But only if you have all the performance-devouring eye candy switched on.
Building a Canal u say??
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The technology/knowledge in mid 19 th century was not so much more advanced than that of the 18th century.
I think I once read that Ferdinand de Lesseps even measured the "height" of the sea levels the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea just to make sure that one would not overflood the other...
The technology/knowledge in mid 19 th century was not so much more advanced than that of the 18th century.
I think I once read that Ferdinand de Lesseps even measured the "height" of the sea levels the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea just to make sure that one would not overflood the other...
id much rather dig the suez canal with what i have available in the later 1800's than the same basic method they built the pyramids with
What technological advancements of the late 19th century are going to help build a canal better than slaves?
I was really hesistant when I heard about adding the canals to EU4, they don't really belong in this time period. So imagine my relieve when I read this topic and saw that they are hugely expensive and basically useless.
Maybe things such as this, or this, or this. Need I go on?
They actually tried building the Suez canal by hand (and slaves!), didn't work out so well. It only really got underway when the put in steam engines. And building the Panama canal without malaria medicine didn't work out so well either...
Perhaps you've heard of that little thing called the Industrial Revolution?
You do know that the sea level in the Mediterranean is actually lower than in the Red Sea and the Atlantic? It is one of the reasons it wasn't build earlier, because they had miscalculated the height difference.
Maybe things such as this, or this, or this. Need I go on?
They actually tried building the Suez canal by hand (and slaves!), didn't work out so well. It only really got underway when the put in steam engines. And building the Panama canal without malaria medicine didn't work out so well either...
BestOfTheWest said:
Perhaps you've heard of that little thing called the Industrial Revolution?
BestOfTheWest said:
You do know that the sea level in the Mediterranean is actually lower than in the Red Sea and the Atlantic? It is one of the reasons it wasn't build earlier, because they had miscalculated the height difference.
The Suez and Kiel canals didn't require advanced technology, the Panama canal absolutely couldn't be built with out steam power. All you need to to to build the Suez canal is push some sand around, and it was done thousands of years before.
Not to mention the amount of labor needed. A project like that should suck down manpower from all over the world, and some of the payment should go around as remittances.
Not to mention the amount of labor needed. A project like that should suck down manpower from all over the world, and some of the payment should go around as remittances.
The Panama canal required no more advanced technology than the Suez or Kiel canal. What it comes down to in all cases is, as you said, pushing sand and rocks around. It is only a question of how many people you are willing to throw into the meat grinder. Steam power (and effective medicine!) sure made the job a lot easier, but so did it for the Suez and Kiel canals. It was not a technical requirement for it to be build.
But yeah, practically speaking, steam made building all canals a lot more achievable.
But yeah, practically speaking, steam made building all canals a lot more achievable.
Building anything is mostly pusing materials around.
Doesn´t mean its easy without the right tools
Doesn´t mean its easy without the right tools
I wholeheartedly agree (in this case*)
It was just the absolutely necessary part I took objection to.
*for canal building, but once you get to the realm of structural engineering, things are different
(in this case*)It was just the absolutely necessary part I took objection to.
*for canal building, but once you get to the realm of structural engineering, things are different
in kiel there is no malaria, and thats what kills workers in panama. so you need anti malaria medicine to build the panama canal while you dont need modern medicin to build the kiel canal.
it must pay off. so it should change trade routes in some way, buffing medtrade and nerfing cape trade. like panama should pull chesapeak turn china+philippine+sea trade to panama. or kiel should turn around channel and lubeck direction and make lubeck the endnode. is it op? yes. is it worth 20k ducats at the point you can do it?if you can afford it, it doesnt matter.
anyhow, there should be a possibility to change traderoutes. and it should be possible early in the game, too. lets say if you manage to control all of english channel and that english stuff in 1444 in the southwest, you get a decision to make bordeaux feeding into channel. if you own gibralar(or lets say a porvince in sevillia tradenode with a port) and have the strongest tradepower there, an event triggers which changes the flow from sevillia to channel. this could be tied to the main "node", defined by the trade capital, so every node has similar decisions or events.
there could also be some flavor, a little story concerning the english-spanish conflict and how it came that england was able to conquer spanish mainland if the player acts historically. there could be a possible eventlist for every tradenode or/and every nation, and it has certain conditions. that makes evey nation try to get the best out of their tradenode (which could also meant to not conquer everybody, even this will of course always be the best possibility), but it also allows nations that do ahistoric stuff(player) to shape the world like he wishes, which i think is a good thing.
it must pay off. so it should change trade routes in some way, buffing medtrade and nerfing cape trade. like panama should pull chesapeak turn china+philippine+sea trade to panama. or kiel should turn around channel and lubeck direction and make lubeck the endnode. is it op? yes. is it worth 20k ducats at the point you can do it?if you can afford it, it doesnt matter.
anyhow, there should be a possibility to change traderoutes. and it should be possible early in the game, too. lets say if you manage to control all of english channel and that english stuff in 1444 in the southwest, you get a decision to make bordeaux feeding into channel. if you own gibralar(or lets say a porvince in sevillia tradenode with a port) and have the strongest tradepower there, an event triggers which changes the flow from sevillia to channel. this could be tied to the main "node", defined by the trade capital, so every node has similar decisions or events.
there could also be some flavor, a little story concerning the english-spanish conflict and how it came that england was able to conquer spanish mainland if the player acts historically. there could be a possible eventlist for every tradenode or/and every nation, and it has certain conditions. that makes evey nation try to get the best out of their tradenode (which could also meant to not conquer everybody, even this will of course always be the best possibility), but it also allows nations that do ahistoric stuff(player) to shape the world like he wishes, which i think is a good thing.
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Well, yes, i CAN build it without the fun things of the industrial revolution, but the effort and capital sink arent worth it, so practically, im not going to be able to build it without the fun things
I built a canal once as the Ottoman Empire. Essentially a waste of time and money and the enormous number of negative events were just annoying. I'll never attempt to build them again.
That's why I just build a client state and call it x Canal Company.
The Panama canal was/is a vastly more difficult project than the Kiel or Suez canals. Kiel and Suez are sea level canals meaning once they are dug they are just a giant ditch. The Panama Canal actually raises the ships up a considerable elevation using a series of massive locks, then drops them back down again on the other side of the mountain range that it crosses. Aside from the volumes of dirt to move and tropical diseases the locks themselves are gargantuan chunks of precision constructed steel which were major technological achievements even in the 1890's. As a necessary 'accessory' the Panama Canal also has a railway system which is used to move the ships around in the canal, and it cannot be transited by a ship which uses sails for power - they have to have steam or some other propulsion independent of the wind. Realistically the Panama Canal probably shouldn't be possible to even plan out as a theoretical construct until the mid 19th century and shouldn't be available as a construction option in the EU timeframe.
http://www.socialphy.com/posts/off-topic/10293/Modern-World-Wonders---The-Panama-Canal.html
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I agree that building the Panama is not feasible in the time period (nor are the Suez and Kiel for that matter), it just isn't a theoretical impossibility. I already pointed out that due to disease the canal became only feasible much later on, but, if you are willing to throw enough people into the meatgrinder, one could still overcome this obstacle. Furthermore, locks themselves are hardly a new technology in the 19th century, or even in the 16th century. Nor is there any need to build locks as large as the current locks, as the ships simply were a *lot* smaller. The original French plan even called for a canal on sea level, i.e. no locks needed at all. Lastly a railway to draw ships around by railroad is not a strict requirement, as horse can also do the job. (as they had been doingelsewhere). Also, what is the reason of not being able to use sail power on the canal? As sail power has been used on rivers since ancient times.
And most importantly Allessandro Malaspina presented a, apparently feasible, plan for a canal in the late 18th century.
Look I wholehearilty agree that the Panama Canal shouldn't be in the game, but it is hardly impossible, or a much greater engineering challenger than building the Suez or Kiel canals.
And most importantly Allessandro Malaspina presented a, apparently feasible, plan for a canal in the late 18th century.
Look I wholehearilty agree that the Panama Canal shouldn't be in the game, but it is hardly impossible, or a much greater engineering challenger than building the Suez or Kiel canals.
You could use a horse drawn railway. Sail power is a no go because there are substantial areas of the canal that are too narrow to allow a sailing ship the space/area it needs to maneuver with the wind - unless of course you make it much bigger - the canal is effectively a manmade canyon for a distance of 5 miles/8 km of so and has considerable other areas in similar terrain.
The plan for a sea level canal was scrapped because the French hit solid bedrock much shallower below ground level than they anticipated. This was the 'nail in the coffin' that ultimately failed their canal company as the volume of work to do was just exponentially larger than they had calculated. Merely the volume of explosives required to get through this section of the work would have been a problem for an EU nation to deal with.
Edit: As noted by Diceman, dynamite was a key technological innovation making the construction of the Panama canal possible. In theory you could do it without dynamite using black powder for blasting. In reality however dynamite is so much more efficient for this task, that it's practically impossible to complete without it - Due to the various tiny differences in the way that black powder explodes (low explosive), and dynamite explodes (high explosive), dynamite is roughly 100 times more efficient for breaking up and moving rock. It might literally take the entire European output of black powder for many years to do the rock breaking of the Panama canal.
The plan for a sea level canal was scrapped because the French hit solid bedrock much shallower below ground level than they anticipated. This was the 'nail in the coffin' that ultimately failed their canal company as the volume of work to do was just exponentially larger than they had calculated. Merely the volume of explosives required to get through this section of the work would have been a problem for an EU nation to deal with.
Edit: As noted by Diceman, dynamite was a key technological innovation making the construction of the Panama canal possible. In theory you could do it without dynamite using black powder for blasting. In reality however dynamite is so much more efficient for this task, that it's practically impossible to complete without it - Due to the various tiny differences in the way that black powder explodes (low explosive), and dynamite explodes (high explosive), dynamite is roughly 100 times more efficient for breaking up and moving rock. It might literally take the entire European output of black powder for many years to do the rock breaking of the Panama canal.
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I stand by my statements. The suez link actually confirms it - one of their biggest "problems" to construction was objections and actual disruption by the British due to the use of forced labor. These canals can be built with slaves (in game, it would need to be a massive manpower drain and probably tons of unrest). Panama is iffy, but the suez and kiel are not. Enough manpower and financing and it's a done deal.