Are rivers to simple?

[Will9]

If you look at any detaited map of Europe, North or South America, or China, you will notice that rivers of all sizes are almost everywhere. If you look at civ you notice it that all rivers look like the Nile, few rivers that rarly combine and don't increasing in width. I think rivers should be split into three catagories:

Small Rivers- provide fresh water, provide trade connections, 60% of rivers. These rivers should be 50% more common than rivers curently are in civ. About half will join another river, or grow to a larger sive before ending.

Medium rivers- provide fresh water, provide trade connections, +1 food, +1 gold, 35% of rivers. These rivers are similar to rivers such as the Mississippi and the Rhine.

Large Rivers: provide fresh water two squares away, provide trade connections +2 food, +1 gold, 5% of rivers. These are similar to the last section of rivers like the Amazon or the Ganges. These should only apear in the last few squares of the largest tropical rivers.

[cashman]

It would be nice if rivers were navigable with ships, at least up to a certain point.

[Adagio]

Are rivers to simple?

Yes, would be nice to have different size rivers... maybe Civ V

[Diadem]

Would be nice, yes, to see realistic rivers. Navigatable by ships, etc.

But, that will be Civ V or VI

[Will9]

Originally posted by cashman
It would be nice if rivers were navigable with ships, at least up to a certain point.

I forgot to mention that all ships should be able sail in large rivers, and Battleships, Destroyers, and Aircraft Carriers shouldn't be able in medium rivers. If Longboats ever become the Viking UU, they should be able to sail on small rivers.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Diadem
Would be nice, yes, to see realistic rivers. Navigatable by ships, etc.

But, that will be Civ V or VI

Plus bridge building (and bombing etc)

[MasterDave]

While I do agree that rivers are a bit too rare on certain maps (I played a game recently where I did not have a single river in the radius of my first six cities, with no gold or other commerce resource, my science definitely suffered for a while), I think that making them more complicated, with a multi-tier terrain value is sort of adding complexity for complexity's sake. I also think, that making the mouth of a large river so enviable might be too much of a terrain advantage, and would have to be somehow balanced by a lack of other resources.

Perhaps to make a river navigable, there could be a "canal" improvement that could be built instead of a cottage or waterwheel on river tiles between a city and the Ocean.

[Will9]

Originally posted by nugog




Plus bridge building (and bombing etc)

That sounds fun.

[Will9]

Originally posted by MasterDave
I also think, that making the mouth of a large river so enviable might be too much of a terrain advantage, and would have to be somehow balanced by a lack of other resrouces.

I said that they would only show up in tropical regions, so an advantage from them would not be available until Iron Working.

[rah]

Yeah, everyone wants that big river until they realize that you can't cross it until you have the tech to build a bridge or boats to cross

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Good point Rah, and I agree with Dave that it might be useful if you had to "improve" the river tiles in order to make them usable for actual transport of units.

What I'd like to see more than different sizes of rivers and rivers that can be utilized by boats, is simply.. more rivers. And more river 'systems' that form more naturally.

River systems that start in the mountains that flow for quite a distance across the map, break off into different branches and then eventually terminate.

It'd be especially nice if it could be done so that most natural lakes were actually fed by rivers. I've never seen a river feeding into a lake. I rarely see rivers that snake their way through a large amount of real estate.

When I do see that? I love it! It's golden because I know I can connect a number of cities without building roads. But it'd be really cool if the rivers were long enough they'd actually stretch from one civ to another on occasion.

Does anybody know if there's a 'maximum length' set into the world generator for rivers? Or how it determines whether a river will exist/split, etc?

[Diadem]

Hmm, you should play on a Great Plains map. The river patterns there are much more natural, and much cooler. Generate one of those maps and open it in the world builder. Is that more to your liking?

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Thanks Diadem! I'll try it when I get home from work

[Addled Platypus]

in the grang scale of Civ, river issues is way back on my list

I am happy with the way it is now

*this does remind me of the cananal issue thread

[Xentropy]

Hmm, I usually play on Fractal maps and find rivers to be quite plentiful and long most of the time. You get the occassional 1-2 tile long river (usually one that stops frustratingly short of entering a desert), but many very long rivers, sometimes which connect two or three civilizations, even.