Issue with aqueducts

[Antonym]

So I recently started a new game of Civ 6 with a modded civ and I can’t build an aqueduct in my capital. Although my city is not adjacent to a river there is one another tile away. Logically I would be able to build an aqueduct in between. But instead I can’t. Even though I could do the same thing in one of my other cities. It could be just a glitch caused by the mod but if not then I’d love to have some answers.

[Gonzo_o0]

Can you provide a screenshot of the city?

[gimmethegepgun]

In the last game I was playing I had a similar glitch, in an unmodded game. The city was on the river and one of the tiles inexplicably was invalid (playing Rome, so Baths are gud even when you already have fresh water). Never did figure out why.

[Exemplar]

is it a flood plains thing

[cerberusiv]

Don't think it is the OP's issue but what I recently noticed is that I cannot build an aqueduct on a tile directly across a river from a city. Not flood plain. I am wondering if there is no graphic for an aqueduct that loops back on itself to the same tile edge so you can't use a tile across a river. I did build an aqueduct on a tile on the same side of the river as that city.

OP - screenshot with the mouse pointer on that tile so the tooltip shows please.

[I Am Atomic!]

are you 100% sure the tile you want to build your aquaduct in has access to water? tiles at the end of a river LOOK like they should have access but dont. you can tell for sure by mousing over the tile in question and seeing if it lists fresh water in the list of what is in the tile.

ps you can also build aquaducts to mountains that have no water, i guess they melt the snow on the mountain and send it down the aquaduct or somthing xD

alternatively you could build lots of farms, plantations and camps for 0.5 housing each + take policies that increase housing to tide you over + rush culture for neibourhood districts.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

The game won't let you build districts on tiles that contain revealed strategic or luxury resources. It will let you build most districts on tiles that contain unrevealed strategic resources, presumably so as not to break the illusion that there is nothing special about the tile.

Apparently, aqueducts (and baths) are the exception to this rule. Some tiles that should otherwise be valid placements for these districts will instead not be valid, which can really mess with your city and district placement, since you can't know which tiles will be invalid until after you found the city. Ultimately the cause will be revealed when you later discover a strategic resource in the rejected tile.

In most of my games this problem doesn't even come up, because I almost never build aqueducts - unless I'm playing Rome or Khmer. When I play those civs I try to build one in every city, and then inevitably it becomes an issue in one or more cities. I'm forced to build the district somewhere I don't want to place it, or worse, in the case of a city not placed directly on a river, I'm blocked from being able to build the district at all in a city that desperately needs it.

I assume that this is a bug, some flaw in how the district is defined in the game, but I don't know. I certainly can't think of any good reason for aqueduct districts to be predictive of future resources, or blocked by them. Then again, I can't think of any good reason for blocking the placement of districts on resources at all, so maybe the flaw is in my understanding of the game's intended design.

The best workaround I can offer is to check your intended aqueduct placement as soon as you found a city (once you unlock aqueducts) and if the tile is invalid then reload and place the city differently. If reloading is not an option then always try to place your cities in locations that will have multiple possible aqueduct placements, in case some of them turn out to be blocked.

[Antonym]

Thanks for your help, I’ll make sure to take note next time I found a city.