Canals

[sparkyal]

I agree, thanks!

sparky

[Will9]

You can have boats in lakes. Once I had a galley on explore and it ended up going through a city to get into a lake. Also why can't canals go inland? Most canals were first ways of getting supplies inland before railroads. Also lakes should be able to be part of canals. The Panama Canal is really two canals conecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to Lake Panama. At first (with some renisance tech) canals should only go one square and two with Sream Power. Also, this could finally enable noncoastal cities to be ports.

[Dis]

I say yeah, but really it's only something that affects the modern age. So is it really worth the implementation for such a short period of time?

[Badtz Maru]

I voted 'bananas', but really I'm heavily leaning towards the 'No' side. The scale in Civ4 is too large for canals as they have been built in history. I'd only be into canals if they were limited to one square side and took a LOT of time/workers to build. For an interesting twist, make it so the first person to build a canal gets some kind of wonder-like effect (like an added trade route in all coastal cities) to make a pseudo-wonder that is build with workers instead of city production.

[Dis]

length should not exceed 1 tile in length (though I think I heard something about a really long canal the Soviets buildt- can't remember the name). As a tile represents 100 miles at least I'd think. And the suez is not much longer (101 miles).

Should it really take that long? Depends on what age. after the year 1900, I'd think it wouldn't take that long. Depending on how many workers and money you are willing to invest in it.

[patcon]

If a canal can only be one tile long to connect two bodies of water, then just build a city on the tile where you want a canal.

[Prussia]

Well thats the point, Cities are costly and canals are cheap.

This is supposed to be an alternative.

[Dis]

maybe 2 tiles. As I see that fairly often. More than that becomes a bit ridiculous. It's not like canals are common. At least not ones that can handle ocean going vessels.

[Will9]

The Erie Canal (I think the longest canal in history) was atleast 200 miles.

The reson a canal is better than a city is because cities with water on both sides don't have much production.

[Shogun Gunner]

Don't trade routes constitute travel over different terrain - and some abstraction of canals? I'm not for a specific game element to represent canals other than a strategic positioning of a city on an isthmus.

I don't recall any history stories of the American frigates travelling down the Erie Canal.

[Kuciwalker]

City on an isthmus handles this fine. I really don't see much of a good reason, particularly from a gameplay standpoint, to add any more canals. What does it really add?

[sparkyal]

Well, since you cannot build a city within 3 tiles of anotrher city, you cannot simply build a canal whereever you want to. this provides an alternative. Plus, it does represent something in history that is worth respresenting.

sparky

[Nugog]

Bananas!

Just build a city for a one square canal.

Better still, play on pangea so you dont have to worry about boats.

[nojnosredna]

As one who tendes to favor Archipelago - Long Snakey Continents (which would seem to be the world type in most need of canals), I don't see that they would enhance the game experience. The arguments for a canal improvement over a city seem a bit weak:

- Cities on a lot of water don't have many hammers: I would respond that you should not expect this city to produce many hammers, the main purpose of this city is to facilitate movement and trade. Make hammers elsewhere, make coins here.

- Cities are costly: Canals should be as well, both to build and maintain.

- You can't build a city within 3 squares:: This seems like lazy play to me. If you want to gain the function of a canal, build your city where it should be, if not build where you have better access to resources.

All in all, I think that canals would reward laziness in planning, and not add strategy.

[Fosse]

I would actually favor a Canal Building, rather than a worker impovement.

A city built on an isthmus can put "Canal" in its build queue after, say, Engineering. Before that building is completed ships entering the city on one site cannot exit on the other.

Having Canals on the map as something workers can build seems rather obnoxious to me. The current system of building cities on one-tile bits of land is better than that.