Okay, who wants to explain polder nuances again? ;)

[steveg700]

Okay, there's not much fun to be had playing Netherlands, so I rested a lot of hopes on the polders changing things up in an interesting way. Turns out they just toss an overlay on top of water tiles rather than actually create land. Maybe that'll change with Gathering Storm, but as it is polders can't serve as boundaries for more polders. I guess that could get out-of-hand, but without building adjacency bonuses, they're decidedly unspecial.

My current source of befuddlement is that it certainly seems that sometimes I have the three land-tile requirement, but still can't build the polder. What makes the tile below an invalid polder case? The mountain? Not the city, surely.

 

[UWHabs]

The mountain. Needs 3 non-mountain adjacent land tiles.

 

[Victoria]

And yes, they are rather unspecial.

 

[steveg700]

Wow, as if they weren't hamstrung enough, huh? I can plop down a lot of them, but basically it's .5 housing here and there. And they'll probably get wiped out by weather and climate effects too (if not, then maybe that could redeem them a bit).

What made them worthwhile in this particular game was getting Auckland firmly under my thumb, and being able to prevent other civ's from bum-rushing them.

 

[Jay247]

lakes are your friends

 

[Disgustipated]

Fractal maps are your friends as well.

I've had good luck with fractal maps with them. Continents and Pangaea are probably worst with them. Actually inland sea is probably worst, or those balanced star shaped multiplayer maps. Stick with fractal, archipelago, or island plates.