Should Rivers provide City Connections?

[Snipergw]

In Civ4, settling along cities was satisfying and rewarding in part because it provided automatic city connections. Of course, in that game, where every improvement needed a road, it ultimately wasn't that impactful.

Civ5 removed this feature, replacing it in part with gold yields on rivers and coasts to show off essentially the same idea: that rivers were very important, and very beneficial to trade. This was removed with G&K's, probably for the better, since the yields were a bit over the top. In exchange we had some other reasons for settling on rivers: watermills (which were not useful in vanilla) and gardens. Freshwater farms were of course nice, but you could still exploit those even if you settled away from the river.

In VP we do have river only buildings, but we have non-river building equivalents that are almost as good. With one specific pantheon, settling away from the river is even better! I feel like reintroducing rivers providing city connections, either immediately, at a specific early tech, or behind a building (docks, port, marina, moorage?) would bring back some of the excitement to rivers. Technically it shouldn't be a hard ask -- since it was in Whoward's bundle, it may even already be a disabled thing in code? I digress.

What do you guys think? It would lessen the early dependence on roads somewhat (but still important for mobility), and encourage natural sprawls along long rivers. Would it make early sprawl too strong, combined with the city connection policies? I dunno, but the idea seems thematically sound and satisfying to me. Let's discuss.

 

[kenneth1221]

This is part of the current Songhai UA. Does Songhai need a nerf?

 

[Snipergw]

Honestly, I'd say yes. Mandekalu makes them extremely oppressive in their period and they tend to snowball incredibly well. Giving them a small buff wouldn't be unreasonable if you gave part of their UA to everyone, though.

 

[andersw]

This is part of the current Songhai UA. Does Songhai need a nerf?

Yes, auto city connection, also available for Iroquis through forest and Carthage on coastal cities is really strong.
Not sure if its strong enough for a nerf.
Question is if the AI is good enough to make use of it, and if rivers are very limited it gets very map luck dependant, both things can be bad for general balance.
There are in particular a few already strong Civs that have starting preference on rivers.
It would of course mean that Songhai needs a new UA also.

 

[pineappledan]

If river connections were made a universal thing then Songhai could get a bonus to river connections.

This would address an issue I have had with Songhai for years: they’re just river Iroquois:

• City connections for rivers/forests
  
• Additional movement for units on river/forests. Combat bonus on river/forest via free promotion (amphibious/woodsman)
• Late ancient building that gives Production on all river/forest tiles
• Early game melee military unit

 

[CrazyG]

I think of Iroquois as the copy of Songhai, not the other way around. Funny how people can see it differently.

I don't like this suggestion. Rivers are already very good. Fresh water gives a very relevant bonus to farms, and baths are a great building. Instant city connections from rivers would require a serious rebalancing of progress and the God of Commerce pantheon. It also means that the guy who starts on rivers can plausibly skip roads for a very long time (maybe all game) which puts the guy without fresh water even further at a disadvantage.

 

[ASCII Guy]

What I don't like currently about settling on rivers is that you can't get a city connection until engineering.
Edit: Brain fart. Progress would be a lot worse if this was the case.

 

[Blue Ghost]

What I don't like currently about settling on rivers is that you can't get a city connection until engineering.

Roads over rivers work just fine for city connections. The change at Engineering only applies to units crossing rivers.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

Map generation is not very favorable to make this more relevant from what my experience.

 

[Tekamthi]

I'm indifferent on this one, though i voted no for the sake of not fixing things that ain't broke, so to speak. Soft no, cuz I generally like the civ franchise staples, and often have played with friends that have expected status quo from previous versions on mechanisms like this.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

I'm against it for a couple of reasons.

• Map generation is a huge factor in deciding a lot of thing and it feels that it completely takes the player agency sometimes, i don't want it be even more impactful giving a player free roads, gold and less unhapiness while another player is still trying to connect his forest plantation at turn 60.
• It's already a part of a UA of an already very niche civ.
• As others pointed out, progress and god of commerce get a huge benifit from city connection that you normally have to work for it ..... with this it's just free science/gold.

 

[JamesNinelives]

In VP we do have river only buildings, but we have non-river building equivalents that are almost as good. With one specific pantheon, settling away from the river is even better!

Sorry, which pantheon are you referring to?

I kinda like that non-river cities can still be pretty good. I love settling on rivers, but as others have said they're not always available.

IMO the water mill is pretty good though. I just checked and the most recent version also does have Baths, which are a river-only building too. Rivers do provide a benefit to trade routes as well! A +25% modifier if I remember correctly .

 

[pineappledan]

Sorry, which pantheon are you referring to?

Goddess of Fertility unlocks its full potential sooner if you build away from rivers, since wells are before water mills

 

[JamesNinelives]

Goddess of Fertility unlocks its full potential sooner if you build away from rivers, since wells are before water mills

Thanks. Haven't gone that route before myself.

 

[CrazyG]

Sorry, which pantheon are you referring to?

I kinda like that non-river cities can still be pretty good. I love settling on rivers, but as others have said they're not always available.

IMO the water mill is pretty good though. I just checked and the most recent version also does have Baths, which are a river-only building too. Rivers do provide a benefit to trade routes as well! A +25% modifier if I remember correctly .

Baths require fresh water, not river. So a river, oasis, or lake will enable them to be built.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Baths require fresh water, not river. So a river, oasis, or lake will enable them to be built.

Ah, OK! I was going off the Civilopedia entry .

 

[lolo123]

VP makes RIVER_CITY_CONNECTIONS default, but Songhai does not receive any compensation.

UPDATE CustomModOptions
SET Value = 1
WHERE Name = 'RIVER_CITY_CONNECTIONS';