{The List} Terrain and terrain improvements

[La Diva]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
How about a Public Works Director that works by automating workers?

An offshoot from this, with or without the requisite Director, would be to tell workers, "Build a road/railroad from Here to There using the A) most direct, B) fastest to build, C) most advantageous (over luxuries, e.g.) route possible." This would remove several turns of giving orders while stipulating a criterion for where it's built.

[patcon]

I have to admit it, I eventually build roads on every tile in my territory.
Why do I do this?
Do I like the spider web look it gives my map? No.
Am I from southern California? No.
Am I from a formerly semi-rural suburb of a city which is having every square inch of land turned into housing, shopping centers, and multi-lane roads? Well, yes, but that's not why I do it.

I build roads everywhere because:
1. Idle hands are the devil's workshop, so when my workers don't have anything else to do (like mine, irrigate, build important roads) I'll make up something for them to do.
2. I absolutely hate having pollution in my territory and I clean it up as quickly as possible. As soon as it appears, I send a Stack of Workers (big enough to handle it in one turn, if available) to that tile to clean it up. If the tile has a road my SoW can enter the tile and immediately go to work and clear the pollution in the same turn it appeared. If the tile doesn't have a road it adds a turn to the process, wasting the tile's productivity and tying up my SoW for 3 full turns (move in, clear, move out) instead of just 1. (This is why I hate when pollution shows up in a volcano tile.)
3. If a new resource shows up on an already-roaded tile, it is immediately available for use. If it shows up on an unroaded tile, first you have to notice that it popped up, then you have to move workers to the tile, then you have to build the road, costing you at least 2 turns before you can use the resource. (More if the resource shows up deep in a previously unroaded mountain chain.)

No real reason for this post, I just had to get this off my chest. "Confession is good for the soul", that sort of thing.

[Max Sinister]

Originally posted by patcon
I build roads everywhere because:
1. Idle hands are the devil's workshop, so when my workers don't have anything else to do (like mine, irrigate, build important roads) I'll make up something for them to do.

There isn't even such a kind like a morale drawback in the Civ game... ;-)

[DarkCloud]

Well, thank you Nikolai, this work is more than sufficient to do the update- anything else can wait until December.

You have honestly been one of the most diligent list administrators and have taken on many difficult tasks.

Thank you so very much!

[La Diva]

Re: {The List} Terrain and terrain improvements

Regarding tiles and terrains:

{1.5.1 of this thread} naming terrain features (mountain ranges, etc.) - this gives rise to the creation of an atlas type of map based on what is known about the world's geography and civ development. Which might be left in the hands of a Specialist: Cartographer.
.. I think this could be a really handy reference, better than trying to mentally extrapolate to the lower-left minimap or scroll madly through the large map to find something. Depending on the player's world size, the scale would be either full-screen = whole map or full-screen = whole hemisphere. You'd be able to name topographical features on this map, to further "personalize" the game.
.. If this idea is too radical, a removable overlay on the standard full-screen map could serve the purpose, accessible through one of the suggested Rt-Click menus.

{1.9.1}Volcano terrain - great benefits while dormant: tourism, fertile after a number of turns, science, any others? Should be able to include in City Radius, but definite risk for partial or total destruction every millennium or so.

{1.9.3} impassable terrain - CivTot has impassable tiles - a bloomin' nuisance, IMO. The playing grid is small enough without stealing usable space for worthless features.

{1.9.9} shallow water ... manage invasion from sea - ships could bombard from farther out, with less accuracy (less damage), units coming ashore would use one of the ship's movement points to "cross" the shallow area via AI landing craft

{1.9.10} Peaks - I like this, aesthetically more than anything else. It provides for a delineation between the timberline, mountain tundra, and snowcaps. Peaks are especially good for tourism and national pride. Improved graphic variation will help the aesthetics tremendously.

{1.9.13} Ice-Flow (it's ice floe) - how can there be production on a floating ice block that won't stay in a city's radius? Seems the only benefit might be science, researching sea lions or weather history through the ice layers. I sure can't see any units needing to garrison on one, much less using more than one or two tiles together for it, unless the map size gets much larger.

{1.11} fishable rivers - good idea. Whitewater rivers for recreation and tourism make sense, too.
"... large river ... not be able to cross these until after getting engineering and then building a bridge ..."
- good swimmers, horses, and small boats all traversed wider rivers very early in history, though they might reach the opposite shore somewhat farther downriver. Ferries were used in early years, too, powered by a pole in the river, by pulling on a rope stretched between the two landing docks, or by being pulled by horse(s) on the bank. Any effort except ferry could result in unit loss, and movement should take the whole turn.

{1.13} Zone of Control - if geographic barriers are added, the ZOC should be expandable by settling on the other side of the barrier, after you get around it some longer way.

Oasis - trying to grow a city in the desert for its strategic and/or resource advantage is virtually impossible without one, until reaching Electricity and artificial irrigation.

Quicksand - now there's a new tile. Unless the world map gets much larger, I don't think I'd want to waste any tile on that terrain. Actually, most pools are too small to be a whole tile anyway, right?

Ocean whales and fish - If a resourced tile is within a single turn's move from land, it should be harvestable after the Navigation (or is it Astronomy?) removes the sinking risk. Being able to access the resource only when it's within CityRadius isn't logical. Have AI handle the fishing without need for a unit. You might need to Build a FishMarket in the coastal city nearest the resources in order to take advantage of the feature.

I see no problem in planting crops OR forests in a flood plain, as long as I'm prepared to see them washed away a few times per game. We need a fix here.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like I spend a huge amount of my workers' time clearing jungles for city settlement and building roads/rails over vast mountain clusters. The percentage of "nuisance" terrains seems overly aggressive.

[La Diva]

Re: {The List} Terrain and terrain improvements

Other random terrain-related comments:

Having a resource not appear on its GameStart tile if the original terrain has been changed (jungle/forest now grass/plains, e.g.) - it makes sense, but that's a terrible burden if you've spent centuries reclaiming disease-ridden jungles so your cities can grow and your civ can expand, but in the process you've destroyed your only source of uranium.
.. A better solution: when it's time for the resource to appear, AI should move the resource from its hidden GameStart location to a nearby tile of the appropriate terrain (perhaps one just outside that city's radius). Whenever possible, AI should keep the resource within the borders of the civ where the original tile is located.

Let lumber become an industry IndAge or after, so out-of-city areas can be assigned the trade, with the caveat that those areas have to be reseeded and left alone every 20 turns or so.
.. This should be an automated AI task rather than needing worker micromanagement as I do it now. Rather than seeing the harvesting, an outlining graphic would indicate the industry location and you or AI reassign the lumberjacks when they need to move on, always outside CRadius (Rt-Click worker and assign the trade - good concept for specialists of many sorts, assuming worker units survive into Civ4). Proceeds from the industry are automatically added to the civ's treasury, and you can see those figures through a Rt-Click on the forest at work.

{lajzar, thread 109929} "Any tile that is not being worked has a % chance for the tile improvements vanishing. This is checked for each improvement separately."
- I have a hard time with that. I have my workers prepare tiles for a city's expansion, so I can best use all my resources every time my population grows. But I still create workers and settlers to continue my civ expansion, which means a sudden drop in one or two tiles worked. What you propose would make me do the same work many times per game, or micromanage by moving my choice of worked tiles every couple of turns in order to keep them from being subject to degradation. - No fun at all. The presumption is that cities maintain improvements automatically without player intervention.

{Sir Og, thread 109929} "... don't ... reduce the use of various tile improvements but rather think of better graphics, etc."
- Now we're getting somewhere!


"... bridges across one tile of ocean between landmasses ..."
- I like cassembler's idea, but unlike DarkCloud, I think it should be possible only after reaching a point in the Industrial Age (not post-modern). The tech would also have to accommodate ocean-going vessels underneath it.
.. Eventually, we should be able to build those under-river, under-English-Channel tunnels as well.

Undersea level of play
- The possibilities are interesting but probably too limited to invest Firaxis' resources to develop. Outside of war from a submarine's perspective and perhaps some marine "farming" and mining, I can't see much happening there - maybe an archaeological recovery or two.
.. It would have as much late-tech validity as an orbiting space station, and about the same game use for micromanagers.

{wrylachlan} River Transportation
- This idea I LOVE. Very elegant and a real boon to playability. Units might need a lower MP against the current, but then get an extra MP as they head downriver. Either way, MP is higher than land MP, except for the 6-tile explorers.

{TheBirdMan} "... build a canal ... limit the length to a few tiles starting or ending (or both) at the sea."
- You have my vote. The original purpose was to connect two water bodies (ocean-ocean, ocean-lake like the St. Lawrence Seaway in Canada), primarily for trade and ease/time factors. The time and cost to build is huge, but ROI eventually surpasses it for every city close to it. I also think no less than 8 workers should be assigned in order for the project to succeed at all - this is a huge undertaking.

[Tall_Walt]

Wow! What a great and huge (and thoughtful) thread. I think I'll hit the message length limit if I put all my comments in one message, so I'll split by issues. I'll start with something short:

Limited terraforming is quite possible. Northern Africa was desertified in ancient times, I believe. The Dutch put dikes around shallow ocean and turned it into farmland. It dates 2000 years back, but I'm not sure even now it's visible at a Civ scale. Irrigating desert on a large scale is probably recent, but it's routine now, notably in Israel and California. Dredging shallow harbors to accommodate large ships is also routine. If Civ extends out beyond 2050, terraforming could be some advanced technologies.

[Tall_Walt]

I don't really see the point of addnig terrain types. We have tactical obstacles in lakes. We all have our favorite things to add to Civ4--me, too, as you'll see--but we all have to remember that if Civ4 doesn't sell to the masses, it dies. The game cannot be so complex it turns off Joe Gamer.

I'll give you an out, though: any amount of modding capability can be put in. Put in room for a hundred terrain types, just don't put them in the base game.

[Tall_Walt]

I thought the analysis of pollution and its failure to curb industrialization was brilliant! It's nothing but a PITA as is, and it looks like Soren has it on his hit list.

However, here's a way to keep it and make it meaningful. Pollution is dangerous: check out to origin of the word smog. I feel if it exists it should be an amorphous cloud that drifts eastward (the generally prevailing wind direction). Indeed, it turns out a lot of Los Angeles' pollution comes in off the ocean from China! This could be a complicating diplomatic factor, reducing the attitude of downwind countries.

As far as effects, it should have a health effect, perhaps put into the Civ model as dropping population just like fevers from jungles in Civ3. Pollution controls could be a tech, and for the price of buying them, you should get a slight production increase so the controls will pay for themselves in the long term. This is very factual for industrial pollution: pollution is waste, and the most dangerous things thrown away--arsenic for example--are valuable chemicals.

[Tall_Walt]

Put me firmly in the sparse roads and rails camp. For a lot of reasons, asthetics definitely being one.

Think about a large scale map. A continental or world map. That's the scale Civ operates in. Is the map a spiderweb of roads and rails? Not really. At Civ's scale, the road by your home is invisible. Get increased production by tech improvements, not scribbling on the map.

Spare roads can be forced by not rewarding them, or even charging maintenance for tiles with roads. (And when I say roads, I mean rails, too.) The game play advantages are huge. With sparse roads you don't have to completely surround a city to lay seige to it. (Very important if larger cities are allowed.) You can also block transit more easily. Further it makes roads things you need to protect. I like the idea of MOO2 like food sharing: it's realistic and makes blockades and sieges more possible. You can also block reinforcements. The tactical options it opens up are endless. And the strategic options are, too: do you build more roads or other transit systems to make a blockage harder, or do you go for the least investment?

By reducing the number of critical points, you may also reduce the number of units. (And Civ needs a diet: it's too slow and takes too long to play: MOO2 I play and play; Civ3 got shelfed pretty fast because games are just too darn long.)

And, the game will look prettier.

[Tall_Walt]

Rivers and canals! First, they should stay between tiles, or which side of the river is a unit on?

That said, I love the idea of two or three sizes of rivers. Even the least rivers should be a major disadvantage to attack across, except by bridge, which might be a tech by itself instead of lumped into construction. It should be possible to destroy bridges to block enemies. Whether workers go or stay, a combat engineer unit should be able to destroy or build a bridge and have a good defense, not be a helpless worker. (More applications for him are mentioned in the units thread.)

Medium rivers should allow small ships to pass. Building a bridge this size is serious engineering and should be pretty late. So, you need to have a ship there to act as a ferry. With Egypt's geography (barring the delta) you couldn't build bridges, so you'd have ferries. You should be able to widen a small river to allow small ships. At some point, navigation canals were build across level land for both cargo and passengers. They predated railroads as a cargo carrier. At a later tech level, you should be able to build them up hills (implicitly using locks). If a unit isn't amphibious, it doesn't cross without a boat or a bridge.

Big rivers and canals are for big ships. This is Suez and Panama canal scale. Also the scale of the Mississippi river. Big ships can go along it.

[Tall_Walt]

Amphibious warfare seems logical after rivers.

While amphibious warfare dates way back--the Vikings did it all the time--large scale amphib warfare pretty much started just before WWII. An important point is that while the Marines took it up as their specialty (their traditional job of boarding ships being gone), it was also done by the US Army, the British Army, etc. on D-Day. Even in the Pacific theater, while the eastern line of attack was Marines, the Western line, including MacArthur's return to the Phillipines, was US Army, also doing amphibious landings. The US Army actually did more amphibious landings in WWII than the Marines, though the Marines wrote the book in the '20s and '30s.

The innovation wasn't the Marines, who had been around since before the start of the US, and who followed the tradition of the British Marines at first. The innovation was the assault ship that could put a huge army on the shore fast.

However, an important point that Civ4 should fix is that less than 20% of coastline is suitable for amphib landing. Only helicopters can land over any coastline.

I would see an assault ship taking the place of the transport. It can land troops on the 20% suitable beachs, which can be guarded. (At least it isn't 100%.) The assault ship can also, in place of a unit of troops, take a helicopter unit (when they become available), which would airlift another unit to a tile, somewhat like a bombing mission. The assault could also carry VTOL fighters, like Harriers. Say the assault ship can carry 4 units like the Civ3 carrier. You could carry 4 troops, but you'd have to land at a beach. Or you could carry 3 troops and a helicopter, and land in 3 turns anywhere. Or 2 and 2, and get the 2 units there fast. But lose a unit if you want your own aircraft around.

I liked the idea of large ships not being allowed in shallow water. The assault ship would be an exception, and really that's just a shorthand for its landing craft coming from deeper water. If this is adopted, that implies that deep water should be near some coasts. This will control where harbors are appropriate. Deep water should be at the mouths of most rivers. It also may mean that destroyers (to use Civ3 units) should shoot 2 tiles, so they can still bombard the coast. Perhaps battleships should shoot 3 tiles.

[Tall_Walt]

I agree totally with the idea of cities expanding beyond radius 2. I remember when I got Civ3, I didn't mind the culture idea (though initially it was way overpowered), but the idea that culture would expand the city from 1 to 2 radius was laughable. it's not culture, it's transportation. Here's my suggestion:

radius: technology
1: walking
2: horse
3: road (horse and cart to take stuff back to the city)
4: Roman road (better, faster road)
5: Wagons (need something in the dark ages--anyone got a better idea?)
6: Automobiles (rail is more for long distance because of loading times)
7: Mass transit/highways (anyone who thinks you need cars hasn't been to Tokyo, or London for that matter)

Even bigger cities might work, and maybe for game play more steps are needed in the middle ages.

Anyway, so how does this work? You can't very well space cities 7 apart at the start of the game anticipating you'll use the terrain thousands of years from now. The increasing size will let you place cities where you want them for real city reasons: near water, at a good harbor, etc. You won't be counting tiles playing jigsaw to get the spacing exactly right. Cities need to be absorbed. I see this as an explicit action by the player. He chooses to disolve a city, the squares getting used by adjacent cities. Since he's now paying maintenance on fewer sets of improvements, this works out well for him. A further advantage is that it reduces endgame workload, or maybe keeps it constant, the same number of cities taking more space.

[Tall_Walt]

Finally: I'm going to get hate mail about this, I'm sure.

Workers must die.

Look, the world can be 60% land. Say you're playing on a 100 x 100 board. You start with 10,000 tiles; 6000 are land. Let suppose you're successful and conquer half, 3000 tiles. At 21 tiles per city, you're probably going to have at least 100 cities, with 20 workable tiles each. That's 2000 tiles. Bad enough if you want to decide to farm or mine 2000 times. Worse if you have to clear, mine/irrigate, road, rail, and clean--maybe 10,000 commands. If you have to watch the little workers, that's 100,000 to 200,000 (I could look up the exact number of turns, but it's big) pictures of the little pests. Think about 1 second per operation: that's 100,000/60 minutes /60 hours, or almost 28 hours of watching workers . . . .work. And that ignores them going from one point to another. Even the 10,000 commands: they're going to take longer each. Select the unit; make it go where you want it; later, select the job. You're going to spend hours on it.

I just played a game (after shelving Civ3 since just after 1.29 came out) on a mere standard map. I put all my workers on auto, and after about 20 hours of play it was pretty clear I was winning--and it would take another 20 hours to actually finish a conquest win. An unacceptable amount of time in those workers.

I can play a huge game of MOO2 in a few hours to a conquest victory (diplomatic, about an hour). Look at the RoN FAQ: it says the target game time is 1 hour. Civ3 is just too long a game, and workers are a major contributor because even if they're automated, you have to watch them do their thing. (Maybe there's an option to turn it off, but then some enemy is going to steal the workers.)

I understand people want to control every tile. In Civ3, except for the forest exploit which is a bit cheesy, you could do that by selecting the 2000 tiles and picking farm or mine. That's all. The workers work behind the scenes. You get all the control you want. If you look at the tile while it's being worked, maybe you even see workers there. But you don't have to hold their hands. You're still talking at least half an hour making those 2000 choices, but the people who don't want to play a 40 hour game will be able to play the game.

Look, figuring out times like this isn't rocket science. Do the math before you suggest something. Pretty clearly, if you played the first version of Civ3 as I did, someone didn't do the math: the workers used to be far slower. The first version of Civ3 was pretty much unplayable.

Let me repeat something: "We all have to remember that if Civ4 doesn't sell to the masses, it dies."

Thanks for your patience with me.

[La Diva]

Originally posted by Tall_Walt
You should be able to widen a small river to allow small ships. ... If a unit isn't amphibious, it doesn't cross without a boat or a bridge.

Perhaps my experience with rivers is limited, but those waterways I know best would be too shallow for any craft but barges and skiffs if they were widened. There's only so much water coming downriver, so widening just spreads it out and decreases the depth. Perhaps the graphic widening would indicate dredging a deeper (and by water-volume logic, narrower) channel? A bluer river could indicate greater depth - no idea how to accommodate those who are color blind.

Blocking units from crossing any river until after Construction would kill civ expansion in the early years, when it's most crucial. Since many of the CityImps to keep your people happy are adjuncts to later techs, and you can't grow past pop6 without gaining Aqueduct technology, you have to keep spawning Workers and Settlers and founding new cities. If you can't get across the many rivers, you're SOL (Sadly Out of Luck). Unworkable idea, IMO.

The current model that costs a full turn to cross a river is valid, and I vote to keep it. Ferries should count MP equal to roads and bridges.