Expansion/Land Manipulation

[Shunyaku]

I'm trying to figure something out that has caught my attention, but am not finding anything through what means I can think to look; whether it be google, others' comments, or attempted game file editing, nothing seems to hint relating to my goal whatsoever.

In the community hub, there's a poster who's god a "kingdom of the gods" town, and it's fairly impressive, even if poorly zoned and little more than a fustercluck of buildings. What has my interest, is it would seem there is literally NO water on his map; it's just a huge solid square of buildable land!
Is there a way to achieve this? Am I just looking in the wrond places, or is he using some sort of really old map save-file from before water was even implemented? Are there possible downloads anywhere of such a map, or does anyone know what can be done to (even just temporarily) alter the map generation system to provide more land, perhaps with better fertilities? (I get the idea behind sparse fertility, but anyone who has ever lived near any amount of farmland anywhere ever knows real world soil is farmable in a MUCH more congregated a way, if nothing else.) The fact that It's nigh impossible to place a 3X3 segment of farmland is, for me, a real immersion killer.

[City Builder]

The person is using piers to cover up the water and then building on top of the piers

This is how his map looked originally: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1089989427