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Desert beside a river

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  • #1

    Desert beside a river

    Here is the start position from my latest game. Out of shot (but revealed by moving the warrior diagonally south east) there are what I initially took to be flood plains. Actually, they are desert tiles adjacent to a river. I don't recall seeing this before. In fact I thought the map generator changed desert by the side of rivers to flood plains - although clearly I was wrong. Is this a common feature that I just happen not to have seen?

    RJM
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    Fill me with the old familiar juice
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  • #2
    It's not common, but apparently it can happen. I've often seen it, but I play the Earth map alot, which doesn't follow the rules of the map generator, and maybe I've only seen it there.

    I know that in the Worldbuilder, if you place a river by desert it doesn't automatically change into floodplains. You have to change it manually. On a side note, rivers can actually make deserts quite usable late in the game, with Replaceable Parts, Electricity and State Property.

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    • #3
      It's a problem with the way the game improves the starting positions. Flood Plains are placed before this occurs and sometimes a river gets created in a start location in order to provide access to fresh water. If that river happens to pass through a Desert tile, then no Flood Plains are created since that phase has already been done. If you get Solver's unofficial patch, he's included Bhruic's fix which deals with this problem.

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      • #4
        Thanks guys.

        As an alternative to Solver's patch, I could just go into Worldbuilder and change the tiles .

        RJM
        Fill me with the old familiar juice

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        • #5
          rjmatsleepers, automatic fixes are preferable to opening up that worldbuilder (with all of its collateral temptations -- let's move those horses from his territory to mine, a little gold right here wouldn't hurt, undsoweiter).

          In real life, rivers do run thru non-fertile desert-like areas of the world. Often, alkaline flats and rocky soils don't benefit from the presence of a river. Not that RL has any real effect on what we see from the map scripts, with the possible exception of the tectonic scripts.
          No matter where you go, there you are. - Buckaroo Banzai
          "I played it [Civilization] for three months and then realised I hadn't done any work. In the end, I had to delete all the saved files and smash the CD." Iain Banks, author

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Blaupanzer
            rjmatsleepers, automatic fixes are preferable to opening up that worldbuilder (with all of its collateral temptations -- let's move those horses from his territory to mine, a little gold right here wouldn't hurt, undsoweiter).

            In real life, rivers do run thru non-fertile desert-like areas of the world. Often, alkaline flats and rocky soils don't benefit from the presence of a river. Not that RL has any real effect on what we see from the map scripts, with the possible exception of the tectonic scripts.
            You mean I should stop giving myself horses, copper, iron, coal, aluminium and lots of food specials? But if I do that, how am I gonna win?

            RJM
            Fill me with the old familiar juice

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            • #7
              Originally posted by rjmatsleepers


              You mean I should stop giving myself horses, copper, iron, coal, aluminium and lots of food specials? But if I do that, how am I gonna win?

              RJM
              I have a strict rule about that. Only move some specials to a more convenient location. Then I only break that rule when I really want to
              Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi Wan's apprentice.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Willem
                It's a problem with the way the game improves the starting positions. Flood Plains are placed before this occurs and sometimes a river gets created in a start location in order to provide access to fresh water. If that river happens to pass through a Desert tile, then no Flood Plains are created since that phase has already been done. If you get Solver's unofficial patch, he's included Bhruic's fix which deals with this problem.
                Why is it a problem? Is it not possible to have a river flowing through a desert.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by couerdelion
                  Is it not possible to have a river flowing through a desert.
                  Well certainly. But most people, myself included, expect to see a Floodplain on a desert river tile. If it was a reasonably common event then people would just accept it as bad terrain. Since it's such a rare thing though, it comes across as a bug. Hence it becomes a problem.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Willem


                    Well certainly. But most people, myself included, expect to see a Floodplain on a desert river tile. If it was a reasonably common event then people would just accept it as bad terrain. Since it's such a rare thing though, it comes across as a bug. Hence it becomes a problem.
                    I've never seen it as a problem. If anything the problem was that floodplains were ONLY found on desert tiles.

                    What seems somewhat perverse is that good fertile land is less productive than large areas of desert in Civ4 simply because there is a river.

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                    • #11
                      The Mississippi and the Dnieper both have extensive floodplains and no desert for 800 miles in any direction. Even the Nile floodplains are not literally fertile desert. They are acres of river mud running through the desert. Oh well. I think we can live with desert bordered by rivers that isn't a floodplain. However, I read that Solver's "unofficial" patch addresses this very issue.
                      No matter where you go, there you are. - Buckaroo Banzai
                      "I played it [Civilization] for three months and then realised I hadn't done any work. In the end, I had to delete all the saved files and smash the CD." Iain Banks, author

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Blaupanzer
                        I think we can live with desert bordered by rivers that isn't a floodplain.
                        Speak for yourself, it drives me nuts whenever I see it happening in the game. If it's early and the area is fairly large, I'll even start a new game rather than play with a map I percieve as bugged. There may be real life precedents for this, but in the game all Desert rivers are supposed to have Floodplains.

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Willem


                          Speak for yourself, it drives me nuts whenever I see it happening in the game. If it's early and the area is fairly large, I'll even start a new game rather than play with a map I percieve as bugged. There may be real life precedents for this, but in the game all Desert rivers are supposed to have Floodplains .
                          If that's the case, would it really be cheating to WB the Floodplains in?
                          And indeed there will be time To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?". t s eliot

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                          • #14
                            The reason I found desert rivers an issue is that they can lead you to the other civ starting positions, as they can only be created from such places. Which can help rushers a lot, while the ai won't notice the issue.
                            Clash of Civilization team member
                            (a civ-like game whose goal is low micromanagement and good AI)
                            web site http://clash.apolyton.net/frame/index.shtml and forum here on apolyton)

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                            • #15
                              Emperor Willem, where does it say in the great book of Civ IV that "in the game all Desert rivers are supposed to have Floodplains." I think that such a pronouncement would justify intervention on your part through the WB or with a restart. But I strongly suspect that the quoted material is your understanding rather than some hard-and-fast rule being violated when no flood plain appears.
                              No matter where you go, there you are. - Buckaroo Banzai
                              "I played it [Civilization] for three months and then realised I hadn't done any work. In the end, I had to delete all the saved files and smash the CD." Iain Banks, author

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