Waterwheels?

[Dis]

I wish someone could show a picture.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Calvin Vu


Forget the "step" terminology. It's probably easier to explain by saying that the square on the left of the first S branch is L1, and right of the first S branch is R1, etc.

What worries me is knowing how the game decides where the waterwheel is placed if there are choices. But I think I should just go any playtest this myself to see how it works. In the examples given, I would have thought that the R1, R2, R3 tiles might have “used” three stretches of water but there would be at least three more open ones.

It’s the uncertainty that concerns me by not knowing that a given building plan might block out what was intended as a longer term plan.

[Calvin Vu]

Originally posted by couerdelion

What worries me is knowing how the game decides where the waterwheel is placed if there are choices. But I think I should just go any playtest this myself to see how it works. In the examples given, I would have thought that the R1, R2, R3 tiles might have “used” three stretches of water but there would be at least three more open ones.

That's why I said that placing the watermills is tricky . To determine whether you can build a watermill, Civ IV only considers whether it can find a stretch of a river next to the current square and the square on the opposite side of that stretch of river already has a watermill or not. It does NOT care on which stretch of river the watermill is placed on the other side.

Therefore, potentially, a square that has all four sides surrounded by river can block all four squares from building a watermill later.

That certainly makes things more complicated. It's the most complicated aspect of tile improvements in Civ IV. Several of the priorities outright compete with each others for the river squares:

- need to get water for other inland squares from a water source (farm).
- need quickstart for gold (cottage), especially on a square with goo food for the initial growth.
- need to keep our time investment in growing the cottages (even if we don't care about destroying a town for a watermill, the time invested in that town should have been invested in a square which will NOT be destroyed later !!
- need to maximize the number of watermills that can be built (for troops spaceship parts). Most of the time we build stuff, not rush buying them so a hammer is better than a gold coin in general. To do this, we have to build the watermills in correct sequence as well. Yuk.

I have to evaluated each of the river squares based on those criteria.

Dis,
I really struggled with my previous simple drawing of a single riverbend so I won't try that again with something more complicated. If you get a pencil and a piece of paper and draw a river which runs South, East, South, East, South, East then you can see that you have three South branches. My naming convention for the two squares on the left and right hand side of the first South branch is L1 and R1, respectively. L2 and R2 are for the second South branch and L3 and R3 are for the third South branch.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Calvin Vu
... It does NOT care on which stretch of river the watermill is placed on the other side.

In Warlords at least, this is not true, at least the vast majority of the time. While I am occassionally prevented from building a watermill where I expect to be able to,
normally if there is not a watermill graphic on the same stretch of river then I can build one there.

Every stretch of a river can have a watermill on one side of it (in Warlords). I do remember clearly that in the past it was more hit and miss.

[Calvin Vu]

Originally posted by Jaybe

In Warlords at least, this is not true, at least the vast majority of the time. While I am occassionally prevented from building a watermill where I expect to be able to,
normally if there is not a watermill graphic on the same stretch of river then I can build one there.

Every stretch of a river can have a watermill on one side of it (in Warlords). I do remember clearly that in the past it was more hit and miss.

This watermill build rule should apply to Warlords !! I have to destroy previously-built watermills so that I can build more watermills in the right order many times so I'm sure about this. I've learned to ignore the watermill graphics because of this hard-learned lesson. There isn't a Warlords patch yet, is there ?

Anyway, even when what you said were true, it would still be chancy to build a watermill on the square inside the riverbend first since you have no control over which side of the river the program is going to put the watermill. The side where it does not put the watermill might be a special resource square, hill/mountain, or your city and you cannot put a watermill there.

[Jaybe]

I admit to being judicious as to which tiles I first put watermills so I will have the greatest flexibility in placing future ones.

[couerdelion]

Well I managed a little test yesterday and it seems that it will be able to build one if it can "find" an unused stretch. But I will have to retest to see if the one waterwheel at the centre (eg loop in river) can block out ALL adjoining tiles on the opposite side of the river

It still does not help the question of where the waterwheels are put. If we take the S-E-S-E-S-E example I had earlier and use the terminology R/L to determine the tiles to the right and left of each "step" south then my experiment yielded the following

R1 - Waterwheel placed on S1 river stretch
L2 - Waterwheel placed on S2 river stretch
R2 - Waterwheel placed on E2 river stretch

What has happened almost immediately is that there is now a river stretch E1 which is bounded by two tiles that already have a waterwheel. So that river stretch cannot have a waterwheel and, somewhere along this river-chain, I will have at least one less waterwheel than I had hoped for

[Calvin Vu]

Originally posted by couerdelion
Well I managed a little test yesterday and it seems that it will be able to build one if it can "find" an unused stretch. But I will have to retest to see if the one waterwheel at the centre (eg loop in river) can block out ALL adjoining tiles on the opposite side of the river

In your example below, it did not find a stretch of river without a watermill, it found a stretch of river and the square opposite that stretch of river did not have a watermill anywhere.

I am home today so I can verify this. I play with the World Builder but I can't find an option to add a river . However, I found in a saved map something which almost matched what you said and the river goes SESESS. I already have a watermill on the stretch of river E2, built for the square L3. Now I try to add a watermill on the square R3, intended for the unused stretch of river S3. The option of building the watermill there doesn't come up in the worker's build menu. That's because L3 already has a watermill.

It still does not help the question of where the waterwheels are put. If we take the S-E-S-E-S-E example I had earlier and use the terminology R/L to determine the tiles to the right and left of each "step" south then my experiment yielded the following

R1 - Waterwheel placed on S1 river stretch
L2 - Waterwheel placed on S2 river stretch
R2 - Waterwheel placed on E2 river stretch

What has happened almost immediately is that there is now a river stretch E1 which is bounded by two tiles that already have a waterwheel. So that river stretch cannot have a waterwheel and, somewhere along this river-chain, I will have at least one less waterwheel than I had hoped for

With this map, and in the worst case scenario of building R1, R2, and R3 first as I said, you will get only 3 watermills regardless of where the watermills are placed.

[Calvin Vu]

I figured out how to use the World Builder to create the river surrounding a single square and it worked just as I said.