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

[Flavor Dave]

"But “terraforming” is an anachronism in the present. Glaciers-to-grassland should require heavy future tech, maybe weather control."

I agree that the idea of glaciers becoming grasslands is unrealistic. But I've always conceived this not as the LAND changing, just what it PRODUCES. The grasslands don't really become hills which you can mine. Instead, your engineers work intensively on the grassland so that it produces less food, but much more material for building stuff.

[Flavor Dave]

"But “terraforming” is an anachronism in the present. Glaciers-to-grassland should require heavy future tech, maybe weather control."

I agree that the idea of glaciers becoming grasslands is unrealistic. But I've always conceived this not as the LAND changing, just what it PRODUCES. The grasslands don't really become hills which you can mine. Instead, your engineers work intensively on the grassland so that it produces less food, but much more material for building stuff.

"DISASTERS:A natural disaster feature (optional) would be nice."

This doesn't really fit with the scale of the game, unless you're running a scenario. But as an option, I guess it would be OK, as long as Firaxis doesn't spend too much time programming it.

"SEASONS: Have some tiles be programmable with seasons. Just like the tile editor
have a flag that would activate any changes depending on time of the year."

Again, doesn't fit with the scale unless you're running scenarios.

[Flavor Dave]

Think about how much area one tile covers. I don't think natural disasters impact that kind of area, except Krakatoa. If you make this event too rare, then you're putting too much luck into the game. If it's too common, it's unrealistic for there to be that many disasters that affect a whole tile.

Not to mention how long the game turns are 10 years or more.

[Theben]

True, but a one time disaster can have important effects. Just think back to civI, floods in a city that damage structures, fires, riots, earthquakes (which could affect more than one tile!). I don't like the "cloud cover" over my city for 10 turns in SMAC though.
You could also have flooded irrigation, rivers changing course or drying up, resources used up or discovered, etc. But if you don't want it, don't turn on the option. Like I said, pure strategists should be able to enjoy the game, too. There are enough of them.

[Ecce Homo]

I agree that we should have natural disasters.

"Think about how much area one tile covers."

I hope that Civ 3 will be more detailed, with more tiles on the maps (ie smaller tiles). Do you fear for too much microm'ment? That could be decreased by CTP's trade system, Public Works and improved Goto orders for military units.

[EnochF]

Yeah. And, as improbable as this may sound, I agree with Harel's idea from the summary that maps should be much bigger, that tiles should comprise smaller areas, and that cities can be made of "city tiles." I just think that would be an incredible system for the late game.

[Theben]

I thought of an idea for settler/engineers which seems to jive with part of Jon M's ideas:

Auto settler: Have a preference list for EACH type of terrain, including specials. The list will include irrigation, mining, road building, etc. In addition, you can add a priority to which tiles the settler will go to 1st to terraform. An auto settler will look at your list and do to the tiles exactly what you specify. It'd be a pain to set up at 1st, but afterwards I think it would greatly ease micromanagement. You should also be able to set the AI's preferences in the ??.txt to make them more challenging, and for scenarios.

Roads tra cities:
'r' still creates a road, 'R' would allow you to plot a path from point A to point B, between which the settler will faithfully build the road/rr/maglev you specify.

Jon M, an alert that woke up EVERY unit in a certain radius of the enemy would be useful (no penalty to settlers if they continue terraforming). Good call.

Building TI's should cost $ or production if "public works" isn't used.

The building of TI's on a tile should extend your border to include that tile if:
-It is adjacent to your border
-It is not within another civ's border (unless border is contested)
-It can connect to your supply grid
Having shifting borders is okay, but one shouldn't be able to move a border next to another city by dropping your own city next to it. During war borders are meaningless so they would all be contested (tip o' the tentacle to the Squid Kid ).

Flav Dave,
A list of tiles you can change the current tile into would solve that problem. The list would expand as you gained tech.
"Disasters" does fit into the game, "seasons" don't, unless it's a scenario. But either way it should be optional for strategy purists.

Strangelove,
Check out my suggestions for resource tiles at top & also in the "economics" thread.

[Flavor Dave]

One thing that concerns me is that Firaxis might adopt the flashier ideas. I am concerned that if too much is added to the game, it will turn into vaporware. Also, that the flashier new ideas will be implemented instead of the more solid, but more useful ones, in order to make the programming manageable. It's not that I dislike alot of these ideas, esp. as options. It's about priorities. Of course, I say this as a non-programmer;-)

Having said that, about the idea of rivers changing--that is both realistic, and fits with the scale of the game. I propose adding to the pollution random feature, that a river square that is worked has some (small) chance of silting up, becoming swamp until an engineer/settler dredges it. It would have to be a special kind of swamp to make sure that it is distinguished from other swamp tiles.

[Guest]

There should be Arable land, or Food Tiles like Imperialism. There you could have high density large nations (like India and China) in a small land area because of the large amount of Arable land (and food grown there).
While large land masses with little Arable land will have a relatively smaller population. (Such as Australia, Africa (Relatively speaking)).

[Diodorus Sicilus]

What constitutes 'arable land' depends on the Civ and the Tech it has available. Tile improvements like Terraces (turning steep hills into cropland), Irrigation (turning desert/plains into the equivalent of good grasslands), or clearing forests into another tile type all provide 'arable land'. The tile improvements and what effect they have on your civ should depend on Tech Advances - and need. You're not going to waste the time and money terracing hills if you've got lots of flat cropland already. You're not going to bother clearing forests for crops if you don't have the Iron Plow (or whatever they decide to label the Tech) to break up heavy forest soils for farming.
The whole question of exploitng the terrain should be more closely tied to Tech Advances in the new game. For one thing, there are serious changes in agriculture and the value of certain land for agriculture dependant on tech. Best cases I can think of are the early development of Irrigation that made the Fertile Crescent fertile, and the development of hybrid wheat forms in the 19th century that made the US Great Plains into a bread basket where before they had been 'merely' plains tiles with buffalo icons!

[Guest]

What I want to see is uneven population and food distribution like the 'real world'. Anything that works to make this happen is good.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

Bulrathi: I thoroughly agree, more variety in civilizations is my theme, and variety in food production is one basic step.
That means the game has to model the differences not only between hunter-gatherers and farmers, but between nomadic herders and farmers, farmers with primitive plows and iron moldboard plows and good harness, modern forms of rice with multiple harvests per year versus primitive grains, Industrial Agriculture, etc, etc. This, I think, requires both more variety in Tech advances related to food production, more variety of civilization types (I've posted before on 'nomadic civs', so no more here), and more variation based on the terrain and climate the civ starts or grows in.

[The Ellimist]

MILITARY IMPROVEMENTS

Military Base- requires Tactics. Construction: 10 turns. Any land or air units run through it get a +1 morale modifier. Replaces Airbase.
Naval Yard- requires Amphibious Warfare. Any naval units run through it get completely repaired. Can only be built in coastal squares. Construction: 20 turns.
Trench- requires Construction. Replaces Fortress. Increases defensive strength of all units in trench by +50%.
Bunker- requires Steel. Increases defensive strength of all units in stack by +50%. Cumulative with Trench.
Force Field- requires Photonics. Increases defensive strength of all units in stack by +50%. Cumulative with Trench and Bunker.

[Jimmy]

And the "missile silo" terrain improvement, where you could put your missiles (cruise missiles as well as nuclear). It would allow the player to put missiles someplace else than the city so if a city were nuked, you would not automatically lose all the missiles, and would be able to retaliate. Of course, "missile silos" would become prime targets for a nuclear attack: try to take out all the enemies' nukes to prevent him/her from retaliating. It would add more strategy.

[The Ellimist]

Um yeah. That too.