Erie Canal mod

[lodilefty]

Slightly OT, but we did one of these 20 years ago. A really fascinating 3 days.

http://www.midlakesnav.com/

I recommend Syracuse -> Albany, as it's far more interesting, and the view at the top of the 'Staircase' is amazing....

...which reminds me: WIA may need to revise the navigability of the Mohawk near Albany.....

[lodilefty]

Concerning Rochester and Chicago, historically, were ironclads really built in those locales? It seems rather foolish to provide all this canal linkage work if they weren't historically built there in the first place nor the locks big enough to accomodate them. Of course game-wise, it we can't prevent them from being there, we have to have a way to get them out. But, I'm thinking we can prevent them from being built at those locales by removing the harbors.

Given that there is not a lot of gameplay 'up there', harbor-nuking is probably OK. [after exhasting the 'don't build there' option]

It's been fun chasing this. It may be useful anyway, and certainly historical once we get parameters correct.....

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Jabberwock]

What do you mean by the "don't build there" option? If you choose to build an ironclad in Illinois, at the moment you have no choice whether is appears at Cairo, Chicago, or wherever in the state of Illinois. I suspect the game engine is randomly choosing a region that has a harbor. It's the only thing that makes sense observing the game placement behavior.

Line 328 of the Models file defines how NY Monitors are placed:
RaiseRule = $recHarborWS
Area = $NY
AltArea = NULL

So we would have to define a new area that included all NY Ports not opening exclusively on Lake Ontario. then:

RaiseRule = $recHarborWS
Area = NULL
AltArea = $NY_Not_Lake_Ontario

We can't close off all the Great Lakes just yet. The USS Cairo appears by event in Chicago at the end of '61. We do want that one to head south, or appear further south, no matter the decision on the others.

$IL_Not_Lake_Michigan, $OH_Not_Lake_Erie, $IN_Not_Lake_Michigan, $PA_Coastal, $PA_Rivers, etc. There are a bunch of uses for this.

Those last two are for building monitors along the coast, and ironclads in the Ohio River. I don't feel monitors in the river is all bad, but ironclads on the coast are a pain. This was a hot topic last fall - I know some players feel strongly about it.

Gray - If you can get some real accuracy for Massanuten and the Blue Ridge passes, that should be higher priority than Cumberland Gap.