Cities and water

[Angular]

A couple of questions about how bodies of water affect cities and their founding sites:

1. Do cities benefit from being located next to a river or fresh-water lake? I'm curious about the possibility of a river being a link to resource tiles, among other things.
2. What is the size threshold for a lake to lose its fresh-water status, i.e., ability to enable irrigation in adjacent tiles?

[taillesskangaru]

Rivers give cities extra health. They also allow you to build hydro plants.
Tiles near rivers also give 1 extra commerce, and they can be irrigated before civil service.
Also rivers are trade routes so all cities along a river are linked.

[Munch]

2. I believe that a lake loses its fresh water status if it contains at least one ocean tile - i.e. a water tile not adjacent to a land tile - I don't think there's a size limit as such.

[Bradlius]

As to lakes vs oceans, I think if the body of water is completely surrounded by land, it is fresh water. Otherwise it is a salty ocean, and thus does not get the health bonus of fresh water for your city.

[DrewBledsoe]

Originally Posted by Angular

A couple of questions about how bodies of water affect cities and their founding sites:

1. Do cities benefit from being located next to a river or fresh-water lake? I'm curious about the possibility of a river being a link to resource tiles, among other things.
2. What is the size threshold for a lake to lose its fresh-water status, i.e., ability to enable irrigation in adjacent tiles?

All cities touching the same river, are automatically linked for trade and resources. If a resource is one tile away from one of these cities, and not touching the river, then just one road to that city means all the river cities have the resource, and if one of them happens to be a port (and you have sailing), then this resource is also shared by all other ports and cities connected to a port.

In screenshot one :-

If all roads were removed, then Ulundi, kwaDukuza. and Avignon would still be sharing resources and trading, as they are on the same river. With just one road tile to the river, so would Nodwengu, and since kwaDukuza is a port it would connect the city shown far right (Nongsomething...damn Zulu names can't remember ) and all other ports. This is all just with one road, and the sailing tech.

Screenshot two :-

Shows a largish inland sea to the west of Ulundi, and I'm not sure but because it has one ocean tile right in the middle, the rest are classed as coastal, and cannot be used for irrigation purposes. However it then has the benefit of being able to support lighthouses and harbours (see Nodwengu)...

When I was first exploring, I presumed that the inland sea was the real ocean coast (until I went right around it), and was surprised that it was completely surrounded. Most of the time, a lake like that would be fresh water.

[Thedrin]

Any body of water containing 9 tiles or less is a fresh water lake. Any body of water containing 10 tiles or more is salt water.

[Angular]

Thanks to all for the discussion.

Originally Posted by Thedrin

Any body of water containing 9 tiles or less is a fresh water lake. Any body of water containing 10 tiles or more is salt water.

So a body of water two tiles wide and five tiles long would be salty?

Originally Posted by DrewBledsoe

All cities touching the same river, are automatically linked for trade and resources.

Does this work for cities connected by a river-lake-river network? As in real-world examples that include the US Great Lakes, Lake Victoria in Africa, or the Caspian Sea.

[Angular]

Originally Posted by taillesskangaru

Rivers give cities extra health. They also allow you to build hydro plants.
Tiles near rivers also give 1 extra commerce....

Do lakes also yield these benefits?

[KMadCandy]

as a side note, if you build a coastal city on the ocean with a lighthouse, that has any freshwater lake tiles in it, the freshwater tiles now give three food instead of two. they're all oasiseseses basically, yum!

lakes do provide the freshwater health bonus to a city. in both the river and lake cases, the city has to be actually touching the freshwater to get the health bonus, it's not just a matter of being in the cross of the city. lakes do not let you build hydro plants or 3GD i think.

if you go into worldbuilder and add freshwater adjacent to a city that wasn't on freshwater when it was founded, you don't get the health bonus added. i ummmmm heard this from a friend *giggle*.

[taillesskangaru]

Originally Posted by Angular

Do lakes also yield these benefits?

Lakes are tricky. You can't work them until you have fishing. They give 2 food and 2 commerce iirc, so it's like working a coast tile. Anyway they give you fresh water so you can irrigate surrounding tiles. Oasis also give you fresh water and allow you to irrigate tiles next to it as well.

I'm not sure about hydro plants I think cities next to lakes can build hydro plants iirc.

[Thedrin]

So a body of water two tiles wide and five tiles long would be salty?

Yes, it would.

[DrewBledsoe]

Originally Posted by Angular

................Does this work for cities connected by a river-lake-river network? As in real-world examples that include the US Great Lakes, Lake Victoria in Africa, or the Caspian Sea.

Hmm, tricky again. If all the lakes are salt water, and you've got sailing, and have a city on the shores of each lake, then yes the lakes would act as "chain" points for trade and resources. If they were freshwater, I'm not sure...

In civ terms, rivers (not only for the commerce and health potential) are so valuable earlier on in that they link resources and on huge maps, they lessen the amount of roads your early empire needs, meaning less stuff for those pesky varmit barbarians to try and pillage, and thus less for you to guard (especially true with marathon speed)..

Last point, because you mentioned the Caspian Sea, and I'm a geography buff, here's a quote from one of my books....

Even more striking are the variations in salinty throughout the sea. Off the mouth of the Volga, the source of 80% of the water flowing into the Caspian, the water is virtually salt free. Elsewhere in the basin, the water contains 1.3% salt, about 1/3 that of seawater. But in the shallow Kara-Bogaz-Gol, the salt content is 35%, 10 times as much as seawater.....

Civ Iv can't really cope with that, and I suppose on a huge world map, the Caspian would have to be one or the other and not both

[Bradlius]

Originally Posted by Thedrin

Any body of water containing 9 tiles or less is a fresh water lake. Any body of water containing 10 tiles or more is salt water.

Man, I'm so embarassed I guess I'd never seen a ten-tile lake before and assumed the truth of my earlier post. Never assume...

[Alsark]

I'd also like to note that desert tiles that are near a river are turned into "floodplains". Now, normally, as you probably know, a desert tile is useless, as it doesn't produce food, hammers, or commerce, not to mention that you cannot put improvements on it. Floodplains, on the other hand, have three food and three commerce. This makes them, by far, the best tiles for either a farming city or a cottage city, but unless you have workshops built on the floodplains, then your production will be poor unless there are hills or mining resources nearby. Floodplains do generate a bit of unhealthiness, but I find it to be worth it due to the increase in food. You can also build watermills next to rivers, though I never really use watermills.

Also, in my production cities I generally remove forests in favor of mines or workshops, but, when next to a river, a lumbermill will generate commerce for your city. It's only one extra commerce, sure, but why not build a lumbermill over a mine when they both offer the same amount of hammers?

[Unionfield]

I find that sometimes the health benefits of building cities next to rivers can be voided by the annoyance of not being able to build roads over them until you get the proper research. Sometimes, especially on higher difficulties, rivers can prove to be natural boundaries to expansion.

[DrewBledsoe]

Originally Posted by Unionfield

I find that sometimes the health benefits of building cities next to rivers can be voided by the annoyance of not being able to build roads over them until you get the proper research. Sometimes, especially on higher difficulties, rivers can prove to be natural boundaries to expansion.

Crossing a river (pre engineering)takes away one mvt point......unless you are playing miniscule maps, I don't see how this slows expansion in any way at all.

[thordk]

crossing a river on roads takes away one movement point. in the early expansion phases you'll rarely use roads to move your settlers around.

[DrewBledsoe]

Originally Posted by thordk

crossing a river on roads takes away one movement point. in the early expansion phases you'll rarely use roads to move your settlers around.

Agreed, that's what I meant, but why on earth would it slow expansion down then? A settler still has 2 mvt whether it be across a river or not, and archers and axes only have 1 anyway.

[Bushface]

re river/freshwater lake/river linkage: just tried this in WB and there is no link. I set up two little rivers into the same lake, put a pop'n 3 city beside each river, gave one Iron+mine and the other Wheat+farm, plus all ancient and classical techs. The resources were not shared.

[Hero]

Is that '10 tiles=salt water' rule the same on every map size?