An idea for a new skill if anyone is willing to consider this: canal making and damn building
canal building: you would be able to create a small stream tile by tile that would extend from a river and into your settlement, in the beginning it is not large enough to travel by boat and only bonus would be that it would give you a boost in crop quality; however over time if you keep expanding it and making it wider, it would be able to have a boat travel on it and allow you to go right from your settlement to a river via boat instead of walking.
damn building: would be a type of vandalism that would result in you blocking off someones damn and making them unable to sail on it. This has immediate complications because if two villages are fighting each other, you could damn your opponents canal and diminish their food supply and would help in your overall fight with them.
main purpose would be to improve travel across the game world since i'm pretty sure travel via boat is much faster than by foot (just like in the time) and would allow people to have more interaction with the landscape