Canal building

[wrylachlan]

Rivers and Commerce

Why is there no commerce bonus for cities on rivers?

Historically every major city in the world has been on a river because it allows a level of transportation of goods in the ancient era that was not possible over land.

There should be an overall bonus for Cities on a river, and an even greater bonus for a city that borders a river and the ocean. And with this, all starting locations should be on a river.

Also, while having the rivers flow between tiles makes sense for the strategic aspects of fighting across rivers, there should be some movement bonus to rivers to reflect the fact that most exploration was historically done on the rivers first. It could be as simple as a movement bonus if you move between tiles that border the same river.

[Grrr]

Canals are useflu with all Civ3's ithmuses.

[Mannamagnus]

Canals are useful but I'd rather be able to construct bridges and tunnels to islands/continents one or two squares away.
The argument against this (in a thread somewhere early last year) was that one square is several hundred miles wide so it wouldn't be very realistic. On the other hand I think that it would improve gameplay and since there are already many things in the game which are not too realistic - why not include bridges?

[Flanker]

I must be the only one that don´t really seem canals would be a good improvement. Why don´t instead include the Civ2-style isthmus where is was possible to pass by both ships and land units across a small path of land? That is one thing I definitly misses in Civ3. I think this canal thing has gone too long, in the real world, sure Suez, Panama and some other canals have a large strategic importance, but it´s not that many. And it´s only a few canals that actually allows transport of really large ships, like carriers and battleships. Same thing with long bridges - sure there are some in the world, but in case of a war, they would probably not be used that much. The idea of underwater tunnels are just plain stupid IMHO (sorry for offending anyone).

[dunk]

Re: Rivers and Commerce

Originally posted by wrylachlan
Why is there no commerce bonus for cities on rivers?

There is. Tiles with a river on their border produce an extra commerce. Coastal tiles don't add anything.

Or do you think there should be more of a bonus?

[dunk]

Originally posted by Mannamagnus
one square is several hundred miles wide

Really? That means an ancient city has a sphere of influence of about the size of Texas.

I think coastal tile bridges or tunnels would be a very interesting additon. Great Britain is one tile away from France on a world map, and there's tunnel there.

[wrylachlan]

Re: Re: Rivers and Commerce

Originally posted by dunk999


There is. Tiles with a river on their border produce an extra commerce. Coastal tiles don't add anything.

Or do you think there should be more of a bonus?

I was talking about an overall bonus for having your city actually on a river. The current commerce bonus you can benifit from even if your city is 2 squares away. This doesn't encourage players to put cities actually on the river (like London, Paris, New York, and pretty much every other major city I can think of in the real world).

[dunk]

Well, you tend to get more rivered tiles in your city area if you place you city on a river instead of two tiles away. I always like to put my cities on rivers for just this reason.

But, I see your point.

[dawidge]

Originally posted by dunk999
I think coastal tile bridges or tunnels would be a very interesting additon. Great Britain is one tile away from France on a world map, and there's tunnel there.

And it's only taken 2000 years of planning and it's construction is considered a Great Wonder of the modern world.

but I agree that there should be some way to model the ease of transport across short sea distances without having to physically put transport ships in place. Even if it isn't physiclaly manifested in a bridge or tunnel, it could represent a regular ferry service.

Either put a very high move cost structure in the sea square (and how, exactly would we build *in* the sea?) or allow unlimited sealift between cities with harbors within a certain distance of each other (4 sectors max?). Units lose all mobility after completing a sealift.

...and GLs and workers are able to be sealifted.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. Some people may be a bit squeamish about being able to lift unlimited numbers of units across that distance, but there was absolutely no way that 250,000 British and French units got from Dunkirk to England. The difficulty of D-Day was in investing the beachhead and constructing the mulberry harbors. After that troops and supplies were almost unrestricted in crossing the channel (almost). A huge number of people travel across large bodies of water by ferry every day. Even in ancient times, all you had to do was show up early enough that the fishermen hadn't left and you could probably arrange to be dropped off somewhere.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by dawidge
but I agree that there should be some way to model the ease of transport across short sea distances without having to physically put transport ships in place. Even if it isn't physiclaly manifested in a bridge or tunnel, it could represent a regular ferry service.

Either put a very high move cost structure in the sea square (and how, exactly would we build *in* the sea?) or allow unlimited sealift between cities with harbors within a certain distance of each other (4 sectors max?). Units lose all mobility after completing a sealift.

I'm sure someone has suggested this before, but why not have a tile that represents a "Channel" which boats can use, and which (with Map-Making) Land units can cross very, very, very slowly.

I don't like the idea of a "sea-lift" of more than one square since this seriously degrades the use of the transport, and since someone here said that a tile is roughly a hundred miles, a four hundred mile ferry seems a little bit much.

[Bella Hella]

Originally posted by Dissident
didn't SMAC have canals? Or at least it allowed you to lower land, and voila! you have a canal.

EXACTLY what i was thinking. if the civ3 workers could raise or lower land, you could build yourself some wicked canals.

but since the land layout is so different from SMAC, i guess it's not a possibility. the land layout of SMAC (elevation, big mountains, etc.) makes more sense than that of CIV3, but SMAC was more complicated.

[XarXo]

Resume and new things:

*Basic Advance: Architecture, a new knowledge obtained from Education at Middle Ages. Is an end-one (like Music Theory).

*For start it you need an army of minimum 3 workers. The cost is 12 turns if there are 3, 9 if you have 4 inside. More workers doesn't change this. At the end the army dies (but not the workers). This cost is for the whole channel, if the channel is 3-long it costs 15 turns, 12 with a 4-army.

*The movement inside is like a Coast tile, only for ships of course.

*The complete planification must be done before the construction.

*While is in contruction, a dry channel can be see until it is done.

*Maintain a channel cost 10 per each tile, +4 if is in a hill, +2 if is in a icy area and -4 if is in a city tile. You've to pay it when the channel construction STARTS, for represent the economic difficulty. Also, during the construction, its maintaince costs the DOUBLE.

*You can have irrigation in a channel, but not create one cause there is one. No mines, no fortress, no colonies but yes cities (you can include a city in the traject, but the channel allow to foreign units to cross the city). A channel tile performs like a city with railways and roads.

*Can cross hills, but for each hill increases in 4 turns and must appear a water gate system, you need Electricity for bulid it in a mountains (water pump stations for the water gates). Can't bulid channels in mountains

*During the construction of it requires Iron and Saltpeter, if before end it you loose a resource, the channels isn't finished.

*A channel without money enter in "decay" for 5 turns and is destroyed after this. In decay doesn't need any worker to repair it, with the money again is restored.

* -Three options here-

A ) Channels can be crossed, a cross needs the same gold as 2 channel tiles, the construction of the channel is increased in 4 turns.

B ) Channels can't be crossed, except in cities.

C ) Channels can't be crossed, never.

*Only 1 ship in the whole channel each time.

*A line like the one that appear with the GoTo comand but fatter and blue colored.

*A city with channel can have all the water improvments for River Water cities AND harbor also can have all salt water wonders and NOT River Water wonders (like Hoover Plant).

*The maximum length of the channel is 2, 3 if you've reached Steel.

*The tiles affected for the channel have an extra 50% of the original amount of money, also the sea entrance/exit are affected by this change too.

*The "allow pass" diplomatic treaty include channels.

*The channels marks terrain as a city, you can sell, invade, buy, have a temporal buy (easyreantachannel.com ), temporal use, always via diplomatic treaties (except invasionof course).

Well, I believe that's all that I can think...

[Grrr]

Originally posted by Mannamagnus
...one square is several hundred miles wide...

Actually a Civ III square is 10 miles wide. 100 miles in square.

[dunk]

So, in order to build a channel, you need a great leader? No, I dislike that. Too expensive. I know you can build armies later, but if you're a peaceful civ, you don't get to do that.

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

Originally posted by Grrr

Originally posted by Mannamagnus
...one square is several hundred miles wide...

Actually a Civ III square is 10 miles wide. 100 miles in square.

At least someone read my thread.