Coastline ... Wait...

[Jewbat]

This is the millionth time I've come across this particular feature (maybe a bug?) wherein Civ 5 classifies something as coastline/ocean where in reality you find out that it's just a giant lake.

Why does Civ 5 do this? It gimps some AIs, such as Monty who depend on terrain being accurately depicted. Had to restart a 100 turn game in which I found out that my coastline capitol for the British (big maritime civ) was actually a large lake, effectively making my capitol useless in terms of production for ships and the like...

Rather frustrating to say the least...

 

[Montezuma II]

Not every enclosed body of water is a lake...

 

[Jewbat]

Lake -
Noun
A large body of water surrounded by land: "boys were swimming in the lake".

 

[KrzTeKILL]

Yeah I've noticed this as well. I never realised it could impact game play though.

Previous civs always differentiated because you needed fresh water to irrigate -but I don't think they had as large lakes at Civ 5.

They obviously just don't care.

And Montezuma, it is certainly not an ocean.

 

[tomtom5858]

Lake -
Noun
A large body of water surrounded by land: "boys were swimming in the lake".

So the Black Sea is a lake? And don't give me that "it has a connection to the Mediterranean" nonsense, because then I'd provide an example of the Caspian Sea. Also, Waskesiu, Great Slave, and the Great Lakes all have a connection to the sea. You're wrong I'd say a lake is a moderately sized body of water. Smaller than a sea, large than a pond or a slough.

OP, a lake is 9 or fewer connected water tiles. Anything larger is an inland sea.

 

[Ranos]

Do a Google search on inland sea.

 

[Jewbat]

Then why isn't it classified as such? It's obviously not coastline because a coast would suggest that it is an ocean... You're all so busy trying to disprove this and argue semantics that the original point of the topic is gone.

 

[vanzlmalc]

Yeah, inland seas can mess with your plans. You better scout everything early

 

[Pouakai]

Avoiding the real life discussions that seem to be plaguing the topic, the game engine has been designed to designate any body of water more than 10 tiles big to be classified as a sea / ocean. While it can be a negative, it also has positives by allowing for navies and naval buildings to be constructed on the lake, which is better having when you don't need it than not having when you do

 

[Xaks]

I'd think a lake is fresh water, generally, and a sea is salt water?

Then again, there I go thinking...

 

[bcaiko]

It can be frustrating when you discover your capital is built on an inland sea, not the ocean, like you thought. Then again, I'm sure people along the Mediterranean Sea thought that was an ocean at one point in time before getting to Spain or the Arabian Penninsula.

There are some benefits to being on an inland sea, though:

• They give access to water based buildings, like Lighthouses, that improve the tiles' output.
• You can build cities along the sea, connecting them by harbors. No need for roads!
• Naval units can be build on a inland sea, meaning cities under seige can be protected by both the city, a garrisoned land unit, and a naval unit inside the city.
• Some inland seas can be connected to the ocean if there's a one tile land space between the sea and the ocean. You can found a city to act as a canal. I just did that in my latest game, in fact, where my capital was built on an inland sea.

 

[Xaks]

It can be frustrating when you discover your capital is built on an inland sea, not the ocean, like you thought. Then again, I'm sure people along the Mediterranean Sea thought that was an ocean at one point in time before getting to Spain or the Arabian Penninsula.

There are some benefits to being on an inland sea, though:

• They give access to water based buildings, like Lighthouses, that improve the tiles' output.
• You can build cities along the sea, connecting them by harbors. No need for roads!
  [*]Naval units can be build on a inland sea, meaning cities under seige can be protected by both the city, a garrisoned land unit, and a naval unit inside the city.
  [*]Some inland seas can be connected to the ocean if there's a one tile land space between the sea and the ocean. You can found a city to act as a canal. I just did that in my latest game, in fact, where my capital was built on an inland sea.

 

[Cahillicus]

So the Black Sea is a lake? And don't give me that "it has a connection to the Mediterranean" nonsense, because then I'd provide an example of the Caspian Sea. Also, Waskesiu, Great Slave, and the Great Lakes all have a connection to the sea. You're wrong I'd say a lake is a moderately sized body of water. Smaller than a sea, large than a pond or a slough.

OP, a lake is 9 or fewer connected water tiles. Anything larger is an inland sea.

The great lakes are connected to the ocean by a river (freshwater). The black sea is connected by other seas/various straits (saltwater). I think as long as it has a salt water connection to the ocean, it's a sea. Inland seas, however, have no connections to the ocean, and the sediments from rivers make it salty. They don't have to be big. The dead sea is not that big compared to many lakes.

 

[IkM]

It can be frustrating when you discover your capital is built on an inland sea, not the ocean, like you thought. Then again, I'm sure people along the Mediterranean Sea thought that was an ocean at one point in time before getting to Spain or the Arabian Penninsula.

There are some benefits to being on an inland sea, though:

• They give access to water based buildings, like Lighthouses, that improve the tiles' output.
• You can build cities along the sea, connecting them by harbors. No need for roads!
• Naval units can be build on a inland sea, meaning cities under seige can be protected by both the city, a garrisoned land unit, and a naval unit inside the city.
• Some inland seas can be connected to the ocean if there's a one tile land space between the sea and the ocean. You can found a city to act as a canal. I just did that in my latest game, in fact, where my capital was built on an inland sea.

Good post. Once, I built a city between north and south america (there was a one tile) and my ships were passing west to east and east to west america so easily.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Regarding the mis-used noun or defeinition

This is a strategy game.

In real life, A LOT of used words are used incorrectly in the game, BUT, in the game.

- A Lake is a small body fo water that is less than X tiles of water, I believe a lake is considerd to be less than 5 tiles of coast tile.

Take a look at how the game defines a continent

A continent is any piece of land that is not connected to another piece of land, i.e a single tile is a completely new continent, while a pangea that looks like two continents but is connected with a single mountain tile is considered a single continent.

It's a game, and the game needs certain rules that break the reality of the world.

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

I'm not one of the script-readers, but through experience, I've found the game consistently defines an enclosed area of water as coastal rather than multiple lake tiles if either of the following 2 conditions are met:
1.) if, during map generation, there are any seafood resources within the enclosed area of water.
2.) if the body of water is wide enough at any portion to allow any deep (ocean) tiles.

 

[wigwam]

So the Black Sea is a lake? And don't give me that "it has a connection to the Mediterranean" nonsense, because then I'd provide an example of the Caspian Sea. Also, Waskesiu, Great Slave, and the Great Lakes all have a connection to the sea. You're wrong I'd say a lake is a moderately sized body of water. Smaller than a sea, large than a pond or a slough.

No. "Lake" is defined more precisely than "sea" or "ocean." The Black Sea is not a lake; it has a two-way connection to the Mediterranean: water flows from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. A lake has only a one-way connection (rivers feed the lake and rivers drain the lake; no body of water does both at once). The Caspian Sea is, by some definitions, a lake. What sets it apart from other lakes isn't its size, but rather the fact that it contains an oceanic basin (whereas lakes all lie on top of continental crust). It's basically a landlocked part of the ocean.

Slightly more on-topic: how big do we suppose a hex is supposed to be? How many square kilometers does a 10-hex lake represent?

 

[SamBC]

You want large areas of inland water in the game to be seas, because you may want to actually put units in them. The question is just where the line is drawn.

 

[Viregel]

No. "Lake" is defined more precisely than "sea" or "ocean." The Black Sea is not a lake; it has a two-way connection to the Mediterranean: water flows from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. A lake has only a one-way connection (rivers feed the lake and rivers drain the lake; no body of water does both at once). The Caspian Sea is, by some definitions, a lake. What sets it apart from other lakes isn't its size, but rather the fact that it contains an oceanic basin (whereas lakes all lie on top of continental crust). It's basically a landlocked part of the ocean.

Slightly more on-topic: how big do we suppose a hex is supposed to be? How many square kilometers does a 10-hex lake represent?

According to one post, one hex=30,000 km in real life. (Or something along those lines)

 

[Pouakai]

Given the Earth's circumference is give or take 40,000 kilometres, I think 30,000 on one hex is a bit much