Civ3 encourages the destruction of the rainforests

[latka]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
I thought about allowing troops to BURN forests and jungles to cause vasts fires throughout the continent and destroy all the crops

I like this idea. Sort of like Grants and Shermans strategies of burning everything not needed as they marched through the US Confederacy. Better yet, the Russians scortched earth policy as Napolean marched to Moskow(Moskba).

It has been suggested in another thread that supply lines be incorparted into the game. This is not a bad idea, but its implimentation can only occur after the creation of gunpowerder. After all, the concept that is missing from Civ3 is the that units require certain things to maintain their health; food, water, the ability to get home/morale and in modern times, resupply of munitions. Allowing destruction of resources and food would directly affect the health of units moving through another civilaztions country side.

[tatterdemalion]

Kill the jungles!

Maybe Firaxis should include a new unit, the eco-freak, to fight global warming. I would build one of those units and then send them off to the jungle to fight the good fight.

[Jawa Jocky]

Clear cutting the jungle is very realistic from a RR point of view. But yes setting aside land for National Parks that give a Civ culture would have been kinda of cool. But why is everyone so quick to preserve jungles.

Deserts, Plains, Grasslands, and artic tundra are all important resources that should have preserves too.

[Nubclear]

Moskow(Moskba).

Moscow, Mockba, or Moskva (though Mosckva is acceptable too).

[Odd]

Jungles can provide food for a very small amount of people - this is represented in the game. They can also give gold from wood extraction. If you cut down trees in a controlled manner you won´t get as much money than you would with "slash and burn". This could be represented by jungles giving 1 gold/turn, and 10 gold if chopped down, just like forests.

About biodiversity - when you discover genetics it would appear a kind of luxury/resource that would give a lot of gold and could only exist in standing jungles.

About rubber - Jungles provided rubber only for a brief timespan. Soon people get the tree and made plantations that had a bigger productivity and after that rubber was simply made from oil. It´s absurd to think that you need jungles to make modern armor.

About happiness - in fact, the farther people are from the jungle that´s being knocked off, the more unhappy they get. Not only with jungle, but with everything that regards ecology. American gets mad with people that destroy the jungles in amazonia and japonese that kill whales, but sustain that burning coal is vital for their economy. People who live in amazonia are very happy with the jobs and money they get by cutting down trees, and blame americans for global warming and japanese from killing whales. Japanese talk about how important they "research" on whales is, but get mad about america and amazonia.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Odd
American gets mad with people that destroy the jungles in amazonia and japonese that kill whales, but sustain that burning coal is vital for their economy.

In my experience, the people that get mad about deforestation are generally not the same people who defend the burning of coal. I don't think distance should be a factor, but perhaps technological advancement should be: People who depend on slash and burn economics for sustinance don't see the loss of rainforests as a problem, while those of us in developed countries who do not need to cut forests to make money are appalled by deforestation. Maybe the more advanced a civ is, the more they experience unhappiness with deforestation.

[Lost Angeles]

Keep in mind that Civ 3 is a GAME (!) -- also,
remember that representations of realtive time
and space are skewed to make it playable.

Could "chopping down" a forest/jungle in 3000 BC possibly be the same as in the 1800's AD? No more
so than it taking 100 years to move a swordsman
5 spaces.

-- G.

[Alex]

Originally posted by cyclotron7

People who depend on slash and burn economics for sustinance don't see the loss of rainforests as a problem, while those of us in developed countries who do not need to cut forests to make money are appalled by deforestation.

People in developed countries do not need to cut forests to make money because they already cut them down in the past, when they were developing their economies and their industrial power.

[TacticalGrace]

I think that it would be good if jungle and forest squares reduced global warming. One Jungle square should count as 2 forest squares.
(1) It would give workers something to do in the modern age. rather than just clean up pollution they could be proactive and go and plant forests.
(2) It would provide a better alternative to simply producing less.

[Zachriel]

Re: Civ3 encourages the destruction of the rainforests

Originally posted by Gangerolf
Jungles are one of the most useless terrain types in civ. Are there really any good reasons not to cut them down to make a mine or irrigation?

To answer your original question. There is no doubt there are strong economic incentives to destroy native habitats. This is not the fault of Civ3, but of the world.

I do like some of the suggestions to make native habitat have increasing value in the Modern Age, such as reducing Global Warming.

[Odd]

Didn´t forests help counter global warming? I had a game with lots of tundra. I covered all with forests, an after a couple of nuclear wars it was very helpful, since I had the red sun but not a tile of glassland was destroyed. It seems that global warming destroy the forests first, then go for converting grass-plains-desert.
Since I keep reforesting there were no problem with global warming.

It seems that some people tend to avoid to their responsabilities towards the environment. Brazil, whose actual biggest responsability is to keep Amazonia intact, has a vast majority that feels ultrajed by the destruction of something that is part of the national identity. But there are sectors (mostly the ones that takes decisions) that thinks: "Hey, if you mess up with the environment burning fossil fuel I have the right to mess up destroying this jungle! It´s MY jungle ok?"

This sort of feeling seems to exist in the developed coutries as well. The majority of people are against burning fossil fuels but some people that takes decisions thinks: "Ahh this global warming stuff, it´s paranoia. I´m too lazy to built a solar right now, just plop another coal plant."

About me? I just chop down that useless crap as soons as I can!

[mrmitchell]

Jungles & forests should be able to fight global warming,in this order:

-Planted forests help the least
-Planted Jungles are next up
-Virgin Forests (i.e. have been there since man first saw them)
-Virgin Jungles

[FNBrown]

Eh... the way they're designed in the game, jungles are basically useless. You're best off cutting them down, and re-foresting the area, if you feel bad about killing a tree or two.

[dworkin]

IMO Trees are evil and must be hunted down and destroyed.

Amongst the things I needed to know that I learned from Civ and AOE

[Cyclotron]

Warcraft, too. They just get in your way.