Since we can make bridges, which allow ground troops to cross water without a transport ship, how about canals, that will allow naval units to cross land? It makes realism sense since rich countries would cut a large trench across a narrow land bridge (*cough*Panama*cough*) to create a connection between two large bodies of water. It would allow for faster travel times and grant naval access to the larger inland seas.

Brilliant idea.
IC

This has been suggested before, but I'll support it again.

And then we'll have battleships engaging tanks 100 sectors inland.

Maybe if there was a limit of a train of 5 canal sectors, but otherwise you have people using canals the way people use bridges now, just a way to get land units to defend against sea units, and Vice versa

Just throwing this out here, but what if the ships couldn't attack while in a canal? That would ensure the purpose would be only to move the ships, and not exploit the system.

How easily that could be implemented I have no idea, but just tossing that out there.

The canal idea is pretty cool. It would be best used by allies to transport stuff from one sea to another or through each other.

There are two things that could already prevent exploitation:
1) Canals would have to be built by contruction trucks that are next to them.
2) Canals could be destroyed like bridges. Just a few jets could seal off a naval invasion. This would cause the enemy to unload CTs in an attempt to build the canal back.

And that would be bad why? I would LOVE for my enemies to expend $$$ on canals AND then use warships instead of tanks. That would be HILARIOUS!

If you are truly concerned about people blowing wads of $ to make the entire map bi-modal-transport-accessible (i.e. canals on land and bridges on water), then increase the cost a tad to discourage such nonsense. Personally, I would promote it to the detriment and downfall of my mathematically challenged and strategically inept enemies. [/devil]