And now, a complaint about rivers

[Jaybe]

[/(monty python) massage by the Swedish Prime Minister]

Well, maybe two complaints.

1) Movement: If there is no road across a river, moving across the river should cost one extra movement point.
Once engineering (bridge building) is obtained, lack of a road crossing a river should imply that there is NO BRIDGE across the river. The river should therefore be a hinderance to fast movers. These are major rivers in civ3.

2) Combat (can be adjusted in the editor): The combat bonus should be 50%, not 25%.
The principle behind the defense advantage behind a river is that there are limited crossing points (fords or bridges). The defender can therefore concentrate on those positions, just monitoring the rest of the front. The only alternatives to fords and bridges are boats or bridging equipment, both of which take time to muster; surprise attacks are therefore restricted (with a few historical notable exceptions, strategically represented by lucky rolls of the dice).

[Lord Silvi]

And a movement bonus moving alongside a river.

[Carver]

Well, if you really want to complain about rivers... how about getting a happiness bonus in cities founded next to rivers since rivers are scenic and provide recreation - also hills... it works in Simcity.

[Jaybe]

That's just local traffic, Lord (or Civ2 ). Would be difficult to do along the tile edges. Rivers are generally nice for boat traffic, but also just to follow along. I wouldn't mind 2x speed along rivers.

Carver, it's already there in the extra commerce! Just adjust your luxury slider if you need the extra happiness.

[vondrack]

I agree with the initial post on most part...

However...

Carver, if you think there should be a happiness bonus in cities that have rivers flowing by them... then you should introduce a random penalty, too (like what floodplains do)... losing pop & improvements to floodings... believe me, it does happen. We have lost half of our "Mass Transit" here in Prague over the last few days, whole quarters are like lakes... Eleven (!) underground stations are flooded, several of them as high as their surface entrances or higher...

Sorry to sound so serious, I know you were kidding. I just can't help myself... watching the TV these days puts one into a pretty grim mood...

[Firebird]

Originally posted by vondrack
Sorry to sound so serious, I know you were kidding. I just can't help myself... watching the TV these days puts one into a pretty grim mood...

Well Vondrack, I think with the title of this thread your post is the most appropriate I have seen in a long time.

My thoughts go to the victims of the rivers in Praha, Dresden and elsewhere. May the wrath of nature dissipate swiftly.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Firebird
Well Vondrack, I think with the title of this thread your post is the most appropriate I have seen in a long time.

My thoughts go to the victims of the rivers in Praha, Dresden and elsewhere. May the wrath of nature dissipate swiftly.

Thanks, Firebird. It's at least some consolation to see that people out there in the world feel for us here (and for the surrounding countries, of course - Austria and Germany were hit just as hard, Slovakia is likely to follow, even if to a lesser extent) and actually help in various ways. Last night, Sir Sean Connery had a very nice improvised briefing on the TV, raising his voice in our support. He is experiencing this disaster first-hand, as he was accomodated in the Four Seasons hotel, just on the bank of the Vltava River...

What you can see these days, is simply unimaginable...

OK, enough of that... sorry for the threadjacking...

[Grumbold]

I find it frankly bizarre that while we have been experiencing the wettest summer for a century or so here in Britain, its been blazing sunshine outside these last couple of days while reports of flooding from central Europe have been coming in. It only makes me wonder how long it will be before you are watching scenes of London under water despite our nice shiny Thames flood barrier. I don't know about elsewhere in the world but the sheer lack of priority/funds addressing the issue here has been appalling and nothing seems to have changed yet. How much more of this do we need to happen before serious environmental programmes get started (and I don't just mean the half hearted Kyoto treaty.)

Back on topic, I disagree with the suggestions.

Loss of an additional movement point just penalises mounted troops. Its no harder for them to find a ford than infantry. The volume of terrain where mounted units have their speed advantage removed is already vey large (too large imo.)

A 25% defence increase is not insignificant. There have been relatively few battles where the actual fighting took place over the river and the tiles are large enough to allow plenty of manoeuvering room. To lose a whole turn to 'manoeuver' across the river at a different point(tile) is too harsh. The 25% makes it an interesting choice to trade speed for risk.

[NeoStar]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I find it frankly bizarre that while we have been experiencing the wettest summer for a century or so here in Britain, its been blazing sunshine outside these last couple of days while reports of flooding from central Europe have been coming in. It only makes me wonder how long it will be before you are watching scenes of London under water despite our nice shiny Thames flood barrier. I don't know about elsewhere in the world but the sheer lack of priority/funds addressing the issue here has been appalling and nothing seems to have changed yet. How much more of this do we need to happen before serious environmental programmes get started (and I don't just mean the half hearted Kyoto treaty.)

Some weird weather has been happening in the southern hemisphere too in recent years - Im actually starting to believe the scientists.

Originally posted by Grumbold
2) Combat (can be adjusted in the editor): The combat bonus should be 50%, not 25%.

25% is enough to keep me away in the later ages.

[Arrian]

25% is enough to keep me away anytime. Only very, very rarely do I attack across a river in CivIII. And that's almost always because I've got the last defender beaten up but I've used up all my attacks from the units I have in position, so I have to bring in one of my reinforcements who can only attack that turn if it's across the river.

-Arrian

[Zizka]

Vondrack

LOL you're reading my mind. I remeber the floods that hit east (Morava a Vychodocechy) back in '97. My hometown almost became a lake. The idea of encoding a flood event in Civ3 would seem quite percipitous right now (ouch!)

I have been following the events in Prague closely. I'm happy at least staromesto survived, but the image of the major stations flooded to the top is bad. AT least maybe the water finally shorted out that really annoying train PA system. LOL Seriously.. i'm curious as to how they are going to be drained.

And does anyone know what happened to the ape that "escaped"? (Myslim je ho budeme videt v schromadzene :P )

Z

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Zizka
I have been following the events in Prague closely. I'm happy at least staromesto survived, but the image of the major stations flooded to the top is bad. AT least maybe the water finally shorted out that really annoying train PA system. LOL Seriously.. i'm curious as to how they are going to be drained.

Absolutely no idea about how they are going to drain everything... I can imagine they will have to replace everything that operates upon electric power. Accessories, cables, everything... no idea, really.

Originally posted by Zizka
And does anyone know what happened to the ape that "escaped"?

Actually, the ape (it was an orangutan) did not escape and drowned, when the Prague ZOO got flooded. An elephant and a hippopotamus had to be shot down, to prevent them flowing out of the ZOO area with the water... It was so sad to hear news about animals drowning or being killed... But there actually was one animal that did escape and got as far as about 20 km down the river. It was a seal female. Needles to say that she actually enjoyed that much water... I believe she was caught only several hours later, when stopped by a nearly flooded bridge...

[Saurus]

Personally I don't like rivers at all.
They are simply to unbalancing. Long rivers running through vast areas of grasslands & flood plain
will give the player controlling the area a great advantage. If I find myself close to a river, I always restart the game.
(hey! - I wan't the game to be challening)

-S