What causes global warming?

[jez9999]

OK, sorry guys because I'm sure this is a question that's been answered already but seriously I've searched the manual and this forum and haven't found the answer to this: what exactly CAUSES global warming?

I was just playing a game and global warming basically started happening pretty late on in the game when I had no bases producing ecodamage, and the AI had maybe 3 or 4 causing a small amount of ecodamage (5 maybe). Yet, the global warming message came up and over 20 years the coastline was ruined. Is global warming inevitable? Can it be caused with relatively little ecodamage? Can it be stopped once the 'global warming' message has appeared? And are its effects identical to the 'melt polar ice caps' proposal? Can it happen twice or once global warming has happened once, is it guaranteed not to happen again? Once you've 'melted polar ice caps', can global warming still happen?

[Wodong]

It's been my understanding that sustained eco damage over time will cause global warming, whether it's player or AI induced. I've tried to force global warming by cranking up eco damage into the 200s per turn (Morgan, Free Market, crazy boreholes and mineral/mine crawling), and it still took several turns to get the global warming message. It's not an efficient way to drown Planet, but when the council keeps voting against deploying solar shades, you do what you must.

[jez9999]

But I generally want to *avoid* it.

[Wodong]

If you really want to kill global warming, there's a line in the alpha.ini or alphax.ini that you can change. It's something like

1,1 ; global warming

Increasing the second number will reduce global warming effect. I set mine to 1,8, which equals 1/8 normal global warming. If you were to set 2,1, that's double the rate. Solar shade and melt polar caps still work as normal.

[jez9999]

Wodong: yeah, but that's basically a cheat. I'm not really saying I want to disable the game's default global warming/sea level rise settings, I'm just asking whether there's a good way to predict when it will happen. Is the best we can say about this that it will happen "some time when a bunch of eco-damage has been caused", or can we narrow it down in any way?

[Wodong]

To answer your most recent question, I've never been able to accurately predict when global warming will happen, using default alpha.ini. Then again, I've been playing SMAC/X since 1999 and have moved on to fiddling with the .ini and faction profiles to amuse myself over the past couple years.

Hopefully by answering each question in your original post things will be more clear. Otherwise, I will admit failure.

what exactly CAUSES global warming?
Eco damage. All factions contribute to a "pot" and when the threshold is hit, you get global warming even if your faction is producing zero eco damage. Because the AI doesn't seem to understand the Centauri Preserve recycling exploit, they WILL produce eco damage unless you prune them.

Is global warming inevitable?
You can stave it off, but it's mostly a matter of really good luck or destroying your opponents' mineral production. I've had games where it kicked in really early, and games when it seemed like it should have kicked in but never did.

Can it be caused with relatively little ecodamage?
It can happen with very little eco-damage per turn. Sustained damage is actually worse than the occasional spike of eco damage. But don't go using planet busters if you can avoid them.

Can it be stopped once the 'global warming' message has appeared?
No. You can counteract it to some extent by using the "deploy solar shade" mandate as soon as the global warming message pops up (same turn) and sharply curbing everyone's eco-damage (send 'em back to the stone age). But you can't really undo it.

And are its effects identical to the 'melt polar ice caps' proposal?
Yes.

Can it happen twice or once global warming has happened once, is it guaranteed not to happen again? Once you've 'melted polar ice caps', can global warming still happen?
There's no practical cap on global warming. In theory, once everything on Planet gets to the deepest ocean trench level, further warming will have no effect. In practice, you'll probably run out of turns or destroy all your enemies before that ever happens.