 |
|
Illuminatiscott
|
|
I would say, that to deterr potential making of the entire continent into a canal, the cost of upkeep for a canal should grow exponentially with its length, thusly
Tile...upkeep
1.........1
2.........2
3.........4
4.........8
5.........16
6.........32
ETC...
You could make the cost higher in later ages, so that the increased economy wont allow you to build more canals
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Illuminatiscott
|
|
By the way, the grand canal of china is nearly 600 miles long (ca. 800 km). It was constructed in the 500-600 CE range, i think.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Illuminatiscott
|
|
and lets maybe go back to the gameplay implications of canals; we're slipping into real-world coversation
|
|
| |
|
|
|
DerSchwarzfalke
|
|
If ships cannot navigate rivers, I do not see the point of canals. Most historical canals were used to link rivers to other rivers or rivers to the sea. If there were at least minimal river navigation in the game -- which, judging by the screenshots, there will not be -- canals would make more sense, imo.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
sophist
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by DerSchwarzfalke
If ships cannot navigate rivers, I do not see the point of canals. Most historical canals were used to link rivers to other rivers or rivers to the sea. If there were at least minimal river navigation in the game -- which, judging by the screenshots, there will not be -- canals would make more sense, imo. |
I agree. If you have one, you should have the other. One way I was thinking that navigable rivers could work is that they just reduce the area and productivity of a tile by 1/2. No benefit should be without its cost, after all.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Straybow
|
 |
SG(2)… gone but not forgotten
Jan 1970
time: 23:37
|
|
No, tiles are huge. The mouth of the Amazon is nearly 20 miles wide, but that would only be a small fraction of a tile on almost any map.
As shown in the other thread, China's Grand Canal is what is properly termed a goods canal. Seagoing ships can't use it, goods must be loaded onto dedicated canal vessels. Likewise the Erie Canal, the canal network in England, etc. This is really no different from roads since they can't handle the huge loads that rail can move.
Shipping canals are very difficult to construct and maintain. The Panama Canal requires about the same amount of maintainance excavation and dredging every year as the original construction. (Of course, the Ditch has been expanded and widened a couple times since then, and now handles far more traffic than the original design.)
So, perhaps if someone wants a through canal they should have to permanantly station Engineers sufficient to build the canal over x number of turns.
[Edit: spelling... what, was I asleep at the keyboard or somethin'?]
Last edited by Straybow on 03-07-2005 at 22:17
|
|
| |
|
|
|
sophist
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Straybow
No, tiles are huge. The mouth of the Amazon is nearly 20 miles wide, but that would only be a small fraction of a tile on almost any map.
|
I know it's unrealistic; I suggested that as a way to attach a cost that was less intrusive than others I have seen.
quote:
Originally posted by Straybow
So, perhaps if someone wants a through canal they should have to permanantly station Engineers sufficient to build the canal over x number of turns. |
I think that's a little inelegant. Your point about maintenance is an important one, though. On the other hand, irrigation systems and mines and roads and railroads all require maintenance as well, but civ doesn't model that.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
sophist
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Straybow
quote:
I think that's a little inelegant. Your point about maintenance is an important one, though. On the other hand, irrigation systems and mines and roads and railroads all require maintenance as well, but civ doesn't model that. |
A modern road typically gets resurfaced once every 5-7 years; no comparison. Ancient roads were typically ditched and filled after the spring thaw with impressed local labor. Mines take a trivial amount of maintenance compared to the rest of operating costs. Irrigation has a high initial cost and minimal maintenance (by design they prevent erosion).
|
I haven't worked in any coal mines or irrigation systems, so I won't disagree. Roads, though, need more than a once-over every 5-7 years. Patching, sweeping, sealing, etc. happen far more frequently, especially in more northern areas. I mean, look at the massive highway spending in any nation with a well-developed infrastructure. Some of that is new roads, but most of it is keeping up the old ones. Regardless, the degree of maintenance was less germane to my point. Improvements that require maintenance in the real world don't get in Civ games, and I think it would not be good to have one thing that broke the pattern.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Straybow
|
|
SG(2)… gone but not forgotten
Jan 1970
time: 23:37
|
|
If properly constructed an asphalt road, even in the North, will last 5-7 years without significant repair. Patching is nothing in terms of expense. If properly constructed a portland cement road will need only resealing joints every 3-4 years, and surface treatment depending on climate. The problem in the Northeast US is that road construction is horribly corrupted and almost nothing gets built correctly.
Still, a full resurfacing costs about $100/foot-lane, whereas initial construction is about $500+/foot-lane, not including bridges at several times that cost. (I'm guessing costs have doubled since my schooling, I could be off a bit.)
So, if once every 5 years you resurface at ¼ the initial cost, your annualized cost is 5%, which is probably comparable to annual sealing and patching costs. Compare that to the Ditch at about 50%, and the enormously higher cost per length...
I kinda agree, though. I don't like tile improvements with maintenance, but I had proposed maintenance for airbases before (alongside the use of airbases for Airlifting). If they are improvements that are not used in bulk it can be acceptable.
Last edited by Straybow on 04-07-2005 at 06:43
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Yarco_TW
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by KyuuA4
Ability to make "engineers" take a land square and give it the ability for ships to go on it - to simulate the capability of a canal. In short, ability to Build a Canal. |
Canal construction is OK.
My question is when it should arrive on a tech tree. Most canal-building technology is pretty recent (Erie canal, Suez, Panama), but Great Canal in China was built in 11th (?) century.
And, there can be Canal-related great wonder (Erie canal, of Great China Canal)
Yaroslav
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Yarco_TW
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by DerSchwarzfalke
If ships cannot navigate rivers, I do not see the point of canals. Most historical canals were used to link rivers to other rivers or rivers to the sea. If there were at least minimal river navigation in the game -- which, judging by the screenshots, there will not be -- canals would make more sense, imo. |
The point is the same as with rivers - you get river trade. Cheaper trade. No need for mules in ancient ages.
The cost of wheat transported from Buffalo from New York by mule costed 11 times the original cost. The cost of this wheat brought by Erie Canal drastically reduced the cost, and enhanced trade. The same is true of Great Canal of China, Pharaoh canal from Nile to Red Sea, etc. All were used to transport (trade) bulk commodities, which otherwise were uneconomic to trade.
And Great Canal of China is a nice trade-related Great Wonder (like Colossus, but surviving till today).
Yaroslav
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Yarco_TW
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by MrFun
Didn't the Romans have an ancient canal connecting the Mediterranean and Red Sea centuries before the British/French canal?? Not sure on this one -- can someone verify? |
Answer from Wikipedia says there was canal, and it Joined Nile and Red Sea (Nile joins Mediterranean, so essentially it was a canal between oceans):
Perhaps as early as the 12th Dynasty, Pharaoh Senusret III may have had a west-east canal dug through the Wadi Tumilat, joining the Nile with the Red Sea, for direct trade with Punt. Evidence nevertheless indicates its existence at least by the 13th century BC during the time of Ramesses II. It later fell into disrepair, and according to the Histories of the Greek historian Herodotus, re-excavation was undertaken about 600 BCE by Necho II, though he never completed the project. The canal was finally completed about 500 BCE by King Darius I, the Persian conqueror of Egypt. Darius commemorated his achievement on a number of granite stelae that he set up on the Nile bank, including one near Kabret, 130 kilometres from Suez.
The canal was again restored by Ptolemy II about 250 BCE. Over the next thousand years it was successively modified, destroyed, and rebuilt, until finally being put out of commission in the eighth century by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Yarco_TW
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by DerSchwarzfalke
If ships cannot navigate rivers, I do not see the point of canals. [ ... ] If there were at least minimal river navigation in the game -- which, judging by the screenshots, there will not be -- canals would make more sense, imo. |
River navigation was in Civ 2 (rivers treated as roads), and was wrongly eliminated from Civ3 (remained only as trade bonus). Viking units in Russia, Spaniards on Orinoko, Parana and Amazon, all early states did use rivers for military units transportation. Why should I not have a movement bonus?
The same bonus should be for goods canals, and Chinese Grand Canal should be a wonder in economy sphere (e.g. increasing trade in all cities on the same river/canal system).
However, the main reason for canals was that untill railroad and automobile canal transportation was much cheaper, then by road, and brought more trade. Cost of transportation is not recognised in Civ, so we must eiter agree for a simple model with three modes of transportation
1) road (plus 1 trade)
2) river/canal (canal tough to build) plus 2 trade
3) railroad/road for automobile (easy to build) plus 2 trade
or go for a more complicated models with trade routes, etc. which are not now in Civ (even caravans were eliminated  )
quote:
Originally posted by DerSchwarzfalke
Most historical canals were used to link rivers to other rivers or rivers to the sea. |
Most, but some (Suez, Panama) were used to connect oceans. Ship canals are different from goods canals, and should be discussed separately. I would have them having cost, but also being sellable (other nations can use them for a fee), conquerable, and destroyable.
Yaroslav
|
|
| |
|
|
|
sophist
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Platypus Rex
anyone here with coding expereince, to tell us if this is easy,hard,impoosible to do?
|
It's trivial. The issue is that these mechanisms distort and diminish the significance of trade and can be modelled in a more sensible and enjoyable way. Roads don't generate trade; they convey it. You shouldn't be able to generate trade on a road to nowhere, and a road between two metropolises should carry more trade than a road between two hamlets.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Yarco_TW
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by sophist
Roads don't generate trade; they convey it. You shouldn't be able to generate trade on a road to nowhere, and a road between two metropolises should carry more trade than a road between two hamlets. |
Absolutely true. But then we should bring in the concept of trade routes, which can be taxed. Then trade income will then depend on many more factors, than it depends now. And Civ3 will cease to be "turn-based Warcraft".
It will require thinking, making choices in economic policy, and so on. And computer will have to be smarter in economic theory as well.
And that would be great. Because this would mean, that with development of your economic science you should get additional advisors, buttons and options, so that you would micromanage at start and macromanage at Modern Ages.
But this theory has no support with Civ developers :-(
Yaroslav
|
|
| |
|
|
|
sophist
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Yarco_TW
But this theory has no support with Civ developers :-(
|
Why do you say that? I thought it was all good.
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:37.
Apolyton Time is 00:37. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
24-06-2005 22:13
I'd almost forgotten about that.
|