Anything happening on the weather front?

[Alexander's Horse]

Its a big factor in war, also has big effects on the economy, especially food production.

[Christantine The Great]

Weather is a good idea but it could become an extreame micromanagement problem.

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"Adorare Christantine!!!"
Republican Decree #1

[Alexander's Horse]

Possibly, depends how its done. They had it as an arbitrary factor in civ I. If there was a Northern and Southern hemisphere and weather bands, that would be interesting. For example, it would be summer in the South when winter in the North. A Southern player could move more freely whilst the Northern player was bound by weather restrictions and vice versa.

[Stuff2]

I think the easiest way is to simply make the food production a bit random. Every city/square/region (or whatever) will in every turn produce 70% - 130% of the normal food output. Also natural disasters should have some effect. Floods, hurricanes etc.

[Alexander's Horse]

You could put bands around the map, have tropical, temperate and arctic zones. They seem to already do this to some degree in map creation.

[Evil Capitalist]

'Bands', if linear, might be a bad idea- The Ukraine is on the same level as the Meditteranean, but remember the winters of '41 and '42.

[Adm.Naismith]

Alexander's horse, I love weather effect taken in account in tactical wargames.

I have some doubt about the role the weather can have in a one-year-per-turn scale. I don't love too much random events that I can't properly counter (i.e. vulcanic eruptions or earthquakes).

Major global weather change, as effect of pollution, nuclear weapons use, etc. must stay in, of course.

[Napoleon I]

I think that Civ2 has already done weather enough justice. We already have geography influencing the terrain types that are generated in map creation, and modern weather changes due to polution and overpopulation have already been modeled as well. Therefore I don't really see many areas where weather really needs improvement.

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Napoleon I

[Alexander's Horse]

Done enough on weather? Well what about this then Late game pollution aside, the current agricultural production system gives perfect harvests year after year for 6000 years! Civ cities would be the envy of the real world in this respect, even today.

[Napoleon I]

AH, you've got a good point there, but what about the buildings in the cities. I mean I build a courthouse back in 3000 BC, and voila I land on AC and the courhouse is still there. What do you say to that?

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Napoleon I

[Alexander's Horse]

One issue at a time please

[Theben]

Weather for agriculture can be considered to have evened out over time. Except in cases where great distress/benefit has struck an area, in which case the effect should only be for 1-2 turns at most.

As for combat, it depends on whether or not Firaxis intends to use a tactical battle map ala Heroes of Might and Magic type thing. It would be easier to include then. But even w/o it I had mentioned in the past using RCE's- Random Combat Events- to alter battles that appeared predestined at start. Like Random Events, but they are checked for each and every time a battle occurs. Most will have no effect. A good percentage will shift the combat % in the favor of one side or the other, based on several variables, including terrain, weather, presence of a general unit, etc. In very rare cases one side will be caught completely off guard, giving the other side a huge bonus. The game will give the player a little window of information explaining what happened after committing to combat: i.e. "Early morning fog allows you to close with the enemy, catching them off-guard- +10% attack." Or something like that.

But I've never had anyone say one way or the other what they thought of the idea.

[Alexander's Horse]

quote: Originally posted by Theben on 08-03-2000 07:41 PM Weather for agriculture can be considered to have evened out over time. Except in cases where great distress/benefit has struck an area, in which case the effect should only be for 1-2 turns at most.

Really? Heard of the Sahara desert? Its about twice its ancient size due to bad Roman and Egyptian farming practices. Same goes for Palestine.

[Theben]

quote: Originally posted by Alexander's Horse on 08-03-2000 08:43 PM Really? Heard of the Sahara desert? Its about twice its ancient size due to bad Roman and Egyptian farming practices. Same goes for Palestine.

Why yes, I have. And I also know that the Sahara's problems are mostly due to a 1/2 degree shift in the axis of the earth, which caused it to lose a good deal of it's arable land (and the main reason for the fall of the Kush empire; helped the Egyptians). What, you think the Europeans used better farming methods initially? They just had more rainfall.

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"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."- Abraham Lincoln

[Strategist]

That all here reminds me of that thread "Should players be allowed to build cities on mountain hexes?". also started by AH, also stupid, and it reached more than 150 replies... this world is so unfair...