{The List} Terrain and terrain improvements

[Nikolai]

Thanks for the kind words. Your suggestion is followed.

[DarkCloud]

A simpler, and in my opinion more elegant, idea has been propsed many times: Remove the tile production boost from railroads, remove infinite movement (say, 1/5th movement cost... a tank can move ten tiles), and add an upkeep to rail tiles.

Fosse- I almost wholeheartedly agree with you except for the removal of the production boost- the production boost simulates a real effect of railroads near cities- now I know it might increase rail building -but many people built rails back in the day for jsut that reason... they covered the lands.

I would also like to suggest a predecessor to railroads- the Canal-- that could increase troop movement. It would prove invaluable to slow-progress tech games and would have to be discovered before railroads. Canals would become possible with the discovery of the Lock and work as railroads when built along rivers!

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Good work on the updating nikolai

[DarkCloud]

Oh, by the way- have you checked out this thread on hex squares yet- (I'm not sure if it's too useful, but if you haven't seen it, it might prove interesting )
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=94361

[Shadowstrike]

Perhaps some sort of climate change model as the game progressed? Not only dealing with global warming, but also with changes in the Earth's orbit and external factors which caused changing sea levels, desertification, warming, etc.

Upkeep for terrain improvements? I dunno, that might be problematic, but roads, railroads, irrigation systems, etc. don't upkeep themselves.

What about land reclaimation, such as in the Netherlands? It would be of rather limited use, though.

[DarkCloud]

Welcome back to Apolyton Shadowstrike! Are you planning on staying for a time and helping out with the list? There's still sections to be claimed!

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As for the climate change idea- I fully agree with it- the Sun's numbers of sunspots have changed from time to time ,and at one time parts of canada had grapes growing in them (much warmer than nowadays)... Maine and the Northern coast of America were the Viking's "Vinland"... and Britain was once much warmer than it is nowadays. back in the times of King Arthur, it was a great place to live in.

Basically ,the game should model in terms of climate:

Sunspot Numbers (These seem to be cyclical and effect the temperature on the earth. A lot of sunspots means a very warm year, very few sunspots mean a very cold year)
Weather Patterns (These shift from year to year "el nino", "la nina", etc. and can make an arid place wet and a wet place arid... they are currently playing havoc with China, India and the US)
Sea Levels
Irrigation Altering Climate (In lands around irrigate areas, the squares should gradually alter and perhaps become more desert
Desertification deserts should expand and contract
Glacierification Perhaps there should be a new impassable terrain type (Glacier) that can expand, contract based upon global temperatures.

These ideas would be even better for Alpha Centauri II and it's global environment control wonder of the world

[Fosse]

Originally posted by DarkCloud

Fosse- I almost wholeheartedly agree with you except for the removal of the production boost- the production boost simulates a real effect of railroads near cities- now I know it might increase rail building -but many people built rails back in the day for jsut that reason... they covered the lands.

But then the problem isn't solved. If you agree that rails covering every tile is a problem (and I don't know if you do), then leaving the production boost in place will mean that it is always better to lay down the railroad spaghetti. Unless the upkeep is extremely high, but that just creates its own problem.

Besides, there are better ways to have rails "increase production" than just having it add another shield or food to a tile. Why not keep the upkeep, remove infinite movment, and remove the production bonus, then give every city that is connected to your civ via rail an X percent production and comemrce increase (raw materials move faster for production, finished goods move faster for commerce), and a Y percent production boost for every city that is connected to another Civ via rail?

The values could be tweaked so that it is always beneficial to connect a city, but not always beneficial (except perhaps from a military standpoint) to have more than one connection.


Plus, with this system you can really target another civ's transportation and it will have the appropriate effect. In Civ 3 if you destroy a rail tile... nobody cares. With this model, if you destroy the right rail tiles you could cause catastrophic damage to their economy AND slow their armies.

[TheBirdMan]

Originally posted by Fosse



Besides, there are better ways to have rails "increase production" than just having it add another shield or food to a tile. Why not keep the upkeep, remove infinite movment, and remove the production bonus, then give every city that is connected to your civ via rail an X percent production and comemrce increase (raw materials move faster for production, finished goods move faster for commerce), and a Y percent production boost for every city that is connected to another Civ via rail?

The values could be tweaked so that it is always beneficial to connect a city, but not always beneficial (except perhaps from a military standpoint) to have more than one connection.


Plus, with this system you can really target another civ's transportation and it will have the appropriate effect. In Civ 3 if you destroy a rail tile... nobody cares. With this model, if you destroy the right rail tiles you could cause catastrophic damage to their economy AND slow their armies.

[wrylachlan]

The Uglies
That's very similar to the idea I proposed on page 2 about rail construction. Give an overall percentage production bonus for being connected instead of a per tile bonus. In order to make it work you need a per tile upkeep, and a rule of diminished return for each rail-road - the first connection gives a 5% bonus, the second only 3%, the third 1% (which might be less than the cost of upkeep).

To expand on this, to totally prevent the uglies, disallow the building of single tile rail-roads. Instead workers can only build RR between two cities(or a city and a colony).

The Movement Problem
I agree that infinite movement has to go, and that a movement bonus would be the best way to go. However I also have a problem with units getting on railroads in the middle. I think they should only be allowed to board in a city or colony, and disembark at a city or colony. While on the railroad, they're sitting ducks.

This would cause me to actually defend my RR at the front or risk a sneak attack on my reinforcements before they arrive.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker
Given that you probably AREN'T defending your coastline, I would assume that most amphibious assualts are going into cities. So one-move units landing doesn't unbalance ship moves because I still can't actually attack that turn. It is only the ability to attack the same turn you lanch from port that is unbalancing. That is why only Marines can do it under this - Tanks and MA take a turn to land, making it impossible to attack that same turn.

You bring up a good point, and I think you're right, but I think you're right because of a couple of corollary issues.
1)The differential between defending against an amphibious assault vs. defending against a land assault is not high enough. If cities had a greater defensive bonus against amphibious assaults, it would become more important to land your assault vehicles. To prevent this, a defender would be more likely to defend his coastline.

2)Infinite Rail Movement - Because you can move anywhere in your territory, it becomes less important to build defensive units and position them strategically.

[wrylachlan]

Nikolai -

You can cut out a lot of the back and forth discussion between skywalker and myself in your summation. I can sum up my position as follows:

There should be a landing movement penalty which Marines (or any other amphibious-flagged unit) is immune to. Additionally Wheeled units either can't land except in cities or colonies, or get a heavier penalty outside of cities or colonies. The penalty itself can be a flat 1 turn penalty or a variable turn penalty based on the terrain (I favor this option).

[lost viking]

Roads and railroads

I agree, there are better ways to give the boost to cities. I don't like the web of roads and railroads either and you don't see it in real civs.


Infrastructure factor

My idea is to calculate an infrastructure factor and use that for boosting trade / productivity in the cities connected. For instance: if all cities are connected by roads you can gain a 50% boost to trade. However, until all cities are connected you will only get a fraction in the cities connected based on cities connected/all cities in your civ.

The same for rails where you could boost production the same way and add to trade as well.

As airports are part of the trade network they could give a boost too, but I think only if they are in cities of a certain size - again you don't see airports in every city in real civs.

If your civ is on several isles / continents you would need a port to connect the parts to the trade network / infrastructure.


Max production in road/rail squares

Normally you would not be able to use land both for roads/rails and farming/production, so there could be a penalty for building a road/rail in a tile, say that tile can max produce one food/one shield. That way you would have to be more careful planning the infrastructure. (I guess you could say you pay for upkeeping that way).

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by DarkCloud

Fosse- I almost wholeheartedly agree with you except for the removal of the production boost- the production boost simulates a real effect of railroads near cities- now I know it might increase rail building -but many people built rails back in the day for jsut that reason... they covered the lands.

I would also like to suggest a predecessor to railroads- the Canal-- that could increase troop movement. It would prove invaluable to slow-progress tech games and would have to be discovered before railroads. Canals would become possible with the discovery of the Lock and work as railroads when built along rivers!

-
Good work on the updating nikolai

If you add the production bonus, it becomes economic suicide to do anything except cover every single tile with railroads.

I'd like to see an "industry" or "settlement" improvement that comes with industrialization and can be created like an outpost or airfield - it eats a worker. It gives a big shield and trade bonus but cuts all food production. This would also require the ability to ship food between cities.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by skywalker
If you add the production bonus, it becomes economic suicide to do anything except cover every single tile with railroads.

Bingo.

And in resopnse to wrylachlan's post: I certainly didn't think of most of the ideas I advocate on my own. Certainly credit is due to those who first proposed them... I just don't give it! (I've also proposed dozens of terrible ideas that others have shot down and changed my mind about!)

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
You bring up a good point, and I think you're right, but I think you're right because of a couple of corollary issues.
1)The differential between defending against an amphibious assault vs. defending against a land assault is not high enough. If cities had a greater defensive bonus against amphibious assaults, it would become more important to land your assault vehicles. To prevent this, a defender would be more likely to defend his coastline.

There is a defense bonus - in the sense that Marines are far worse attackers than Tanks. So it would still be far more cost-effective to land your Tanks and attack. Thus, make it take a turn to unload tanks (or better, just make unloading outside of a city take all movement) and other multi-move units, and everything's fine. If you land Tanks, your attack force is ALWAYS vulnerable (especially because any escorts are unable to fortify).

2)Infinite Rail Movement - Because you can move anywhere in your territory, it becomes less important to build defensive units and position them strategically. [/QUOTE]

[marcthornton]

Rivers need to become a bigger part of the game, there should be some wider rivers say 3/4 of a tile, or multiple tiles, with fish, in them at locations, etc.

You should need a large river in the city to build the dam imporvement.
You also would not be able to cross these until after getting engineering and then building a bridge across them. This would not be automatic it would cost more worker time. If this is a variable width, it could cost more at a wider spot. You should need to upgrade your bridge to allow the railroad or mechanized units to cross it as they put to much strain on the bridge you built in the middle ages.

This would add to the terrain value in the game. Your enemy may need to come up and build a bridge that you can see before being able to cross at your unprotected point.

A dam could be a minor improvement also that generated either cash or productivity(shields). Cleaner than a coal plant, etc.
marc.

[DarkCloud]

But then the problem isn't solved. If you agree that rails covering every tile is a problem (and I don't know if you do), then leaving the production boost in place will mean that it is always better to lay down the railroad spaghetti. Unless the upkeep is extremely high, but that just creates its own problem.

I actually don't think that it's a problem. I think that it's realistic enough. I mean, the world WAS covered with rails in the days before the car, airplane, etc.

However, I think that your suggestion here:

Why not keep the upkeep, remove infinite movment, and remove the production bonus, then give every city that is connected to your civ via rail an X percent production and comemrce increase (raw materials move faster for production, finished goods move faster for commerce), and a Y percent production boost for every city that is connected to another Civ via rail?

Does make more sense in the way of increasing production. IF the RxR's aren't connected, then what use are they- but if they are connected to a city THEN they can increase productivity AND trade!
Very good solution.

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I'd like to see an "industry" or "settlement" improvement that comes with industrialization and can be created like an outpost or airfield - it eats a worker. It gives a big shield and trade bonus but cuts all food production. This would also require the ability to ship food between cities.

Hmmm... How about industrialized zoning (or developed zoning)? That way the game could represent the industry with a few smokestacks that represent the development of a tile square... sort of like a modern-day mining square that can be made on plains and prairie? Reasonably good idea- but then we have to worry about the land becoming choked with these- unless they contribute significantly to pollution in their parent city and can only be built within city squares or upon railroads.

[okblacke]

Originally posted by skywalker
I'd like pollution to be removed. It doesn't really provide the player with any strategic choices (come on... are you actually going to forgo building Factories and Hospitals? It wouldn't help you anyways, even in the long run.) and it is incredibly annoying.

And, I think, it's exaggerated. (Though, strategy-wise, someone here said they don't build hospitals till they get ecology.) At the same time, the lava and nuclear fallout aspect is pretty good.

Pollution could remain in a few ways: Having a negative effect on happiness in big cities; having an OCCASIONAL blotch appear in extraordinary circumstances like the above-mentioned.

[Kuciwalker]

Pollution from nukes (and volcanoes, though they are a bit... odd ) is fine. It's pollution from industrialization and high pop that is pointless.

[okblacke]

My opinion (everyone's got one):

As far as rail/road sprawl and the production bonus goes, I've always assumed that was meant to abstract outlying communities. In other words, not all population is going to live downtown, even in ancient times. Hence I don't feel a strong need for urban sprawl or against rail/road sprawl. (And anyone who thinks highway sprawl isn't real needs to visit Southern California.)

The best arguments I've seen here for changing the system is to reduce the dreaded MM (and these are good arguments). I worry about whether they'll make some other part of Civ collapse, though.

If infinite rail movement is removed, I'd like to suggest a finer approach overall:

Right now we have movement over terrain (1 for 1 or less on rough terrain), movement over roads (3 for 1) and movement over railroads (infinity for 0). This seems a little coarse.

In particular, "roads != roads". The Roman roads were unsurpassed until modern times, I believe. And the US interstate system virtually obsolesces (is that a word?) the rail.

We could have no roads, basic roads, Roman-type roads, rails and highways. A compelling set of multipliers might be 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8. (Maybe tweak those last two?)

And now for a more radical idea: Change the concept of "city radius" to match up with road and transportation technology. Right now, whether it's 4,000 BC and you don't even have The Wheel, or it's 2150 AD and you have satellites and spaceships, a city works its two-square radius.

Well, what if a city could work any square within one-half turn's worth of travel? (Half to get out there, half to get back.) This would be a combination of roads, tech and resources. Using the 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 multipliers:

In stone-age times, it would kill ICS. Before you could get much use out of a new city, it would have to be connected at least to its surroundings. Horses and The Wheel would increase city radius to one. (You might need other non-combat type animal resources, though, like mules, camels and elephants.)

Roman roads would increase the radius to 2. You'd get a lot of closely placed cities, too, at least until the industrial age.

Rails would increase radius to three.

Highways would increase the radius to a whopping four. (Using SoCal as an example, it has been said that a lot of the robustness and resilience of that economy has to do with the fact that workers can move around to where the work is without resettling.)

Note that a four radius city sprawl would promote the megalopolis, cause big cities to encroach more on smaller ones, allow incredible flexibility for what a city could produce and also make it a lot less likely that any city would actually ever work all the squares in its radius.

This system might work really well with the "public works" system suggested by others. (I guess I should check out CTPs 1&2.) Certain pop points of a city would be designated public workers, the larger the city, the more needed.

[joncha]

Pollution should stay more-or-less as is (for industrial/modern eras at least) but their should be more ways to clean it up... earlier "green" tech, forests within your borders reducing pollution, the ability to plant forests as heat sinks, etc.

As for railroads, I agree with removing the infinite movement, but I strongly disagree with just putting a multiplier in its place. Why would a tank move faster than infantry on the same train? If anything, the passenger train your infantry travelled on would be FASTER than the freight train you sent your armour on.

So... I think a set range for rail would be better, either as a airport-style rebasing thing (maybe a rail depot city improvement?) or a fixed movement multiplier that makes EVERY unit move at, say, twice the speed of the fastest unit.

jon.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by joncha
As for railroads, I agree with removing the infinite movement, but I strongly disagree with just putting a multiplier in its place. Why would a tank move faster than infantry on the same train? If anything, the passenger train your infantry travelled on would be FASTER than the freight train you sent your armour on.

So... I think a set range for rail would be better, either as a airport-style rebasing thing (maybe a rail depot city improvement?) or a fixed movement multiplier that makes EVERY unit move at, say, twice the speed of the fastest unit.

jon.

Great point. And I think the rebasing thing is a good idea, but it would have to work invisibly for the player. So if I want to go from point A to point B all I should need to do is use the GoTo command. If the rail is the fastest way to get there, it should automatically use it without my needing to micromanage it the way you currently have to micromanage airlifting.

[Nikolai]

wrylachlan: Done. Thanks for the summary. I had very little time when I updated with you two's ideas last time you see.
Updated!

[wrylachlan]

I've been thinking about all the different modifications I would like to make to the civ terrain and improvements model, and they all come down to one thing - making the game more tactically interesting by creating differentiation and choke points.

The reason I would want to get rid of the total railroad coverage is that when every tile is RR there is no tactical differentiation between tiles.

Making it easier to land on some coastal tiles vs. others = tactical differentiation.

Rivers that can only be crossed at bridges or fords = tactical differentiation.

Terrain that has the ability to do damage to your units (desert/jungle) = tactical differentiation
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Given that differentiation is what I want, I'd like to suggest a few changes.
1) Make visibility more important by increasing the sight range of scouts and outposts in relation to the terrain. Regular units get 2x vision on hills, 3x on mountains. Scouts/Outposts should get 2.5x, 4x. This would make Scouts/Outposts much more tactically valuable.

2) Remove the rounding of movement values. Currently a unit with 1 move is guaranteed to move 1 tile regardless of the movement required for that tile. This makes all land essentially the same throughout the early game, and by the time you have 2 move units, you've got roads everywhere.

Instead, if you have 1 movement point and try to move into a tile which requires 2, you loose a turn and need to wait till next turn to move. Maybe its indicated by a graphic of the unit moving towards the tile.

3)Have more tiles which are totally impassible and/or impassible in a certain direction. The code is already in the game for not being able to go from one tile to another in a certain direction. Its used for wheeled units crossing rivers without a road. Why not add in cliffs, or mountains that are too steep to climb.

This would allow further differentiation of units based on their ability to overcome the obstacle - A special Forces unit that can climb cliffs, or a Mountain warrior that can travel on mountains that are totally impassable to other units.

Maybe there are mountains that only workers can get to, so to cross them with other units you MUST build a road.
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All of this would lead to a game where the terrain is a much larger factor in your decision making, which I think is a good thing.

[wrylachlan]

What if the movement cost of a tile was not determined by the tile itself, but the tile border? For example Grassland:Grassland is 1, but Mountains:Grassland is 2. Similarly Grasslands:Mountain is 3 because you're climbing up the mountain, but Mountain:Mountain is only 2 because you're walking along the ridge.
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For ZOC, I'd like to see the ZOC only extend to the surrounding 1 tile radius or where you can move in 1 turn, whichever is smaller. Thus if I can't cross a river in a turn, I have no ZOC on the tiles across the river. Similarly if we accept the creation of cliffs, etc. which are total barriers to movement, I can't ZOC the tile on the other side of the cliff.

Or maybe I don't get the traditional ZOC that makes the enemy stop across the river, but if I have a bombard unit they get a free shot.

[Kuciwalker]

2) Remove the rounding of movement values. Currently a unit with 1 move is guaranteed to move 1 tile regardless of the movement required for that tile. This makes all land essentially the same throughout the early game, and by the time you have 2 move units, you've got roads everywhere.

Two-move units come with a starting tech, so no, you dont' have roads everywhere and the rounding INCREASES tactical differentiation - it increases the relative value of foot units in difficult terrain.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker

2) Remove the rounding of movement values. Currently a unit with 1 move is guaranteed to move 1 tile regardless of the movement required for that tile. This makes all land essentially the same throughout the early game, and by the time you have 2 move units, you've got roads everywhere.

Two-move units come with a starting tech, so no, you dont' have roads everywhere

let the hyperbole be. It wants to live.

and the rounding INCREASES tactical differentiation - it increases the relative value of foot units in difficult terrain.

Yes. It does. And I'm not against increasing the relative value of foot units in difficult terrain. However I am against 1 move foot units treating mountains as indistinguishable from grasslands, which is what they do now.

I'd rather see an additional movement penalty for mounted units in certain terrain. For instance if mountains were 2 movement points +1 for mounted units, without rounding, it would take a 1 move foot unit 2 turns and a mounted 2 move unit would also take 2 turns. A system like this would preserve the comparative advantage of foot in difficult terrain and also differentiate the different terrains for the 1 move unit.

Side note - under the system above I would make a Settler a 1 move mounted unit, which would (I think) change the distribution of early cities in a more realistic manner since settlers would tend to follow the path of least resistance.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by skywalker
and the rounding INCREASES tactical differentiation - it increases the relative value of foot units in difficult terrain.

But DECREASES the tactical differentiation of different land values. With wrylachlan's idea there could be the long, hard but unexpected mountain pass, or the quick and obvious tromp across the open grasses.

You could probably also make a strong case that it actually helps to eliminate the considerations of movement points between units on some maps, not increases it as you suggest. Imagine there is a mountain range that you must cross to get to your enemy. Do you send horses or swords?

If horses still moved over mountains faster than feet though...

[Kuciwalker]

Oh, and about pollution - its penalty should not occur on the same turn the pollution occurs (so I still work the tile during the beginning of the turn it appears, but not at the beginning of the next turn).

This is because cities that are balance food-wise can starve slowly from pollution (because each time the pollution occurs, a bit of food is lost from the granary which isn't replaced until the city loses and then gains a pop point).

[Bleyn]

A thought on pollution. What if it wasn't all or nothing like now. Rather it had scales. So a square could be lightly polluted and just be losing a little food, and commerce and maybe an industrial resource. Or moderately polluted and lose more. Or heavily polluted and lose everything.

Polluted squares would have a higher chance of becoming more polluted than non-polluted squares. The more pollution, the longer to clean up. But only if one failed to clean up pollution would it get to the point of totally losing the use of a square.

It would make pollution less annoying. It could also be made more realistic by having the higher levels of pollution only coming from industrial sources, and the lowest being generated by population and industry. Thus pollution could appear earlier in its lowest forms.

[Kuciwalker]

That would create the same problem in food-balanced cities.