Events in BtS?

[Virdrago]

I am remembering Civ3's volcanoes, as well as the Black Death in the Medieval scenario (wasn't there a plague in Fall of Rome as well?). Also, the original Civ had earthquakes and volcanoes that would decimate a city unless you built a building to prevent the "natural disaster".

I'm wondering what type of "events" would show up in BtS? I can see the Black Death making a comeback, or the influenza outbreak of 1918; even the illnesses that wiped out 90% of the New World's population.. I can also see volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes. Obviously some are localized and some would affect whole continents. What does anyone think the "events" would be?

I have an idea of global climate change, like the cooling around 1000 that effectively ended the Viking travels to North America and other places. If put on the Earth scenario, one could reach North America at certain points (the ice melts near Greenland and the Bering Strait) before Astronomy. Also, it would be make one wonder whether building that coastal Arctic city is wise when the ocean may freeze and take out any food.

Also, desertification may become a problem.

It may not be so extreme, but, any ideas?

[Jaybe]

There was a mod (pre-Warlords era) of random events. It had feasts, famines & I remember not what else. Feasts & famines involved areas (3-5 tiles radius) of 1 plus or minus food. It stayed in one place and lasted a few turns. I don't know (or remember) how often it occured.

I liked the variability and not being able to predict another aspect of what the future would hold.

[Xorbon]

Global climate change doesn't seem like something that could be considered an event, but more of a continuing process. I think it would be cool to see it in the game though. (Although I know there would be a lot of people that would get pissed off whenever their northern cities become surrounded by ice, and their plains cities become desert cities.)

As far as events that could be expected, I would say anything that was in Civs 1 or 3 could be in: volcanoes, plagues, flooding, pirates, earthquakes, and famines. I wouldn't be surprised if tsunamis are added. I wouldn't mind pollution making a come back: as long as it's not nearly as frequent as it was in past games. Something more along the lines of an "Exxon Valdez" every now and then.

Then of course, according to the press releases, "pleas for help" and "demands from citizens" will be in. I'm curious what specific pleas and demands there will be. I wonder if it'll be like a Community Chest card from Monopoly (i.e. totally random), or if it'll be more like a scripted event where .

[Kuciwalker]

Events are good when 1) there are clear ways you can avoid them and 2) they aren't some permanent malus. Volcanoes were great for that (plus being cool). "Global Warming" sucks, OTOH, especially as it exists now.

[Jaybe]

NO! Events must NOT be avoidable! But they should not be permanent or catastrophic either (other than a rare volcano ala Pompeii, perhaps). Global weather changes (such as historical mini-ice age or warming) shouldn't last more than a few hundred years at most and should not be a certainty within a game. Most of all, they should NOT be of a predictable length.

[Kuciwalker]

Well something like -3 food for 5 turns is fine if unavoidable, but something like "the volcano erupted and your city was destroyed" or "we're permanently making a tile useless" had better be.

[Jaybe]

Yes, volcanoes destroying a civ city should be disallowed. Have the lava flow to some other tile (probably destroy a town or critical resoursce ). Of course, we'll have to allow volcanoes on hills, since they may represent an occasional mountain.

[Kuciwalker]

I'd prefer to have predefined volcano tiles a la civ3, which can destroy anything in the surrounding 8 tiles. That way, you build near one at your own risk.

[Martinus]

I generally like the concept of random events, however what I'd like to see is a possibility of somehow affecting them by choices of civics or buildings in the city. For example, a famine should not occur (or at least be greatly reduced in effect) in a city with granary, and a city with no fresh water to begin with should have a much lower chance of contracting a plague if there was an aqueduct in it (and should be immune to plague if it had hospital).

Likewise, the more unhappy or polluted city, the higher should be the chance of some special bad event, like riots, fire or plague.

I would also like to see global warming being caused by ultra-pollution, and not just nuclear warfare, however the pollution level should be high enough, it would normally happen only in late game. (Maybe there should be some "global pollution" indicator, which would sum up pollution from all cities around the globe - within the UN countries could adopt some measures to reduce production and pollution, or ban coal plants etc.)

Events like plague should also be "global" in the sense of a plague starting in one city (if you discovered the city, you would be notified of it even if it did not belong to you) and then spreading via trade routes and the like - you could then try to combat that by closing off your trade routes with the diseased country via cancelling Open Borders agreements.

[Saurus]

I´d like to have predictable random events. I think it´s even okey that events are inbalancing at times, just as long as they make sence.

For instance, flooding should ever only happen in cities built at rivers. Tsunamis likewise only at the coast and earthquakes & volcanoes only at certain areas sensible to this kind of activity.
(Seismologically active areas could be randomly pre-selected while generating the map)

This could mean different kind of problems in different locations around the world during the game and could even result in the existence of specialized technologies needed to be researched in order to bring relief. (techs for earthquake proof building and the like.)

Some problems could affect the entire globe (meteor strike), climate changes .... some events could affect a certain continent severly while stopped at the seashore (plague for instance)



The possibility is endless and may actually add some depth to the game, if done well.
Totally random events at totally random times at totally random places, on the other hand, adds nothing to the game IMO.

[Virdrago]

Originally posted by Jaybe
NO! Events must NOT be avoidable! But they should not be permanent or catastrophic either (other than a rare volcano ala Pompeii, perhaps). Global weather changes (such as historical mini-ice age or warming) shouldn't last more than a few hundred years at most and should not be a certainty within a game. Most of all, they should NOT be of a predictable length.

I agree. The global weather changes I was thinking about included, for example, the Vikings being able to reach North America, then suddenly being cut off for a couple hundred years. Of course, the cooling does end, after a while.

[Virdrago]

Originally posted by Saurus
I´d like to have predictable random events. I think it´s even okey that events are inbalancing at times, just as long as they make sence.

For instance, flooding should ever only happen in cities built at rivers. Tsunamis likewise only at the coast and earthquakes & volcanoes only at certain areas sensible to this kind of activity.
(Seismologically active areas could be randomly pre-selected while generating the map)

This could mean different kind of problems in different locations around the world during the game and could even result in the existence of specialized technologies needed to be researched in order to bring relief. (techs for earthquake proof building and the like.)

Some problems could affect the entire globe (meteor strike), climate changes .... some events could affect a certain continent severly while stopped at the seashore (plague for instance)



The possibility is endless and may actually add some depth to the game, if done well.
Totally random events at totally random times at totally random places, on the other hand, adds nothing to the game IMO.

I agree.

[Brutus66]

Are we sure that random events and natural disasters aren't two different things?
Europa Universalis 3 implements random events and I don't see any similarity to the volcano disaster in civ3.
I am hoping that civ does a better job with the random events than EU3- after a while you keep seeing the same ones come up over a long game and they go from adding spice to getting stale.

The inclusion of natural disasters is, to me, one of the main selling points of the xp, and I don't mind at all the idea of losing a city to a flood, earthquake, volcano, whatever; just as long as it's an equal-opportunity deal that afflicts the AI civs as much as mine (maybe I am wrong, but in the case of barbarians, it seems to me that they tend to gravitate and attack my stuff when given the choice between equidistant AI-controlled civs and my own).

[Jaybe]

Brutus, I can imagine how EU3 random events could get stale when you have the same environment/nations game after game.

Re barbarians, who would YOU target if you were given a choice between units that got a little-or-no combat advantage against you (the player) or those that got a whopping 40% combat advantage (the AI)?? Reference the file HandicapInfo.xml.

[Pinchak]

I think some possablitys are...

1. Zombie uprising

2. Alien Invasion

3. Robot Takeover