Keeping forests & jungle the entire game

[Warmaker]

I tried something different from all my other Civ games.

I had a new game that I completed as France and I kept about +90% of the forest & jungle my people acquire.

People saying, "Are you freaking nuts?" to me have a point. I mean, you could use the space for cottages, farms, etc.

But I opted to try to keep them for several reasons.

* Having lots of forests around keeps the chances of the Greenhouse Effect lower, especially when the player has a large territory and is churning out lots of units & factories. I also opted to stay away from Coal Factories.

* Outstanding Natural Defenses. Hills only give 25% to defenses while Forests / Jungles give a whopping 50%. I can post units at these tiles with the appropriate skills (forest / jungle defense bonus + movement mods) and they are very tough to dislodge. Also, having a bunch of Forested Hills are prime real estate to anchor defenses. Putting units with hill & forest defense mods there make them pretty much impregnable unless serious efforts are undertaken to root them out.

* You still get moderate Food & Production mods from a Forest Tile. Jungles though, in good numbers slow population growth.

When my French game ended I had quite a whole lot of territory and impregnable defenses using terrain to my advantage. I've faced numerous invasions and attacks, all of which smashed against my strategically placed forces at very tough terrain.

And the Greenhouse Effect didn't touch me at all, thanks to some disciplined factory building.

Am I one of the few guys to keep the forests around?

It's not like the older Civ games where we could plant Forests to make things "greener" for the environment late in the game.

[trev]

I only keep tundra forests myself, as the squares are useless cleared, otherwise progressively clear as the game goes on, not all clearing is done at the start of the game.

[MilesGregarius]

On noble, I kept as much forest (though not jungle) as possible. Since starting to play prince, I find I have to chop-rush wonders or risk losing out with a turn or two of construction left. I still try to leave patches of forests here and there for the health boost and to hopefully spur regrowth.

[Warmaker]

Well, if "green oriented" the early game is fine. Forests regrow with decent rates.

Late in the game however, nothing happens with regrowth, even after I remove improvements on the tile.

[Willem]

I'll keep Forests on Hills and Plains provided they aren't near a river, since I don't want to lose out on that extra commerce. I do it for the added health bonus though, not for defense. I always get rid of Jungles however, since they make my city unhealthy and add nothing to my resource count.

[Sabre2th]

I find it's easy to fall behind in tech if you don't use some of your forest squares for cottages, but I generally do keep them around, especially if I'm aiming more for a military-type game. Jungles are usually among the first things to go when I start cranking out workers

[Senethro]

Heh, I tend to leave some forests about but I ruthlessly cut down all jungle in my territory, even outside my city limits.

[gus_smedstad]

Re: Keeping forests & jungle the entire game

Originally posted by Warmaker
* Having lots of forests around keeps the chances of the Greenhouse Effect lower, especially when the player has a large territory and is churning out lots of units & factories. I also opted to stay away from Coal Factories.

I've never had the Greenhouse Effect pop up no matter how many forests and jungles I cut down or coal plants I build, and I generally play on Monarch. I'm not sure how to trigger the Greenhouse Effect, but clearly this isn't a reason to keep forests and jungles.

- Gus

[Hermann the Lombard]

I'd say that keeping some forests around makes sense, but keeping jungle doesn't. It can be transiently useful as a defensive belt but more to delay than for defensive bonuses.

[Yosho]

Yeah. Sometimes forests, with the health benifits and the hammer, can be more useful then cottages or farms in the early game. There's a period in the midgame where they aren't as good, but if you hold on to them they become good again once you get lumber mill and railroad. I usually hold on to some forests, depending on how aggressivly I'm going for certain wonders; keeping around a few forests is really the only way to keep production up in cities without hills.

On the other hand, jungle is just bad, in all respects. Don't really see any advantage to keeping jungle around...

[curtsibling]

I wish that jungle gave some kind of benefit when chopping,
as the mere sight of them leads me to raze and build cottages!

[Hermann the Lombard]

I think a logical benefit might be one-half the hammers available from a forest, reflecting tropical hardwoods like teak. OTOH since we don't have swamp there is a place for Obnoxious Organics.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by curtsibling
I wish that jungle gave some kind of benefit when chopping,
as the mere sight of them leads me to raze and build cottages!

I changed the XML to:

1. Lower the health penalty
2. Add +1 coin (exotic stuff for sale )
3. Remove food penalty (no idea why is one in the first place)

Jungles become a lot better and worth keeping for the most part

[Yosho]

Or, an alternate way to make the "should I clear-cut the jungle" issue a question would be to give each worker trying to cut down a jungle a % chance each turn of dying of malaria. Realistic, anyway...

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


3. Remove food penalty (no idea why is one in the first place)

Jungles become a lot better and worth keeping for the most part

Now that DOES surprise me

Perhaps the food penalty is because the jungle wildlife eats the food itself.