No Global Warming Option

[Fidel]

back to topic

global warming is really a must and should be even more severe. that would really give a 'responsible' feel to one's civilization and is really a great counterbalance to exponentially growing power at the endgame.

[fittstim]

Agreed!

For a nice little jab at Bush and his energy policy, check out:

http://www.theonion.com/onion3724/bush_vows_to_remove.html

[Adm.Naismith]

Global warming must be in

Just in case someone miss my point in the past (my inflated ego would suffer, you know ) about game ending:

... if one of the available end game will be to survive as long as possible to an Armageddon magnitude disaster (total nuke exchange, unstoppable pollution and climate change, earth hit by asteroid, invasion by an alien force - using same alien race of SMACX, etc.) a later end of game will have the taste of an hopeless fight for all mankind survival.

It can be what happens after the launch of Starship Unity to Alpha Centauri (optional, for players who hate SF ending). While the starship is your seed of hope for the future (mankind will come back, at the end of SMAC 2 ), you boldly face the flood till the game over. Move your cities, raise up your defence, mutate and adapt... your dead will be sure, but how greatness to the end!

Then, collect your ego bit by bit and start a new Civ game...

Some films and games play with bad, dark end, with plenty of success. A friend of mine think "Fallout" sad end is one of the best in game history (and some game magazines ranked it the same)
As an optional ending, don't you feel the challenge to push far some turn more an inevitable "game over"?
Looking at some President about "unnedeed limiting to global warming" misure it seems to me a dark end is the most likely in Civ history

Just for note, last time I posted this suggestion I was wondering about a way to end a game without the Civ2 "game ended: want to play some more turns without points counting?".

It's not anything Firaxis can't add as a last minute tweaking to Civ III, because is built on already existing game element, so I feel safe to mentioning it again

[Mavas]

Some months ago someone suggested that pollution caused by nuclear warfare (nuclear winter) ought to be separated from pollution caused by production and population (global warming). If you ended up with both kinds of pollution on your map they would balance each other out in a way, while you were still stuck with reduced production per square. Don't know who suggested this (anybody remember?), but I kind of like this idea and don't think that it would worsen things on the micro-management/decision scale.


… Mavas: No need to bash Americans…

Sorry fittstim - you are right, my best friend is American, but then again, maybe he doesn't count cause he moved to Norway, smart man.

Anyway, I thought that current political events ABM and Kyoto treaties were fitting seamlessly with the suggestion above of possible nuclear winter and global warming.


…George W. causes untold embarrassment everytime he opens his mouth…

I had just heard him (the I'm going to visit the EU chaps speech) - then I read Adam's post - then something in me snapped (guess I am still too tired after playing Civ II into the night). Adam's post reminded me of an American university student who asked me (in Boston) if they speak Polish in The Netherlands - so I just played around a bit on that theme. I know they speak German in Germany and that of course only Americans know how to build a real BMW.


…you are totally misled about America and Americans. As in Germany (and Poland and Sweden), the people aren't the ones making the decisions…

The last 10 years I worked in six countries (yes also the US) so I have experienced some peoples and some of their politics - I agree with you on this. However, this doesn't mean that I need to refrain from commenting on people who clinch on to silly arguments to pamper their view. I perfectly know that if Adam did some research and would opt for a greener president (candidate) next time, his dimple would not be counted, or if so, that the USSC would veto his vote because there is no green in the Stars and Stripes - their logic is obvious…

[ancient]

im all for bashing americans, boy we sure are stupid some times...

[Mahdimael]

Heh, of course, some of us would say that we did opt for a greener president, but that's neither here nor there.

Don't lump all Americans together. For all the conservatives, there are also liberals. Most Americans don't mind making a small sacrifice for cleaner air and water.

It's really sad that we Americans can't have a mainstream political party that isn't as extreme as both the Republicans and the Democrats.

The Republicans want to live in the 50s, where pollution and environmental issues "didn't exist", with the Red Menace and the USA was the last bastion of freedom. The Democrats have a government program for everything, but at least they're able to deal with the real world.

America isn't Europe. Even when we're trying to be liberal, we're not close to Europeans. There's a number of reasons why, but it can be basically summed up by the ideal of American independence: we don't want people to tell us what to do. Will it change? I have no idea.

[jackazzstudent]

Hello all,

I really didn't mean to piss anyone off, I just read the comment on GW and the treaty and I too snapped. Its irritating to always have people criticizing the country in which you live and love. I am all for rational environmental policy. I think Europeans (sorry to generalize) should realize that things in America revolve so heavily around enery and production that even small changes in fuel prices can major economic downturns (sound familiar). Ratifying treaties such as the Kyoto Treaty (admittingly I not too familiar with) cause repercussions within our economy. Its difficult for leaders, who are more interested in reelection than anything else, to commit to policies that negatively affect the economy, which effects jobs . . . and so forth. The EU should give us time to make the change slowly because worldwide recession would result from rapid increases in enery costs passed on to the consumer. Besides, we need big factories to build our bombs so we can show off So hopefully we can find a common ground (in the forums as well as in the world) and not resort to flaming all Americans for the actions of their officials.

Well, about the menu option to turn off global warming . . . I'm against it. Pollution is an important aspect of the game, and not having it ruins the balance of the game.

Adios amigos,

Adam

[tniem]

Originally posted by jackazzstudent
I really didn't mean to piss anyone off, I just read the comment on GW and the treaty and I too snapped. Its irritating to always have people criticizing the country in which you live and love. I am all for rational environmental policy. I think Europeans (sorry to generalize) should realize that things in America revolve so heavily around enery and production that even small changes in fuel prices can major economic downturns (sound familiar). Ratifying treaties such as the Kyoto Treaty (admittingly I not too familiar with) cause repercussions within our economy. Its difficult for leaders, who are more interested in reelection than anything else, to commit to policies that negatively affect the economy, which effects jobs . . . and so forth. The EU should give us time to make the change slowly because worldwide recession would result from rapid increases in enery costs passed on to the consumer. Besides, we need big factories to build our bombs so we can show off So hopefully we can find a common ground (in the forums as well as in the world) and not resort to flaming all Americans for the actions of their officials.

The problem with this post is that it is all wrong. If you recall, gas prices were at there highest last spring and summer and the economy was still going strong. It was actually the interest rate hikes over the late summer and fall that did the economy in (that and the uncertainty in a wacko election that no American can be proud of).

This summer gas prices how plummeted, I paid $1.25 for gas in Michigan, where a year ago the price was $2.25. And yet the economy is in a slump.

As for the time it would to take to implement Kyoto, the first implementation year to reduce emissions wasn't until 2008. I think 7 years before we would even have to start reducing emmisions is plenty of time from the EU, don't you?

Read the full Kyoto Protocol document for more information at http://www.unfccc.de/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html

I am sorry that I am so far off topic in terms of Civ III, but I thought I needed to add some facts to those that want to flame my nation's energy policies. We are wrong and should admit it. That would actually make us a stronger nation.

As for Civ III, keep global warming and allow energy and enviornmental issue to take place in diplomatic talks.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Well, programming in the option to turn off global warming would take pretty much as long as it took to write this post (about two IF statements, one flag to save into saved games, and one added menu item), so whether it be realistic and balance-destroying or not, it is easy to be implemented.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by LightEning
programming in the option to turn off global warming would take pretty much as long as it took to write this post (about two IF statements, one flag to save into saved games, and one added menu item), so whether it be realistic and balance-destroying or not, it is easy to be implemented.

Well, I'm not a C/C++ programmer, but I did my part of coding years ago. AFAIK is a bit more difficult than putting a couple of "IF" and a flag

Just consider that AI strategies MUST take into account if producing too much shields have global warming conseguence or not, every time it take a "shield production enhancing" decision, or must build "pollution reducing" facilities.

My fear with too much "options" is that, as long as they can fit more player taste, is quite unrealistic suppose every mix of options will be fully debugged and carefully balanced.

I wonder what can happen if, once set for "no global warming", the game will have a weak ending part, because of no challenge left after a production rush of tanks...

One-size-fits-all using Velcro straps is not for top fashion dressing, nor for top playable Civ game: if it doesn't fit my size, I'll live with it or I'll chose another game

[Ari Rahikkala]

With the level of the AI so far, do you think that Firaxis would even consider adding the ability for AI to consider that ?

Perhaps we make a compromise: A menu item for those who want to have an easy and non-legitimate game

And then see a Civ3 with a huge, mind-boggling array of choices that has took so much time for Firaxis to make that other parts of the game are left undone .

[Mavas]

I never saw production polution by the AI anyway - did I miss something?

[campmajor!]

Originally posted by jackazzstudent
Hello all,

Ratifying treaties such as the Kyoto Treaty (admittingly I not too familiar with) cause repercussions within our economy. Its difficult for leaders, who are more interested in reelection than anything else, to commit to policies that negatively affect the economy, which effects jobs . . . and so forth. The EU should give us time to make the change slowly because worldwide recession would result from rapid increases in enery costs passed on to the consumer.

It's all about priorities.....

[Mavas]

It's all about priorities.....

Which you can shift with taxes. To oversimplify...

say you pay (per month) 50 USD on petrol and 250 USD on income tax

government ups petrol prices so the same amount of gallons cost you 100 dollars and at the same time income tax comes down by 50 USD

In effect the government shifts taxing labour to taxing resources/pollution/energy.

This drives people to buy cars which use less fuel and companies to be economical with resources (and maybe less economical with employees) to stay competitive.

Do this in 5% steps per year and in 10 years - bingo!

...end of oversimplification.


And don't you Americans feel too guilty about an (on average) not so global environment friendly state of mind. Any European party that tries to push the above scenario in any European country will never poll over ca. 10%


This doesn't imply (in Civ terms) that I would like to see a splitting of tax rates other than treasury - science - and culture (is it?)

No word on splitting pollution anybody? Radioactive versus production waste?

[Provost Harrison]

Well yeah, it would be good to have an optional global warming option. It would be good for the game to be 'modular' so that you can add and remove features of the game as you require, to make the game easier and harder as required, in addition to the difficulty levels...