Random Disasters

[yin26]

I recently got an e-mail from a Civer who is having trouble registering. He asked me if I would post his idea:

"I would like to see Disasters (tornadoes, earthquakes) that randomly damage cities slightly. This could be done through AI moves. I hope it's not overdone like Sim City but would be a nice feature. Thanks for your time in reading this."

Well, what do you guys think? Of course, we would likely be considering diseases as part of this equation. Do you think that such random events would add or detract from your gaming experience?

[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited May 16, 2000).]

[MidKnight Lament]

As long as there's an option to turn them off when you start your game, then I think they should be included.

- MKL

[Dracon]

Yeah, but I reckon there should an option to start a disaster at a certain city in the cheat menu.
I reckon a good disaster for future scenarios or scenarios set on the moon would be a meteor impact.

[The Joker]

I would like random disasters to be a part of the game. But I agree that you should be able to turn them off at the beginning of the game.

The smaller disasters could be stuff like Earthquakes and volcanoes, where the more serious ones, which could affect several cities would be deceases. The Black Death killed loads of millions of people in the middle ages. Deceases could spread via trade routes and by migration (a migration model should be included in Civ3), and the amount of damage done i each city could be determined by how overpopulated the city was (not sure how this would work, but there should be a level of overpopulance in each city).

[Hugo Rune]

Why not? A sanitary model. Instead of making it so that the Acqueduct and the Sewage System (with possibly a third "Sewage treatment facility" as an aditional one) limit the amount of people who can live in a city, all they do is improve sanitary conditions. Cities with bad sanitary conditions are much more prone both to common disease (takes away a point of population once in a while) and a major disease epidemy (takes away several points).

[Napoleon I]

Nice idea but we would need to make sure that it is accurately represented. That is, I don't want to have a tsunami hit a city that is far inland, or have a plague affect an island city.
I think that plagues and diseases should be dependent on the amount of trade your city generates (more people coming and going) and on the facilities that it has (sewer system, hospital, etc.) Meanwhile earthquakes should occur among "fault lines" generated with the map at places where major tectonic plates collide.
Otherwise I would love to see the idea implemented as one of the game options "Enable/Disable Natural Disasters" as long as it doesn't add too much programming overhead.

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Napoleon I

[Adm.Naismith]

"Disasters" are often a controversial subject in games.
IMHO, first question asked should be: what's the need for disasters? Are they:

1) a random (or cheated by AI) way to add some trouble on a winning player, just to spice up the difficulties (SMAC appears to work so). Usually it triggers the "load last saved game" into angry players.

2) a better historical reproduction of trouble a Civ must survive, like any detailed geographical limit (e.g. movement limited by mountains, food production limited by terrain, etc.) It can be good, but it can be more difficult to code into program and adding some more difficult the players will find unnecessary (too high steps in learning curve).

3) an enhancement of model (2), where you put the enphasis on disaster effect inducted by player actions: desertification by bad use of ground, local or global climate change by industrialization or main change in terrain (canals diggings, dams building, too much concrete -roads&buildings-).

We already have some in Civ and SMAC: pollution by industries, population number, transports, nuclear fallout; global warming with seas raise and rain local change by ground modification (in SMAC only).

If you divide the disasters in "long term" and "short term", I will love any long term disaster that I must cope by strategic decisions, I can live with limited disaster I can contain and limit in effects by proper prevention (founding fire service, emergency team, proper hospital infrastructure etc.).

I'll simply reload a save every time a random disaster will really crush my balanced Civ
(no, I won't switch off them by start, I'll keep any minor effect on me and all the major on AI Civs ).

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[MidKnight Lament]

Well said.

- MKL

[Venger]

quote: Originally posted by Napoleon I on 05-22-2000 01:41 AM Nice idea but we would need to make sure that it is accurately represented. That is, I don't want to have a tsunami hit a city that is far inland, or have a plague affect an island city.

Tsunami good, plague bad. England and the plague, anyone?

quote: I think that plagues and diseases should be dependent on the amount of trade your city generates (more people coming and going) and on the facilities that it has (sewer system, hospital, etc.) Meanwhile earthquakes should occur among "fault lines" generated with the map at places where major tectonic plates collide.

Good thinking. Subtle changes to the chance of disease which may lower population or reduce production for a turn or two. Higher trade increases risk, sanitation lowers it...

quote: Otherwise I would love to see the idea implemented as one of the game options "Enable/Disable Natural Disasters" as long as it doesn't add too much programming overhead.

I see it in the game setup the same way Barbarians are handled. An option to have none, some, lots, or sodomy level.

Venger

[Par4]

It bothers me that natural disasters are starting to engulf all plauges, most plauges and epidemics are caused by humans with dirty industry, over population and no sanitation or poor healthcare. Also in real game(no cheats) natural disasters only happen were they do in real life(if we are on world map) so tornados don't happen in the mountains of china or tsunamis in the black sea. Epidemics should be mainly caused by humans but a few could come from explores returning to a city in a trade route from a trip in North-South East West doesn't bring alot of foreign dieseases because climate and animals on that continent are relatively the same, encounters with other civs are another matter. Climate could be changed by pollution and other things that create changes in the climate of the area. Nukes could create fallout around the world and enough would cause a nuclear winter. There has to be some limit on this though because of gameplay.

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I use this email
(stupid cant use hotmail)
gamma_par4@hotmail.com
Don't ask for golf tips
Your game will get worse

[Urban Ranger]

quote: Originally posted by Adm.Naismith on 05-22-2000 09:49 AM "Disasters" are often a controversial subject in games. IMHO, first question asked should be: what's the need for disasters? Are they: 1) a random (or cheated by AI) way to add some trouble on a winning player, just to spice up the difficulties (SMAC appears to work so). Usually it triggers the "load last saved game" into angry players.

In SMAC, random events are supposedly generated 10 turns in advance just to prevent this "load last saved game" maneuver.

[Adm.Naismith]

MKL, thanks!

Urban Ranger, if I'm trying to pile up cash (energy) in SMAC, then the game drain me more than two out of three of my money, I simply reload, upgrade some units (usually I wait until new units are far better than current, but in such case I hurry up things) and hurry production on cities.
Next turn the "disaster" will only get few energy points

Maybe disasters are computed in advance, but apart from "Ironman" mode I can usually avoid any silly effect with easy.

I'm not telling I cheat every time (what's the point? It's only a game!), I usually keep any event that remove improvements on terrain (farms, trees, solar panel) as fungus grow, and reasonable loss of units and citizen by plague or mindworms.

I simply refuse to accept really unrealistic effects (where are suddendly going all my money, down a black hole?) or AI cheating into aiming at my best cities just for sake of mask how poor AI is in developong its Civilization.

And do I mention when AI faction stole my units by probe WHEN I WAS on a level it mustn't be possible (like fundamentalism)?

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant
[This message has been edited by Adm.Naismith (edited May 23, 2000).]

[tniem]

quote: Originally posted by Hugo Rune on 05-17-2000 10:49 AM Why not? A sanitary model. Instead of making it so that the Acqueduct and the Sewage System (with possibly a third "Sewage treatment facility" as an aditional one) limit the amount of people who can live in a city, all they do is improve sanitary conditions. Cities with bad sanitary conditions are much more prone both to common disease (takes away a point of population once in a while) and a major disease epidemy (takes away several points).

I have seen specials on cities in India with little to no sanitation and yet they have huge populations. It is said that they would be the place of what could be great plagues much worse than the Black Plague. No matter what, I would agree with Hugo that cities should grow even without sanitation equipment, just have a better chance of dying.