[C3C] Worlds with no rivers

[md4]

I don't remember this as a common situation back when I first played Civ3, but I think I've been dealt 2/4 games since reinstalling, and the current game I just started looks like it's going the same way (though I only have about 50% of the world explored so far). They have been small/normal sized maps with every other setting in the middle.

With no freshwater lakes on any of the 3 continents I've settled so far in this current game, I have managed to make it to ~900AD without irrigating a single tile.

This seems like pretty unlikely odds I'm hitting, so I'm curious if this is actually more common than I remember, or is it possible to influence map generation in some way by customising the .biq file? So far my customisations have been almost entirely restricted to governments and units, nothing with any obvious connection to terrain.

 

[CKS]

Unless you are playing archepelago, this seems pretty unusual to me.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

I've had worlds with no rivers when playing archipelago and even continents. My current game is Small/Pangaea and has at least one river (most of it is mine ).

 

[md4]

Unless you are playing archepelago, this seems pretty unusual to me.

Quite so. I did play 1 archipelago map with a seafaring civilisation, but the rest have been on continents. I am sure I rolled the occasional riverless world back in the day, but the frequency of it now seems statistically...unlikely.

 

[Fergei]

I get this all the time, mainly on archipelago (even 60% ocean) but also on continents. There is no way I'd play blind on a randomly generated map as I don't think the quality is consistent enough and a few quick tweaks with the editor can work wonders. To try and give myself a more enjoyable experience I now do the following:

- save my customised game settings as a blank template
- generate a map on this template until I kind of like the look of one
- check the map to make fresh water available on every continent and ensure no Civ starts in a place with no hope of ever getting Iron.
- usually stick a random uninhabited island somewhere remote with lots of goodies on it (to reward mid-game naval exploration across oceans)
- save the map under a non-descript name in a folder filled with lots of other non-descript titled maps so that none of them leap out.
- pick one out of the folder the next time I start a new game (when I'll have no memory of what the map was about)

 

[md4]

I ended up mitigating this by moving the ability to irrigate without fresh water from Electricity to Engineering. I didn't like it, but I've played 20–30 games now so far and I'd estimate still >50% of the time I have no fresh water at all, even when I expand to all available islands/continents. If I didn't do this I'd be getting into the industrial era without a single patch of irrigation in my empire. Pretty sure that's not what the developers intended.

 

[Buttercup]

So its not just rivers you're talking about but no lakes as well? Now that is unusual. I've had plenty of games where I haven't particularly noticed any rivers, but there's always been lakes somewhere. But then again I long ago decided to not start a map unless it at least had a river or lake for my Capital, unless I'm in the mood for something different, so maybe I'm not the best person to imagine such a scenario. Seriously though, not even any lakes on the entire map?

 

[md4]

In some cases there was 1–2 rivers on the other starting continent. But more often than not, I'll get no rivers, and maybe 1 (if I'm lucky) lake on my starting continent plus every island I manage to settle (which is most of them because I go hard and early on maritime exploration).

Short version: I've only met the prerequisites to build the Hoover Dam twice.

Edited to add: I play roughly equal Small/Standard sized worlds, and randomise everything else.

 

[Fergei]

I ended up mitigating this by moving the ability to irrigate without fresh water from Electricity to Engineering.

I think I'll steal that. Much less laborious than what I am currently doing and makes some sense given the propensity of waterways, wells and underground rivers throughout the planet (far more fresh in real life than in Civ3 or we'd still be in the stone age).

 

[WeirdoJoker]

I can see where that mod might be useful. Playing Monarch/Small/Archipelago/80%/Vikings. Very little fresh water to be found, and none near my starting point. I'm entering the Industrial Age getting close to Electricity, but so far I have no irrigation. Soon it won't matter, but my growth has been severely stunted (and my next invasion needs to be for coal, anyway).

 

[md4]

It can be a fun challenge to overcome, but it really needs to be the exception and not the rule.

 

[md4]

On the topic of rivers, and because I cannot find anything that covers this explicitly, do corners constitute river-adjacency (for the purposes of not building an aqueduct?

For reasons already stated, my river game is somewhat rusty. I've marked the tiles where I think a city would not need an aqueduct (and can later build the Hoover Dam), but not 100%. (I'm fairly certain the tiles N and NE of the warrior-on-the-hill would not count.)

 

[r16]

an easy way should be looking at terrain yet undeveloped , a grassland of 2 food , 0 shields , 1 gold means you won't need an aqueduct . When in doubt ı check it that way .

 

[md4]

Thanks @r16. I can't believe I didn't make the connection.

 

[tjs282]

On the topic of rivers, and because I cannot find anything that covers this explicitly, do corners constitute river-adjacency (for the purposes of not building an aqueduct?

On a randomly generated map, yes they do.

However, on modded maps, where rivers have been placed by hand, sometimes the game does not recognise river-corners as being watered. @Marla_Singer's World Map has this 'problem' in places (but it's still a fantastic piece of work nonetheless).

On modded maps, therefore, using the tile-check described by @r16 is the only way to be sure of whether a tile will be counted as watered or not.

For reasons already stated, my river game is somewhat rusty. I've marked the tiles where I think a city would not need an aqueduct (and can later build the Hoover Dam), but not 100%. (I'm fairly certain the tiles N and NE of the warrior-on-the-hill would not count.)

No they wouldn't, but neither would the tiles to the west, I think:

(Assuming that this was a randomly generated map!) The red line marks the path that the game considers a river to be on, the dashed lines enclose the tiles considered to be watered. The 'source' squiggle on the map-screen is a purely cosmetic graphic; it does not indicate that the nearby (NW) tiles are (also) watered in-game. So a town on the tile I marked 'Dry' would (also) need a Duct.

Hoovers is a different story, though.

Hoovers has the Editor-flag 'Must be near a river' but not the flag 'Must be near freshwater'. But Firaxis really screwed up with the flag-labelling here, because the similar wordings actually have different meanings.

'Near a river' = A river must border at least one tile, anywhere in the town's BFC, to build this improvement/Wonder
'Near freshwater' = The town must be founded directly adjacent to a river or lake, to build this improvement/Wonder

So Hoovers could actually be built in a town founded almost anywhere in that screenshot.

The only places it couldn't be built (based on the visible river, at least!) are on the 2 (mostly cut-off) tiles in the upper left corner (I marked one of them with an 'X'), the tile which is only showing a tiny sliver at the lower left, and possibly the Grass tiles NE of the Warrior on the Hill.

 

[md4]

This just goes to show there is no such thing as a dumb question around here. That is so much more than I expected to learn from asking "how do rivers work?"

And yes, it's as randomly generated as can be. (As an aside, I think I may have rolled Raging-level barbarians because my hopes of utilising a settler pump (just south I have a city with floodplain wheat and a good amount of hills and forrests) have been dashed by the sudden appearance of about a dozen barbarian horsemen. Though the RNG gods are smiling on me for once because I just spawned an SGL on the discovery of mathematics, a turn's march from a city with ivory. And lo!, unlike Rome the Temple of Zeus was—on this occasion—built in a day.)

 

[r16]

Thanks @r16. I can't believe I didn't make the connection.

you are welcome , but honestly ı must say ı know this game for maybe 15 years , playing seriously for more than a decade but ı know checking terrain tile properties for a year , and that at most .

 

[tjs282]

I think I may have rolled Raging-level barbarians because my hopes of utilising a settler pump (just south I have a city with floodplain wheat and a good amount of hills and forrests) have been dashed by the sudden appearance of about a dozen barbarian horsemen.

I have been setting Barbs to raging in most of my recent games, and then mostly regretting it. And then forgetting to reset it again for the next game.

In my current game (Large, Random[60% Arch?]-map, Emp, Random-Persia), I made it to Republic reasonably fast (didn't make the full sling: used Philo to get Lit, built cheap Libs to research CoL/Rep, then traded those techs around), and got a nice gold-pile building up for upgrading my vWarriors to vImmortals.

Then got hit by the era-switch (Dutch + Summies, I think), and lost most of my stash to Horsebarb-looters, who trekked across 5-6 tiles from the barb-hut that spawned them, to attack my nearest city, instead of the Dutch and Zulu CrapTowns^tm which were only 2 tiles north/south of the hut

Though the RNG gods are smiling on me for once because I just spawned an SGL on the discovery of mathematics, a turn's march from a city with ivory.

*Psssst*

(I'm sure you know this but) If you have Ivory hooked, you can build SoZ anywhere within your trade-net, doesn't have to be in the town with the 'Phants.

 

[md4]

My excuse is that I'm new to Conquests. (And besides, I have only recently mastered rivers, which have been there since 2001.)

 

[md4]

I have been setting Barbs to raging in most of my recent games, and then mostly regretting it.

I am definitely regretting this. In around 150BC, "a major barbarian uprising near <city>" turned out to be 5–6 simultaneous uprisings across my entire continent, each consisting of ~12 horsemen. Lost 2 ancient cavalry and 2 archers in the opening onslaught, and suddenly my defenses feel very stretched.