{The List} Terrain and terrain improvements

[La Diva]

Originally posted by Tall_Walt
You start with 10,000 tiles; 6000 are land. ... conquer half, 3000 tiles. ... If you have to watch the little workers, that's 100,000 to 200,000 pictures of the little pests. almost 28 hours of watching workers . . . .work.

Purely for the sake of argument, many of those conquered tiles will already be improved to some extent by the time they're added to your empire.

Now the real reason for this post: Tall_Walt, you have stated the case for workerless play more compellingly than any other contributor. For me, it raises a lot of questions, like how my civ will grow as large in 5% of the time. But when a single turn in the 18th century can take a full 10 minutes to play, I can understand the savings factor. As long as I can teach AI to improve tiles the way I would, then I'll throw my vote to your side. Finishing a full game in an hour would be awesome.

I agree with whomever said it first: "... if Civ4 doesn't sell to the masses, it dies."

- Viva Civilization!!!

[Kuciwalker]

Tall_Walt, stop it. Don't make 6 or 7 consecutive posts, make one big post.

[Tall_Walt]

Kuciwalker, sorry: I'll reform.

La Diva, ship traffic was very important on the Nile (sail up, drift down), Mississippi barge traffic is still a major shipping avenue, and over 500 miles of canals are maintained in the US, adding to the thousands of miles of very wide rivers. Thousands of miles of canals have been abandoned, just in the US. Being from the US you're probably familiar with the way railroads revolutionized transportation in the late 19th century. Navigation canals revolutionized transportation before railroads were possible, at various levels of technology back to ancient Egypt connecting the Nile to the Red Sea. An article on them is at:
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761555006/Canal_(waterway).html

Also, I was unclear in saying only amphibious units should be able to cross wide rivers. I didn't mean units with landing craft, I means units that could reasonably swim across. So chariots or knights wouldn't be able to cross a larger river, but light infantry or cavalry units could. The heavier units would have to go around, or be transported across in ships. I only suggest this for ship-navigable rivers.

On terrain improvements, while you're right that some conquered territory will subtract from the workload, the AI isn't shy about destroying improvements, adding to the workload. If have the original version of Civ3, try reinstalling it without patches and you'll see why this is such a hot button for me. I doubt we'll see a Civ4 game in an hour, but it really needs to be a lot faster. Since Civ can be replayed over and over, a too long game is a negative, not value as it would be for an RPG or first person shooter.

[Max Sinister]

Originally posted by Tall_Walt
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.

1. Smog: Smoke as thick as fog.
2. "A lot" of LA's pollution from China? It's true that you can find traces of pollution even in the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica today, it's also true that f.e. half of the air pollution in Germany comes from abroad (but OTOH they also "export" parts of _their_ pollution), and it's true that there aren't many anti-pollution laws in the PR of China, but "a lot" of LA's pollution, several thousand miles away? That's too unbelievable.

[Max Sinister]

Originally posted by Tall_Walt
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.

No problem. Since a tile is 100x100 miles, its coastline will be 100 miles long or longer, too - I bet you could find a place for a beachhead on any 100 miles part of coastline.

[La Diva]

Originally posted by Tall_Walt
So chariots or knights wouldn't be able to cross a larger river, but light infantry or cavalry units could. The heavier units would have to go around, or be transported across in ships. I only suggest this for ship-navigable rivers.

The idea still makes me nervous, depending on how many ship-nav'able rivers would be added. Just let workers (if F'axis keeps them), settlers and their defending units cross. Knights come along well after Construction (and Bridges), so the limitations would be far fewer than I thought you meant. The only truly amphibious unit I know is the Marine.

Ferries should be buildable before other watercraft techs since they don't venture out to sea. But they need to be buildable on-site rather than in a city which may or may not be on that river. Add Build Ferry to the Unit Orders whenever any unit is in a tile next to an otherwise uncrossable river. Take one turn to build, one turn to cross. A ferry icon would remain at that location for 20 turns after the last time it was used. That means as long as you keep using it, it stays in good repair. But if abandoned, it will deteriorate and "wash away" with time.

I think ultra-wide rivers should be fairly rare, 1 or 2 per continent max. Some smaller rivers should have ship nav for 2 or 3 tiles from their mouths, providing they empty into large lakes (4 tiles or more) or an ocean.

AI isn't shy about destroying improvements, adding to the workload.

- ravages of war, I suppose. If any improvements remain, assuming you like the fact they've irrigated everything possible, you're still ahead rather than "adding to the workload" you originally calculated.

If have the original version of Civ3, try reinstalling it without patches and you'll see why this is such a hot button for me.

My version is 1.07f, and I don't remember installing any patches. Maybe I'm still playing in the Dark Ages about this issue. - If you haven't seen a "better way," it can be hard to imagine it.

a too long game is a negative

Agreed. I go through phases of playing, then set it aside for many months before I'm willing to invest that much time again. But the game is rather addictive, so I always come back.

[Tall_Walt]

Originally posted by Max Sinister
1. Smog: Smoke as thick as fog.
2. "A lot" of LA's pollution from China? It's true that you can find traces of pollution even in the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica today, it's also true that f.e. half of the air pollution in Germany comes from abroad (but OTOH they also "export" parts of _their_ pollution), and it's true that there aren't many anti-pollution laws in the PR of China, but "a lot" of LA's pollution, several thousand miles away? That's too unbelievable.

1. Not the definition, but I should have said the popularization of the word. An extreme smog in 1952 killed 4000 in London:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_1952

I usually wouldn't reference Wiki, but I have it in a paper reference book in my library. Googling could probably provide more references, as for the following.

2. I don't know the exact proportion, but central LA is only 10 miles from the Pacific and the prevailing winds are off the ocean the vast majority of the time. LA had quite clean air from the time pollution controls were added in the '70s until recently, when things got unaccountably worse. It's pretty amazing, but pollution lofts over the Pacific.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/08/01/asian.pollution.enn/

Anyway, if Firaxis thinks pollution should be in the game, perhaps having it drift to neighbors would be a less obnoxious way (in terms of game play) for it to have an effect. I'd be just as happy if it went away, myself.

[Tall_Walt]

La Diva,
I understand CtP has a non-worker improvement model. I haven't played it, but I've heard mixed reviews about it. It might be the closest thing to Civ to see how you like a different approach, though from the comments I've heard, you many find other things to dislike about it.

PS: If you're talking vanilla Civ3--no add ons--I believe the current version is 1.29f, and it's a big improvement, IMO.

[La Diva]

Originally posted by Tall_Walt
... perhaps having [pollution] drift to neighbors would be a less obnoxious way for it to have an effect.

Not cool, IMO. AI civs don't deal with pollution as quickly as I do, so I'd be cleaning up my neighbors' garbage. Booooooo!

[Max Sinister]

Invade 'em ;-) Hey, maybe they could introduce things like the "ecology pact" and the ecologic government (forgot its name) from CtP!
And I still don't believe LA's smog problem is mainly caused by China. I'd rather guess that the 8 million Angelinos every second of whom owns a car house-made that problem, sorry.

[Tall_Walt]

I never said "mainly". Please do not put words in my mouth.

I am perfectly capable of screwing up all by myself. I don't need help.

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by 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!

Thank you!

[Trifna]

Sorry to add you some more stuff Nikolai, but this is some stuff I got in my thread that had to do with terrain:


I had a thought about a way to make scout/explorer units more useful and desirable in the early game. Have a movement penelty for moving into unexplored squares for regular units.

So a civ would have the following mapsquare statuses.

Unknown: Completely black. Here be dragons. No clue at all.

Unexplored: Squares that have come into the LOS of a unit, but your people have never travelled into the square. You can see something of what's there, but it's not mapped and the first unit to move through there is gonna go slow cause they don't know the best routes, watering holes, etc.

Explored: Been there, done that, got the tshirt and the stupid bumper sticker.

Of course, Fog of War would also be overlayed on this too. And any territory inside a civ's cultural borders would be automatically explored.

So in exploring with a regular unit, movement into an unexplored square would have an extra movement cost. But a scout/explorer unit would be exempt from the penelty. An early horseman with 2 movement might only be able to move at a rate of 1 through unexplored territory. A scout would be able to move at full speed everywhere.

In the early game scouts would be more useful. This could even be extended to the seas. If variable movement rates for water were implemented a form of this could be applied to water. Perhaps a transport with a scout onboard would gain the movement benifits of the scout.

Another potential aspect of this is in map trading. It could become a lot more useful with the increased informational benifits.

I was also thinking that perhaps map resources would only be revealed in explored spaces. Ie. if nobody's ever been there, no one will know that there's gold there, or oil or saltpeter.

I'm sure there's a lot more that could be done with the idea than I've outlined here.
Bleyn


Also, the more I think of it, the more I like the idea of a "shoals" type water tile that makes it so you can't land there. That would allow the defender to concentrate its forces on the "likely" landing spots.
wrylachlan


terrain becomes important (if your Logistics unit is on a mountain on the plains, it doesn't have to worry as much because it can see any enemy approach - if you know the enemy has nothing but wheeled units, your Logistics unit knows it won't get attacked from the mountains - etc. etc.). Ditto for flanking. Ditto for bombardment across a river.
wrylachlan

[Nikolai]

Thanks. I think I'll wait to inclued it until next update, was it december DC said?

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hey Trifna, that idea is remarkably like one in the CFC forum that I am subscribed to. In it, not ONLY do you get a movement penalty in an unexplored area, but the units operational range (the range a unit can go BEFORE it begins to suffer degraded permormance and/or hp loss) is lowered too! More to the point, said areas are not TRULY explored until the exploration unit has returned to home camp-be it a fortress, outpost or city. Another idea I had, though I'm not sure of its workability, is to have these 'unexplored' areas revert to darkness after the exploration unit has passed through it, but have all such explored regions become clear once the explorer returns. If it could be done effectively, then this could make the game much more interesting, as I could see an explorer coming across some vicious minor nation, deep in an unexplored jungle, who kills the explorer outright. Suddenly where he was standing reverts to darkness, leaving the player with a brief and tantalising glimpse of a dangerous new world, but with no concrete information about it-thus forcing him to send out more expeditions!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.