Why are lakes so bad?

[acluewithout]

I didn't mean the CH was bad as a district, just that if you look at what it can get adjacency from, without harbors, (land cities are pretty typical in civ games) it's literally +2 for river or not. It doesn't stack (I think it should stack, +2 for each separate named river it touches. Tigris & Euphrates 1-2 punch!) and it ends up being so binary. And for impact, if you don't have harbor triangles, +2 gold is roughly +1 on another district. It just seems like it should have more ways to play around with it, even if that doesn't necessarily make it strong.

I really don't think Commercial Hubs should be buffed. Indeed, I'd like to see Markets get nerfed. I could maybe even see CHs getting further nerfed by not having double adjacency cards for them (I'm sure that's an unpopular opinion - although, equally, I bet no-one even uses the CH adjacency card outside of maybe that CH-Science dedication thingy). Anywho, as it is, Commercial Hubs and Markets are too easy to research and make earning gold too easy compared to many other sources of gold (e.g. Harbours) (although, really, anything that generates gold is currently overshadowed by how much gold you can get from the AI).

I think CHs should have an adjacency for Oasis really more for sake of flavour.

Yay! A thread dedicated to lake-suck awareness! I'm glad I didn't have to be the one to start it.

A couple things I think would help with lakes:

1. Let lakes have appeal, and let them contribute to a national-park diamond. Total no-brainer. This gives them utility on-par with mountains for the park game.
2. Give lakes some pantheon love. How about a pantheon where lakes tiles grant adjacency bonuses *and* holy sites can be built on lake tiles? Kinda need the latter, because without it you wouldn't be able to get much out of the former. Barring that, the existing River Goddess pantheon could roll in lakes to the +2 housing/amenities bonus.

The only thing that makes me hesitate with all this is, shouldn't there be some things in the game that are just... bad? Doesn't the game get a bit samey if everything is good?

For example. I have mixed feelings about Jungles now supporting lumber mills. I'm not sure how much historical sense it makes anyway - like, I assume 'lumber mills' sort of represent sustainable lumbering versus just clear chopping the forest down. If that's right, I'm not sure you can really sustainably lumber a rainforest - I would have thought as soon as you start chopping and replacing trees it's not going to be a rainforest any more. Historically, if people do anything with Rainforests, don't they just chop them down completely...

(... *Opens Browser*, *Googles "Amazon + Brazil + Satellite Pictures"*, *Blinks*, *Googles "Climate Change"*, *Blinks*, *Googles "Climate Change + Apocalypse + When?"*, * Blinks (Again)*, *Googles "Live on Mars + When?"*, *Sighs (Heavily)*, *Reads Forum Guidelines*, *Decides "probably better not to say anything else"* ... )

... er, anyway ... but leaving aside the whole historical bit. I liked that Jungles were this sort of "terrible" tile, so your only option was really just to chop them (the only questions being "when to chop" and "should I place a campus and get some adjacency before I do chop these jungles"). With the new lumbermill changes, Jungles are no longer really bad - they're just another resource tile. I mean, maybe the change is okay, because you can only lumber them after some serious culture research which is kinda different overall, but I do feel something small got lost making jungles more like woods.

Anyway. Lakes. My point is, shouldn't some things just be terrible? If so, aren't lakes a good candidate for being just terrible? It's not like there's really any lake based civilizations in the game (except for the dutch, and they're fine as is).

 

[Karmah]

I do want harbors in a one tile lake. Early or later, harbors are pretty nice boost to a city for this one tile. If the lake is adjacent to your city, no risk of trapping an admiral as they can TP. But yeah ' many lake cities' are somewhat lacking.

 

[Victoria]

There is so much RNG in where you start, I guess we should have good and bad places.
I complained about coast purely because the civ is designed for the coast and it’s worse than lakes in some ways.
Not being able to plant trees around a lake was a pain but it’s gone. I do like the +1 appeal as even a salty desert lake get visitors.

 

[iammaxhailme]

How about a new improvement, "recreational marina" which is like a mini-waterside park? It can just be built by a builder, no need for a district. Goes in a lake (freshwater only). Gives +1 amenity and +1 gold. Can't be adjacent to another one, for balance

 

[UWHabs]

I do want harbors in a one tile lake. Early or later, harbors are pretty nice boost to a city for this one tile. If the lake is adjacent to your city, no risk of trapping an admiral as they can TP. But yeah ' many lake cities' are somewhat lacking.

Yeah, one tile lakes are actually great for Harbors. Especially for Japan, you can pile a lot of districts around it to get some sweet adjacencies.

Of course, that bring up another point, where I don't think you should be allowed to build a harbor in a lake unless if there's a passage from there to an ocean, but that's a story for another day.

As for what can be done about them? To me, they should maybe be more like an oasis tile than a sea tile. I'd rather see them be maybe a 3f/1g tile by default that does not get affected by the Harbor bonuses. And definitely agree that they should grant extra appeal, and would logically be good spots for seaside resorts. Or maybe there should be another tile improvement that you build on the lake tile itself that functions like a seaside resort. Call it like a "Lake Cabin" and visually it would be stuff built along the shore with little jetskis running through the water. +2 gold/+2 tourism per adjacent forest or mountain tile.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

How about a new improvement, "recreational marina" which is like a mini-waterside park? It can just be built by a builder, no need for a district. Goes in a lake (freshwater only). Gives +1 amenity and +1 gold. Can't be adjacent to another one, for balance

perhaps just give adjacency bonus for Entertainment Districts, or +1 happy for city centers built on a lake. Not sure how powerful it is but unique to lakes. We might be a little saturated with the situational improvements.

It should also be rather easy to have a city center building that requires adjacent lake tile, granting +stuff for lake tiles. I can't think of what it would be at the moment, though.

 

[steveg700]

The only thing that makes me hesitate with all this is, shouldn't there be some things in the game that are just... bad? Doesn't the game get a bit samey if everything is good?

Not everyone should be dealt the same hand of cards, but you should be able to make something of the hand you're dealt, not just suck it up or re-roll. Give a player options for turning the sow's ear into something useful.

I do think it's pretty lame to be able to build lumber mills on jungles, but then again jungles are hardly a bad terrain type as they were. They're actually a boon at the start of the game because they grant extra food at a time when builders aren't to be taken for granted. Eventually, they can be removed for a nice influx of pop. That's their role.

Deserts suck, but then again there are some early wonders for them and they tend to have some strategic resources squirreled away under them. Plus, you have a pantheon that makes them useful for religious plays. I have options to consider.

I would suggest that lakes might serve the purpose of helping out with certain goals in the game, such as parks for culture and holy sites for religion, if you have either enough patience and foresight to wait for parks, or you are agile and fortunate enough to seize an appropriate pantheon. I also tend to think there should be a good early wonder either focused on lakes or, preferably, a tile with high appeal. In general, I'd like to see the game provide some strategy for milking high appeal before the early game.

Of course, if you don't work with the opportunities that a terrain type presents, then the tiles can still wind up being junk cards in your hand, but that's due to a missed opportunity, not the absence of opportunity.

 

[steveg700]

How about a new improvement, "recreational marina" which is like a mini-waterside park? It can just be built by a builder, no need for a district. Goes in a lake (freshwater only). Gives +1 amenity and +1 gold. Can't be adjacent to another one, for balance

perhaps just give adjacency bonus for Entertainment Districts, or +1 happy for city centers built on a lake. Not sure how powerful it is but unique to lakes. We might be a little saturated with the situational improvements.

This is what water parks are for. In general, I think the game has enough supplies of amenities and so little impact from lack of amenities that it's just not a compelling buff.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

true, like i said i wasn't sure how powerful it is, but it would be another reason to settle a lake (without having to build a WP or invent new improvements).

 

[fantsu]

Lakes should have more food, because that is how it is. How about a chance for pearls, lakes have pearls too?

 

[sethryclaus]

Hey guys, there's this thang called modding. It helps
To someone who plays with mods, the June 2019 is very much derived from peeps like p0kiehl (sane mods) and JNR (OP AF mods).

[1] Can FXS please give Commercial Hubs +2 for Oasis, or have the Market boost Oasis yields? Come on guys!

Oasis Caravanserai

Lakeside tiles should get +2 appeal instead of +1.

A couple things I think would help with lakes:

And yeah, a seafaring civ starting on a lake pretty much sucks.

I really don't think Commercial Hubs should be buffed.

Better Coastal Cities and Water Tiles covers a lot of what you're talking about here.

Edit: I personally think that coastal Civs are already really powerful on coastal maps. I definitely wouldn't recommend playing with a coastal mod on archipelago as Kupe for example.

Worth noting is that map-gen mods like PerfectWorld6 generate more lakes which makes things like Huey Teocotl a higher priority (though it seems the AI loves it so it's impossible to build lol).

This is the modlist I was playing with prior to June 2019. Many of the mods in the list are effectively superceeded by the patch though. This is the 3rd version as it was very easy to unbalance the game. Notably, most of JNR's mods are too OP.

 

[Bitterman]

For example. I have mixed feelings about Jungles now supporting lumber mills. I'm not sure how much historical sense it makes anyway - like, I assume 'lumber mills' sort of represent sustainable lumbering versus just clear chopping the forest down. If that's right, I'm not sure you can really sustainably lumber a rainforest - I would have thought as soon as you start chopping and replacing trees it's not going to be a rainforest any more. Historically, if people do anything with Rainforests, don't they just chop them down completely...

(... *Opens Browser*, *Googles "Amazon + Brazil + Satellite Pictures"*, *Blinks*, *Googles "Climate Change"*, *Blinks*, *Googles "Climate Change + Apocalypse + When?"*, * Blinks (Again)*, *Googles "Live on Mars + When?"*, *Sighs (Heavily)*, *Reads Forum Guidelines*, *Decides "probably better not to say anything else"* ... )

... er, anyway ... but leaving aside the whole historical bit. I liked that Jungles were this sort of "terrible" tile, so your only option was really just to chop them (the only questions being "when to chop" and "should I place a campus and get some adjacency before I do chop these jungles"). With the new lumbermill changes, Jungles are no longer really bad - they're just another resource tile. I mean, maybe the change is okay, because you can only lumber them after some serious culture research which is kinda different overall, but I do feel something small got lost making jungles more like woods.

Anyway. Lakes. My point is, shouldn't some things just be terrible? If so, aren't lakes a good candidate for being just terrible? It's not like there's really any lake based civilizations in the game (except for the dutch, and they're fine as is).

To be honest, I always thought the same about lumbermills in jungle. Maybe this should be exclusive to Brazil since they are the only ones whose abilities are really based on jungle adjacency.

 

[Duuk]

Anyway. Lakes. My point is, shouldn't some things just be terrible? If so, aren't lakes a good candidate for being just terrible? It's not like there's really any lake based civilizations in the game (except for the dutch, and they're fine as is).

World-wide, there's only a few civilizations that grew around "Lakes" of the size that might be represented on the scale that should be visible on a Civ-scale map, and I'll give you one IMMEDIATE counter-example to your thought process:

The most culturally advanced of the Native Americans was the Iroquois, who grew up around the Great Lakes, which would definitely be on a Civ-world map (Superior, on a "full detail" civ map, would have its own terrain type since it's as deep as an ocean but fresh water).

I guess the main problem is that "large lakes" are exceedingly rare in the world (on the scale that should appear on the map for Civ). There are just not that many lakes that would take up a full hex on the map.

 

[Disgustipated]

Lakes should have more food, because that is how it is.

Not my lake (Lake Mead). Of course my lake is an artificial lake. And a desert lake as well. We do have fish, but damn if I ever caught a fish in there. Not that I'm a good fisherman. But at least I can say I caught fish in the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay, but never once in Lake Mead. I think they may stock fish in that lake as well, I'm not an avid fisherman, so I couldn't tell you for sure. Otherwise only the Colorado river is a source for fish. And I'm not sure if fish can get past dams (I would have to check on that).

I guess the main problem is that "large lakes" are exceedingly rare in the world (on the scale that should appear on the map for Civ). There are just not that many lakes that would take up a full hex on the map.

Agreed. Even the Great Salt Lake probably wouldn't be over 1 tile in size, at least on large and huge maps. Maybe on a small or tiny map you would make it bigger. The Great Lakes are somewhat of a rarity.

 

[ShakaKhan]

Interesting topic. My thoughts:

First, personally I never thought lakes were that bad. Without them, there's two basic kinds of cities - the landlocked and the coastal. Landlocked cities have the benefit of more productive tiles, and as the production yield is so much more valuable in this game than other yields, this sways the tables and makes landlocked cities better. Coastal cities do provide a few advantages, though, as they are often inherently cut off from other civs as your other cities are blocking it and don't need to be defended as much, and more importantly the city/CH/HB triangle generates quite a bit of gold, the sea resources provide quite a bit of gold, and fishing boats give them more gold and have a tech upgrade as well. So your landlocked cities often create the "core output" for your empire while coastal cities generate gold that can supplement your cities. The gold is less efficient than the hammers but with the advantage of being able to be "shipped" wherever you need it. As for the lake cities, its kind of a best of both worlds - they can have the city/CH/HB triangle (although weaker because the CH is missing the river adjacency - this should be fixed by lake tiles should provide +2 adjacency to CH) and still have the much higher percentage of juicy land tiles that a landlocked city has.

Second, there's the appeal and tourism ideas that we have. Completely agree with @steveg700 that lakes should be able to be part of an NP - that seems so obvious. I'd also agree that their adjacency should give+2 appeal as well, and perhaps also be like a mountain where it's own tile has maximum tourism yield?

Third, tile yield. There's three things that improve the base yield (a poor 1F/1G) of a lake tile: lighthouse (+1 food), Huey Tlewis and the News (+1F/+1P across empire) and Auckland (+1P/later+2P). A lot to break down here...
-I have a love/hate relationship with Auckland. As someone who frequents island plates maps, suzereinity of this city state often has as much value as a half-dozen wonders combined. And then you can have a monkey wrench thrown into your strategy if some AI decides to envoy-horde for a while and mass dump them there. I think that water tiles should be less productive than land tiles, but they should be able to achieve the yields that Auckland provides, a +1H early and a second hammer later in the game, but these yields should be unlocked by some method other than suzereinity of a city state, which you have no control over whether or not it's even in the game and when it is in the game it can often be wiped out on some part of the map that you won't be able to influence until much later in the game.
-The lighthouse: I struggle with the function of a lighthouse providing more food to coastal tiles and particularly to lake tiles but it is what it is. Perhaps it could be moved to the city center and the harbor gets a different first tier building? And that new first tier building provides +1 hammer to coast and lake tiles (as I'm proposing that Auckland no longer serves this function) and then either this new 1st tier harbor building provides a second hammer with industrialization or some other thing during that time unlocks it?
-As for Huey, I think it's a pretty well balanced wonder at a good time in the game and has a nice level of situational functionality. If you have a lot of lakes in your empire you build it, if you don't you don't. The intensity of it's effects on lake tiles is pretty good as well, the +1F/+1P brings their yield to 2F/1P/!G and if the city has a lighthouse that's +3/+1/+1, for a pretty good tile that doesn't need a builder charge. I used to have a real mental block with this wonder as I would only build it on those rare maps that have a lake tile with 4 or 5 adjacent lake tiles to get the max amenities from it, but that mental block goes back to the days before water parks and basically a second entertainment district AoE coverage, amenities are much easier to deal with now.

Other thought is that lake tiles should be able to have a fishing boat even if there is no resource on it. This does a few things - the base yield of 1F/1G is an unusable tile, but improved it becomes 2F/2C pretty early and the proposed change of lighthouse in city center gives 3F/2C with the new first tier harbor building (which will take a while to get up) brings it to a 3F/1P/2C. With the heavy investment of a wonder, these tiles can be 4F/2P/2C and in the industrial era a very powerful 4F/3P/2C. This may seem overpowered but don't forget that lake tiles are often RARE. This also adds value to the God of the Sea Pantheon, but no one right now is complaining that that pantheon is top-tier, and the change will bring it into a good place: infrequently moderately impactful and situationally game-changingly impactful.

 

[Arraz]

Hey there.
Imo, lakes can be quite good in some conditions.

Eg : When you settle in the midst of the Tundra/desert, you can have plenty of production while food is much more difficult to come by. Feed the world can do the trick but there's no guarantee you will have it or want it (other beliefs being important for your civ).

In these situations, lakes are basically your salvation. They provide fresh water obviously but also a huge quantity of food if you put in some fisheries (especially if there are bonus resources in it).

I do remember that as Russia there was a game where my biggest/most productive city was fed mainly through 3 lake tiles (one of which had a fish). I had picked up the Huey Tocalli and each fishery produced about 4 food while the fishing boat produced a bit more.

12-13 food + the 1food/tile in the tundra means that you can accomodate 12 people just based on these few lake tiles. As for prod, mines/lumbermills work in the tundra so it's usually fine.

 

[Arraz]

Here's a screenshot of the power of lakes :

Huey Tocali + Auckland + Liang Fishery made me able to settle cities pretty much anywhere with lakes as I would just need to put an aqueduc and some fisheries to kickstart the city

You could argue that Auckland was a specific circumstance and that Huey Tocali is never guaranteed and that the food resource adjacency is a circumstance as well. (meaning that my screenshot is the optimal setup for lakes to be useful)

Still, the above screenshot was taken in the medieval era during which my rice tile with the feudalism boosting (in a small triangle) only produced 5 food.

A fishery with barely the bonuses from the resource adjacency (not even Liang) would still produce 4 food/1gold.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Other thought is that lake tiles should be able to have a fishing boat even if there is no resource on it.

I think we should just allow fisheries without the Liang promotion; but allow them on lakes earlier than coast. Instead Liang would cause all fisheries and fishing boats to gain +1 food

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Just aesthetically speaking, I'm not sure I want fishery spam to become the answer.

Just read a thing about the people that salvage sunken trees from the bottom of deep lakes and rivers. "Submerged Forest" might be an interesting lake-only resource giving production.

 

[UWHabs]

Just aesthetically speaking, I'm not sure I want fishery spam to become the answer.

Just read a thing about the people that salvage sunken trees from the bottom of deep lakes and rivers. "Submerged Forest" might be an interesting lake-only resource giving production.

I don't think I mind fishery spam, although my main flaw with it is because there's nothing else that can go on lake/coast until late, it doesn't feel like you have a real choice with them. At least on regular terrain you have more options available to you, so any spam there potentially has competing options.