{The List} Terrain and terrain improvements

[Nikolai]

Just so you guys know it, I still haven't got the new ISP, but it'll come in some weeks. I am workin to incorporate the information I have already, when I have time, though.

[DarkCloud]

also of note:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115535

and this might be useful:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115067

[DarkCloud]

That's great Nikolai, good luck with the new connection!

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
Even Better would be to abstract out the terrain into three attributes:
Elevation - sea level, hills, mountains, plateau, etc. (defaults to sea level)
Climate - arctic, temperate, tropical
Covering - grasslands, scrub, trees, marsh, etc. (Defaults to desert=no covering)

In this system Tundra would be arctic, scrub either on sea level or a plateau.

Jungle would be tropical trees on sea level or hills.

etc. etc.

I was thinking about that, it would be great if we could tie the climate values that we know the game uses into resourses.

In fact, I thnk about that every time I find a hill with wine in the middle of a desert, or a hill with coffee (custom resource) at the poles.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Odin


BTW: The trade bonus for roads and RRs must GO!!!

why?

[Nikolai]

Okay! Then I have, at last, managed to update this part of the List! Thankfully my teacher didn't show up to the triple lesson today!

But now I see that even the third post I planned to use for the text that extended what one post could take, is nearly used up... So I reserve a couple more, and hope that is enought...

BTW, thanks for the links!

[Nikolai]

4.1.6 - 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.
(Posted by lost viking

4.1.7 - 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).
(Posted by lost viking

4.1.8 - RR and roads not being useful for productiuon & commerce

Have roads and railroads stop being useful for production and commerce. Several levels of irrigation and mining could do the job for production. And I strongly believe the commerce model of Civ1 should be overhauled, with commerce coming, say, from your population, your city improvements, and the intensity of your connection with the rest of the world, rather than simply from how many roads there are.
(Posted by Spiffor)

4.2 - Railroads/Roads

This is a huge pet peeve of mine and I think an easy fix. Why aren't there roads and railroads across 100% of the land in real life? Because they cost money to upkeep. Why do we have them at all? Because they provide an ecomic benefit in being able to get from place to place, and that benefit offsets their cost. But there is a law of diminishing returns where after you have one RR between two cities, the second costs more than its economic benefit.

How this translates to Civ is to give Roads and RR's an upkeep. Then make their economic benefit dependant on the number of nearby cities they have a direct line to - maybe a 5% commerce bonus for the first one, 4% for the next, etc. etc. That way a line directly from city A to B might cost 5 gold, but give you 8 for a net of 3, from A to C nets 2, A to D nets 1, A to E is a wash, and anything after that is a loosing proposition.
(Posted by wrylachlan)

I would personally be happy if they do any-or all-of the following things:

1) Bring back the civ1 system of deducting 1mp for every city a unit passes through when travelling via rail-but extend it to moving into forts, outposts and airbases as well!

2) Give a limit to the number of units which can pass through a RR square at any one time-i.e. a stack limit. This stack limit could also apply to other terrain types-like mountains hills and rivers.

3) Introduce a move-combat-move phase for each turn. i.e. have each player move its units, then have all combats resolved-by theatre-then allow a follow-up movement phase. This will allow players to respond to invasions IF they are within range of the invading force (think Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge still being able to get his forces back down to Hastings to meet William-in Civ3, such a tactic is currently impossible, but shouldn't be!)

Anyway, if these ideas were implemented, then I would have NO objection-AT ALL-to the concept of infinite RR movement.
(Posted by The_Aussie_Lurker)

4.3 - Trailblazing

Units tend to follow paths already travelled. Over time roads automatically appear along these paths.
The above is a moderate to high priority for me.
(Posted By Brent)

4.4 - Point to point transport links

Instead of building roads and railways in a square, build them between squares. That way, you'd get more realistic-looking networks and roads wouldn't magically fuse with others when completed.
(Posted By Sandman)

4.5 - River Transportation

Having rivers between tiles for strategic importance is pretty cool. On the other hand having the early scouts travel along rivers was pretty cool too. How to Reconcile these two things?
This one's a little complicated to explain, but easy to see if maybe someone could do a mock up for me... anyhoo...
The rivers exist between the land tiles and act just like they do in CIV3 in terms of a movement penalty to cross plus defense bonuses, etc. However a unit can "embark" on the river. What this does is it costs one movement point, and shifts the grid a half square over and down which puts the river at the center of the square from the point of view of the unit. The unit can then enjoy the improved movement of the river and "disembark" when it wants to return to land.
(Posted by wrylachlan)

Let's finally have navigable rivers.
(Posted by Fosse)

4.6 - Loading/unloading from ships

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).
(Posted by wrylachlan)

4.7 - Scouts/Outposts

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.

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.
(Posted by wrylachlan)

4.8 - Rapid transport systems

- No production bonus from transport tile improvements. they only make you more mobile.
- Roads give 1/3 move cost.
- modern highways give 1/5 move cost
- Airports, harbours, and Rail Depots act as rapid transport systems. They require upkeep, and for an additional fee, units can be transported between them. This transport works similar to civ 2 airports.
- Rail depots require that both cities be connected by road or highway.
- Harbours require that both cities be within X tiles of each other based on sea movement, with X increasing with certain techs.
- Airports require that both cities be within X tiles of each other based on direct travel, with X increasing with certain techs.
- All 3 require that both cities have the appropriate improvement.
- The gold cost varies by transport type (air is expensive, sea is cheap), and by unit weight (tanks are expensive, diplomats are cheap).
(Posted by lajzar)

5 - Cities
5.1 - City sprawl

City sprawl: when cities reach a certain pop, they automatically sprawl to adjacent tiles.
(Posted by J-S)

5.2 - Allow city radius to expand none concentrically

perhaps allowing city radius to expand none concentrically..

that is if two citys overlap , allow one city to utilise a sqaure not in its radius but still concuurent with the city, upto the maximum of the 21 squares allowed

maybe allow the player to select it as the city grows.. but maybe time consuming a little bit of extra micromanaging.. otherwise the city governor can make the call and just expand in direction he wants..
This is olny for overlapping citys, normally the concentric rings apply
(Posted by Rasputin)

5.3 - More than one citizen per tile

I'd like to see a possiblity to put more than one citizen on a tile in the city window. The second worker would produce one less of each resource than the first worker, the third one less again...

This would make cities bigger than size 20 worth having, or if a city has one GREAT tile, and a load of poor tiles, then the city can concentrate its workforce in one place.
(Posted by Jamski)

5.4 - Buttons maximize citizen out-put

Have buttons that instantly maximizes city workers for food/commerce/production/science/happiness. Basically, it would make sure the minimum food/happiness requirement is met, and then automatically places worker on the correct tiles/specialist slots.
(Posted by hexagonian)

5.5 - Sorrounding terrain affecting building's cost

The number of sides a city has facing the sea should give it a discount on the cost of city walls, and an increase in the cost of a coastal fortress.

A city with three sides facing the sea should pay 5/8 of what a fully land-locked city has to pay for city walls. A city with only one side facing the land, on a near island, should pay only 1/8.
(Posted by Sandman)

5.6 - River affecting cities more than now
5.6.1 - River trade

Each city on the banks of a river should get +1 trade for each other city on that river.
(Posted by Sandman)

5.6.2 - Sea improvements on river cities near coast
Cities that are only one square away from the coast, and are on a river that leads to that coast should be able to build sea improvements.
(Posted by Sandman)

5.7 - Allow building cities on more terrain types

Allow us to build cities, roads and mines on mountains! At least allow us to build them in the modern era.
(DarkCloud)

5.8 - Change the concept of city radius

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.)
(Posted by okblacke

6 - Pollution
6.1 - Pollution affecting production & income

I would like to see some implementation of pollution, having said that, I do agree that the current model is annoying and little to gameplay.
How about making it so that it affects production and income.
(people are more often sic, blahblahblah) IE avertain production will be last due to pollution (could be on a wordwide level with cities producing most pollution being affected more ).

[b]6.2 - Implement it differently[/b

6.2.1 - Trees should have an impact

pollution: trees really should reduce pollution!
(Posted by alva)

6.2.2 - 3 types of pollution

On the topic of pollution, my idea involves 3 types: (normal) pollution, radiation, and air pollution.

Normal Pollution would be similar to the pollution we have now. Certain city and/or tile improvements would increase the odds of new pollution appearing in a random tile around the city. The affected tile would have its productivity cut in half (rounded down?). Any cities with a polluted tile in it's radius would suffer adverse effects, including increased unhappiness and reduced health (possibly among other things). Global warming would not be caused by normal pollution.

Radiation would come from nuclear weapons and accidents at nuclear plants. Affected tiles would become unworkable. It would take workers several times longer to clean up radiation than normal pollution. Additional effects would be similar to those associated with normal pollution, except they would be more severe.

Air pollution would cause no visible pollution on the map. Instead, it would contribute to effects such as global warming, reduced health, etc. It would be produced by population and certain city imrovements. Optionally, it could also decrease food production in the city (in a manner similar to corruption/waste - only not as severe) depending on the amount of air pollution in the city. Forests and jungles could decrease the effects of air pollution.
(Posted by Xorbon)

6.3 - Appearance

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).
(Posted by Kucinich)

6.4 - Levels of pollution

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.
(Posted by Bleyn)

6.5 - Pollution levels

pollution
radiation
zerg creep
undead blight
fungus

Yeah, I want the system to be flexible enough to allow any of these. Only nukes or malfunctionaing reactors should produce radiation. Not sure how the others could be defined, but I'd love to see them implemented.
(posted by lajzar)

7 - Mini-map
7.1 - Flattened mini-map

One thing which is important is to have a flattened mini-map, so you can see the whole world at once.
(Posted by Sandman)

8 - Climate and weather
8.1 - Climate in the game

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
(Posted by DarkCloud)

Conclusion

FILL IN

Respectfully compiled by - Nikolai
Special thanks to: Asmodean, DarkCloud

[Nikolai]

Reserved

[DarkCloud]

Hmm... if you need, you could always start a new thread?

(Good work, by the way! )

[Nikolai]

Well, I think it is better if we have just one.

[Geoff the Medio]

esoteric / nitpicky ideas few people will care about

It occurs to me that it might be nice to have a distinction between old growth forest and jungle (most of the map at the start) and reforested (by workers / pub. works / whatever).

This might just be a graphical thing... like the different kinds of forests in Civ3 now, but more involved, with tall majestic mature mixed species forests at the start, and short, overly uniform / artificial looking reforested sections.

Also, as some have probably already suggested, changing terrain types over time might be nice. In the case of forests, newly planted ones might mature through various intermediary stages over many turns. Perhaps only if not actively worked during a given turn would a tile 'age' as such. Similarly, unworked grassland (or farm?) might slowly develop towards a natural climax ecosystem... particularly if such an ecosystem is represented in an adjacent tile (like a less all-or-nothing version of SMAC's forest expansion). This whole tile changing system could be nicely incorporated with the concept of old growth forests (climax temperate ecosystem)

Edit: I should also point out to the micromanagement-wary that this whole system is more or less transparent and would not result in more micromanagement. The various maturities of forest ecosystems could be either or both identical for production purposes, and unchangable by player activity other than the ability to 'plant forest' which just changes a grass/plains tile to a specific kind of (immature) forest tile (skipping any intermediate 'brushlands' that an unworked grassland might go through (while still functioning like a grassland) before 'naturally' changing to forest...)

/Edit

On other issues: Sphere Globe: Yay! Public Works: Nay! Rail only between connected cities, like an airlift works now: Yay! Visible elevation on map: Yay! Complete or partial abandonment of tile system in favour of new cotinuous movement system: Yay!

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Heres an idea:

After you discover say, ecology, every X hexes of 'unimproved' forest, jungle or marsh squares will earn culture and tourist income for the city that has them within its radius-or the nation will recieve the benefit if it lies outside of any individual city's radius!
This would encourage players and the AI to leave areas of forest intact and untouched for the later part of the game. Also, if forests and jungles reduced per-turn pollution output, then these terrain types would be even MORE important!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[snoopy369]

That sounds interesting, Aussie, especially if they leave the current culture system in. I'd even go so far as to say that Wood could be considered a resource that's needed in each city to make certain constructions (like Library for example ... and definitely make it reduce per-turn pollution output.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by Odin



I think altitude is redundant in most situations. Mountains already represent areas too high for much human habitation. Altitude would, however be important in generating the map because higher areas at the same latatude would be cooler (think of Tibet), but I dont think it would have much impact in-game. A forest on a plateau is still a forest.

I just had an idea, montane forests would give extra gold from tourists comming to see the gorillas.

Elevatiion would make a ton of difference for movement. Moving through the forest takes a certain number of movement points. Climbing a forested mountain takes more.

[Panag]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
Elevatiion would make a ton of difference for movement. Moving through the forest takes a certain number of movement points. Climbing a forested mountain takes more.

hi ,

definatly something that should be inplemented , .....

construction of roads should also be changed , building a road on a hill will take longer when there is a forest , ....

have a nice day