TERRAIN & TERRAIN IMPROVEMENTS (ver 1.1): Hosted by EnochF

[Gordon the Whale]

If we're using 3D mapped Landforms, then the plain, rather that being set at 0 elevation, could just be the average of the surrounding tiles, so that they could end up high altitude if they're between mountains. Good enough?

As I was imagining it, irrigation would be a thing to get rid of penalties for a dry climate; no need to irrigate if it's a cleared swamp to begin with!

[ember]

Quite true. Irrigation only has an effect if there is a lack of rainfall. In Canada only a miniscule portion of our farmland is irrigated, but it is still some of the most productive in the world. We just don't bother using marginal land because there is so much land available.

Irrigation should upgrade a squares mossitre rating.
Implimenting farms and crop rotation are the big harvest boosters.

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"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

[ember]

What effect does the altitude have?
in Civ the squares (to me) represent the resources available. Mountain is very rugged, but plain is much more fertile and flat. It does not say anything about elevation. We could add a palteau terrain if it is really improtant to have high altitude cities.
I personally feel that 3D terrain is a devolution. It makes the interface more complicated without adding any relivent information. I find that the relivent infomation content in SMAC style terrain is lower that with CIV2.

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"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by ember (edited July 28, 1999).]</font>

[Theben]

Agreed. Irrigation should increase the moisture of a tile, and farms increase the food production.

[Theben]

double post
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Theben (edited July 28, 1999).]</font>

[don Don]

OOh, ooh! Let me add yet another layer of complexity to this LTMV model. There is a difference between rainfall and drainage. In New Mexico there is a wetlands area called Bosque del Apache. It isn't like there's much rainfall, but the drainage is such that there is a large, uh, swamp. On the coast of Washington and British Columbia there is a temperate rain forest. It isn't a jungle or swamp because the drainage is good.

In Georgia and South Carolina we've got these little minnie-swamps called Carolina Bays (no, I have no idea why they might be called "bays"). The climate is generally pretty wet, but the swamps don't cover so much area that farming is impaired.

[FinnishGuy]

Oops sorry EnochF. I guess my little innocent meant-to-be question looks pushy. I wasn't demanding an immediate new summary. I was just wondering shouldn't all the active threads have v2.x in their names (rename?) now that the List v1 is out.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by FinnishGuy (edited July 29, 1999).]</font>

[ember]

I don't see why artillery gets a high ground (on a civ scale) bonus. If the arty is short ranged enough to take advantage of the increased range (like cannons) it should not be able to hit the next square. If it is very long ranged, like a modern howizer, what difference is an extra hundred meters?

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"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by ember (edited July 29, 1999).]</font>

[Gordon the Whale]

don-don. You're right, but adding a fifth parameter would be hellish... Instead, how about making it a thing rivers do? I always thought it odd that there were rivers but no lakes in Civ (just ocean, which seems different to me.) If there WERE 3D terrain, at least as far as the map generator was concerned, it could make the rivers actually run downhill, like in SMAC. That way, if they were inside a basin, they could pool all over the place... Make the graphic for a river surrounded by other rivers into a lake looking thing. There could also be a "flow rate" thing on rivers, that decided how navigable they are. (if rivers are navigable, which would be a good thing, at least in ancient times) If the flow rate was 0, they would do different things than a regular river... Make penalties instead of bonuses, I guess. That way, Wet squares could be farmed by regular farms, with the food bonus, and Swamps and Bogs and Marshes would be areas with really slow rivers... It would also stop them from forming on hills and/or mountains.

The only thing lacking is that swamps are often coastal, and this wouldn't happen if they were formed by rivers with nowhere to go... Is that a big enough thing to worry about?

[EnochF]

Oh, that. Well, I wasn't expecting Terrain to be in the 1.0 version of the List. The last summary I wrote was the one at the beginning of this huge thread, and that's the one Yin managed to get into the list. Since I haven't written another one (yet), it's still in its 1.1 form. I suppose I should make the next one 2.0. But really, who keeps track of these things...

[loinburger]

I don't really see a need for a high-altitude plains tile (or similar tile) because elevation doesn't really affect the biome directly, only indirectly (by lowered/increased temperature, rain-shadows, etc.).

I am still in favor of having 3D terrain, however, if for no other reason from the military standpoint (artillery on higher ground gets a bonus) and the land raising standpoint (creating/destroying rainshadows, etc.). 3D terrain is certainly not a necessity for there to be elevation differences, it would just make it easier to differentiate between high and low ground.

[Harel]

Yes EnochF, who DOES keep track? Numbers are such an annoying thing, aren't they?

Post 116.

Still no summary?

[Harel]

Yes EnochF, who DOES keep track? Numbers are such an annoying little thing, aren't they? Divide, subtract...
But you can always yell for silence, can't you?


Post 116. Still no summary?

[Harel]

Yes EnochF, who DOES keep track? Numbers are such an annoying little thing, aren't they? Divide, subtract...
But you can always yell for silence, can't you?


Post 116. Still no summary?

[Gordon the Whale]

Boy, harel, shouldn't that be post 116, 117, and 118? Don't hassle the guy. He's a volunteer. I, in particular, am throwing really long, convoluted posts at him, and that's really hard to summarize. By the way, sorry about that, EnochF, but I'm just a long winded whale...

As for the artillery bonus from high ground thing, it's a close call... How about instead of that, just give any unit an attack bonus from a "higher" square, i.e. mountain to hill or plain, hill to plain. It's true that modern artillery might be able to bombard ONE square away on a civ map, but it doesn't seem all that important. I guess that really belongs in the combat thread, but it is a sort of overlap thing.

I think that 3D terrain on a sub-grid level is a good think... CtP had that, right? Where a mountain square will stick up above the plains square behind it? It could be done with sprites instead. (as I believe it was in CtP, but I've never played it, just seen shots) However, you get better tile continuity by using a 3D map, at least to generate the sprites. Can anyone tell that I'm a big fan of tile continuity?

The high altitude plains thing, as I saw it, was just a nice way to make the world look more realistic. Didn't think it would actually change anything.

Changing Rainshadows? In Civ? It was implausible enough in SMAC. As I said earlier, the idea of knocking down a mountain range with any technology we have today or can forsee in the immediate future is ludicrous. Raising one is even worse. The only way to change the Landforms that I could see would be to change Continental Shelf to Plains... This might even require a special square on the continental shelf, called Shallow Flatland, or something, because you can only extend land by diking in a very few places in the world. In fact, only vegetation could be purposefully changed, and then the only one that would be at all easy would be to change Forest to Grass... Grass to Forest should take at least a hundred years. Either of them could be turned to None using nuclear warheads, I guess. Moisture and Temperature might change as a result of Pollution, but Landform? Not even nuclear war would change Landform. Can you imagine people actually knocking down the Rockies? It's silly.

Sorry if I got a little carried away there.