building channels

[Slax]

How will a ship in a canal look? Will it just be a water tile, or will it have walls? It must be large enough inside the tile to contain a ship image.

Is there a limit to the size of ship which can travel in a canal?

Can a ship in a canal be involved in combat? With what limitations?

[DarthVeda]

Game goes gold in less than a month and you're still asking for features... you really don't know activision do you?

[Locutus]

quote: Originally posted by Bartemans on 10-10-2000 06:36 PM And then: Rotterdam is not directly on the Northsea, but thanks to the "Nieuwe Waterweg" (New waterway), Rotterdam became the largest seaport in the world.

Forget about Rotterdam, Antwerp is an even better example! It's much further away from the sea, but it's still an important port. Of course, by far not as important as Rotterdam

And DarthVeda, there's nothing wrong with playing around with some idea's. It might not make it into the actual game, but you never know about patches or sequels. Who knows, maybe will even be possible to implement something like this in SLIC (though in that case I doubt the AI could be taught to make use of it).

[samurai]

I haven`t seen any from switzerland here yet, but I guess that their answer to this debate would be something like:"Our country is in between Austria,Germany,France,Italy and Lichenstein, and still we got a Port city."
I think its Bern.

I agree,there is nothing wrong in playing with the idea of canals.Who knows, maybe this gives activision the idea of constructing Call to Power "super 2000 millenium audition" III.

I have been thinking of canals just like land units can use the tunnels underseas.And if the tunnels are destroyd with the units inside. Sorry mate,**** happends.
I mean, what chanses will a battleship in a canal have if they are beeing attaced by tanks?

[wheathin]

Canals would be great. There could be several levels of public works canals.
1. Ancient Canal - allows units up to Caravels to traverse. 2000 PW.
2. Rennaissance-pre-Industrial canal - allows units up to Destroyers to traverse 5000 PW
3. Industrial-Modern canal - allows all ships to traverse 20,000 PW

To prevent these from being too unbalancing, I propose that players be limited to building only one square in a row. Remember, even the Panama Canal has a lake in the middle of it. A single square allows cities located just inland to get sea access.

The Canal would be the only improvement in the square, like a farm or fort or listening post, although there could also be a road. Like any tile imp, the canal could be pillaged or destroyed - a juicy target for hit-and-run attacks!

Location of a canal adjacent to a city would allow the city to build naval units.

Canals would cost different amounts depending on terrain. Grassland, plains, and deserts cost minimum. Forests, Tundra, Jungles, and Swamps cost more (although most players will prefer to clear the land themselves prior to construction to save PW), Hills cost substantially more. No canals in mountains or glaciers.

[Chris Horscroft]

Like the canal idea - and have wanted realistic canals since the original civ.

Historically, I think the Greeks built canals - or at least carried ships across narrow land masses and rebuilt them on the other side fairly early on. I know that the same approach was used by the New Zealanders to put steamships on one of their inland lakes, and also by the colonial powers to put gunboats on Lake Victoria.

I'd suggest that it be impossible to build canal through most terrain types. Plains and grassland only. If you want to put a canal through a mountain range, you'd have to terraform it first. Simply increasing the cost to canal a mountain would be difficult to balance (and we still can't or don't put try to build canals across mountain ranges now).

Length of canal must be greater than one square. Cities would do the same job in that case. I'd suggest a maximum length of three squares - which may be arbitrary, but at least would seem to reflect reality. And since you'd navigate rivers, in most cases all you would have to do is find a river running close to a sea, and connect it to ocean via a canal - again, this is fairly realistic.

Using a tile improvement and the standard publi works system must involve less tweaking to the game, and I aggree that canals should only be navigable to the owner (and allies) - so the border system would seem important to canals.

Maybe the designers could (finally!) look at implementing some sort of canal/land reclamation tile improvement for the next version - after all, the Dutch and the English (in East Anglia) have been doing the real thing since at least the middle ages.

[John Amram]

Great idea. I particularly like the idea of a canal becoming a source of revenue and major strategic asset; as the owner of the canal, 5/10 gold every time a foreign vessel uses it could easily justify the high cost of building it. It would also make the game a very interesting one, as I certainly would be trying to gain control over a foreign canal...especially when the geograpghy of the map is mainly 'continent' as opposed to 'ocean'.

GO FOR IT!

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[Dida]

quote: Originally posted by samurai on 10-11-2000 04:45 PM I think somewhere between 7000-10000 would be a nice price for a canal.In history I don`t think anyone builded canals until somewhere after 1000 a.d. maybe there has been someone, but not of any importance.

China's Grand Canal was built in the 600's a.d. It's still the longest manmade water way in the world.

[red_jon]

Canals should only let non-military trading ships through (maybe transports too).
After all, I can hardly see a battleship going down an English canal! (i.e. it wouldn't fit).

Canals should also go obsolete with the discovery of the motorway/highway/autobahn (whatever you want to call them) as the ones in England aren't really used anymore (I don't know about the rest of the world).

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...And if the British Commonwealth and its people live for a thousand years, man will still say "this was their finest hour"- Winston Churchill.

[Dida]

quote: Originally posted by red_jon on 10-21-2000 01:47 PM Canals should only let non-military trading ships through (maybe transports too). After all, I can hardly see a battleship going down an English canal! (i.e. it wouldn't fit). Canals should also go obsolete with the discovery of the motorway/highway/autobahn (whatever you want to call them) as the ones in England aren't really used anymore (I don't know about the rest of the world).

They're going to widen the Grant Canel in China, so its battleship might go deep into the inland.

[Chris Horscroft]

Canals for non-military vessels only?

NO! Suez and Panama are more of a model for CTP canals than the local networks that carried coal barges in the early years of the industrial revolution. Battleships should pass thru canals, and canals should NOT go obsolete (IMHO)

[TheBirdMan]

I would like the canals to be similar to other terrain improvements.

Lowest (smallest) should allow ships size small, then medium and biggest (broad cannals) ships size large.

By that, cannals obsolute themselfes if not "upgraded" as the size of ships grows during the game.

I also would like, if tririmes (as a matter of fact, all ships size small) could use the rivers.