Disease

[Tau]

I really like flood plains. Introducing them in CivIII was a great idea since it adds a new degree of realism. Civilization as we know it was born in the "shining fields of mud".
That said, I have to point out how much they suck.
Perhaps due to a bug or simple bad luck, "floodplain disease" always comes to stay. When settling in the fertile soil, I can sometimes escape without illness for centuries. However, when it does strike, something very odd happens. The disease keeps on going, taxing the population every other turn!

My record so far has been a millennium of pestilence.

This is unrealistic, since major diseases tended to arrive in epidemics, coming and going. There was never an ongoing, raging plague in the cradle of civilization or none of us would be here today.

And it's really, really annoying.

If anyone knows how to fix it, I'd be most grateful.

[joncnunn]

Anytime disease strikes, go into the city and move all workers out of the diseased tiles until the disease ends.

There's some releation to number of diseased tiles being worked.

Also, if you have the plague disater on, move all units out of the affected city until it ends.

[Tau]

I'll try that, thanks.

Still, it seems somewhat unrealistic. Must be an error in game design.

[alexman]

There is a 0.5% per turn chance of disease for every floodplains/jungle tile a city is working. Disease always hits twice in a row if you have enough population, but then you go back the the 0.5% per turn chance.

Removing citizens from floodplains/jungle after disease strikes does not prevent the second consecutive strike.

[eris]

Someone will either verify or confirm this, but it is my understanding that irrigating a flood plain tile removes it as a source of disease.

[pvzh]

No, it does not. Happend to me yesterday: worked irrigated flood plain and got desease. The advance Sanitation prevents desease.

[Antrine]

Cities only go down to one and then crawl back up, I have set it so it happens somewhat often to counter rich modded tiles that spur rapid growth. I have all but forest/mountains return plague. Now that is realistic! Some civilizations did disappear, that's one of the reasons no one with blue skin made it here.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Antrine
Cities only go down to one and then crawl back up, I have set it so it happens somewhat often to counter rich modded tiles that spur rapid growth. I have all but forest/mountains return plague. Now that is realistic!

Is it now? Doesn't it mean that every city will have many repeated cases of disease? Doesn't it make all populations in all civs constantly sick? A bit overdone, IMO.

[GePap]

BUt very true until you get to modern medicine-the real balance on populations was always disease, not some arbitrary pop limits.

[Modo44]

You see, I think that's an issue you might have with the game mechanics. To me, the "disease" in Civ3 represents really cathastrophic occurances, so it should be a rare thing to happen. The usuall trouble cities had with growth, are exactly what the pop limit represents. It's a simplification, but that's what this game is about afterall.

I'll explain. Normal health/hygiene/ fresh water problems don't cause a drastic population drop, they just keep it from growing over a certain limit. But the Civ3 disease makes huge killings if you have it constantly in all cities. And such events did not occur that often in history, did they?

[joncnunn]

The worst disease I've gotten (with disasters OFF) is one city geting hit with it 3 times in a row. Far more often is one city getting hit 2 times in a row. In both cases the city had 3+ citizens left.

With diasters on, I get the plague instead. Worst instance was captial struck by it (captial had a bunch of flood plains), spread to second bigest city (no diseased tiles there), took about 5 turns to clear up, no reccurance.

[Antrine]

Europe lost half of its population more than once. Central America was de-populated more than once, disease killed Native populations when others (read white man) came along. In war, disease killed more every single time, until WW1. Southeast asia whole civilizations disappered mysteriously, what did they have in common with other climes suffering likewise, Jungle. Before 1900 it is the main KILLER of the human race.

Anyway, game mechanics hardly emulate what is 'real' anyway.

The lifespan, interestingly enough seems right on in this game. Average lifespan hardly ever got to 30 years of age in any built up areas.

Continuous growth without mishaps (even frequent) is not history.

[Modo44]

All that included, the game needs so and so much food for a city to grow and stops at some point. Don't you think that could be to simulate the process of constant population loss? You said yourself that you increased food values for some tiles. Guess why they were so small...

Fact is, there were big ancient cities that did survive through millenia. Is this possible in Civ3, when you set almost all terrain to cause disease?

[Antrine]

Yes, when those tiles are tilled, growth will out strip population loss, but in places where this is not done fast enough, such as more outlying cities with corruption, they have their growth suppressed for dozens of turns but eventually come around.

No matter how high you set it, it still seems that growth will overcome it in the long-run with tilling and/or rich tiles. This game needs more happening after a while, more spark, this is just another option.

Smiles,

Antrine

[Shogun Gunner]

Here's a simple question. I don't disagree with jungle causing disease...but flood plains???

I know, I know.... I'm interjecting real world stuff into a game, but I'm curious. I don't recall flood plains being a source of disease in earth history. However, as a game mechanism, a check against the explosive growth of a city on a series of flood plain tiles makes sense...

Thoughts?