Rivers starting in mountians

[Christian_Knight78 44]

I'm not sure if this is addressed somewhere else, but I have a question about rivers. I am creating a region with topographical and geographical diversity. Mostly I'm trying my hand at a coastal region where the terrain is flat and heavily wooded. This gives way to a gentle rise in elevation wooded/plains. Then I have a "front range" with moderately high peaks which give way to "high plains." Past them is the high mountains, very rugged terrain, very mountainous, very high peaks. I have two lakes along the ocean coast, with rivers created. I want the source of the rivers to be in the front range. However, it would not look pleasing to the eye if the rivers are not matching the elevation (like in real life - the source being in the mountains and the river flows downhill to the ocean) and stay at sea level.

[matias93 7,535]

Hi!

This is not really obvious to do, because the game, as it was released, only is capable of recreating water bodies at a single elevation, typically understood as sea level. If you have a sloped terrain and try to use the available tools to terraform a water body, you'll end with increasingly deep pits with water at the bottom, but not rivers or lakes. Initially, the game developers had a plan to include such water bodies, as well as running water and a whole hydric simulation affecting the sourcing of drinking water for the city, but it all got slashed in the release, minus some small loose parts in the game code, affecting fog patterns and seasonal ground textures.

Consequently, during the two decades of modding, many people have devised various alternatives to resolve this gap. In short, there are two big approaches: using custom models to cosmetically simulate water bodies, which is normally called "ploppable water", and using game effects to produce higher water bodies but not running water. In that first approach, we can also distinguish between MMP water mods, which are purely cosmetical, and canal and pond mods, some of which have been further developed to allow navigation with the NAM's CAN-AM mod.

Nevertheless, there's no mod that allows to create rivers with running water and really connected to the sea. Depending on your design purposes, you could simulate a river with a canal mod, particularly on urban segments, or to use MMPs to "paint" a cosmetic river over a dry ravine, which has much more life-like results, but is harder to integrate with network crossings. Probably the best option would be to try to combine both, using canals for the less sloped parts of the river, and MMPs in the steepest ones, but keep in mind, this is quite work-intensive.

[Christian_Knight78 44]

2 hours ago, matias93 said:

Hi!

This is not really obvious to do, because the game, as it was released, only is capable of recreating water bodies at a single elevation, typically understood as sea level. If you have a sloped terrain and try to use the available tools to terraform a water body, you'll end with increasingly deep pits with water at the bottom, but not rivers or lakes. Initially, the game developers had a plan to include such water bodies, as well as running water and a whole hydric simulation affecting the sourcing of drinking water for the city, but it all got slashed in the release, minus some small loose parts in the game code, affecting fog patterns and seasonal ground textures.

Consequently, during the two decades of modding, many people have devised various alternatives to resolve this gap. In short, there are two big approaches: using custom models to cosmetically simulate water bodies, which is normally called "ploppable water", and using game effects to produce higher water bodies but not running water. In that first approach, we can also distinguish between MMP water mods, which are purely cosmetical, and canal and pond mods, some of which have been further developed to allow navigation with the NAM's CAN-AM mod.

Nevertheless, there's no mod that allows to create rivers with running water and really connected to the sea. Depending on your design purposes, you could simulate a river with a canal mod, particularly on urban segments, or to use MMPs to "paint" a cosmetic river over a dry ravine, which has much more life-like results, but is harder to integrate with network crossings. Probably the best option would be to try to combine both, using canals for the less sloped parts of the river, and MMPs in the steepest ones, but keep in mind, this is quite work-intensive.

Thats what I was afraid of. When I do a river in my regions I select the shallow canyon option and press CTRL to narrow the impact circle and carve away. I normally don't try and get a river drawn to my mountainous terrain because I would end up, like you said, with deeply huge canyons with the water at sea level and normally have it just end before the plains. But, knowing that I can use the MMP and the CAN-AM mod is good to hear. Thanks for the tip and food for thought. I will think on this.

[kschmidt 6,163]

That indeed a combination of MMP, Canal, Stream mods. Teirusu Rain mod to have bridges over dry land. Elevation with plopable water Short coastal mountains cut but furthur up mountain maxis cut totally awkward !

Sincerely yours,

Kschmidt

  Edited February 1, 2025 by kschmidt  
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