How to decrease the default terrain height?

[Hafiz173 9]

Hi Guys!

I've been in a very big problem. When i make a region, the default height is so tall, it is hard to make any water. I remembered that it WAS easy, like a single click from valley button will already make a sea/river. How to fix this? I am very frustrated since it's very hard to make seashores.

Thanks in Advance!

[cogeo 960]

Are you using one of the original Maxis regions or you are trying to render one from the STEX/LEX?

Check whether you have some "Height Mod" installed in your plugins.

If you are rendering a grayscale map you may need a Height Mod, for the map to be rendered correctly. Check the uploader's instructions.

SC4 Mapper and Terraformer  have a raise/lower tool, which affects the whole region. Or you can raise/lower a part of your map using the SC4TF tools, or even the ingame God Mode tools. But this, ie editing the map, is then called Terraforming...

[rsc204 21,805]

Are you using a terrain mod? If so there is a setting in there that determines the sea level of your game. Adjusting this lower would help, but it's hard to apply to existing regions, since it will drain water from areas which are now under the new sea level.

The basic issue comes when your sea level is say at 250m, but your land is mostly flat and only slightly higher. Hence as soon as you dig to 250m or below, you see water. If the sea level was reduced, say to 200m, that would give you another 50m to play with. But also remove water from any areas above 200m.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If you are using the Landscape Designer there are ample controls for heights and sea levels.  This tool is capable of reading in grey scale maps and adjusting them.

[APSMS 1,892]

Terraforming is unfortunately, never an easy thing if you are trying to do it by hand.

rsc204 is right, that there is a setting if you are using a custom terrain mod. You need to use ilive's reader (or Tropod's SC4 Reader tool) to access the parameter (labelled SeaLevel, appropriately). Keep in mind this will change the sea level everywhere, not just in one region or city.

Alternatively, you can download the SC4Terraformer tool by wounagaine, and create your own region that way. In this case you would need to make a new region in-game, and then exit the game and open the region in the Terraformer. Terraformer takes some getting used to, but one thing it can do is allow you to change the height of your entire region. This way you can lower the land to the level you want, closer or further from the waterline.