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It should not be hard to implement that. Make existing saves to spawn only riverless islands in next week's update. This would balance it out the river vs. no river islands ratio.

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over 1 year ago - /u/Ubi-Thorlof - Direct link

Rivers are part of the design of the New World, the challenge they bring was an intended factor in the overall feeling and challenge for the New World from the beginning.

Now, with Anno 1800 slowly coming to an end, we decided to add the riverless versions (of existing islands!) to the overall map pool after all. But the new slots from the expansion will be filled randomly with (preferably) the new islands.