Does chopping affect local flooding?

[Dustbrother]

Hey guys

In my current game I went full Goddess of the Harvest and chopped my way through a lot of rainforest. In the center of all this is a large floodplain. I'm in the Medieval era and getting regular flooding there, the last one was bad, knocked out 4 pop in the local city.

Do you think this a coincidence or am I facing early consequences for my chop mania? It would make sense.. Removing forest and rain forest would destroy the integrity of your land. I really hope it is cause and effect, because that's awesome. I'm a bit skeptical though. Anyone had any experiences like this?

 

[Phoenix1595]

As far as what has been explicitly stated by Firaxis, the only effect from chopping is the deforestation modifier for the climate clock, which would just speed up (and post-patch, intensify) late-game flooding on a general global scale, not a localized one.

Of course, a lot of the disaster and climate change mechanics were tweaked in the last patch, so it is possible that the change was included and not expressed in the patch notes. It could be an interesting way to depict the drawbacks of chopping via water erosion, but I also see how it would be difficult for the devs to implement localized effects like that. Your situation might just be a coincidence!

 

[criZp]

I only know that areas with little/no forest are more prone to droughts

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Cool, I did not know of that.

As far as what has been explicitly stated by Firaxis, the only effect from chopping is the deforestation modifier for the climate clock, which would just speed up (and post-patch, intensify) late-game flooding on a general global scale, not a localized one.

Of course, a lot of the disaster and climate change mechanics were tweaked in the last patch, so it is possible that the change was included and not expressed in the patch notes. It could be an interesting way to depict the drawbacks of chopping via water erosion, but I also see how it would be difficult for the devs to implement localized effects like that. Your situation might just be a coincidence!

 

[Bibor]

Yes, it actually helps to leave patches of forests dotting an otherwise barren land, large droughts are really annoying.

 

[steveg700]

Forests shouldn't impact flooding.

Flooding occurs on floodplains, which never have forests.

But they do indeed help prevent droughts.