Polders?

[SnowKomodo]

So I've just played a total of 5 games in a row with Netherlands where I've had zero marshes and flood plains within my capital city's first 15 or so tiles. I ran around the continent on all these playthroughs and I wasn't much luckier. A lone marsh tile here, a group of flood plain tiles there, but none in convenient city settling locations or within an enemy civs borders.

Is this normal? Do the Netherlands not have a starting bias and I just wasn't aware of it this entire time? Could mods affect this? Or is it just bad luck?

 

[Gamewizard]

Just bad luck. Roll a new game enough times and you will get some in your starting location.

Check out the Game of the Month section for a map you are looking for. This one to be exact:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=476878

Hope you are looking for an Emperor game.

 

[thegingerninja]

In one of my games i'm at war with the Netherlands and they have a river running through desert and it splits into two. They have 8-9 Polders!

 

[SnowKomodo]

Wow thanks for the post. I always saw those threads but never looked into them...this just shot the replay value of civ through the roof

 

[Petiscator]

A few days ago I started a game with a random civilization, just really trying out for fun to see if I liked the map. I got Netherlands, and, as I like playing as them, I decided to give it a try. Nice choice. 7 tiles outside Amsterdam I find 9 marsh tiles and 8 flood plains around a big river near a mountain chain. A w e s o m e.

 

[Phyllis2011you]

Maybe I should give it a try

 

[adwcta]

The starting bias is grasslands, which mean marshes and rivers (perhaps next to deserts, thus generating flood plains) are near. Since the starting bias isn't marshes or flood plains though, you are not guarenteed anything, but if you look around, it's almost always there. The problem is another civ may settle it before you, so if you find a good spot, get your second city up quick!

Since polders are mid-game anyway, and don't really show their amazing value until after economics, it's not the end of the world if your capital isn't near much/any. It's the Dutch, I like how Polders encourage you to settle in random areas by the coast+river (like where the Dutch settled their colonies irl)... it's a very nice game mechanic. However, strategy-wise, this becomes much more of a crapshot. It does mean it becomes a good idea to take over a city state w/ good land early, or to take a weaker civ's city and then make peace with them (since you really just wanted the polder land). Since the economic value of polders on flood plains is astronomical, and commerce-policy synergizes with coasts/naval... you can afford to hold together a rather large network of coastal cities fairly far apart, and use gold to boost your security where necessary. I've only played as Netherlands once, but I grabbed the Great Lighthouse on a fractal map and had a rather ridiculous empire spanning most of the map by turn 250, rush bought tons of science and food buildings in all my settlements after the third one and was well on my way to a diplo victory.

 

[MarauderCH]

Play a game on the Amazon map and you should get a good amount of marshes to work with. I played one recently and I got put up near the amazon delta where there is no jungle but a lot of marshes. One of my cities had only marsh zones around it besides the oceans. I'll have to reload the saves from it and load a screen shot...

 

[Smokeybear]

Since polders are mid-game anyway, and don't really show their amazing value until after economics, it's not the end of the world if your capital isn't near much/any.

Indeed. You're almost better off if you don't get any marshes until later on when you've settled them with another city or two somewhere else. Because if you do have a bunch of marshes close to your capital, it can stunt your growth early. You can't clear the marsh and turn them into farms, because that ruins them and you can't ever make a polder there afterwards. And it takes a couple of eras before you can even make the first kind of polder. So, if marshes make up a good portion of the food-bearing land near your capital, you will be hurting for food for some time, early on. I been there, done that.

 

[EyeofMobius]

I did a quick test game with the Netherlands last night and set the random map to be a terra with start bias active and set the climate to wet. I spawned in thick jungle with tonnes of marsh and river.

Since it was a test I did it on settler and rushed to get the polders up. The jungle was very fertile food wise so I only diverted to mining, quarrying, calendars, and writing before bee-lining the tech for polders. The capital ended up with 12 polders 8 of which were on rivers. All the tiles were marsh that they went on. I think when I decided the test to be finished in the early medieval era the capital had 16 population and + 22 food. I was impressed.

 

[sennomulo]

I just played my first game as the Netherlands, and I had the perfect map for taking advantage of their UI! It was a lot of fun to play. By the time I won my cultural victory, my capital was size 40 and my other cities were 32, 31 and 26.

Attached is the save from Turn 0 if you are interested (or if anyone else is). Large Fractal, Prince difficulty.

Spoiler :

For a sweet capital with nine polders, send your first settler 2 hexes west of the marble. It would be an awesome place for an OCC game, so I might have to play it again and go that route.