terraforming capabilities should increase

[dovlvn]

Iwould like to raise an issue that came during the more terrain discussion.there is needed more terraforming ability of terrain especially in industrial and modern eras which currentiy in civ 3 there is laughably little change in those eras (unlike smac). it should be possible by mod era to turn desert to forests (and vice versa) and irrigate tundras and mountains. that would increase playability of those eras (in multi player it'll start a new city building in areas where humans wouldnt build) and show the real changing importance and use of terrain and the sudden capacity of desert citys (like phonix or alberqurque) or siberian ones to grow thanks to tech imp.

[WarpStorm]

Have you been to Albequerque? It's still a desert. It's just been irrigated. Shut off the water and it'll dry up in a few weeks. Definitely not terraformed. I can't think of any deserts that have become forests now that I think about or lush tundra farmlands either.

We are not playing a sci-fi game. The level of terraforming you are talking about hasn't been invented yet.

My criteria is if you can pull the plug and the changes stay then it's terraformed.

Yes, in real life you can irrigate tundra, hills, and mountains. In the game, you can make it so that they can be irrigated now (I just checked) using the editor.

If you really want to you can make it so that deserts can be forested in the editor.

[statusperfect]

You forgot one thing warpstorm. Terraforming makes games and maps BOOOOOOOOORING. Everything covered with "the SUPER terrain".

[WarpStorm]

oops, double post.

[WarpStorm]

Good point. It lowers strategy. If every tile can be improved, why does it matter where you settle?

[Melboz99]

What about farming?

Ok, I never figured it out. You have irrigation, but no farming? How does that work? You cant tell me we don't have farms in Illinois!

[WarpStorm]

That's what you are irrigating, your farms. Your not just pouring the water on the ground for no reason.

[Zero]

civ I allowed hills to be irrigated, but u only got 2 food out of it. And you had to mine the hills to get +3 shield. o if you were irrigating hills you had just enough to support one population so it was absoultely pointless

[dovlvn]

Originally posted by statusperfect
You forgot one thing warpstorm. Terraforming makes games and maps BOOOOOOOOORING. Everything covered with "the SUPER terrain".

1 it'll take quite alot of time to terraform everything and not all terrains will be terraformable

2 mod nation turn all areas around them to boring subarbs so this just imitates reality
3 as it is a whole map covered in railroads (which most become by mod time aren't very interesting (the interest is focused in getting to the final victory over your rivals
4 it lowers a bit the pay for bad starting location just like in reality with sufficnt tech even a boiling desert can become attractive real estate

[dovlvn]

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by WarpStorm
. In the game, you can make it so that they can be irrigated now (I just checked) using the editor.

If you really want to you can make it so that deserts can be forested in the editor.

if its possible in the editor it should be made possible in reg game.you cant play much mod games online

[CiverDan]

my problem isnt with no terraforming (except for maybe forest/plains to grassland) its with global warming..but thats for another thread..

Anything else is either unrealistic (changing tundra to anything else would require a temperature change)..or extremely time consuming to complete (mountains to hills, etc...

[dovlvn]

Originally posted by WarpStorm
Have you been to Albequerque? It's still a desert. It's just been irrigated. Shut off the water and it'll dry up in a few weeks. Definitely not terraformed. I can't think of any deserts that have become forests now that I think about or lush tundra farmlands either.

We are not playing a sci-fi game. The level of terraforming you are talking about hasn't been invented yet.

My criteria is if you can pull the plug and the changes stay then it's terraformed.

Yes, in real life you can irrigate tundra, hills, and mountains.

by that definition nor are dutch terraforming terraforming
open the damm and its all flooded a changes require some maintenance

it is today possible to tera form like I proposed its just eco cost are too great

anyway civ3 ends in 2050 and just like it has sci fi spaceship and sdi so it can a 50 year leeway for improvements larger then possible today

[dovlvn]

Originally posted by WarpStorm
Good point. It lowers strategy. If every tile can be improved, why does it matter where you settle?

it matters where you settle a great deal for you'll have to wait between end of major settlement wave (which in most maps is around 200 ad) till such terraforming is possible hundreds of turns and most player want benefits from cities right away not too wait centuries. so place of settlement will still be important but such terraforming will lower a bit the damage from lousy start location

[Cyclotron]

Problems with terraforming:

1) It utterly destroys the Civ3 global warming system. Now, tiles that convert to less productive types aren't important anymore, because you can easily terraform them back. Global warming is no longer an issue at all.

2) It destroys the value of geographic determinism in the modern age. In all modern wars, geography plays an important role. If you can make all your forts on lone mountains around your cities, and level all the hills around your enemy's cities for maximum cavalry use, why even bother with terrain types in this era? Geography would become a non-issue.

3) It's historically false. There is a reason SMAC has this and Civ3 does not.

4) It messes up the resource system. What happens if I turn a mountain with iron into tundra? Now, the resource will be on a terrain not usual to it. That makes resources like gems, which were normally hard to get and needing colonies (plus the trade off: are gems worth some wasted cities around those mountains?), as easy to obtain as wheat. If you decide that resources perish when their terrain is changed (i.e. that elephants can't really live in tundra), then you have introduced an entirely new facet to Civ3: resource destruction.

It's not a bad idea in itself. When you make your own TBS game, condsider it. But to put it into Civ3 would have flown in the face of the base mechanics of the game and completely destroyed or altered many aspects of it. Sorry.

[CiverDan]

IMHO the civ3 system is an upgrade from civ2...I remember civ2 games where I would turn the Himalayas into hills. Add in the Airbase bug, and I would have size 30 cities where Mt. Everest is. Not very realistic.