How about some additional terraforming?

[Minmaster]

i hope firaxis adds some additional terraforming to the game similar to what civ2 had. i want to be able to irrigate my hills with water access, level mountains to hills, hills to grassland, desert to plains, etc. howcome these things were removed in civ3? usually i will have a whole bunch of workers from wars that dont do much except build railroads in all my useless tiles, i wish there would be more terraforming options for workers. sometimes i would be stuck in a island that has no fresh water access except for few tiles that are blocked by hills with river. i would like firaxis to consider bring back more terraforming options that would be available with a certain tech advance. in civ2 it was engineering but that seems to come real early in civ3 so perhaps replaceable parts or something.

[Ghengis Brom]

I'd like to see some more terraforming too. Definately the ability to irrigate hills. I don't know about the mountain crushing though, that always seem unrealistic to me in Civ II.

[Tarquelne]

I'd like more _realistic_ terraforming. Irrigating hills might be the only thing left.

Though maybe an expansion could add, say, swamps to drain.

Or - how about super long-term terraforming projects? Reclaiming desert (not very realistic - or historical, at least), or some low-lying land from the sea (realistic, if of limited use)? Something for all those captured workers to do....

[Willem]

You can add irrigation to Hills in the editor if you wish.

PS I always thought that the terraforming in Civ 2 was silly, in fact I turned it off in a number of cases. Like making Hills out of Grassland. What did they do, transport tons of material to a spot just so you could transport back out again? About the only terraforming I can see occurring in the game would be converting Plains to Grassland, anything else just wouldn't be realistic. Even that example is pushing it.

Here in Canada we have some of the largest tracts of Prairie land in the world, and nothing's ever going to be able to improve it to the point that people will be able to grow much more than Wheat or Cattle. Climate has as much to do with it as soil conditions, and terraforming is not going to help much in that regard.

[Inverse Icarus]

i really hate the post-nuke-crazy "this square has turned to desert" -> "Berlin is starving!" era, which i call the "F*ck this i'm quitting" era. if i could make those deserts back to grasslands or plains it'd be better

[Willem]

Yes, it would be nice to be able to change it back. If a Plain was once Grassland, it should be possible to bring it back to that again, over time. A very long time though. But that's about the only thing I can see as far as being able to terraform is concerned.

[Elucidus]

I agree, even if it took a long time to do, at least if you could do it. Maybe have a togle in the editor.