Building Naval Units on a large lake

ALPHA WOLF 64 · June 9, 2002, 02:07

I've noticed in 1.21f that large lakes are considered lakes even if they contain sea tiles. I have a 19 tile lake with 2 sea tiles that I can not build naval units or coastal buildings on. Is this a bug or an intentional design? I'd like to be able to ships because they can exit the lake via a port city on the other side of the lake. Also, it seems that offshore platforms wont be allowed either and that doesnt seem right (i'm only at 310ad).
I'm hoping one of the Firaxis guys will explain this so that I can plan my strategies accordingly.
Thanks.

HazieDaVampire · June 9, 2002, 08:06

a lake that big shoud let you build off shore platform on! What would be good is if we can have a land unit that can carry ships over land (like a massive fleet of 18 weelers, with 20 of them carrying a ship, if you get my drift!). it would kinda be useful for situations when you have a thin land mass that goes right around the world with no gaps from the north and south seas.

Ijuin · June 9, 2002, 09:01

Hauling a ship overland would create too many problems--like the "nested cargo" problem--the unit carrying the ship is carrying a unit which is ITSELF carrying other units inside.

I would suggest having a "canal" tile improvement that Workers can build. Canals can ONLY be built inside your culture borders, and ships can move through squares containing Canals (but may NOT enter Canals in AI controlled territory unless you have a ROP with them). Canals should be buildable with Engineering and take 24 turns to build, but cannot cross Mountains until Gunpowder allows one to blast one's way through. To avoid making Canals too powerful, the presence of a Canal in a tile should prevent Mines or Irrigation from being placed there.

I agree that Lake squares should allow Coastal improvements (but maybe not the Colossus and Great Lighthouse wonders). Possibly this could be linked to the Canal concept, whereby a Lake must be connected via Canals to the Ocean in order to build ships and Coastal improvements.

I am also interested in seeing a Land transport unit that can carry Foot units overland (just as Helicopters can carry Foot units and airdrop them anywhere within range). This unit (call it Troop Carrier) would be 0.4.3 (carry 4), available with Motorized Transportation, require Oil, and cost maybe 120 shields, but would have the Wheeled limitation, being unable to travel in Jungles or Mountains without Roads. This unit would be useful for moving slow units into position outside of one's own territory, but its relatively weak defense means that it must be escorted by Tanks or Mech. Infantry. Its speed in moving units would be balanced out by the fact that units unloading from it use up their entire turn just like units unloading from a ship so it will not allow players to mount a sudden Blitzkrieg by rushing in with no chance for the opponent to counterattack. If a Troop Carrier containing units is destroyed, those units are lost, the same as if they were aboard a sinking ship.

Sava · June 9, 2002, 09:30

There was supposed to be a Canal Wonder in the game, but I guess Firaxis fell asleep at the wheel with that one (among other things).

SpencerH · June 9, 2002, 09:43

I wonder if Firaxis removed the whole naval-lake thing in order to stop the AI from building dozens of useless ships in small lakes.

August Borms · June 9, 2002, 10:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Sava
There was supposed to be a Canal Wonder in the game, but I guess Firaxis fell asleep at the wheel with that one (among other things).

Perhaps it was just too innovative...

cracker · June 9, 2002, 10:09

Are you certain about this?

I just completed GOTM8 on Civfanatics using V1.21 and was definitely able to build naval units and improvements on an inland sea.

The sea was quite large and contained one fish tile and could not be irrigated from or counted as fresh drinking water.

I technically could have even built the great lighthouse there if I had wanted to.

I later built a town at narrow land strip and openned up access to the sea but that was after I had been operating a galley ferry on the sea for over 500 years.

ALPHA WOLF 64 · June 9, 2002, 11:42

Quote:

Originally posted by cracker
Are you certain about this?

I just completed GOTM8 on Civfanatics using V1.21 and was definitely able to build naval units and improvements on an inland sea.

The sea was quite large and contained one fish tile and could not be irrigated from or counted as fresh drinking water.

I technically could have even built the great lighthouse there if I had wanted to.

I later built a town at narrow land strip and openned up access to the sea but that was after I had been operating a galley ferry on the sea for over 500 years.

100% positive since I just found it last night. The lake is an actual lake because the city sided by the lake and ocean doesnt need an aquaduct (not on a river), but can build coastal bldg and ships. The inner city that just borders the lake cant build either. A great way to tell if a tile is lake or not is to look at its resources. Lake tiles get +1 food compared to the same non-lake type tiles. Now my guess is that if a lake contains an ocean tile, then its no longer considered a lake since it would have to be pretty big to have ocean tiles.

SpencerH · June 9, 2002, 13:15

From what you're all saying it looks like there are inland seas and inland lakes with different attributes. I hadn't noticed before.

notyoueither · June 9, 2002, 16:19

I thought it was based on the presence of sea tiles.

I have seen maps similar to crackers example where the coastal cities on the 'sea' could build ships.

Sava · June 9, 2002, 16:48

Did you know during the War of 1812 that the British and the Americans engaged in a small campaign of naval warfare on Lake Champlain between New York, Vermont, and present day Canada? They built ships on each side of the lake and pounded each other.

AIL · June 9, 2002, 17:15

I think it must have Ocean Tiles to allow building Vessels in it...
In a previous game of me I had a really huge lage with ocean tiles and it was possible to build Ships for it...

jinif · June 9, 2002, 18:43

I far as I can tell it does not have anything to do with wheather or not the lake has sea/coast tiles in it, but only on the size of the lake. I'm playing a game right now that I started next to a big lake that was all coast but I couldn't irrigate it, and I could build ships/Lighthouse wonder on it. the lake was 34 tiles in area. to try and solve this once and for all (if somebody doesn't already know), everybody should see what the smallest lake was that they could build ships in.

kimmygibler · June 9, 2002, 20:11

jinif - If you couldn't irrigate it then it is not fresh water, so it is not really a lake. It must be just a really small ocean or something.

ALPHA WOLF 64 · June 9, 2002, 21:02

Quote:

Originally posted by jinif
I far as I can tell it does not have anything to do with wheather or not the lake has sea/coast tiles in it, but only on the size of the lake. I'm playing a game right now that I started next to a big lake that was all coast but I couldn't irrigate it, and I could build ships/Lighthouse wonder on it. the lake was 34 tiles in area. to try and solve this once and for all (if somebody doesn't already know), everybody should see what the smallest lake was that they could build ships in.

I'm assuming this must have been a very thin lake to consist only of coast tiles.

cracker · June 9, 2002, 21:46

This size or width of the "lake" has nothing to do with whether it has only coast tiles or not.

I sensed from your response to my post about the large "inland sea" that I was dealing with in my example, that you did not recognize that that body of water was 100% coastal tiles. The inland sea I was talking about only had coastal squares and was about 3 tiles wide and 9 tile long, shaped sort of like an X-box logo. It was (I believe) computer generated by the fractal algorithm in the code.

I have seen other examples of fairly large land locked bodies of water with only coastal squares in their shapes.

You could technically have the entire water surface of the world map covered with coastal squares if you wanted to turn the map into a galley free for all.

I would be interested in seeing a save game file or small concise segment of a screen shot for your current example.

ALPHA WOLF 64 · June 9, 2002, 22:02

here's the lake i was referring to. Atlanta cant build any ships or coastal improvements, SF can.

ALPHA WOLF 64 · June 9, 2002, 22:10

Quote:

Originally posted by cracker
This size or width of the "lake" has nothing to do with whether it has only coast tiles or not.

I sensed from your response to my post about the large "inland sea" that I was dealing with in my example, that you did not recognize that that body of water was 100% coastal tiles. The inland sea I was talking about only had coastal squares and was about 3 tiles wide and 9 tile long, shaped sort of like an X-box logo. It was (I believe) computer generated by the fractal algorithm in the code.

I have seen other examples of fairly large land locked bodies of water with only coastal squares in their shapes.

You could technically have the entire water surface of the world map covered with coastal squares if you wanted to turn the map into a galley free for all.

I would be interested in seeing a save game file or small concise segment of a screen shot for your current example.

i know lakes can come in all different sizes. This was the first lake of this size i've gotten under 1.21 and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was still a lake even tho it had sea tiles. even under 1.17, i rarely had a lake that had a coast more than 1 tile deep, before it switched to sea tiles and was no longer fresh water.

What i'd like to see is these large lakes remain fresh water, but also allow ships to be built (not wonders, undecided about coastal bldgs). if its an AI issue, maybe these cities could be flagged as to whether it has access to a ocean port, and only if a port to the ocean exists, then the AI can build ships so that it doesnt build a large useless fleet.

cracker · June 9, 2002, 22:17

If I had paid closer attention to your earlier posts, I would have probably said this earlier, but it sounds like you have some sort of single game bug or program corruption going on.

By looking at your screenshot, the lake you have would actually be classified as an "inland sea" by all the rules that I understand. The presence of even one tile containing sea water or one tile containing a fish should (I believe based on my experiences so far) make that body of water into NOT FRESH WATER.

That means that if San Fransisco is viewing the body of water as a fresh water lake, there is something deeper wrong with the underlying .sav and .bic file that you are operating with.

(By the way that is a great map position).

If you have modified any rules in the bic file )as indicated by the snowmen and the logpiles) and/or if you hand generated or direct edited the map file you should try and identify those changes.

If this was an unmodified game with a computer generated map in V1.21 you should need an aqueduct in both SF and ATL and you should need a harbor to get the food yield up above the 1 unit level. You should also be able to build naval units in both cities.

Otherwise sounds like an in game bug versus a general code bug.

If you have a .sav file, I would look closer and try a hacked extract of the base map if you would like?

notyoueither · June 10, 2002, 00:56

21 seems to be the magic number.

20 coastal tiles, no ships, no harbour, no Lighthouse.

21 coastal tiles, ships yes, harbour yes, Lighthouse yes.

Took quite awhile of noodling around to find this. Was at work. Not there now. You can verify with your own editors if you wish.

Barry Caudill · June 10, 2002, 10:47

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither
21 seems to be the magic number.

20 coastal tiles, no ships, no harbour, no Lighthouse.

21 coastal tiles, ships yes, harbour yes, Lighthouse yes.

Took quite awhile of noodling around to find this. Was at work. Not there now. You can verify with your own editors if you wish.

nye has hit the nail on the head. I just talked to Soren and found out that the cutoff point for determining the difference between a large lake and an inland sea is 20/21 tiles. There is (despite something I may have posted either here or on the "other" forum

) no correlation with regards to the depth of the water, only the size.

Speedy

WarpStorm · June 10, 2002, 10:51

Speedy, maybe this is something that should be able to be changed in the editor. I just hate seeing hardcoded values.

ALPHA WOLF 64 · June 10, 2002, 11:09

Thanks Speedy. and NYE, I think it would have taken me forever to figure that out since I was under the impression it was tile type and not number that determined an inland sea.