Originally posted by Dis
deserts in my maps aren't too bad.
What would really be amazing, although perhaps too complex for too little gameplay value, would be to reflect rainfall patterns and mountains. But considering we don't fully understand the rainfall patterns of earth yet, it's unlikely we could implement it on a new world. For instance, mountains in the southwest tend to sap up moisture. In some cases as in California the west side will be more fertile and green than the east side (death valley). But this doesn't hold true in all cases. It depends on the location of the water source. As in the case of the Himalayas in Asia.
deserts in my maps aren't too bad.
What would really be amazing, although perhaps too complex for too little gameplay value, would be to reflect rainfall patterns and mountains. But considering we don't fully understand the rainfall patterns of earth yet, it's unlikely we could implement it on a new world. For instance, mountains in the southwest tend to sap up moisture. In some cases as in California the west side will be more fertile and green than the east side (death valley). But this doesn't hold true in all cases. It depends on the location of the water source. As in the case of the Himalayas in Asia.
On the other hand, I'll toss in the obligatory comment that SMAC managed to indeed have 3-4 base levels of "rainfall" (depending on how you define base) each of which gave more food. Sure enough, with this broader quality spectrum, it managed to model rainfall patterns based on mountains, at least to the extent of modeling "rain shadows." Areas to the east of mountains were usually drier, and areas to the west were usually wetter (and better for growing food).
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