Master of Disaster

[Bluevoss]

I've been enjoying a PROLONGED battle between my Carthaginians and the Babalonians in Cradle. Now, one thing I've noticed - I've had two disasters - plague and earthquakes. And thats all I've had. Are there any more?

If not, how hard would it be to put them in? Some things I'd like to see:

Fire - Towns back then were tinder-traps. A fire would be a horrific event - it should kill somewhere between 50-70% of the people (not everyone dies, but many just drift away). 70% chance for improvements AND wonders to be destroyed.

Locusts - every farm improvement within that city's area is striped. Now thats gotta hurt.

Inciter whips up crowds - Drop the morale of the town 10 pts for that turn (before you can do anything about it). Yeah, it might break away from your country.

Any other ideas?

[Pedrunn]

Nice idea. This would be really neat!

[Immortal Wombat]

Jeez, people complain enough about the odd plague. Their going to kill me if I put in 50-70% killer fires

[Locutus]

Those ideas are nice, and I'll certainly remember them for HotW, but as IW said, most people find natural disasters annoying, and the more powefull the effect, the more annoying people find it. So it would be best to make sure that the effects aren't too strong and that there are also positive random/natural events...

[Maquiladora]

What about a nearby VOLCANO pouring out hot ash over the poor defenceless town. Maybe not.

But i agree, the disasters get really annoying sometimes, especially if youre just rebuilding your army when a plague destroys half your biggest production base.

By the way this has to be the best titled thread ive seen for ages.

[Immortal Wombat]

What about a nearby VOLCANO pouring out hot ash over the poor defenceless town. Maybe not.

It (should be ) in Cradle, just very rare.

[Pedrunn]

IW is right it is to much people to be killed in such small disaster.
I woulkd say a max of 20%.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
By the way this has to be the best titled thread ive seen for ages.

Believe it or not, but that was actually my nickname for a while in high-school
Still haven't figured out whether I should see it as a compliment or an insult...

[Hermann the Lombard]

Well, a fire in one city (even a 70% killer) isn't as bad as plague in 14 of my cities, etc. Maybe limit the fire damage as others suggested. The biggest reason natural disasters are frustrating is the feeling of helplessness: "nothing we can do about it." But that's not true, at least with plague, as Wombat has things set up so that we CAN be proactive to ameliorate the effects.

We could do something similar regarding earthquakes, with various architectural advances limiting damage (however unrealistic this may be; wood buildings were probably the safest in a 'quake for a long time).

One thing *I* find frustrating about the disasters is the lack of info about the impacts: how many died and where, things like that. Also the lack of visuals...hmm...maybe a transient tile improvement to "flag" the damage, like a bunch of tumbled columns for an earthquake, smoke cloud for fire, big bug for locusts, whatever?

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Locutus


Believe it or not, but that was actually my nickname for a while in high-school
Still haven't figured out whether I should see it as a compliment or an insult...

Actually as nicknames go at school, thats a pretty good one, a compliment i reckon.
I wouldnt like to say what i was called at school.

Also back to disasters, could there be some sort of economical disaster? Perhaps triggered later in the game, for obvious reasons, say after banking has been discovered (on the default tech tree anyway). Maybe lose half or all your gold savings.

[centrifuge]

"Bluevoss: it should kill somewhere between 50-70% of the people (not everyone dies, but many just drift away)."


How about this, in the case of a big fire, instead of the population just "drifting away" a settler is created, and the city population drops by maybe 4. This would account for the deaths and for people that have lost their houses and had to leave.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by centrifuge
"Bluevoss: it should kill somewhere between 50-70% of the people (not everyone dies, but many just drift away)."


How about this, in the case of a big fire, instead of the population just "drifting away" a settler is created, and the city population drops by maybe 4. This would account for the deaths and for people that have lost their houses and had to leave.

Interesting idea...refugees. I wonder if the same could be done occasionally in the face of strong invasion: refugees fleeing in the form of nomads. I know of the code that sends pop to other cities when a city is razed.

[Dale]

Fires killing 50-70%???

Even in the great fire of London, only a couple hundred people died. Though it certainly cleaned out the plague-rat problem.

[Bluevoss]

That idea of refugees isn't bad - if your city gets creamed, you get a new nomad in your closest city.

You could put them just outside the city, but frankly, it would be too easy to ride them all down, and most of the time, the conquiring army will be too busy stuffing their pockets to kill everyone fleeing.

As for the fire; like I said, its not really deaths in the night of the fire. But a big fire might cause a huge impact over the years. I'm reading a book on Canaan right now (the Phoenician coast). Even taking into account the armies that wash back and forth over it, there are a lot of town that simply disappear. Who can say why they fade. But in these civ games, towns hardly every go, they just trade hands.

Actually, I like the rules for burning down a captured town. I might experiment with reducing the number of cities supported by each government type, so that nations that take over other cities might decide to burn 'em rather than learn 'em. Something to think about at least.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Hermann the Lombard
Interesting idea...refugees. I wonder if the same could be done occasionally in the face of strong invasion: refugees fleeing in the form of nomads. I know of the code that sends pop to other cities when a city is razed.

Actual the refugee code is alread a part of MedPack2. Just conquer a city and you get a message of fleeing people.

-Martin