Better Lakes for VP

[InkAxis]

Better Lakes for Vox Populi
Install Here

This Mod does not modify/use AssignStartingPlots, it is safe to use with mods that do
​

Lakes are an interesting terrain feature, but I feel like in VP (and the base game) they are underutilized. They always have the same yield and are just changed by a couple of buildings so that they don't fall behind. This mod adds new resources and buildings to make lakes more interesting.

Firstly, with this mod, there are two "types" of lake (gameplay wise this is done with a bonus resource):

Salt Lakes

Spoiler :

Regular Lakes

Spoiler :

Firstly, as lakes now have a lot of buildings/resources improving them, their yield is now 2 food 1 production (down 1 food).

Normal Lakes will now have Lake fish sometimes spawn in them. (yes I realize Salt Lakes in real life often have fish, but it is not possible to have two resources at once, in addition to it being too complicated.)

Here are the resources in detail:

Lake Fish
Revealed at Fishing.
Provides +1 Food. (3 food 1 production without improvements)
This resource is strong early, but it only spawns on a few tiles of the lake.

Salt Lakes
Revealed at Agriculture.
Provides -1 Food (1 food 1 production without improvements)
This resource is bad early, but has strong buffs later and populates the entire lake.


Here are the buildings:

Spoiler :

Unlocked at Masonry

Spoiler :

Unlocked at Physics

*Note: Lake fish can only be improved with this building, and only 1 resource will be improved per building.

Spoiler :

Unlocked at Chemistry

Overall Gameplay Impact:
Salt Lakes will be much weaker for the ancient era, only producing 1f 1p, compared to Lakes producing 2f 1p and Lakes with Fish producing 3f 1p. However, with the Salt Gatherer, they get boosted to 2f 2p, about equal in strength to Lake Fish. Lake fish later get boosted at physics by the fishery, with all Lake Fish being stronger and one of the fish resources being further improved by a fishing boat. At this point Lake Fish are stronger, but keep in mind that they are only one tile, whereas Salt Lakes are the entire lake. The last building buffs all lakes, but provides an additional buff to Salt Lakes, making them pull slightly ahead in the end.

All buildings/beliefs that previously buffed lakes have not been changed. (eg. Aqueduct, Windmill, Goddess of Purity)

 

[InkAxis]

What do you guys think? I'm eager to hear your feedback and balance.

The spawn rate of Salt Lakes and Lake Fish I have been testing for a while and I think I have settled on a good amount but feedback would be appreciated.
Additionally, if you want to change the rates they spawn at, you can go into: Better Lakes for Vox Populi -> core -> ResourcePlacement.lua. There it has the numbers to change the rate of spawning as well as instructions.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Does this mod increase lake spawning in general alongside adding the resources/buildings? I find lakes rarely spawn in most games, which is a shame because I like instances where I can form connections inland with cities and forts/citadels.

 

[InkAxis]

Does this mod increase lake spawning in general alongside adding the resources/buildings? I find lakes rarely spawn in most games, which is a shame because I like instances where I can form connections inland with cities and forts/citadels.

No, as that would require a mapscript change, but you can change the map settings to Wet and that will increase the amount of lakes IIRC.
Edit: wet will not increase the amount of lakes.
However I believe that also increases the amount of forests/jungles and marshes.

The more I think about it the more I realize I know very little about the map settings. Does anyone know exactly what Wet affects?

Also,
@tu_79 does communitu_79 increase the amount of lakes? It seemed like that to me but I have no idea. If not, is there an easy way to increase the amount?

 

[azum4roll]

Communitu_79a definitely has a much higher amount of lakes than vanilla maps (which has less than 10 tiles usually, unless it luckily forms a small inner sea that's less than 10 tiles so it becomes a lake).

 

[Asterix Rage]

With Monopoly Buildings!, this mod is the proof that a simple idea + a very good achievement give an excellent gameplay enhancer mod.

 

[InkAxis]

Communitu_79a definitely has a much higher amount of lakes than vanilla maps (which has less than 10 tiles usually, unless it luckily forms a small inner sea that's less than 10 tiles so it becomes a lake).

Yeah, that's what I thought. From my testing I once got a map with 62 lake tiles, and that was on the tu79 map. So @Kim Dong Un I would recommend playing on that.
Edit:the wet setting doesn't affect lakes.

With Monopoly Buildings!, this mod is the proof that a simple idea + a very good achievement give an excellent gameplay enhancer mod.

Thank you for the kind words. You are always very supportive of new mods, thank you.

 

[tu_79]

Does anyone know exactly what Wet affects?

During climate formation, a humidity map is created. It follows the altitude map, water tiles and winds, so it looks realistic. You get a rainfall map that looks like 43% a tile, 45% next tile, 60% next tile, etc. Then, a threshold is decided for every climate. You tell the script that between 20% and 40% plains and deserts can be formed, but no jungles, forest or grassland. If you use the Wet map option, then the threshold is reduced, so you get plains and deserts when humidity is 15% to 35%, making wet tiles more common.

EDIT. The wet option does not increase the chance for lakes.

 

[gwennog]

I was thinking about how to create a new saline building while limiting the amount of salt available. Your idea is excellent, hats off.

 

[Tekamthi]

love it.. reminds me vaguely of the 'cistern and marina' mod on steam https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=231577173 which seeks to bring variety and value to lake cities as well. I often run this one alongside VP, though its not quite balanced in that form. Happy to have an alternative.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

Looks interesting and overall balanced, definitely going to try this in my next game and hopefully it will convince me to not reroll lake starts again

 

[Delvemor]

love it.. reminds me vaguely of the 'cistern and marina' mod on steam https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=231577173 which seeks to bring variety and value to lake cities as well. I often run this one alongside VP, though its not quite balanced in that form. Happy to have an alternative.

Yes I was about to make a similar comment. I used to always have this mod before I converted to VP, I no longer use it. I will definitely try the alternative.

 

[Delvemor]

I assume the fishery can be built in 2 different cities adjacent to the same lake for potentially improving 2 different lake tiles in that same lake ?

 

[InkAxis]

I assume the fishery can be built in 2 different cities adjacent to the same lake for potentially improving 2 different lake tiles in that same lake ?

Yes, as long as a city has (within three tiles) a lake fish it can build the fishery. Each fishery will improve 1 lake fish so in total 2 will be improved if you build two. I was just clarifying that only 1 tile will be improved from one fishery, no matter how many resources there are.

 

[adan_eslavo]

You could consider cooperation with @HungryForFood, who already modified AssignStartingPlots.lua and make Salt lakes separated from Rivers and Seas (on picture you provided there's a River connection).

Another thing is @Deljade's Berries for VP mod, who is currently incompatible with EMR.

You should make Github project together and merge those mods and even expand more if possible. Parts of mod could be enabled/disabled at demand.

 

[InkAxis]

You could consider cooperation with @HungryForFood, who already modified AssignStartingPlots.lua and make Salt lakes separated from Rivers and Seas (on picture you provided there's a River connection).

Another thing is @Deljade's Berries for VP mod, who is currently incompatible with EMR.

You should make Github project together and merge those mods and even expand more if possible. Parts of mod could be enabled/disabled at demand.

For the thing with Salt Lakes: I realized early on that lakes are already a pretty rare feature, so I decided that salt lakes will just spawn where ever, as if they were realistic there would be way too few of them, and in some games you would get many and in other games you would get none, so i decided to keep it a ratio.
Of course if it is done in AssignStartingPlots then it could be changed such that rivers specifically do not spawn near a certain amount of lakes, but that would be more work, and I don't know how to use AssignStartingPlots.

The github suggestion is a great idea, certainly for the Berries mod and EMR. My mod currently doesn't use AssignStartingPlots, and I don't know how to use it so I am not sure how much I could contribute. If it is easy enough I could learn.

 

[adan_eslavo]

For the thing with Salt Lakes: I realized early on that lakes are already a pretty rare feature, so I decided that salt lakes will just spawn where ever, as if they were realistic there would be way too few of them, and in some games you would get many and in other games you would get none, so i decided to keep it a ratio.
Of course if it is done in AssignStartingPlots then it could be changed such that rivers specifically do not spawn near a certain amount of lakes, but that would be more work, and I don't know how to use AssignStartingPlots.

The github suggestion is a great idea, certainly for the Berries mod and EMR. My mod currently doesn't use AssignStartingPlots, and I don't know how to use it so I am not sure how much I could contribute. If it is easy enough I could learn.

It is not difficult. I made few things for More Wonders. You can always compare base VP file and EMR file to see what changes were made by @HungryForFood and analyse them.

Remember that EMR's file is modification of old VP one and hasn't been updated recently.

 

[Valvts]

Very cool idea!

 

[maxf]

I think it would better to use usual work boats to improve fish on lakes.

 

[InkAxis]

I think it would better to use usual work boats to improve fish on lakes.

Well, work boats can only be built in coastal cities, so if that were the case then coastal cities would have stronger lakes than inland cities, which doesn't really make sense. The current system is more or less balanced, I don't see a reason for a change.