Climate Changes

[Odin]

I think a world's climate should change throughout the game. The way it changes would depend on if you choose between a glacial period(10,000 years ago), an interglacial period(4,000 B.C.to today), or a non ice age time(most of earth's history)


DISCRIPTIONS

glacial: Large areas of glacier and tundra, not many shallow seas

interglacial: Small polar ice caps; many small shallow seas

non-ice age: No polar ice caps; many large, shallow seas

[zyxpsilon]

Interesting!
Not only, "ICE ages" are and were an important factor in historical evolution, but they had many overall impacts on tribes settling locations.
Fact is; the North american early population came from three other continents; Asia, Oceania and Europe.

Climate has been much more than "just" about glaciations....
Take, industrial pollution for example; nobody can deny that it has made our world extremely fragile for at least another three generations and maybe more.
Take, tectonic plates induced earthquakes; some say Madagascar and Galapagos weren't that much isolated from their mainland a long time ago.
Take, volcans (whole cities destroyed in a flash), meteorites (Dino's death sword from the sky!), etc.

Events from history can be "scenariored".
Pollution is already into the game itself, if you let it out of control.
Knowing that a 4000BC start can't take "glaciation" into account, tough, it is only possible to apply what you request in a >sweep-of-time< context. (which was discussed in great lengths in the early stages of development of Civ-3)

Hope they include your idea into it, that's EXACTLY what was missing in the first versions.

[Theben]

While it's a good idea for realism, I wonder how it'll fit with gameplay and game balance. A good chunk of the sahara became desert because of a 1/2 degree shift in the tilt of the earth's axis. This was after the agricultural revolution (during the empire of the Kush, I believe). If Firaxis includes a working 'Rise and Fall of Empires' into the game then yes. Have tiles change from one type to another depending on changes in rainfall and wind patterns. This should come under Random Events and be optional for strategists. Otherwiae no. It'll just piss off players whose great city has turned into a dustbowl.

[Chaos Warrior]

I'm not sure whether it's too clever to think about climate changes before we have an idea about the actual climate model. I say let's figure that climate model out before we start considering the changes... K?

[Roman]

Glacial, Interglacial and Warm periods occur on too large a timescale to have any affect on the game. Hence they should not be included.

[JosefGiven]

quote: Originally posted by Roman on 02-12-2001 07:12 PM Glacial, Interglacial and Warm periods occur on too large a timescale to have any affect on the game. Hence they should not be included.

Yes, I agree with Roman. What does the player get, 6,000 odd years? Is that really long enough a timespan within which natural climate change can occur?

I'm all for isolated 'set-piece' disasters like earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes etc, though; as long as they are optional. If only we could switch such disasters off in the real world...

Atmospheric pollution, as it is currently represented in Civ II is the only way I think we should see climate change in Civ III.

[Lung]

Disasters are better, and easier to incorporate into the game. Also, i'm sure that they'd be more fun, too For example,

Volcanoes - random occurrence with random severity i.e more or less squares destroyed by lava and ash, with everything destroyed in affected squares, including cities and military units (except air, sea, etc). Slow regrowth with eventual food bonus plus multiplied chance of recurrence.

Floods - again random along rivers with destruction of tile improvements and weakening of any units in it's path according to severity.

Cyclones/tornadoes/hurricanes - random occurrence at sea followed by random paths/duration and partial destruction of coastal cities e.g population and city improvements. Must weaken upon crossing land.

Earthquakes - random occurrence/severity and relative destruction of relevant city/tile improvements and reduction in population.

Tsunamis - follows any oceanic earthquakes and destroys pop/city improvements according to severity.

Droughts - reduces land value and destroys tile improvements. To last random turns.

Avalanches - destroys city improvements and reduces population according to severity.

Bushfires - destroys land tiles/tile improvements/population in extreme events, although land tiles recover to original unimproved state in just a couple of turns.

Also, these events should all be accompanied by appropriate cool graphics Anyone have any other natural disasters i forgot??

I must admit, though, that this probably comes under the "no games within a game" rule followed by Sid

[Theben]

Even in 6000 years enough occurs to affect climates. Just think of all the rivers that have dried up, carved a new course, sprung up, etc. Lakes have come and gone (or just gotten larger &/or smaller). Vast stretches of land have gotten more/less moisture. All this within the last 6000 years. A lot of it within the last 3000!

The pattern of the land won't change (no tectonic shifts), but the amount of water it receives will.

[Roman]

Most of these changes were human induced, though. Eg. Irrigation in Mesopotamia caused salinization of the soil resulting in desertification.
True, rivers flood and change chanells, but not on large enough a scale (over this time period) to be represented by moving a river on another tile.

To keep the game slightly simpler (and more realistic considering the time scale), they should only include human induced climate change like in Civ2.

[Stuff2]

In north scandinavia the land gets 1 cm higher every year. 2000 years ago the seashore where several miles more on the inland than today (in sweden, the norwaigan coast is so steep that it doesn't do much difference). The vikings travelled on seashores that today are inland lakes or fertile land.

[Adm.Naismith]

Desertification occoured a lot during last 3 thousand years: Sicily (the southest great isle of Italy) was a granary during Roman empire, but now it hasn't enough water to cultivate much grain.

Egypt has similar problem. Israel fighted sands with some success. The contamination of water resources and their waste make water the next scarce vital resource not only in Africa, but in China too.

Prolonged wars changed lot of terrain too: during WWI and WWII lots of european areas lost its wild animals (killed by weapons, minefields, hungry population) and has many forests disappeared because of trees cutted and burned.

Human activity is responsible for the most of these long term effects, real root of many of the "random disaster" mentioned on other posts.

While earthquakes and tornados are the kind of disaster I don't like for playability reason (I don't like events I can't counteract by proper game actions and tactics, they ruin the game focus) I would like the extension of concept like CIV II pollution or SMAC global warming.

Of course the game should give to the player enough tools to monitoring this kind of events (I want some early warning that things are messing up, enough to chose to do something now or leave unpopular actions to another leader ) and apply proper countermeasure.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Grumbold]

Leaving aside glacial periods, the vast majority of large scale changes have taken place because of the intervention of man. Widespread deforestation, intensive farming and over grazing has caused many areas to become barren. Often the change is very rapid as a result. Climate shift and pollution has stopped the River Thames freezing - only a hundred years ago it used to freeze so solid in winter that ice skating from bank to bank was a pretty safe regular pastime for Londoners. Now it never freezes at all.

I could accept some small chances of environmental damage being a risk of making land improvements. A small chance of irrigation turning grassland into plains after a number of turns, for example. Something as dramatic as overgrazing turning vast tracts of plains into a barren desert would just be too disheartening for a ruler who has not got the tools to properly monitor and control the land use. I for one certainly don't want to be spending hours setting optimum targets for herd sizes and crop rotation, though I'd rather accept natural disasters and keep reloading every time Mt Etna blows and reduces my best cities to slag.

[Windborne]

It's not really on-topic, but I would like to note that many man-made changes are in the long run benificial, such as coal burning and greenhouse gasses. During the past several hundred thousand years earth has been in the middle of a natural disaster that evolved without the intervention of man at all. To put it plainly earths temperature during recorded history has been at an all time low due to the fact that much of it's carbon dioxide was trapped by plants in the form of coal during the cambrium age and before.

Yes folks, though global warming is bad for mankind, spreads deserts/swamps, sinks coastlines, etc . . . it is GOOD for life, those sunken coastlines are the area where life thrives best, coastal shelves, the minute the coast sinks thousands of new species would be able to evolve. Yes our view of the terrors of pollution are in many ways due to our short, and admittedly biased perspective. It could even be proposed that mankind evolved to burn coal and right the natural order of things. Not that I personally think we should, but it is a valid point. lol

[Windborne]

Back on topic again, I would love to see natural disasters so long as they are tied to specific regions that can be discovered over time either by experiencing the disasters, or by having technology make those "disaster" markers visible. Volcanoes, areas with harsh winters, and river flood plains immediately come to mind as things that would be visible early on.

[JosefGiven]

quote: Originally posted by Lung on 02-12-2001 11:36 PM Disasters are better, and easier to incorporate into the game...Anyone have any other natural disasters i forgot?? I must admit, though, that this probably comes under the "no games within a game" rule followed by Sid

Taking Sim City as inspiration...

-Rioting. A randomly determined series of violent and destructive acts that is more likely to occur in cities containing a greater proportion of unhappy people. Has the effect of destroying randomly chosen building(s). (Not to be confused with traditional Civ Civil disorder).

With respect to your "no games within a game" comment, the random disasters concept doesn't really qualify for this category, IMHO. They're just things, like the barbarian attacks, that happen to the player, or his/her AI opponents; that they then have to re-act to.

I think disasters add a little 'spice' to the game ...It's refreshing to think there are some events even mighty rulers have no control over!!(My rioting suggestion notwithstanding)