We should add natural disasters to the game too!

[Chronus]

Yes, by all means, put in disasters. I don't mind them being cataclysmic (sp?) but they should be rare.

* Volcanic eruptions can happen if you have a city next to a mountain. How do you prevent it? Terraforming!

You have got to be kidding . . .

[star mouse]

Originally posted by Chronus
You have got to be kidding . . .

City next to mountain causes volcanic eruptions.
Removing mountain removes volcanic eruptions.
Engineers can turn mountains into hills.
Hills don't cause volcanic eruptions.
Go Engineer, GO!!!

Perhaps the best way of having volcanoes would be for a volcano to be unterraformable, and for the volcano to be a separate terrain feature. Volcanoes could erupt. These eruptions would add a few pollution tiles to the map, damage or destroy nearby terrain improvements, and kill population in the damaged tiles. To encourage people to build their cities next to a volcano, they could have trade and production bonuses, and produce resources that are in scarce supply elsewhere.

[Lemmy]

i agree disasters should be included in the game.

isn't it so that the ground around a volcano is more fertile than normal land? you could have a food bonus on each tile surrounding a volcano, and that way if it erupts, you population can quickly replenish itselves.
after each eruption the city nearest to the volcano could also get the money bonus, from all the tourist that wants to see the disaster area. So disasters don't have to be a bad thing.

A lot of the disasters could be simulated by a weather model and a something that simulates the movement of the land masses. Doing it random will probably get you the same result .

[M. le Comte]

Tsunami

Something else interesting could be to add tsunamis. After all, the prehistoric civilization of Santorin in the Mediterranean Sea has been destroyed by a huge Tsunami. And then, a few centuries later, Platon called that civ "Atlantid"...
The cataclysmic dimension of disaters could be interessant too. I don't mind loosing one point of demography in one of my city. That was the efficiency of disasters in Civ I. On the contrary, loosing the half of the population and all my units in a city because of a volcano, like with a nuke, could be a bit... disturbing.

[Melios]

There are generally a few things that would be needed to let you know about the probability of natural disasters:

Earthquakes: If there are Earthquakes, there HAS to be fault lines. It may take an advanced technology to detect them though, without getting hit by one first.

Volcanoes: Similarily depends on fault lines, but it in real life it generally is where plate collisions and terrain buckling are occuring (e.g. Rocky Mountains, Andes Mountains). You can't assume you are safe if you aren't near a mountain however; a volcano can form in the middle of nowhere from a fumarole, such as what happened outside Mexico City in a cornfield about 50 years ago. Ever see the movie "Volcano" where a volcanic vent opens up somewhere in L.A. during the middle of the night? That gives you a good idea of the worst possible scenario.

Tsunami: These can flatten coastal areas and islands quite easily (it happened to Crete and destroyed the Minoans when Thera exploded). Often caused by volcanoes and earthquakes nderwater, so again fault lines are a concern here (one can conclude a huge ocean is a dangerous risk area). Sometimes, even City Walls won't help you (depending on elevation).

Drought: Even with irrigation and Aqueducts, droughts can still bring cities to its knees.

Note:

Meteorite: I only know of two major "impacts from space" in recent history:

a. Arizona meteor impact 5,000 years ago (unknown what it may have crushed back then besides the terrain)

b. The object that fell in Tunguska about 91 years ago. All that really did was flatten out a Siberian forest, albeit at the force of an H-Bomb.

Thus, I don't think cosmic impacts are really necessary. And if someone developed SDI Defense, the threat would be removed entirely anyways.

Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and very bad weather: These may only last from 2 minutes to an hour, or in the case of a hurricane, 1 to 2 months. So it wouldn't be that significant given how much time they'd have to clean up and rebuild.

As for other minor disasters:

Fires: It would take a major fire to truly cause a significant damage. (like a Firestorm)

Toxic Spill: Significant enough to at least reduce the poulation, a polluting
city with a lot of industry may have a deadly chemical spill.

Dischord: A really bad form of civil unrest in a city where it has gotten to the point they are killing each other! Population decreases as this continues; you may need military assistance to quell it (in a Democracy/Republic, you can call it the National Guard). More likely in a captured city than one you built (i.e. no cultural clashes).

Plague: Plague epidemic. Starts to kill off population. Low occurance in Industrial and Modern Ages.

Nuclear Meltdown: Pretty much the same as it was in Civ2. Takes extreme conditions to actually occur (in real-life, Chernobyl & 3-Mile Island were the only two major incidents so far, and only one actually meltdown, the other was resolved before catastrophe occured at the cost of serious damage to equipment).

Now I'm surprised no one mentioned a UFO Disaster.

[PGM]

Natural disasters? That has nothing to do with CIV tradition, I think it would totally disrupt the game as we know it. It's like asking for CIV3 in real-time. That wouldn't be CIV, and if you've played CIV1 and CIV2 often enough, you know what I'm talking about. Sure CIV3 will be different from its predecessors, but the roots are there, only widely developed and polished. There's lots of games with natural disasters, lots of games in real-time, we do not need yet another one. What is in fact needed is a game like this, focusing on deep diplomatic/commercial/economic/military relations, because nothing like this has been done so far. This way people can choose what game best fits their interests between a large variety of options.

[Lemmy]

There's lots of games with natural disasters

there are?
could you give me some names then, cos i can't think of any game with natural disasters except for SMAC

and i think the gap between RT and TB is a lot bigger than the gap between Civ and Civ with disasters

i think this is more a reality vs gameplay problem

[Rasputin]

Sim City comes to mind

[lockstep]

Originally posted by PGM
Natural disasters? That has nothing to do with CIV tradition, I think it would totally disrupt the game as we know it.

IIRC, natural distasters were only absent in Civ2. They were included in the original civ as well as in SMAC.

edit: Yes, they were in, I just didn´t take the time to read the whole thread - but neither did PGM ...

[Lemmy]

Originally posted by Rasputin
Sim City comes to mind

ahh, Sim City, how could i forget that one, maybe because i always turned disasters off

[Sandman]

My view:

Volcanoes: Ideally there should be a volcano tile, different from the standard mountain. Even the ancients could tell the difference between normal mountains and volcanoes.Also, soil in volcanic regions is more fertile than normal so there should be a modest food bonus. For the player, locating cities near volcanoes should be a calculated risk.

Fire: Should have a number of potential causes. I'd suggest unhappiness, earthquakes(San Francisco), prolonged air raids(Dresden) and military conquest of cities(Troy).

Earthquakes: Where continents meet.

Plague: Should spread through the world (not just one city or civ) like, well, the plague. How about it travelling along trade routes? Just imagine suddenly canceling your trade agreements to quarantine an infected civ.

Flood: Next to rivers I guess.

Tsunami: Should be triggered by volcanos and earthquakes.

I didn't like the way SMAC normally singled out one city for punishment. And there was no way to predict which city would be hit - surely high-altitude cities should be more likely to be hit by hailstones?