Civilization 7 fans find spots on maps for the Panama Canal and beg Firaxis to add it as soon as possible

Longtime Civilization fans share a certain occupational quirk: spotting narrow land bridges on any map and immediately wanting to dig a channel through them for the fleet.

The latest example comes from the game community, where one player shared a screenshot from Civilization 7 showing what they called the perfect spot for a Civilization 6-style Panama Canal on the edge of their growing empire.

The player admitted they hadn't launched Civilization 6 in almost three years, but a trained eye still recognized the right layout instantly. Canals are one of their biggest weaknesses, and that's easy to understand. A well-placed canal is deeply satisfying.

Also, canaling is one of my greatest weaknesses. Even though I can't complete the whole route into the south I just can not NOT build a city right there in the middle to canal into that 4 tile lake on the right, even though it makes very little strategic sense whatsoever.

The series love for canals didn't come out of nowhere. In Civilization 6, full-fledged canals arrived with the Gathering Storm expansion in 2019. The Canal became its own district, built under rules similar to those for city districts, and had to connect a city to another body of water, whether a lake or a sea.

The peak of that mechanic was the Panama Canal wonder. It unlocks with the Steam Power technology, costs 920 production, and once built, it automatically creates one or two adjacent canal districts that ships can sail through.

The current version of Civilization 7 has no canals, and many players call that one of the biggest losses in the move from the sixth game to the seventh. Some have even said they'll stay with Civilization 6 until the situation is fixed.

The series has long had an alternative: cities that work as canals themselves. That option lets ships pass through only a single tile, though, and often forces players to found a settlement in an awkward spot. That's exactly what the screenshot author did, although a true canal to the other side of the continent didn't work out here.

Fans got a spark of hope from a recent Q&A session, in which creative director Ed Beach and lead game designer Matt Owens answered 30 community questions about the free Arc of Tomorrow update and the paid Earthrise expansion.

One player asked outright for canals, as well as bridges across narrow straits. The developers replied that adapting to the environment will be a key theme of Earthrise, and that the studio is looking at all kinds of engineering structures on the map, specifically mentioning dams for protection against natural disasters and canals for naval gameplay.

Many Firaxis fans believe the studio hinted about as clearly as it could, and simply doesn't want to confirm the feature early in case of technical problems. Another theory holds that the studio is saving canals for an official gameplay reveal to build more hype.

The description of the expansion itself gives reason for optimism too. Earthrise focuses on space exploration and adapting to a changing climate. It will bring new units and technologies that can alter the landscape and tile bonuses, along with civil engineering tools for fighting natural disasters.

The Earthrise expansion arrives in 2027, with an exact release date yet to be announced.