Suez Canal or Lebanon?

[Alternator]

I'm playing the Earth 18 map as Hatshetsup, Epic speed, Prince diffitulty, with the Warlords expansion (no BtS yet, which would solve my dillemma). I built the Horde of Chariots wonder instead of Horde of Axemen, and blitzed Cyrus to snag a city in Iraq, attacked Saladin for his two cities, restocked my troops, and eventually brought down Cyrus's capital after taking heavy losses. I razed it and founded a tile down, on the Ivory (and more importantly, on the coast!), since he had no wonders and I was building the Great Lighthouse in Mecca to make Arabia much stronger.

I've got two cities in Egypt, two on the Red Sea in Arabia, two in Mesopotamia, plus Persia. Alex has been nice enough to plant a city in modern Lebanon, the perfect spot for a valuable city, and I'm working on provoking him into attacking me so I don't peeve off my German and Mongol (!) friends.

My problem: with all the coastal cities I've founded on the Arabian peninsula, and my lack of coastal cities on the Mediteranian, a city to serve as the Suez Canal would be *really* useful, but that would mean razing the current Greek city in Lebanon and founding in a pretty terrible spot. I can't really make a call between the two city locations, so can I get some advice on which would be superior?

Note: No, I can't upload my save since the laptop I have Civ 4 installed on has a cooked wireless card.

 

[WilliamOfOrange]

Note: No, I can't upload my save since the laptop I have Civ 4 installed on has a cooked wireless card.

Just curious as to why that makes a difference.

 

[JimT]

Not played (or got access to) the map but:

don't Forts act as canals on BTS? (OOPs you don't have it)

I would want a coastal city to speed troop movement and protect my coast (but it needs hammers to make it useful). Failing that canal city it is. The other option is to invade as far as Turkey

 

[AThousandYoung]

Just curious as to why that makes a difference.

The computer with the saved game on it has no internet access.

 

[Alternator]

Just curious as to why that makes a difference.

It mattered because I couldn't show anyone the save. Kind of a moot point by now, since I have BtS now.

 

[Kietharr]

If you keep conquering, one badly placed city will be insignifigant, but the suez canal is very useful, as is the panama canal, and Gibralter. I always make it a point to control all of those choke points in order to maintain naval dominance.

 

[Photi]

didnt realize forts in BTS served as canals. that's awesome.