability to move boats quickly around relevant geographical is cool, but not worth what ever maintenance costs would be (remember how the AI doesn't do sea invasions all that well?).

It's essentially a solution without a problem.

 

[Deussu]

I'm unsure how trade routing in Civilization 5 really works. If you have a city coasting a large sea landlocked by a continent (thus the continent is shaped like a circle), and you have your capital on some other continent, does the link exist? Essentially the harbours aren't connected because of the land mass between them, albeit small.

If a canal could also create this link between trade-routes, it'd be swell. In addition other civilizations could use this canal if they have Open Borders with the civilization owning the canal. It'd increase the value of Open Borders.

Just to make a note, I don't plan on coding/making these improvements for real. I don't have the skill nor time for that. Someone who finds these improvements worthwhile and possesses the interest and talent to do them may do so. I'm sure some people would welcome these with open arms. Good thing mods aren't forced, unlike some horrible things brought alongside patches...

 

[DaveGold]

A world wonder similar to the Panama Canal could be interesting. The Panama canal is a great engineering work of the early 20th century and I see no reason why it shouldn't be in the game. Having unlimited canals may be silly.

The main decision would be how to implement it. A city can already make a 'canal' between two coasts separated by 1 land hex. Would you put the wonder in such a city or would the wonder go into a valid hex within your territory? In either case, would you require the coasts to have proper separation or is any land hex with two bordering water hexes, divided by land around border, sufficient?

 

[eromrab]

I also like your outpost idea. I think it could be expanded to provide a harbor function too. I've had so many games where your capital starts out like, 3 tiles away from the ocean, and you only notice AFTER you've settled it. If outposts could also be built with a road between them and a city, they could provide that city with access to the ocean.

Totally agree man. The city of Corinth was not directly located on water, yet is was a huge port city because it was located on a narrow strip of land in Greece. The people would bring their ships to shore and have them hauled over land to the other shore... which made for lots of commerce in Corinth since it wasn't a very quick process.

Anyways, the harbor "outpost" would be awesome... you should be able to build boats from the city and have them show up at the harbor

 

[Naokaukodem]

The canal is a good idea, but the problem is that players could tend to build canals through a whole continent, what would be unrealistic and abusive. Or, maybe limit the canals by 1 or 2 tiles.

A bridge would be really cool, even though unrealistic; Gibraltar Detroit doesn't have a bridge, England doesn't have a bridge to France, etc... maybe a canal instead as said some people.

An outpost would be really cool too, but unfortunately it would be overabused and kill some strategy dept, especially in multiplayer.

As to the idea of a harbor, that was one a my ideas before Civ5. What i wanted was the ability to connect a city with culture on sea to sea. Because Civ is using few cities, whereas in reality there is a consistent number of cities in a country, ports among them. It just sounds silly that a country with coasts does not have or have few ports, and by thus few ability to build maritime units.
Some people say "then build your cities near coasts since the start", but you don't need coastal city at the start, plus as said someone you sometimes build your cities near a coast without knowing it. People could say "then explore before planting", but i don't want to change my whole exploring priorities just for coastal cities.
The ideal would be indeed the abilityh to create harbors outside the city, connected to the city, so that it could have a sea production.

 

[eromrab]

The canal is a good idea, but the problem is that players could tend to build canals through a whole continent, what would be unrealistic and abusive. Or, maybe limit the canals by 1 or 2 tiles.

Totally disagree. Look at the Erie Canal in New York State. It went all the way from Albany to Buffalo and was the reason for New York's continued success throughout the western expansion because the vast majority of goods that were shipped to the American Midwest and beyond came through there (water travel was preferable to land back then).

It should be a hefty thing to build (many turns) and possibly even have a good maintenance fee (but I don't think so, it should give +1 or +2 gold for that tile to represent increased commerce in that town -- that's how Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo became so big -- but not allow any other improvements except a road/railroad going over). Or maybe charge a +2 or +3 maintenance fee but give +2 or +3 productivity. That would probably be more fair.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Totally disagree. Look at the Erie Canal in New York State. It went all the way from Albany to Buffalo and was the reason for New York's continued success throughout the western expansion because the vast majority of goods that were shipped to the American Midwest and beyond came through there (water travel was preferable to land back then).

It should be a hefty thing to build (many turns) and possibly even have a good maintenance fee (but I don't think so, it should give +1 or +2 gold for that tile to represent increased commerce in that town -- that's how Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo became so big -- but not allow any other improvements except a road/railroad going over). Or maybe charge a +2 or +3 maintenance fee but give +2 or +3 productivity. That would probably be more fair.

This canal is "only" 584 kms long and does not cross an entire continent. So my arguments are still valid: how to make sure that an unlimited canal feature would not be abused? Maybe limit canals to more tiles, like 4 or 5, and each tile consumes a worker. (in the eras canal were very valuable, workers died pretty easily in such enterprises)

The benefits should be as so: canals reduce transports costs (the Erie canal reduced them of 90%), so each city it passes upon would increase their gold output from being connected to the capital. (Civ5) A canal could be built only between two water area though.

Additionnally, in Civ6 or expansions (ha, ha, i don't believe it a minute), roads, but things such as canals much more, should increase the nearby cities size. (arbitrarily or maybe by migration, it should though act as a vaccum stirrer in that case)

 

[Save_Ferris]

How about walls? As I said in another forum, they would be built on the edge of tiles and cost 2 matinence. They would take a turn to pillage, or they could go strait over it and receive a high combat penalty if attacking over it. They would be discovered with Masonry (like current walls) and be obsolete with gunpowder units and beyond.

 

[eromrab]

This canal is "only" 584 kms long and does not cross an entire continent. So my arguments are still valid: how to make sure that an unlimited canal feature would not be abused? Maybe limit canals to more tiles, like 4 or 5, and each tile consumes a worker. (in the eras canal were very valuable, workers died pretty easily in such enterprises)

lol, you say "only" like that is short. And if they had needed to make it longer, they could have, but the lakes were there, so they just dumped it into the lakes where it could connect to the interior of America.

And while I see your logic in making the worker consumed, that would be very annoying game-play-wise and could be better illustrated through having it take a really long time to build.

The benefits should be as so: canals reduce transports costs (the Erie canal reduced them of 90%), so each city it passes upon would increase their gold output from being connected to the capital. (Civ5) A canal could be built only between two water area though.

What transport costs? Is transport costs a feature in the game? I don't recall it...

but what I would suggest is just to add +2 or +3 gold to that tile being worked. But it could be argued that it's good for productivity too, so I think the better idea would be to give a +2 or +3 productivity boost (the cities on the canal were very industrious) and then have a maintenance cost to the canal. That would prohibit someone from doing one too long (I already hate making long roads due to maintenance costs) or from covering every tile with it to get the gold benefit.

Additionnally, in Civ6 or expansions (ha, ha, i don't believe it a minute), roads, but things such as canals much more, should increase the nearby cities size. (arbitrarily or maybe by migration, it should though act as a vaccum stirrer in that case)

I think that it should maybe give a +2/+3 food boost too then? I think that since we'd have it take soooo long to make and cost money to keep up, that it wouldn't hurt to give it a really nice benefit.

 

[eromrab]

How about walls? As I said in another forum, they would be built on the edge of tiles and cost 2 matinence. They would take a turn to pillage, or they could go strait over it and receive a high combat penalty if attacking over it. They would be discovered with Masonry (like current walls) and be obsolete with gunpowder units and beyond.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan. I feel that a city wall is all that's really needed. And then you have forts for other "walls" if you need them.

Other than the great wall of china, it doesn't seem that too many people built walls except around cities... but maybe I'm wrong. I could be.

I would like to see some "combat engineer" units though... people that could build trenches and such in the industrial age

 

[Save_Ferris]

Yes, I would also like engineers- I heard they were in II. They could eventually level hills or something.

 

[eromrab]

Yes, I would also like engineers- I heard they were in II. They could eventually level hills or something.

Engineers are covered by having faster workers. That was Civ II though. They could terraform and such. It WAS awesome. Mountains into mole hills my friend.

But I meant COMBAT engineers. They can fight somewhat, not too strong, but they could put up fortifications like bunkers and trenches and such.