Terraforming

[Kuciwalker]

1) He's correct and can make that statement even if he can't do it.

2) You are asking him to write an AI to handle a feature that doesn't exist.

3) Do you know anything about programming?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Willem
If it's as easy as he claims, it should be a breeze for him to do.

That's an idiotic fallacy.

[mkorin]

Originally posted by Willem


Go ahead and do it then.

Willem, I am a CIO with about 30 years of programming experience. I play the game to relax, not revisit work. That is why Firaxis has programmers. I was correcting someone's statement that the AI couldn't be programmed to do this.

I think the whole concept of modding is crazy. Those with the knowledge and skill propably don't want to spend their free time programming, and those without the knowledge and skill will make bad mods. There are some exceptions- Blake has done a great job on his better AI mod. I only found three bugs when using it. Now I don't like the direction he took the AI, so I don't use it, but he did good work.

Technically, it would be rather simple to make the AI improve it's square upgrade strategy. I'm sure Firaxis is using some sort of truth table/case statement/nested if to do exactly what it is doing now. They could change it if they wished. Either to make it smarter or add an engineer function as in Civ II or III, I forget which one had it.

[Virdrago]

Originally posted by patcon

I also don't recall ever getting any "A forest has grown near X" messages except early in the game.

I thought that forests didn't grow after about 2000 B.C. until I had one show up on a roaded square inside my fat circle at around 1500 A.D. a couple of games ago. I still consider it an anomaly, but it was rare enough that I did a double-take when I saw the message and the square.

[zeace]

I believe the chance of a forest growing is proportional to the number of years that pass per turn. Early on 1 turn is hundreds of years so there's a high chance of it growing. Near the end there's 1 year per turn so the chance is one hundredth as much...

[Nacht]

Is has nothing to do with years. There are just less and less forests and more improved tiles as the game progresses.

[Jaybe]

I definitely favor the number of years per turn theory.

[Nacht]

Each unimproved tile has a 1/1000 chance to grow a forest for each surrounding tile that already has a forest. Divide that chance by two if the tile has a road.

So less forests -> less growth. More improved tiles -> less growth. Late game: almost no regrowth.

AFAIK not a single game mechanic depends on years per turn.