Found a decent way of making navigatable rivers

[Tominokar]

Some may have worked this out already, but for those who haven't...



This is the early stages of the mississipi. I achieved the appearance by drawing the river in 'heights' with water, only single pixel width. Then the river in 'features' is done in exactly the same place. This is awkward due to smaller scale, and it's easiest to do with the game open as reference to see where you've gone wrong. The river is now fully navigatable, and doesn't have annoying waves on the shoreline- it is a bit larger and more rigid than normal, but I don't think it's possible to get much better.

[alpaca]

Hmm nice idea, do fords and bridges still work normally?

[Tominokar]

Hmm nice idea, do fords and bridges still work normally?

Nope, but with rivers big enough to navigate, there wouldn't really be bridges or fords anyway (like the mississipi until recent times). I guess land bridges work though.

A word of advice: when you do this kind of thing always check the battlemap. There is absolutely no guarantee that what looks OK on the campaign map will look even remotely acceptable on the battlemaps.

Yeh I'll check that later, I reckon it will just look water does normally, as it cancels the river out.

[Muizer]

A word of advice: when you do this kind of thing always check the battlemap. There is absolutely no guarantee that what looks OK on the campaign map will look even remotely acceptable on the battlemaps.

[GrnEyedDvl]

I was wondering if you have any updates on this.

[wilddog]

The river would stop a land bridge from working although you could always not place the sea on the part of the river you wanted a ford/bridge.

[repman]

You can make rivers to be navigated by ships and you can have bridges crossing them. Problem is ships can't cross road connection points or bridges. So i abandoned this.

repman

[wilddog]

You can make rivers to be navigated by ships and you can have bridges crossing them. Problem is ships can't cross road connection points or bridges. So i abandoned this.

You're right I forgot about that when I posted.

[Tominokar]

Yeh sorry I forgot to reply back. It looks prefectly fine in battlemap, only thing is it doesn't 'flow', but tbh I don't notice that when playing anyway.

No you can't have bridges, but in the timeframe of most of the mods being made there weren't bridges built over massive rivers anyway. Eg. The Mississipi, Nile, Ganges etc. I'm sure it's the same with many others, and it's quite easy to check when the first bridge was built.

Land bridges (the green arrows) work fine, but you lose the 'waveless' effect where you place them.

And last but not least, I've witnessed pirates spawning in the river, and battled them without error (apart from losing miserably), which is pretty cool.

Edit- Here's a pic, the ship has just passed through land bridge. I also forgot to say that fishing villages and ports work on the river, but I haven't seen any trade as there's no resources on my map yet.

[SigniferOne]

This is a really nice thread, thanks for posting. Could you post a screen of the "ending" for one of these rivers? Do they just abruptly stop in a square, or something?

[Slaxx Hatmen]

Interesting, it looks like you essentially made the Mississippi part of the sea in the heights map. Which, when you think about it, seems pretty simple. Wonder why nobody thought of this earlier. Since fishing villages and land bridges seem to work why don't you see how towns react next to the river?(*cough*New Orleans*cough*) Could you show us what it looks like on the battle map? That would be great.

[WImPyTjeH]

Interesting, it looks like you essentially made the Mississippi part of the sea in the heights map. Which, when you think about it, seems pretty simple. Wonder why nobody thought of this earlier. Since fishing villages and land bridges seem to work why don't you see how towns react next to the river?(*cough*New Orleans*cough*) Could you show us what it looks like on the battle map? That would be great.

This is already known for a long time, since Rome. And it's indeed just drawn in the heights map. I was assuming that a road couldn't cross a navigatable river but Uranos found a way to do it.

W

[Tominokar]

As requested, screenshots of where it ends (I've ended it in places where the tributories no longer navigatable at the time), and what it looks like on the battlemap. It's as close as you could get the units on the strategy map.

[WImPyTjeH]

Looks very good The turn is a bit sharp but those are just details :wink:

W

[Caesar Clivus]

Quick question: can your new river support trade routes?

[Tominokar]

Quick question: can your new river support trade routes?

I don't know for sure yet as my map doesn't have any resources, but I can't see why not as it is recognised as 'sea'.

[on a mountain]

Tommyknocker:
Thanks for your - in hindsight obvious - river idea. Of course I had to go immediately and implement it into my fledging map:




Great suggestion!
(now I only have to edit those nasty edges)

[Caesar Clivus]

I don't know for sure yet as my map doesn't have any resources, but I can't see why not as it is recognised as 'sea'.

Hmmm...that would be awesome for Russian factions. Historically the rivers in Russia were the major trade routes. I have always wanted this implemented somehow

[vipez]

That looks pretty cool.

[Grass_Watcher]

I can't get this to work, do i delete the map_heights.hgt cause everytime i do that the games wont launch.