Conquest of the New World scenario - possible to have no direct sea path to China?

[autumnmist]

I purchased all the DLC during the Steam Sale so I've finally gotten a chance to try out Conquest of the New World. On my third go-around, it looked like there was no direct (by sea) path from Europe to China -- there was a whole lot of contiguous land and/or ice blocking the way. Is that normal?

 

[Mods]

There's always 1 or 2 ways blocked, never seen 3 though

 

[The_Quasar]

I've seen them blocked before, but very rare... you may need to go overland and build a Caravel on the west coast. Sometimes there is a one tile isthmus joining the northern and southern continents, often a good place for a city, then your Caravel can go through the city.

 

[Brichals]

I think I played it 2-3 times and was always blocked Had to build a city on the west coast.

 

[MadDjinn]

It has to be very rare.

they use the fractal map as the basis for the new world, then the code checks to see which of the three (no more than two) will be blocked. (north middle south being the choices)

I can see the very rare occurrence of Sea Ice or a water based Natural wonder getting dropped and effectively cutting off the 'open' path. But it'd have to be very rare.

 

[autumnmist]

Hmm, I decided not to play that game through, I'll see if I can pull up the initial autosave in case anyone wants to check it out.

 

[autumnmist]

Couldn't find the initial map but.... apparently if none of the regular civs can make it to China, a barbarian caravel will eventually stumble upon China!!!