Raising Land (or Lowering it)

[cbn]

We have all seen the messages about rapidly rising sea levels and begun the process of raising the land to preserve our continent(s). I have a few questions that I hope people can answer and a few comments.


1. Is there an easy method to check to see what land is endangered? Currently the only method I know is to scroll the cursor over each square individually and note those that are endangered (often I will also note any areas under 200m). I find this tedious. Also areas well inland that visually "look" very high are endangered so checking the coast only won't do it.

2. Does raising a square influence all or just some of the adjacent squares? In my current game I had raised squares north of my base to over 1500m but the base stayed endangered. I ended up rushing a Pressure dome to be safe (not needed as it turned out) as well as using multiple formers on three other squares adjacent to the base.

3. Is there any way to control how far the raising goes? In many cases I am just trying to keep land based improvements out of the water and instead end up destroying a tidal harness or two as my continent gets a little bigger (or worse cutting my planned naval centre off from the sea). I often like this effect as it gives me more coastal areas that can be boreholed but I just want a little control.


4. Often I cannot raise terrain near a pactmate. I understand that if it would adversely affect them then I can't do it. Has anyone tested this to see how close you can be to your pactmates territory without the prohibition.

5. I was raising terrain to keep it afloat and suddenly about 15 squares of the jungle disappeared. Is this an offshoot of the precipitation (raininess) effect of raising terrain. How the **** do you not destroy the jungle without letting parts of your continent fall into the sea?

6. Lastly I find that raising land is pretty cheap-- particularly if it is lower than surrounding terrain. I do it a lot. I once (as Sven) had the idea to sink my opponents to destroy improvements, cut their supply lines and let my navy have a free hand . The costs were outlandish. I don't recall exact figures but it seemed that every square was hundreds if not thousands of credits. I abandoned the plan. Is dropping someone into the ocean ever feasible? It seems like it would be much cheaper/easier to simply build a massive airforce with drop and amphibious units and kill them. Perhaps the game was designed to make this difficult ??


Any thoughts (including any old threads that you find on this) would be appreciated. I find that the battle with the water levels does more damage than anything the AI factions can do.


cbn

[WhiteElephants]

1) Don't know about checking the endangered land. You might want to consider whether running high eco damage is worth the cost and the pain in the butt of raising all that land.

2) I believe if you raise the land high enough it effects the surrounding terrain.

3) If you raise land next to the ocean it raises the squares adjacent to it. If you raise the inland too high it will also raise the ocean. You can't have one square 1000 meters above sea level and the next 0 or below sea level. I believe the game creates and grade of 0-1000, 1000-2000, and 2000-3000. Meaning if you raise a square above 2000 the surrounding squares will raise up to above 1000.

4) I've never been able to raise or lower a pactmates land.

5) The jungle goes under if the sea levels rise and is buried if you raise the land. I believe other landmarks work in the same way.

6) I think it is always expensive to raise or lower an enemies land. Your idea about the airforce attack would probably always be cheaper, but what would probably be cheaper than that would be to use a probe and gain control of the city that way.

Like I said in #1 you might want to curb your eco damage rather than fight an uphill battle against planet. Just a thought.

[Fitz]

quote: Originally posted by cbn on 11-14-2000 03:49 PM 3. Is there any way to control how far the raising goes? In many cases I am just trying to keep land based improvements out of the water and instead end up destroying a tidal harness or two as my continent gets a little bigger (or worse cutting my planned naval centre off from the sea). I often like this effect as it gives me more coastal areas that can be boreholed but I just want a little control. 5. I was raising terrain to keep it afloat and suddenly about 15 squares of the jungle disappeared. Is this an offshoot of the precipitation (raininess) effect of raising terrain. How the **** do you not destroy the jungle without letting parts of your continent fall into the sea?

3. Areas can only be one higher or lower than any adjacent area (see WE's catagories). If you raise a squre, and any adjacent areas are now two elevations different, that adjacent are will be raised by one. This effect continues out to the adjacent squares of that square, and so on.

5. This is known as washing. I believe the way it works is that square that are not in the endangered catagory, but still in the lowest elevation bracket, are lowered below sea level, then raised again. Items in that square (special terrain, units, possibly bases) are destored. I'll see if I can bump a relevant thread.

Edit: Here's a link to the Statagy forum thread.
[This message has been edited by Fitz (edited November 14, 2000).]

[cbn]

Fitz

Thanks for the bump of the previous thread . It seems to raise as many questions as it answers as the posters seemed to be in disagreement as to the exact effects. I may have to go back a few turns in that particular game to see exactly what I lost (I had conquered the jungle a few turns previous and I believe the Consciousness had done minimal terraforming). I know that approximately 15 jungle squares were no longer jungle but I don't recall now if I lost any units or other terraforming. I guess I'll have to do some testing of my own.

WE

You are probably right in that I might be better to run less ecodamage. I am currently experimenting with mineral intensive strategies in which mines and boreholes play a big part (fungus has been a pain as well). In all previous games land raising was not as big an issue. I didn't have any land submerged this time that I cared about since I have tons of formers (although I would prefer them to be expanding my crawlered industrial park). While I do begrudge the use of former time it will probably be the damage from this washing effect that will force me to reduce ecodamage.

If I understand what is being said about the washing effect, even squares that are at higher altitudes (such as my jungle squares) can lose their special status. Submersion is not necessary for this to happen?? Ouch. I definitely have to look at this closer. Tying up some formers I can live with-- Losing landmarks , perhaps units and some of my terraforming -- not acceptable.


I do see that the most efficient use of terraforming time would not be to raise the lowest land in the area but the highest (slightly higher energy cost but usually not significant) dragging up all the adjacent land . If I raise the 1001m square up it would go into the 2000+ level, its adjacent endangered squares would all be forced up to the 1000+ level and this would seemingly force up any sea square adjacent to the endangered square. It would appear that a single former could handle a wide area by raising select squares.


I'll have to test how all this works in practice. For example if an endangered 20m square is adjacent to a 900m square. If I raise the 900m square then in theory nothing would happen to the 20m one. But I am thinking about this situation

Existing situation 20 m 1050 m
Raise higher land 1020m 2050 m
then 49m sea rise 971 2001m

Uh-oh-- according to the adjacency rules stated in the other thread-- This last situation cannot exist. But what happens ?? is the lower land anchored and stays above 1000m or is the higher pulled down again??

Perhaps I'll have to think about making the solar shade tech more of a priority. Or perhaps I'll think about embracing my ecodamage, even melt the caps -- raise my land like crazy and see how the AI copes (I could even build a big navy for a change)


cbn

[cbn]

WE

One last point I forgot. I agree that mind control of bases can be most cost effective but I have imposed a self-handicap in my games (I only play SP to date). I recently started not permitting myself to mind control bases and plan next game to not allow myself to subvert enemy units (Don't know if I'll try this if Morgan comes up as my faction though). It really changes things since I need an adequate probe defense (and the AI loves to send them) but offense with probes is limited to tech steals, infiltration, energy drains etc.

I actually would be interested in the type of things others are doing in the way of self handicaps (perhaps I'll start another thread)to make the game more interesting in SP. I make so very many mistakes and there is so very much I don't know about this game but yet I find that simply achieving a "win" against the AI is routine (haven't had an alien neighbor do an Ogre rush on me yet). I play standard size random maps with all settings in the "middle" and all random factions (including mine) on transcend.


cbn

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

A little off track but as I am a big fan of Planetary transit SP (pre-Cloning Vats), I've been pondering a means to do an alternative second round expansion of bases that hit the ground running.

This ties into land raising in an round about way but I thought I would mention it.

My normal New base site for this second/third expansion phase (once restictions are lifted and PTS is in hand) is always pre -T-formed and has land with 2 boreholes and a condensor/farm.

I'm considering placing just off the coast new bases using foil colony pods that take adavantage of these three squares. My expansion paradigm would be then to raise the central condensor/farm and as a result the sea colony pod becomes land bound with a free pressure dome as a result. Land is raised again allowing next forward creep of sea colony pod supported by condensor/farm and 2 boreholes ultimately to be rasied out of the water and repeat the process. This allows new bases with an initial +1 nutrient over supported population/14 mins/14 energy (depending on Econ rating).

My thinking is that the sea colony pod is quicker to location site (prior to mag tubes) vs. a land collony pod and that the free pressure dome is a nice bonus.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Double Post
[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited November 15, 2000).]

[mark13]

The cost of raising/lowering land is determined by the position of the square in relation to your base. 1 square away is 4 credits, 2 is 8, 3 is 12 etc.

[Fitz]

quote: Originally posted by cbn on 11-15-2000 09:10 AM Existing situation 20 m 1050 m Raise higher land 1020m 2050 m then 49m sea rise 971 2001m Uh-oh-- according to the adjacency rules stated in the other thread-- This last situation cannot exist. But what happens ?? is the lower land anchored and stays above 1000m or is the higher pulled down again??

Ah, I knew I wasn't remembering washing correctly. This is what causes washing.

The higher land is anchored, and the lower land is pulled up to compensate for the one level difference only.

Washing example:

Existing situation 20 m 1050 m
then 49m sea rise -39m (ocean) 1001m

which cannot exist. Then the lower ocean land is pulled up to become costal (I don't know how the new elevation level in meters would be calculated). Any special land, troops, and now that I'm thinking about it, almost certainly bases, would be eliminated by the submerging, and not reappear when the square is pulled up to costal again.

So you don't have to worry about washing unless it is already an endagered square. Sorry to confuse.

[mark13]

BTW, I sent 8 formers over to Morgan's coast to begin lowering his base into the sea. It cost me nearly 500 credits, but it was well worth the submersion of his lovely size 11 base. Man, that was sweet....

[Aredhran]

I must admit that I never fully tested this (couldn't be bothered), but based on close observation, the raise/lower cost seems to be a function of:

- distance to closest base / proximity to enemy base
- elevation and/or previous raise/sink terraform
- rockiness

Based on my observations, Mark's 4/8... theory is true for the first raise of a non-rocky tile that has not been raised before.

Aredhran

[cbn]

Mark13

I know that proximity to a base is a factor in terraforming cost but I do not believe it is as simple as you set out. Raising land adjacent to a base was 9 and two squares away was 18 so there is a distance relationship as you stated. But I had another instance where the raising cost was 64 (not a doubling of the 9) and the square was only 2 squares away from the base. Note that all these costs were in a single turn. I think the calculation might involve the # of squares that you will raise (since adjacent squares may come up as well).


I tested this (only once) by raising a square with 2 formers (cost 18) and then raising it again (cost 64). It appears that raising up the "peaks" will cost more. Also your costs were 2-4-8 while mine we 9-18-27-- I think that that discrepancy will be related to Planet rating. I'm going to search the old threads on this to see what I can turn up

[Skanderbeg]

For the case of rising sea levels, I never build recling chamber, I build a pressure dome in every land base, even early in the came. So I have not to look wich of my often many bases in endangerd, when the announcment of rising sea leves comes.
Do you think this is stupid because it's a waste of resources.

[Aredhran]

In my opinion, the problem is the terraformed land tiles that disappear under the sea, not the actual base. It's easy to rush a pressure dome if necessary.

And yes it's a waste of resources to pay 2x the amount of minerals for a facility, especially early in the game.

Aredhran

[Skanderbeg]

quote: Originally posted by Aredhran on 11-24-2000 06:20 AM In my opinion, the problem is the terraformed land tiles that disappear under the sea, not the actual base. It's easy to rush a pressure dome if necessary. And yes it's a waste of resources to pay 2x the amount of minerals for a facility, especially early in the game. Aredhran

For me the problem is not the money for rushing the pressure dome. But I hate to look at each of my 50 or more bases if it is in need of a pressure dome.