Pollution is insane!

[LRotan]

Alright, so it's already been said. Still, the more people say it, the more chance it has of getting tweaked. I can't play a single game without eventually building an army of pollution monkeys whose sole purpose is to go around and clean up pollution. And then I have to watch them each turn. This is both before and after I upgrade all cities with all the pollution reducing improvements. The only difference they make is that instead of twelve workers, I'll only need eight afterwards.

I can't use the editor, if you even *can* reduce pollution with it, because for some reason whenever I use it for anything, it warps the tech tree on the research advisor screen. Anywho, here's to hoping it gets tweaked...or better yet made into an option.

LR

[TheDarkside]

I hear ya, I'm sick of micromanaging the pollution clean-up. I just want a way to edit it or remove it completely, and I can't find anythign in the editor that would eliminate pollution (you can make buildings create 0 pollution but the buildings arent the problem, its the population)

And about your editor problem. I have the same thing... apparently they are working on it, but for now, create a backup of your civ3mod.bic file, then edit that file instead of creating a new one. (this file is the basic civ3 rules). So when you make changes to the rules in tha file, you wont need to play off a scenario, just play normally, and you should'nt have those advisor problems.

[LRotan]

Hmmm...I'll give that a try. Thanks for the tip!

LR

[DarkMatter]

(you can make buildings create 0 pollution but the buildings arent the problem, its the population)

Actually, doesn't the factory, coal plant, airport, and manufacturing plant cause pollution?

At the end of the game, I was actually down to having only two pollution icons in my high production cities (at least the ones with nuke plants).

[David Murray]

Noooo! Turning off pollution is a *terrible* idea!

[XPav]

I stick the workers on auto. They build railroads, and there's pollution, they zip over there and clean it up.

[Black Superman]

pollution out of controll? sounds realistic to me.

(actually I thought the pollution levels in Civ2 were kinda preachy)

check out this link for a nice animated gif showing world-wide pollution levels

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010709.html


Explanation: Where on Earth is the air most polluted? Recently released images from the Terra satellite show not only areas of high pollution, but also how polluted air moves. In the above image, locations of higher air pollution are shown in red. The pollutant tracked is carbon monoxide (CO) at a height of about 5 kilometers. Clearly, Earth's Northern Hemisphere shows much more CO than the south. The new data indicate, however, that pollution moves on a global scale. About half of all CO emission is of human origin, and much of this is created in large fires.

[dudemanjack]

pollution being out of control is realistic...but it's a game play issue. when i have 60 cities each producing pollution once a turn or once every few turns it is a major pain to micro-manage a zillion workers.

i've tried to automate workers but they always seem to start mining my irrigation squares on grassland, in effect starving my high population cities.

[TheDarkside]

DarkMatter- what size are your cities? my average city is around 22-25 so I guess at these levels the pollution sky rockets.

And sure you guys, pollution is a real-world problem, but so are alot of things! Terrorism, earthquakes, hurricanes, traffic, UV radiation... you name it. Why arent all these in the game to pester us as well? All I'm saying is you gotta find a good balance between realism and fantasy known as fun. I don't get paid to play this game

PS whats so realistic about random orange globule masses forming on a terrain making it totally unusable? I live near NYC- a city which should be bigger then my Civ3 25 size cities, and I don't remember waking up not being able to go to work 'cause some orange glob appeared over my company's building.

[Ray K]

Originally posted by dudemanjack
pollution being out of control is realistic...but it's a game play issue. when i have 60 cities each producing pollution once a turn or once every few turns it is a major pain to micro-manage a zillion workers.

i've tried to automate workers but they always seem to start mining my irrigation squares on grassland, in effect starving my high population cities.

I don't think pollution is that bad, because you can automate the workers.

But the onset of global warming comes WAY too early in this game, with no real warning (that little sun icon never changes).

I had global warming begin early in the industrial era with only a handful of factories running on the entire map. Ridiculous!

[TheDarkside]

Ray, that's very true, global warming comes too soon and is too sensitive. Couple that with the inability to terraform and you end up with an annoying experience. You probably arent the cause of the global warming, maybe your allies have size 30 cities (which create alot mroe pollution then any coal factory!)

[Howling Chip]

I think pollution level is fine. I never build coal plants, stick mainly with hydo and/or hoover dam. Getting mass transit and recycling centers built does cut it back a lot.

An Auto Worker Key for Clean Pollution Only would be nice.

I agree the global warming comes too early for my taste.

[Ray K]

Originally posted by TheDarkside
Ray, that's very true, global warming comes too soon and is too sensitive. Couple that with the inability to terraform and you end up with an annoying experience. You probably arent the cause of the global warming, maybe your allies have size 30 cities (which create alot mroe pollution then any coal factory!)

Nah, I was on a Tiny map and had covered 2/3 of the map by then.

I'm not against having Global Warming in the game, it just needs to take longer to start. Also, it would be nice if, once you got ecology, you had some indication on how well you were controlling it.

[Bubba_B]

Somebody posted that a good way to control pollution is not to build any hospitals till after the discovery of ecology. This will allow you to build Mass Transits before your population boom. It worked well for pollution but the lack of extra citizens for tax collectors kept my funds low. Which in turn made for a smaller and less effective Army. It also seemed to control global warming which only popped up twice on me in the entire game (1977).

The biggest pain is when your workers are out of things to do they go to the nearest city and sit. Then when pollution pops up you have to find and activate them again.

[DarkMatter]

Originally posted by TheDarkside
DarkMatter- what size are your cities? my average city is around 22-25 so I guess at these levels the pollution sky rockets.

I'm pretty sure it was a size 25 base with a Factory, Airport, Nuke plant, recycling center, and mass transit system.

PS whats so realistic about random orange globule masses forming on a terrain making it totally unusable? I live near NYC- a city which should be bigger then my Civ3 25 size cities, and I don't remember waking up not being able to go to work 'cause some orange glob appeared over my company's building.

Wow, you guys don't have them out east? Maybe I should move out there.

Originally posted by Ray K
But the onset of global warming comes WAY too early in this game, with no real warning (that little sun icon never changes).

Mine changed, but it only changes with each new turn. I was having a nuke fest, and the sun icon looked bright red, like a red giant. Each turn, at least 5-10 squares would change terrain type.

[TheDarkside]

Originally posted by Bubba_B
Somebody posted that a good way to control pollution is not to build any hospitals till after the discovery of ecology. This will allow you to build Mass Transits before your population boom. It worked well for pollution but the lack of extra citizens for tax collectors kept my funds low. Which in turn made for a smaller and less effective Army. It also seemed to control global warming which only popped up twice on me in the entire game (1977).

The biggest pain is when your workers are out of things to do they go to the nearest city and sit. Then when pollution pops up you have to find and activate them again.

Not only that, but unless you play with one other civ, how will that change anything? The AI will build hospitals and strive for his size 30 cities regardless, and then you'll be sitting there wondering why your lush grasslands are turning into deserts sooner then your workers can lay a railroad track.

[Apolex]

Originally posted by TheDarkside
PS whats so realistic about random orange globule masses forming on a terrain making it totally unusable? I live near NYC- a city which should be bigger then my Civ3 25 size cities, and I don't remember waking up not being able to go to work 'cause some orange glob appeared over my company's building.

Actually I have had several days where I could't get to work because of a giant orange glob where I work. It happens every Saturday in the Fall (during home football games!!!)

-Apolex
University of Tennessee

[Herder]

Rofl apolex.

[Death's Toe]

If there is pollution, SHIFT-P will send workers to auto-clean up. The only problem is that when all the pollution is cleaned, they 'stand-down' and you have to SHIFT-P when more pollution shows up.

I can honestly say I had no problem with pollution, and I had at least 3 cities cranking out over 80 shields, and many cities around 50 shields. Mass-Transit, Recycling, and clean power plants are key. Then you just need about 8 workers for the occasional clean up.

[TheDarkside]

Originally posted by Apolex


Actually I have had several days where I could't get to work because of a giant orange glob where I work. It happens every Saturday in the Fall (during home football games!!!)

-Apolex
University of Tennessee

But I don't think we're talking about the same kind of pollution!

[wotan321]

An Auto Worker Key for Clean Pollution Only would be nice.

Yes it would. Activate any one of your workers and use the Shift+P combo, and all that fella will do is clean pollution....

[Bubba_B]

Yeah, your right.....

I controlled about half the planet with early wars prior to the industrial age. Only 4 Civ's were left by that time. So AI pollution was not really a factor.

So to control pollution, dominate the globe with a Greenpeace agenda to save future generations from global warming

[Howling Chip]

Originally posted by wotan321


Yes it would. Activate any one of your workers and use the Shift+P combo, and all that fella will do is clean pollution....

*doh!* Thanks! Gawd I hate it when over and over and over again there's a hot key for something repetitive I want to do and I've missed it. *bangs head against wall* (Wait! There's a hot key for head banging!)

[Smash]

After having battled pollution for 100 turns or more I have decided in future I will only grow to size 12 in most cities.They are easier to keep happy and easier to keep celebrating.Only a few cities will get hospitols before mass transits.If you get caught in pollution purgatory before RRs are built..well you are always gonna be behind the mess.

I have cities producing a moderate amount of sheilds..say- 30-60.With mass trans,recycle centers and the odd solar palnt and still the pollution continues.I cannot get a +size 12 city clear of pollution icons.

[Deathray]

Originally posted by Black Superman
pollution out of controll? sounds realistic to me.

(actually I thought the pollution levels in Civ2 were kinda preachy)

check out this link for a nice animated gif showing world-wide pollution levels

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010709.html


Explanation: Where on Earth is the air most polluted? Recently released images from the Terra satellite show not only areas of high pollution, but also how polluted air moves. In the above image, locations of higher air pollution are shown in red. The pollutant tracked is carbon monoxide (CO) at a height of about 5 kilometers. Clearly, Earth's Northern Hemisphere shows much more CO than the south. The new data indicate, however, that pollution moves on a global scale. About half of all CO emission is of human origin, and much of this is created in large fires.

2% of all Greenhouse gases are man made. 6% of man made greenhouse gases come from cars. The gas that causes the greenhouse effect most is water vapour. The main producer of greenhouse gases in the world is volcanoes.

BTW, pollution isn't really that much of a problem. Once you have the mass transit system and recycling plant, then your polution probably won't go above 2 per city unless you build a coal plant (from my experience, with cities of sizes over 30). I have yet to experience global warming problems in 6 games, although I have had the first sun icon. I have had points where I am getting 4 or 5 polluted squares per turn though. Thankfully I indefinitely have a very large army of captured workers to clean it all up.

[Apolex]

One of the most annoying things about pollution in the game (besides having to clean it up....I know, I know, shift-p), is that after it's cleaned up, your citizens don't go back to work on that square automatically. Consequently I have to constantly keep going back to the cities and reassigning everybody to the squares. No I don't like using that imbecile governor because he always ends up FUBARing the way I had my people working to begin with.

PS Darkside I'm still lauging about your orange globs around NYC image hehe.

[Sevorak]

Yes, pollution is insane. Especially since you can get such nice production out of it.

I would like at this point to shamelessly point out a bug I discovered four days ago.

Here.

-Sev

[Barfus]

a way to cancel pollutions effects is to goto the editor and then the terrain editing section of edit rules. each terrain has a type of terrain it will switch to cuz of global warming. just alter these and voila, no global warming damage. though i believe you will still have to clean pollution up, as it halts production on the terrain (and i think this is enough punishment to keep game balanced without "f"ing up your terrain). technically its cheating, but IMHO they made pollution a little too hardcore in this game...

[player1]

Factories & Coal Plants are NOT THE PROBLEM
IT'S THE POP.
EVERY POP POINT BEYOND 12 WILL GIVE POINT OF POLLTION (until you build a mass transit).

Maybe that could be toned down to 1 pollution point on 2 pop pounts?

Tip:
Don't let cities grow to useless sizes, like 28 or similar.
Taxmen & scientist are pretty much useless (exept in high corrupt cities).

It is better to inverst in more production instead of pop & have 16-20 size cities with lots of production.

P.S.
Polltution DOES NOT depend of PRODUCTION.

[Gaius Marius]

Originally posted by Deathray


2% of all Greenhouse gases are man made. 6% of man made greenhouse gases come from cars. The gas that causes the greenhouse effect most is water vapour. The main producer of greenhouse gases in the world is volcanoes.

True, perhaps, but that 2% can make a big short-term difference in a balanced ecosystem.

Take another complicated system, like, say, the US economy. If Alan Greenspan announced that interest rates set by the Fed would fluctuate by 2% annually, the economy would go batty. It would adapt, but it would be inefficient and some group of people would get screwed.