Canals, the Worldwide Shortcuts

[civjunkie]

I feel that anything more than two tiles would be too long. Yes there are very long canals in the world, but those are for barges and things that require rather shallow draft and short (to avoid bridges) vessels. The scale of the game means that any canal would have to allow aircraft carriers through, and those canals are few and far between and relatively short.

Maybe the solution would be for inland canals to be treated more like rivers in civ2, giving a road-like movement bonus (maybe 4 or 5 mp instead of 3). It would also be logical for a canal to allow water to be brought to a city & eliminate the need for building Aqueduct, just as if it were on a river. And what
about irrigation canals, allowing adjoining tiles to be irrigated before Electricity? Then you could irrigate
a tile without having to irrigate everything on the
way to the nearest river - as with roads, you could have a canal and a mine or forest on the same square.

In effect, canals would be an intermediate step between
roads and RRs, which would be historically accurate. Btw: love RRs, but they are way too powerful. It's air
travel and not RRs that made it possible to get around instantly. I'd suggest:
Roads - movement rate 3, build time 1
Canals - movement rate 5, build time 2
RRs - movement rate 10, build time 4

Single-tile canals between waterways can be simulated well enough by building cities; maybe a colony could do the trick too?

[Martinus Magnificus]

in case of a two tiles land bridge: What if you build a city at one end, move your loaded transports in there, destroy the city, build a new city next to it bordering the other ocean and move the transports in the new city? I haven't tried it, but I guess it would be an effective way of getting multiple transports across a landbridge to the other ocean.

[Solomyr]

i can't really see that working. a transport, or any naval vessel on a land tile? and then moving to another? i think the naval unit would just be destroyed, or at least moved into the nearest coastal tile. but i honestly don't know. i have never disbanded on of my cities, only ones i have captured.

[bbaws]

Purple the Corinth Canal wasn't finished until about twenty years after Jules Verne finished 80 days around the world, iirc. That puts it squarely in the Victorian era.

[Purple]

Originally posted by bbaws
Purple the Corinth Canal wasn't finished until about twenty years after Jules Verne finished 80 days around the world, iirc. That puts it squarely in the Victorian era.

Thanks for the clarification, bbaws.

[civjunkie]

I have been reading Herodotus on triremes and canals; specifically, on how Xerxes was able to move his huge army into Greece. According to H, he built a pontoon bridge across the Hellespont consisting of triremes lined by ropes with logs placed across them, and was able to drive chariots etc across. Later he also built a canal through the isthmus at Argos: H. however wonders why he bothered, since he could have dragged his triremes across the isthmus.

So therefore we have a historical model for (a) temporary bridges across narrow bodies of water; (b) a canal across a narrow isthmus, and (c) seafaring units crossing land. (b) can be achieved in civ by building a city on an isthmus, but (a) and (c) can't be done at present. I propose that the rules for triremes could be changed as follows: (1) a trireme doesn't sink if it's in a coastal square and in touch with either land or another of your own triremes; (2) fortified triremes can be used like land tiles by ground units, perhaps with a movement penalty equivalent to mountains; (3) a trireme can enter a land tile if there is water on the other side (not bigger ships, though: they'd be too heavy to drag). Add to that the ability of workers to enter coastal squares to carry out landfill, or conversely to excavate coastal land squares (making it possible not only to build canals but also to build harbors in cities that aren't quite on the sea), and you would have a powerful set of tools for an island-based civ to project its power to nearby countries. Another idea for ending the discrimination against island civs would be a new industrial-age unit, call it a steamship, that could carry out cable-laying operations. Islands connected by cables could then enjoy the benefits of Hoover and other single-island Wonders. Some ideas for civ4 ...

[sun_tzu_159]

Hi all,
I was also looking up some history.

Panama Canal completed in 1914. Suez Canal completed 1895. They made it commercially viable for steamships to transport goods around the world more cheaply than the trade ship 'clippers'. It really spelt the end of the commercial age of sail. Both cut four weeks travel time off the journey around the South American and African continent respectively.

Great Canals should be introduced as a Great Wonder that halts the building of any sailships and increases trade profits. First Nation to get it has GW and all others as SW with half benefits. Ability to build large canals to cross single square land-bridges and also to link Great-Lakes for trade as in the St Lawrence Seaway to Great Lakes complex in North America. All cities bordering connected lakes could then have ports and ships could sail on the lakes to the sea.

On the subject of moving ships. Did not Cortez conquer Montezuma by chopping down half a forest and building parts of ships which were then transported across land to be assembled on the lake protecting the city? A bit hazy on this - maybe someone knows more.

Regards
Sun_Tzu

[Solomyr]

i won't prohibit the construction of sail ships with the GW, as some civs might not be there yet tech-wise or resource-wise.

personally i think canals should be tile improvments, at most one tile long. there could be a GW that could then allow a 3 tile canal to be placed. of course, i have no idea how this would all work...