Why are lakes so bad?

[steveg700]

In addition to the spam aesthetic issue, fisheries rankle me because they offer no housing. It just seems....not right somehow.

 

[Arraz]

To be fair, if you re next to a lake, housing tends not to be an issue (aqueduct + IZ)

What you say, however, matters to coastal cities with lots of fisheries but no housing :/.

 

[bite]

Indeed, bar their fresh water (and rivers are better) they do still feel like a missed opportunity

 

[steveg700]

To be fair, if you re next to a lake, housing tends not to be an issue (aqueduct + IZ)

Housing is an issue with lakes because you have fewer improvable tiles to take for granted things like aqueducts. Compared to rivers, they're pure downside.

You have a pantheon for rivers and one that's more-or-less for coastal tiles. Be nice to have something for lakes.

 

[UWHabs]

Housing is an issue with lakes because you have fewer improvable tiles to take for granted things like aqueducts. Compared to rivers, they're pure downside.

You have a pantheon for rivers and one that's more-or-less for coastal tiles. Be nice to have something for lakes.

Never mind that on a river you can get a water mill, but no such building exists on lakes. I mean, they're nice because cities there get lots of housing, And if you do get lucky, you can potentially stack some nice canals/dams/aqueducts, but settling next to a lake you pretty much always have at least one or two very useless tiles, plus the extra problems that if you build the harbor on the lake, you may get better adjacency, but then your boats are inland unless if you have a canal/canal city. Or if you want your boats on the coast, you usually have to give up in adjacency.

 

[Victoria]

The thing with Fisheries is they pump up the food volumes significantly.
When I was getting 10 cities of size 30 housing was a challenge apart from in cities I had fisheries because they just went over the housing limit quite happily, especially when I added a food court.
Sewers are not that far through either
Note I do not say neighbourhoods... damn things cause mechanised infantry rebels, no thank you. Rebels should be at your tech level or even 1 below. Not above.

 

[noonex]

To me the coolest thing about lakes is that it brings strategic advantage to defender in border cities (at least early). Otherwise it is meh (except water parks) - but who cares, not all cities must be in perfect locations, sometimes bad location brings valuable strategic advantage. (Unless your capital is lake heavy or you are boxed - but again demanding good location when you are boxed is still strange).

 

[Arraz]

Housing is an issue with lakes because you have fewer improvable tiles to take for granted things like aqueducts. Compared to rivers, they're pure downside.

When settling in the Tundra, lake > river. You will most likely have more than enough workable tiles but not enough food/citizens to work them. In this case lakes are not "pure downside" compared to rivers.

Lakes on flat grassland on the other side are terrible.

 

[acluewithout]

Meh, sounds like Lakes are about right.

As in, yes, lakes are rubbish - something has to be - but: they are probably a better location for Water Parks (because then you can have the 9 tile range extend from closer to the centre of your empire); you can build a harbor for gold and a trade route; you can build fisheries and the fisheries are slightly more useful because, being you're not on the coast, you should have more housing; and lakes provide better locations for city parks.

I mean. Lakes still suck. But it's kind of an okay sucking.

 

[Duuk]

Meh, sounds like Lakes are about right.

As in, yes, lakes are rubbish

Well, if you remember that #FiraxisHatesWater, then yes, Lakes are rubbish and are about right.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Lakes should give more housing because people throw their rubbish in it then.

 

[acluewithout]

Cross posting this here:

Edit: The Royal navy dockyard in lakes is getting really silly because it's giving you boats in them.

So, one further niggle about Lakes.

Regardless of whether Lakes are or are not, or should or should not be, completely rubbish, can we at least all agree the Harbours + Lakes is not working?

England spawning ships in Lakes when they build a RND is silly (...although, one might argue the whole free ship for building RNDs is just silly regardless ... and I wouldn’t disagree...). But it’s still bad for the generic Harbour too - it seems silly lake Harbours generate Great Admirals and worse, if you spawn a Great Admiral, they can often spawn in the lake and get stuck there (particularly irritating if it’s the GA that gives you the iron Clad).

Either Harbours should have certain abilities (eg GA Pts) limited to being on the coast and or Lakes need their own “Harbour” District (a Marina?) with slightly different abilities (eg no GA Pts but additional housing).

 

[Abaxial]

I have seen the AI waste production by completely filling a large lake with caravels.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Cross posting this here:



So, one further niggle about Lakes.

Regardless of whether Lakes are or are not, or should or should not be, completely rubbish, can we at least all agree the Harbours + Lakes is not working?

England spawning ships in Lakes when they build a RND is silly (...although, one might argue the whole free ship for building RNDs is just silly regardless ... and I wouldn’t disagree...). But it’s still bad for the generic Harbour too - it seems silly lake Harbours generate Great Admirals and worse, if you spawn a Great Admiral, they can often spawn in the lake and get stuck there (particularly irritating if it’s the GA that gives you the iron Clad).

Either Harbours should have certain abilities (eg GA Pts) limited to being on the coast and or Lakes need their own “Harbour” District (a Marina?) with slightly different abilities (eg no GA Pts but additional housing).

Yeah I think a district or even a city center building that only goes on lakes would satisfy me in making lakes "good." Maybe something still trade or movement related. Chicago isn't a good city because of the great productive Lake Michigan tiles, it's good because it gave easy access to resouces and connecting different parts of the country partially by way of the Lakes.

 

[AsH2]

..
Regardless of whether Lakes are or are not, or should or should not be, completely rubbish, can we at least all agree the Harbours + Lakes is not working?

England spawning ships in Lakes when they build a RND is silly (...although, one might argue the whole free ship for building RNDs is just silly regardless ... and I wouldn’t disagree...). But it’s still bad for the generic Harbour too - it seems silly lake Harbours generate Great Admirals and worse, if you spawn a Great Admiral, they can often spawn in the lake and get stuck there (particularly irritating if it’s the GA that gives you the iron Clad).

Either Harbours should have certain abilities (eg GA Pts) limited to being on the coast and or Lakes need their own “Harbour” District (a Marina?) with slightly different abilities (eg no GA Pts but additional housing).

Ain't you forgetting something like the "Move to city" ability?

 

[acluewithout]

Ain't you forgetting something like the "Move to city" ability?

I don’t think it works unless harbour is adjacent to your city centre. And it only works for Great Admirals - (England) ships can’t be moved out of a lake without canals.