Three Strange Smaxings... including base revolt!

[RedFred]

Famyn, as I understand it, the new volcano eruptions are not remarkable if you abuse Planet a lot. The unusual feature is to get the original Mt. Planet to erupt.

[Helium Pond]

Mitosu, that sounds just about exactly like what happened to me. It's generous of you to attribute it to global warming and not errors in code. But I guess it's just an undocumented feature, huh?
[This message has been edited by Helium Pond (edited August 11, 2000).]

[Misotu]

Yup.

Although, to be fair, I don't think I'd count this one as a bug necessarily, although I agree that the way it happens is confusing and poor. Because it has only happened to me under very specific circumstances, I don't have a problem accepting that rising sea levels could produce a tidal wash in the few years prior to the main event. If it's intentional, which I think it may be, it's poorly executed because you:
a) don't see it happen and
b) don't get a message saying "scout unit washed away by tidal wave" or "terraforming destroyed ... " etc.

I can appreciate that actually seeing the event would require a lot of work and wouldn't add much to the game, but implementing a message telling you what happened would not have required much work.

The reason why I'm fairly sure it's intentional is that I noticed in one game that formers seemed to be disappearing along with terraforming improvements. I thought I must be mistaken - I had a lot of formers at the time. Then it happened again the next year, in several locations, and this time I was sure. Hmm.

I immediately moved all my formers onto higher land, and no further units were lost although terraforming continued to disappear. I admit that I didn't really pay much attention to it, or take a look to see exactly how low the square had to be for a unit to be endangered, because rising sea levels are extremely rare in my SP games.
[This message has been edited by Misotu (edited August 12, 2000).]

[Googlie]

In a game, when the ocean is about to rise thru global warming, units that are susceptible to being washed away have an Endangered in red right beneath the unit in the action window depicting the square.

I believe i remember (tho I have not since scenario tested it), that I also got this warning befoe a tidal wave swept a base away and killed a former in an adjacent square.

Googlie

[Misotu]

Well, by an amazing coincidence, I've just had a sea level rise in an SP game against a very beefed-up AI. So this time, I paid attention

The wash occurred in the same year as the sea level rise. I didn't lose any units, but I lost a lot of terraforming. The highest square to suffer was at a height of 767 metres *after* the sea level rise and was four squares away from the nearest sea tile. The terraforming in all the squares between this square and the sea was also lost. 767 metres is a lot higher than I would have expected tidal wash to reach.

Unfortunately, I was playing through the game to test out a scenario, so I couldn't go back a turn and see whether the "endangered" indicator showed up.

[Nigel]

I could see 'tidal wash' destroying some units and terraforming, but i've also had the global warming process:

a)make the sunny mesa look like a stick of butter that's been sitting out all summer

and

b)downgrade the rockiness of inland squares

Those are some powerful squalls!

I've seen all these effects (except I don't recall ever losing units) from the solar shade as well.

I'm pretty sure the endangered label is for squares that are about to be submerged (or unsubmerged) during the span of the last planetologist's estimate of sea level change.

[Googlie]

Nigel:

The Endangered label attaches to the unit - move it to higher ground and the label disappears entirely

Googlie

[Helium Pond]

Goog: I've never seen the Engangered label you're talking about; we're talking about the Endangered label that appears in the window describing the currently selected map square. This label describes the square of land as engangered, not the unit, although any units on the square are obviously endangered as well. I've only seen this label on coastal squares, and the effects I'm describing happened on inland squares.

Mitosu, thanks for the data. I highly doubt that the endangered warning would appear on inland squares, but now I'll pay closer attention. I'm 100% certain, however, that the disappearing units happened a couple turns before sea levels rose.

Nigel: whatever do you mean, "make the sunny mesa look like a stick of butter that's been sitting out all summer"? The graphics actually corrupted somehow? What does such a stick of butter look like, anyway? A big yellow puddle?

Come to think of it, I also experienced downgrading of rockiness, now that you mention it. I was all, "Hey! What happened to my mines?" That lousy global warming.

[Nigel]

HP:
The unique graphics of the special land formations are changed when the program redraws planet with it's adjusted altitudes.
Mount Planet and Sunny Mesa start to loose their cliff-like appearance. Also, if you look at the squares in the Mesa, they aren't as uniform in altitude as the table-top appearance at the beginning would suggest. Thus, when redrawn, it starts to look like butter at room temperature- it doesn't go liquid, but parts of it try real hard. I don't know how else to describe it.

Hey, maybe i should demonstrate this with some butter and use the picture for my entry in the Firaxis contest.

[Googlie]

Hmmm, HP, you are right (just play tested it)

I could have sworn the label was also on the unit, but it's on the landsquare (and of course, when I move the unit to a higher landsquare, the lable disappears ... DUH)

I don't remember seeing it on the reverse (solar shade producing falling sea levels, is there an endangered warning along the coastline sea squares?)

I know I have lost the odd sea former or sea crawler where I've been terraforming upwards and miscounted the turns left (in games before I realized they were on the uplifting terraformers' flags)

Interesting (from a fiction writer's perspective) - what would the terraforming upwards look and feel like to the crew of a seaformer or foil in the square that suddenly uplifts?



Googlie

[Misotu]

quote: Originally posted by Helium Pond on 08-14-2000 02:41 AM Mitosu, thanks for the data. I highly doubt that the endangered warning would appear on inland squares, but now I'll pay closer attention. I'm 100% certain, however, that the disappearing units happened a couple turns before sea levels rose.

You're very welcome And yes, although on this occasion the inland wash happened at the same time as the sea level rise, I can confirm that I have definitely had tidal wash occur in the few turns prior to a sea level rise. In one game it occurred repeatedly, maybe three or four times, prior to a single rise in sea level.

I'd forgotten about changes from rocky to rolling in affected squares, but I can confirm that this happens too.

[xgman]

Transcend skill level
Huge Planet

Can almost promise you will see a volcano errupt before its over.

[Helium Pond]

xgman, are you sure you're not confusing the sudden formation of a new mountain with an actual eruption of Mount Planet? This seems to be a common confusion. New mountains pop up on the map from time to time, and almost everybody has seen that. I don't remember whether it gets attributed to volcanic activity or not, but I suspect that this is what you're referring to, because of your wording: "can almost promise you will see a volcano erupt." We're not talking about seeing a volcano erupt, we're talking about seeing Mount Planet erupt, which is apparently exceptionally rare. From what I've heard, when it happens all terraforming on Mount Planet gets destroyed.

And for what it's worth, I regularly play transcend on huge planets.

[ullteppe]

Here's what I experienced a year ago,
concerning the 'washing' of land tiles:

1. Short:
Really annoying bug - The erasing of tile improvements and land units on some (now) RIVER! squares, which earlier were supposed to go below sea level because of global warming/melt polar caps, WHEN TERRAFORMING SOMEWHERE ELSE(DISTANT LOCATION) RAISE OR LOWER ANY LAND. Can provide save games(I think) before, during and after, happens every time...

Long:
A) Council votes for melting, 333m over 20 yrs.
B) Tile information gives warning, red text.
C) Actual sinking goes like this; removal of all improvements/units, altitude changes, some tiles actually become sea tiles, BUT some does not. Some rivers changes their course. So far no problem.

D) Me trying to fix the blanked tiles with formers, some tiles now has rivers flowing through.

E) Terraforming up/down some land elsewhere, far away, at the same time.

F) Turn comes when raise/lower land is completed, game moves unit by unit after turn start. When comes to the specific former who completes this turn, land goes up/down, and the beforementioned tiles with RIVERS on get blanked again!, losing all LAND units on them in the process(only flying units survive), and a message appears of change in the wheather patterns near my (always...!) most northern city. Lost 6-8 units this way Not to mention the "reworked" improvements...

That tile is forever unworkable, unless no more terraforming up/down is performed, by me or other.

This was with UK version with patch no 3.0, before Crossfire came.

Havent gotten myself into this situation in Alien Crossfire yet, though I try my best to raise any tile with river on it to at least 1000whatever over sealevel. Builder, that's me....

You might wanna check out if this elaborate theory may fit your scenario, and if so, post the findings ?