Slitherine

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The beginner difficulty guarantees a water (and metal) deposit near your starting city. The other difficulties do not.

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better make it hotter, which would prevent glaciers.

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Also water deposits represent some underground ice deposits or lakes - they don't prevent the planet from counting as "arid" (like Mars is more than just arid despite supposedly having some water underground).

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That said if you start at Tech 3, you wouldn't survive till the ability to extract water from lithosphere without water deposits if the planet has no water in atmosphere.

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ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

Yeah, it seems to me that there are too many, too rich, too easy to extract water mine spots on most planets (what about moons ? EDIT : ninjaed !)

Add to this private farms & domes not requiring water, and being able to roll xenoplants on sub-zero planets that don't need any water, or buy water from traders, and it becomes extremely unlikely to have any water issues.

Has *anyone* (player or AI) ever lost a game because he failed to acquire enough water ?

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ORIGINAL: Vic

Also I think you need to select HARD mode to NOT have guaranteed water.

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ORIGINAL: zgrssd

Without a water source you would simply not be able to exist.

My headcanon goes like this:
- there is no shortage of settlements on the planets. Most are free folk towns
- only the most relevant become actuall cities
- and of those cities, only those that find reliable sources of water, metal and rare metals have a shot at becomming majors

There are 2 "great filters" between the Free Folk towns, the player and any AI major.

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ORIGINAL: deMangler

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ORIGINAL: zgrssd

Without a water source you would simply not be able to exist.

My headcanon goes like this:
- there is no shortage of settlements on the planets. Most are free folk towns
- only the most relevant become actuall cities
- and of those cities, only those that find reliable sources of water, metal and rare metals have a shot at becomming majors

There are 2 "great filters" between the Free Folk towns, the player and any AI major.

Mine also and it makes huge sense.
You wouldn't be there unless there were water present, as the game stands. However there is still a place for including in the history that whatever lucky water there was close by has expired, and now you are the new leader and what you have won't last forever.
Just another set of initial conditions under which maybe you get to play the community that either against the odds becomes a major, or experiences why those without water rarely become majors.
I will admit that if a game has a hardcore mode, I always play it, failing that I usually stick to whatever is considered the 'standard mode', so I might be a bit biased.

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ORIGINAL: zgrssd

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ORIGINAL: deMangler

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ORIGINAL: zgrssd

Without a water source you would simply not be able to exist.

My headcanon goes like this:
- there is no shortage of settlements on the planets. Most are free folk towns
- only the most relevant become actuall cities
- and of those cities, only those that find reliable sources of water, metal and rare metals have a shot at becomming majors

There are 2 "great filters" between the Free Folk towns, the player and any AI major.

Mine also and it makes huge sense.
You wouldn't be there unless there were water present, as the game stands. However there is still a place for including in the history that whatever lucky water there was close by has expired, and now you are the new leader and what you have won't last forever.
Just another set of initial conditions under which maybe you get to play the community that either against the odds becomes a major, or experiences why those without water rarely become majors.
I will admit that if a game has a hardcore mode, I always play it, failing that I usually stick to whatever is considered the 'standard mode', so I might be a bit biased.

Suggestion:
"History Class: Dwindling Resoruces"
"Player empires start with severely limited deposits."

I would limit it to players, as the AI could not plan itself out off a water shortage while 1 hex from a lake.
This is purely a extra challenge for players.

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ORIGINAL: Vic

Also I think you need to select HARD mode to NOT have guaranteed water.

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ORIGINAL: WiZz

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ORIGINAL: Vic

Also I think you need to select HARD mode to NOT have guaranteed water.

Just generated 2 hard games and got water every time.

Extreme too.

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ORIGINAL: LORDPrometheus

Kind of off topic but what if planets with a hostile biosphere and toxic fauna had the potential to have toxic water as well requiring specific filtration techs to be usable. This may require players using subsurface deposits until they can use the surface water

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ORIGINAL: Uemon

Vic you should consider adding starting resources as a new game settings option.

For example give player control over whether they start with that metal deposit or not. For example i dont care whether i start with taxes or not, whether i get water or not, but that metal deposit kinda makes a huge difference.

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ORIGINAL: zgrssd

Without a water source you would simply not be able to exist.

My headcanon goes like this:
- there is no shortage of settlements on the planets. Most are free folk towns
- only the most relevant become actuall cities
- and of those cities, only those that find reliable sources of water, metal and rare metals have a shot at becomming majors

There are 2 "great filters" between the Free Folk towns, the player and any AI major.

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I would limit it to players, as the AI could not plan itself out off a water shortage while 1 hex from a lake.

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ORIGINAL: LORDPrometheus

Kind of off topic but what if planets with a hostile biosphere and toxic fauna had the potential to have toxic water as well requiring specific filtration techs to be usable. This may require players using subsurface deposits until they can use the surface water

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ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

[...]

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ORIGINAL: zgrssd

Without a water source you would simply not be able to exist.

My headcanon goes like this:
- there is no shortage of settlements on the planets. Most are free folk towns
- only the most relevant become actuall cities
- and of those cities, only those that find reliable sources of water, metal and rare metals have a shot at becomming majors

There are 2 "great filters" between the Free Folk towns, the player and any AI major.

Even realism-wise there are still the sub-zero xenoplants. And I assume that regimes with otherwise abundant resources would be able to trade for water ?

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I would limit it to players, as the AI could not plan itself out off a water shortage while 1 hex from a lake.

I see what you mean (AI being pretty dumb in general), but Vic's AI can't possibly be *that* bad (in this specific case) ?

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ORIGINAL: WiZz
If you find at least 1 glacier/snow hex you solve water problem for a whole game. No need to research/build those buildings which gather water from atmosphere or lithosphere.

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ORIGINAL: zgrssd

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ORIGINAL: LORDPrometheus

Kind of off topic but what if planets with a hostile biosphere and toxic fauna had the potential to have toxic water as well requiring specific filtration techs to be usable. This may require players using subsurface deposits until they can use the surface water

Well yes but also no. You are correct that basic distillation and filtration is very easy however there are many ways for water to be contaminated. Many polar compounds form azeotropes with water which complicates distillation as a fractional setup would be required. Water could also become contaminated by biological means. It is very conceivable for bacteria or fungi to be present in the air of a world and rapidly colonize and exposed water. They could produce a myriad of toxins that could do serious harm to anyone unlucky enough to drink them. I'm just throwing out ideas and this is only one idea to further cement the idea of a hostile world.

(in reply to zgrssd)

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ORIGINAL: phyroks
Im playing on hard and on slower game settings and by turn 80 all the water from planet is gone.

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ORIGINAL: WiZz

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ORIGINAL: phyroks
Im playing on hard and on slower game settings and by turn 80 all the water from planet is gone.

I don't believe it. It seems you don't do any prospecting.