Rivers to Oceans

[Circlet the Zen]

This has bugged me since the first day I played Civ 5.

My city is built on a river, this river leads to an ocean. Why can't I produce ships in the city, have them travel along the river, and get to the ocean?

I really think this should be implemented because it is a realistic and balancing feature for many civilizations. It could even be a civilization specialty for the Ottomans, English or Songhai.

That is all!

 

[seancolorado]

Part of the decision of settling a city depends on whether you want coast or not and that would affect the gameplay a little much. Certain civs, particularly Carthage and Polynesia, benefit from coastal settling.

But I love the idea of it being a specialty for Songhai. Definitely would use it

 

[Matthew.]

Likely one of those things to do with resources (as in programming the game, not iron and aluminum). Overall, they could do a lot more if the maps were significantly larger, but as it is, they have to focus on a smaller scale version of the "world". Thus, rivers are all one size (streams).

 

[thegingerninja]

I did always think that the river boats idea would be a good Songhai UA instead of what they have now. Or perhaps all units have amphibious promotion

 

[Browd]

That would also be appropriate for the Danes. Vikings were renowned for sailing their ships up rivers to attack inland cities. No reason why it shouldn't work the other way, at least for early ship classes -- a bit less credible for frigates, battleships and destroyers (although the British did sail their frigates up the Potomac during the War of 1812 to attack Washington).

The game design problem is that rivers run on the borders of tiles, so there would be no logical stopping point for a ship between the inland riverside city's center tile and the nearest coastal tile. Some have argued for the ability to build canals to the sea, which presents the same problem.

 

[Dentalfury]

I agree that it would be nice to be able to move 'some' naval units down a river to get to the ocean it just seems like an unworkable gimmick especially considering that rivers are place on the border or tiles instead of right through them.

I would still like to see a canal mechanic implemented in some way though. You can make those run right through the middle of tiles to make it more reasonable.

 

[thegingerninja]

Canal are one of those things that would be so useful... and haven't been invented yet. Imagine an lake with a tiny strip of land between it and the sea. You could hide an entire navy in it. Someone should suggest this to aspyr/2k/firaxis

 

[Bex]

I don't know if this is what is meant by canals, but I have wanted for so long an option to terraform a land square to water, and vice versa. Whatever the tech/money/turns cost, I would kill for this.

 

[Dentalfury]

I don't know if this is what is meant by canals, but I have wanted for so long an option to terraform a land square to water, and vice versa. Whatever the tech/money/turns cost, I would kill for this.

Well, terraforming in the sense your suggesting would not be what people are suggesting as far as I could tell. This would be a limited tile A to tile B canal or multi-unit zone whereby naval units could travel though to reach the ocean/lake on either side.

The feature your suggesting did exist back in Alpha Centauri where you could to a large extent customize the landscape for a price with specialized former units that performed all the same functions of workers in Civ5 and then some on both land and sea. The only way I could see it being applied is as a UA for the Neatherlands and maybe some other civs to reclaim tiles from the sea. Not sure how to balance that though.

I think from a practical standpoint there should be some kind of limit on naval units using canals. Maybe disable attacks for melee naval units? Or all offensive abilities. There are some areas in the Panama Canal where the locks are only a few feet wider than the largest ships in the world and indeed the size of most ships is practically limited by the size of the canal itself. Because of this I would also apply some penalty to ships being attacked in the canal zone to represent the restriction of movement that is sure to take place.

Still, for the price of a GE(A must in my mind) and some reasonable gold or gpt investment i'd gladly build a canal and accept all the negative combat modifiers I could just for the strategic opportunities that the canal would bring.

 

[Bex]

Well, terraforming in the sense your suggesting would not be what people are suggesting as far as I could tell...

Yes you're right... I like what they're suggesting also.

 

[Airny]

I think there was a civ version where you had the rivers "inside" the tiles.
In them you where able to move your units more quickly and you could use the rivers as traderoutes.
But if the rivers are not part of a tile, how could you realize such things?
Btw:
-a canal must be built, its not natural
-in reality you can not built ships for the ocean AND the river. The rivers require your ships to have a low mass and depth in water.

But I think you could use rivers and coast tiles as traderoutes.
You could build a road from any tile with fresh water access and connect it to your city.
I wonder why they didn't implement it that way

 

[alpha wolf 64]

i havent liked how rivers have completely been taken out of the transportation system. even today, rivers are crucial to the overall transportation system of a region.

 

[phos_hilaron]

I really like the idea of creating a tile that the river is in the middle of.

workers could improve the tile "canal".

you could connect your cities for a trade route over water, and increased production with the advent of steam power or something to represent engine powered ferries, etc.

Units could still move through it much like moving over a river in the game already costs extra movement points.

 

[Pitboss]

The idea sounds great.
And the Vikings is quite a good example.

When a city is build next to a river work boat's can be build to go the lake, sea or ocean coasts. In later era's workers can improve the waterway to allow for ships. While on a river it takes double the number of turns to get to the destination.

Boat's and ships could also be constructed from anywhere, since they can be moved over roads and pieces of lands as well. In ancient times they used to do that by rolling them over tree logs. A few era's later pieces would get assembled in ports. And nowadays you build and transport them where you like them to be (just like for the spaceship).

But it also begs the question what to do with :

• sluices
• maritime defences, like sea forts (Fort Boyard) and city defenses
• workers upgrading bridges
• units being able to destroy a bridge for defensive purposes
• rivers that are naturally wider and deeper allowing for ship building (and access) straight away
• changing the current model of rivers running around a land tile instead of through it, making it close to impossible to get a boat or ship unit on it
• ...

 

[jozef57]

a very good idear, civ could ahve river that are wide enough to take seagoing vesels. at least some of them and say for a few hexes opstream,
but also big rivers with specialised vessels from merchant to say river gunboats

 

[jozef57]

i think hovercrafts would nice nice adition to