Terraforming sea tiles?

[Vrank Prins]

Hello you above sea-level guy's. I live in a suburb of the city of Haarlem about -1 meter "AP" (Amsterdams Peil = Amsterdam level, an international standard !!! for 0 (zero) meter or sea level). I live quite close to the Haarlemmermeerpolder (...meer... (NL) = lake (anglo)) , which is about -3 to -5 meters below AP. The Haarlemmermeerpolder grew in about 400 years from about one sixth to two times the seize of lake Tahoe in California, or (UK) the complete Wash. It was early 19th century a formidable inlandsea threathening to swallow Amsterdam from the south. In the middle of the 19th century it was "poldered in" with the use of steampumping-stations.

Sorry to have to say this, but I can see you haven't got a clue of what it is like to build a polder. That's how we call our reclaimed pieces of land, a polder. As far as I know anglo, french, german and danish use the same word, allthough I get the feeling here that none of you seem to know it. In dutch we have a word for the whole proces of reclaiming land: building dikes, digging canals, building mills/pumping stations, namely inpolderen, in anglo that would be something like to polder in (sounds funny to me).

The reclaimation of land, as being spoken of here, should only be possible on a new type of tile, shallows, lands which are being flooded and left by tidal waters. Because shallow coastal lands and waters, that's what the Netherlands are all about. And Florida, and the northern part of Germany, Poland, Holland in Lincolnshire, Flanders in België, the delta's of the Nile, Missisippi and etc.. There are even parts on the french coast where Dutch in the mid 18th century, on invitation by the french king, have poldered shallows in. You can't reclaim lake Tahoe, Windermere, the Chiemsee, lake Väner or Väter (Sweden) as lands because there not shallow. The Wash or parts of the mouth of the Severn or huge parts of the coastal waters from Virginia, the Carolina's, Georgia. If Kape Hatteras had lain in the NL, it would have had polders lying right behind it, that's for sure. What a waist of silt !! (to say this must be a typical dutch "reflex" ).

Coming to the game.
It should only possible to build polders on shallows, even if this means that a tile is only on one side adjacent to land, or not adjacent to land (though I don't think a situation like that, if all this is going to be possible, won't occur in the game).
To keep things simple we should only have to two things:[list=1][*]use the command R (=reclaim land) (I would like to say P for polder but I don't think Pillaging is going to be changed in R = ransack). That would include all the work on infrastructure like dikes, and canals and mills or pumpingstations.[*]use the command I (though this mean seem a contradictio in terminus) to cultivate the land, we don't want to live in a mudpool, do we ?!.[/list=a]
The time it would take to complete things should depend on how advanced your civ is or how many workers you're using.
I suggest the possibility to build polders should come available after the discovery of the Cogwheel (with mills as city-improvement). The whole proces would speed after the discovery of steam and combustion (I suggest in an order of 8 : 4 : 2 terms).
Lot's of dutch say that when the chips are really coming down, there's first the dikes and then the family. Polders need maintenance and support, though they're not that expensive.

[Ilkuul]

Thank you, Vrank, for this very informative and useful contribution! I was aware of some of these things (as my wife is Dutch), but it needed a real Dutchman to say them!

What you say about not being able to reclaim deep lakes does put a different complexion on the whole issue, and reveals a serious weakness in my original proposal. Obviously to be true to life we would have to have a new terrain type, "shallows", as you suggest. And in fact this would neatly solve another problem we were discussing above, i.e. how the game is to 'remember' that certain land tiles were originally ocean. This won't arise if they are a completely different terrain type that can have the characteristics either of sea (when not improved) or of land when improved, i.e. reclaimed.

Then, to build on your proposals, all reclaimed shallows would have to have a maintenance cost attached (maybe shared between the nearest cities?); if this is not met, they would progressively revert to unreclaimed shallows, as Airdrik proposed earlier. Also, I feel it would add interest to the game if dikes could at least be assumed to exist in polder tiles adjacent to the ocean, and if they had a certain number of hit points - so that they could be destroyed in war time (either by attackers or defenders! - as I believe the Dutch blew up their own dikes in the early years of WW2 to inhibit a German land invasion...). This would result in immediate flooding of all adjacent polder tiles. What do you think?

One disadvantage of having a new terrain type is that it would probably be a lot less likely to be included in Civ3 at this stage - whereas simply allowing ocean tiles to be changed to land under certain conditions seems a lot more feasible; but then I'm no programmer, so I may be wrong about that! But I like the idea a lot, I think it would be a significant improvement on my original proposal.

[Gramphos]

quote: Originally posted by Vrank Prins on 04-18-2001 01:01 PM Sorry to have to say this, but I can see you haven't got a clue of what it is like to build a polder.

I know it is hard, and the only thing I've said is that it should be good if the game had functions to do so.

quote: As far as I know anglo, french, german and danish use the same word, allthough I get the feeling here that none of you seem to know it.

It's named polder in Swedish too, but I had no idea that the same word existed in English until I recently looked it up in a dictionary.

quote: The reclaimation of land, as being spoken of here, should only be possible on a new type of tile, shallows, lands which are being flooded and left by tidal waters.[/qoute] I think shallows would be good to have in the game. It maybe should be possible to walk over, but not stop on it. [quote]You can't reclaim lake Tahoe, Windermere, the Chiemsee, lake Väner or Väter (Sweden) as lands because there not shallow.

I don’t know if the Swedish lakes have other names in Netherlands than in Sweden, but here we name them Vänern and Vättern.

quote: To keep things simple we should only have to two things:[list=1][*]use the command R (=reclaim land) (I would like to say P for polder but I don't think Pillaging is going to be changed in R = ransack). That would include all the work on infrastructure like dikes, and canals and mills or pumpingstations.[*]use the command I (though this mean seem a contradictio in terminus) to cultivate the land, we don't want to live in a mudpool, do we ?!.[/list=a]

It's looks as a good solution. I think that P might be used anyway, as there will be nothing to pillage in the shallows.
Would it turn into a new land type or into swamps?

quote: The time it would take to complete things should depend on how advanced your civ is or how many workers you're using. I suggest the possibility to build polders should come available after the discovery of the Cogwheel (with mills as city-improvement). The whole proces would speed after the discovery of steam and combustion (I suggest in an order of 8 : 4 : 2 terms).

I agree.


The polders should be distortable improvements on the tiles that if are destroyed would turn the tile back to shallows.

[Ilkuul]

quote: Originally posted by Vrank Prins on 04-18-2001 01:01 PM[list=1][*]use the command R (=reclaim land) (I would like to say P for polder but I don't think Pillaging is going to be changed in R = ransack). That would include all the work on infrastructure like dikes, and canals and mills or pumpingstations.[/list=a]

There's a small problem with using R - i.e., (build) Road or Railroad! (At least in Civ2.) How about D (= drain shallows)?


[This message has been edited by Ilkuul (edited April 18, 2001).]

[Gramphos]

quote: Originally posted by Ilkuul on 04-18-2001 03:25 PM There's a small problem with using R - i.e., (build) Road or Railroad! (At least in Civ2.) How about D (= drain shallows)?

And yo would tell it to dispand the Worker?

I think that the game is case sensitive, but I don't what commands that use both upper and lower case. I think P but not R, but as dispand is a UPPER D you might use a lower D for drain.

[Ilkuul]

quote: Originally posted by vgriph on 04-18-2001 03:35 PM And you would tell it to dispand the Worker? ...you might use a lower D for drain.

Oops, how right you are. Lower-case d was what I meant. But upper-case R, as originally suggested, also wouldn't work, as that triggers a revolution! So d would still be best.

[Roman]

quote: Originally posted by SerapisIV on 04-17-2001 10:43 PM Along the lines of mountains. I'd like to see a bit more differentiation between mountain types. Obviously the Appalachians are not hills as in CivII, but the aren't the Rockys. There should be some middle ground. More differentiation between terrain tiles would be a very good addition.

YES! I think more terrain differention would be very helpful indeed.

[Ilkuul]

quote: Originally posted by Roman on 04-18-2001 07:36 PM YES! I think more terrain differention would be very helpful indeed.

So from the suggestions on this thread, we'd be looking for two completely new terrain types in Civ3, "shallows" (= sea or lakes that can be reclaimed as land), and ?"highlands" (for want of a better term, = land higher than hills but lower than full-scale mountains).

Any ideas on how easy or difficult it might be to implement such modifications at this stage of development - or are we indulging in wishful thinking here?

[Vrank Prins]

quote: Originally posted by Ilkuul on 04-18-2001 02:45 PM as I believe the Dutch blew up their own dikes in the early years of WW2 to inhibit a German land invasion...

So, we did !! in 1939/40 during our mobilisation, and in a few older wars f.i. 1795.

quote: Originally posted by Ilkuul on 04-18-2001 02:45 PM Then, to Also, I feel it would add interest to the game if dikes could at least be assumed to exist in polder tiles adjacent to the ocean, and if they had a certain number of hit points - so that they could be destroyed in war time (either by attackers or defenders! ..... ..... This would result in immediate flooding of all adjacent polder tiles.

You’ve made a very good point there.

Pillaging or attacking a polder would mean cutting the ****s and flooding the polder. It should be possible to do this from adjacent tiles if the ****s are not properly defended. That would mean that, in that situation, a choise is given, in a the rolldown menu or a screen which pops up, to either pillage the square you’re in or pillage the ****s in the adjacent square. A **** should give a defense bonus.
From advanced flight on it should be possible to bomb them*. The english have done so during their campaign in our country late 1944 with quite some effect, the germans were just “drowned out” there. (*though in CIV it is not yet possible to attack a specific infrastructural tile-improvement).

Pillaging shouldn’t turn a polder immediately into it’s predecessor, a shallow. even if the ****s are repaired instantly, that is within 2 or 3 terms it should mean loss of yield for about five terms (usually it takes quite some time for flooded polders to recover and get back to their normal production).
Second leaving the ****s damaged should have a deteriorating* effect, first complete loss of yield, second loss of infrastructure and at last the turning of the tile into its old status (*deterioration of “left” improvements on tiles, which has been discused before in other threaths, is not yet a feature of CIV).

If a unit has to stay over between terms on a shallow tile it should mean loosing hitpoints.

Isn’t there someone who could implement all this into a scenario. I would love to play the dutch independence war (1568 > 1609 & 1621 > 1648) where the dutch made heavily use of inundation tactics.

[Ilkuul]

quote: Originally posted by Vrank Prins on 04-19-2001 07:25 AM Pillaging or attacking a polder would mean cutting the ****s and flooding the polder. It should be possible to do this from adjacent tiles if the ****s are not properly defended. That would mean that, in that situation, a choise is given, in a the rolldown menu or a screen which pops up, to either pillage the square you’re in or pillage the ****s in the adjacent square.

I like your suggestions in the previous post. My one question, tho', is why you speak of "adjacent tiles" in the above quote? Are you assuming that the dike is sort of the 'edge' of an adjacent ocean tile? I had rather envisaged them as a special kind of polder tile, i.e. one that adjoins the ocean. By pillaging that tile you would therefore be pillaging the dike.

But that's a detail. I fully agree with your main point, that dikes should have hit points, be able to be attacked/pillaged and destroyed - and also that in Civ3 it certainly be possible to bomb not only dikes, but also forts, mines, bridges, and other tile improvements outside the city.

[SerapisIV]

In SMAC you could do just that Ikuul. In particular air-attacks and missile attacks could choose their target while regular artillery just got a random improvement. A unit on the tile could of course choose their target as well.

[Ilkuul]

Well, that's great, then we can safely assume they'll be in Civ3, too. Now we just have to hope Firaxis makes the necessary terrain modifications to allow land reclamation from "shallows"!