What if they nerfed the chop?

[Mujadaddy]

I think that they should dribble the Hammers out when you chop a forest... if it takes 8-worker-turns to get 40 hammers from a forest (modified for simplicity), your city should get 5 hammers per worker-turn. This by itself will cut down on chop-abuse while still not removing the basic concept...

This would have to be coded, not merely XML'ed... the functionality is there (as you can chop a single forest only a few times, and then come back and have the tile "remember" how long it had already been chopped)-- you'd just have to add the routine at the end of every worker-turn, not the lump-sum at the end...

[Stageon]

I can just see it now: Workers standing around chopping forest Warcraft-style... chop chop chop chop...

[Feyd]

What is the percentage chance (I'm assuming it's in an XML file somewhere) that a forest will regrow or spread into an empty tile?

With some coding you could make an early clearcut not unreconcilable by upping this percentage chance. Alternatively you could add a massive boost to this percentage if the forest in question is inside the boundries of a civ running Environmentalism.

It would definitely give the powergamers something to think about in regards to environmentalism (over free market for example)

[Stageon]

Yeah, I'd be interested in knowing the formulas for how forest regrows anyway, especially as it relates to how much you leave intact. Seems like you could make the best decisions about cutting then, knowing the odds of it growing back over a given time period.

This may have been covered in another thread, I think I remember people talking about it. But I don't know if the actual formula was ever teased out.

Good thought Feyd about the forests growing better if you have environmentalism. That would be a nice touch.

[Sandwich]

IMO Chop is a good thing, even for wonders.

Chop for wonders like Pyraminds gives civs without stone, for example, a way to compete with civs that do, or with industrious civs.

Also, lumbermill simulates chopping and replanting forests, without our having to send the workers there over and over.

[Tebriel]

That's abusable. Chop 2 turns and let the forest stand. You get hammers AND the forest benefit.

[axi]

Do you know any noticeable place on earth that was a forest, has been chopped to turn into grasslands or pasture and has later become forest again, while not having been abandoned by it's human inhabitants? Usually, if man wants to exploit a forest for it's lumber, they replant it or let it regrow, doing pretty much what a a worked forest and later a lumbermill do in CIV. Chopping AND replanting forests is useless micromanagement. Clearing forests once and for all, to reap the benefits is somenthing history is full of. The way it is in CIV is quite allright.

As it is, a forest is a standing temptation, specially just before you get Astronomy (where you reexpand across the oceans) or Railroad at which your workers have nothing more to do. I always vow to keep them for the health, or for having a last resort when I get to build some late must-have wonder (3 Gorges Dam, Eiffel Tower, Broadway) but my idle workers tickle me to give the chop order.

What I really can't grasp about forests is their relation with specials. Why isn't a deer camp or banana plantation considered a forest? Why do I have to chop a forest to get deer? And how can the deer survive when I' ve chopped all surrounding forests? If I were an able modder, I' d have the deer appear always and only wherever one cluster of 9 squares contains at least 7 forest in it. That would be fun! Chop one forest and pop! there go the deer. Kind of a bonus for keeping a large forest intact.

The same should be true for the beaver (fur) I guess.

[Solomwi]

I'll have to fire the game up and check forests, but I know camps don't clear jungles, so I suspect they don't clear forests, either (which would make sense). I thought they did until my last game, where a worker happened to be moving over an ivory camp and I noticed the "Clear Jungle/Forest" icon become active. I think I like the deer tied to forest idea, though it strikes me as possibly making them too rare, even before anything's chopped.

[axi]

I too am away from my civ installation, so I can't verify this

[cal_01]

Originally posted by Tebriel
That's abusable. Chop 2 turns and let the forest stand. You get hammers AND the forest benefit.

All terrain features have some sort of "flag" to keep track of how many turns the tile was worked, I believe. You can leave it and come back and it would continue where you left off.

So no, not abuseable I think.

[Tebriel]

That's still abusable. I'll chop down 2/3rds of that forest (1 turn left to clear it out) and I'll still get the full .5 health benefit for it?
That's abuse waiting to happen.

[johnmcd]

Forest regrowth is interesting.

I absolutely agree that when forest is cleared it's usually been to farm or something. It would be interesting if, much like cottages and the like forest regrew when a tile was not worked for so many turn in a row. The random forest growth is cool, but a modicum of control would be very welcome.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Feyd
What is the percentage chance (I'm assuming it's in an XML file somewhere) that a forest will regrow or spread into an empty tile?

With some coding you could make an early clearcut not unreconcilable by upping this percentage chance. Alternatively you could add a massive boost to this percentage if the forest in question is inside the boundries of a civ running Environmentalism.

It would definitely give the powergamers something to think about in regards to environmentalism (over free market for example)

I'm at work but I'm going to fenture a guess at: CIV4FeatureInfos.xml/Civ4FeatureInfos/FeatureInfos/FeatureInfo(Type=FEATURE_FOREST)/iGrowth

But I don't know if that's a percentage (8%, 0.08, 1 in 12.5) or a base chance (12.5%, 1 in 8, 0.125) or what...

I'll have to check when I get home.

Tom P.

[cgrecu77]

#1 - if chopping is (greatly) overpowered, how come we have this discussion
#2 - the higher the diff. level the more important forests become in early game for their extra health points. Having 5 forests in a city radius is like having an extra civ trait (expansive)
#3 - forest chopping is supposed to be a more advanced topic, if you think it's overpowered then you should probably be playing on a higher level. When I started playing Monarch a few weeks ago the only thing I felt overpowered was the AI - and those damned barbarians ...
#4 - outside of health forests are not worth it. Even in the late game, assuming you switch to communism (which you should if you have more than a few cities) a workshop on a plain with RR gives you 1f + 4sh, just as much as a forest. In the early game you benefit a lot from the prod. bonuses from chopping down, and a plain with an irigation gives 2f+1s instead of 1s+2f, which is about the same thing. If there was a river in the forest then you're also getting an extra 1t. After guilds you can also build a workshop for 0f and 3s if you prefer production over growth.

In the end it all comes down to health vs prod. bonuses. The tile underneath is basically going to yield pretty much the same.
Forests can be a pain when the enemy attacks you through them, you can't counteract with your siege weapons. Also you get more flexibility with the empty tile, you can switch easily from high growth to high production (irrigation to cottage).

The only moment where the forests have an advantage is in very early game, before CS and there is no river close. Then no improvement can yield as much as the forest. However, it's very likely that you will work other tiles at that time since your population will be really small

In my opinion the best way to improve the value of forests is to let them earn trade just like any other tile. Other possible changes - make the lumberjacks appear a lot earlier - before construction let's say. Then give the forest 1s bonus when replacement parts arrive. This will make forrests very powerful, so in order to counteract this, make the bonus for chopping them even higher, maybe 10 shields more. This way you clearly have to sacrifice long term goals for short term gains.

As for the re-forrestation, it should be possible after biology to plant a forrest, but it should take something like 20 turns and the tile underneath should not yield anything for the duration of this process. Now that would be painfull ...

[joncnunn]

It's my opinion that Free Market is much better (Court Houses everywhere) than Communism. The food bonus portion of Communism doesn't matter much when your core cities are already at their healthiness limit. I much rather have the extra trade route for commerce that gets multipled by the city improvements.