[C4:AC] Terrain Stuff.

[Blake]

I've implemented a lot of terrain stuff like maturing forests and the pollution system and boreholes which override the base terrain yield and tooltips for this stuff.

I was poking around with some stuff and i found that the Oasis can be changed into "rockiness" or like a shield from earlier civs, so it gives the tile it's on +1h.

Furthermore I was thinking it'd be interesting if that bonus yield depleted after a number of turns - at the moment I'm calling them Surface Deposits, they provide +1h.
I'm thinking of having them store a certain amount of hammers (a random amount) and after that many turns they deplete and vanish.
As a feature, if you were to build a forest on them, that would destroy the deposits. As such I'd probably have them accelerate the forest growth (they are magical fertilizers too ).

These depleting deposits would help accelerate the start while still encouraging timely terraforming.

I'm not sure what the base terrain yields will be but I'm thinking:
2,0 Rainy (Grassland)
1,0 Moist (Plains)
0,0 Arid (Desert)
-1,0 Dunes (Tundra)
-1,-1 Wasteland (Ice)

A river would have the effect of upgrading arid and dune tiles to 1f as a mini floodplain effect.

The negative yields means feature and improvement yield is reduced - making these permanently more marginal areas - with intensive terraforming a modest yield would still be achievable. Maybe mature forests could even eventually upgrade the land. (with paved paradise being initially far more productive on marginal land)

I'll post more on my balanced tile improvement ideas tommorow...

[GeoModder]

So, essentially the "native" hammer of a plot would be available minerals/whatever, and working those plots let these deposits fallow.

What then about mines? Will putting this improvement on a plot also slowly over time diminishes resources until it's time to put another improvement on it?
Also, when following this line of thought, real hightech improvements like boreholes would never diminish the resources since they're harvested from way down in the planet's mantle.

Edit: you could even code it so that boreholes have an increased output over time, as the diggin' goes deeper and deeper. Just like villages do for commerce in Civ4.

[ForesterSOF]

I see lots of posibilities for this.

For this reason we should start with only a few and as the MOD is upgraded more can be added.

I just dont want us to get into an "add this; add this" way of thinking and never release the MOD.

[Blake]

Okay here's the minimal balanced improvement set (Draft 1):

Forest:
+1f +2h (is modified by hills to 0f +3h)
+1e upon reaching maturity.
+1f with Tree Farms (and +100% growth while being worked).
+1f +1e with Hybrid Forests.
Reduces Pollution, reduction increases as forest matures.
Can be chopped for production, yield increases as forest matures (Starts at 0).

Forests on good land have a final yield of 3-2-2. On dunes they'll be 2-2-2, on wasteland 2-1-2. Hill forests produce +1h -1f. The forest is a feature and excludes most improvements.


Farm:
1f (always a minimum of 1f, even on wasteland)
May only be built on flats, requires fresh water until Gene Splicing (hardier plants)
+1f with Cent.Eco.
Modest Pollution (intensive land use).

The farm basically provides an initial food output of +2, making any tile with food on it profitable for growing pop. This +2 yield assumes that good food tiles will be quite scarse, making farms rather essential to feed population (at least until Tree Farms)

Soil Enricher (Ecological Engineering):
+3f
Provides +1f to adjacent farms, bonus only counted once.
Significant Pollution: Disrupts Planets ecosystem and spurs fungus growth.

This acts as Condenser and Enricher rolled into one. It upgrades farms to +3f. This gives rainy farms a final yield of 5, and even wasteland farms a yield of 3 (a food profit).


Mine (Industrial Base):
+1h.
May only be built on hills and minable resources.
+1h with a Road.
+2h with a Magtube.
Modest Pollution.

There's not much to say about mines.


Borehole (Industrial Automation):
4h 4e (ignores terrain yields)
Flatland Only.
+2e with Superconductors.
+2h with Monopole Magnets.
Pollution? Hellooo? It's a freaking noxious-gas spewing hole bored into a sentient planet. Produces a magnitude more pollution than anything else (except a large city).

The Borehole is initially weaker than the SMAC borehole since there are no restriction lifting. It's sort of like a mine except with +4e and it doesn't care about crap land.


Wind Turbine:
+3e
Windy areas only (Hills and coastside tiles bordering at least 3 water tiles, at this point).
+1e on Hills.
Truly Minimal Pollution.

The Wind Turbine is the first energy option, it's cheap, it has no tech requirements. It has severe placement restrictions. You wont be powering your economy on wind... but maybe it can get you started.

Water Turbine (Industrial Base):
+1h +2e
Requires flat land Riverside (same restrictions as in CIV)
Modest pollution.
+1h with Industrial Automation.

The Water Turbine provides a rounded yield, it provides both electrical and mechanical energy and water for industrial purposes (it is not clean power).


Solar Panel (Applied Physics):
+4e -1f.
+1e with Superconductors.
+1e with Something Else.
Slight Pollution. (It DOES blanket the land and prevent plant growth.)

The saving grace of the Solar Panel is that it works well in junk land - if the land has no food yield, the food penalty doesn't matter.

Echelon Mirror (???):
+5e -1f.
+1e on Adjacent Solar Panels (does stack).
Modest Pollution (heats up the land).

Alternating rows of mirrors and solar panels can lead to panels generating up to 12e.


Other Stuff:
Free Market (+2 econ), at the moment, will have the following effect:
+1e on Improvements yielding at least 1f or 1h.
Under capitalism everything must pay it's way meaning that one way or another all improvements generate energy. Forests are not an improvement and this bonus scheme means that FM is not the best Forest economy to use. The fact that it doesn't operate on pure-energy improvements means that it's not necessarily the max-energy option and it's equally valid for the Free Marketeer to plant forests rather than building energy improvements - it's not horrible biased for or against anything in particular.
This of course might change...

A look at Balance:
Imagine you have a nice patch of dune.
Hybrid Forests: 2-2-2 - 4 workers produce 0-8-8.
It's a well rounded yield and totally clean, possibility of terrain upgrade.


Farm/Borehole: 3-0-0 / 0-6-6 - 4 workers produce 1-6-6 (1-6-10 under FM).
It's a pretty strong yield but the ED would be extremely high, especially under FM. Still the land can't get worse.


Farm/Energy Park: 3-0-0 / 0-0-12 / Unworked: 3 workers produce 12e (4e/pop).
Clean with a very high energy density per pop, this could be a decent way to make use of low-food areas, since only every other non-food tile would be worked.


I haven't yet made the Solar Panel / Echelon Mirror system mainly because of lack of remotely appropriate graphics.

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by Blake
I haven't yet made the Solar Panel / Echelon Mirror system mainly because of lack of remotely appropriate graphics.

These solar panels over on CivFanatics don't do it for you?

[N35t0r]

Possibility of Windmills and Watermills to be stackable with other improvements?

Also, what about boreholes and rivers?

[Blake]

Possibility of Windmills and Watermills to be stackable with other improvements?

None.
Features (like forest and Fungus) can stack with Improvements (like Farms and Windmills). Features cannot stack with Features, Improvements cannot stack with Improvements.

It would be possible to make it so windmills can be built in (above?) forests... but that could be too good... same with watermills, they'd have to be very weak to justify stacking with forests.

The Borehole/River thing wouldn't really work too good in CIV unless someone wants to make new art for a river draining into a borehole...

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by Blake
It would be possible to make it so windmills can be built in (above?) forests... but that could be too good... same with watermills, they'd have to be very weak to justify stacking with forests.

Well, if windturbines started with +2e instead of +3e, the cumulated energy from mature forests+hybrid forests wouldn't be too overpowered compared to other combined improvements. Especially not when taking into account that it will take a while before a forest matures and the hybrid facility can be constructed. Same for windturbines with one less energy at the start.

More so since +3e on a plot for a basic facility sounds too much to me.

[N35t0r]

Originally posted by Blake

None.
Features (like forest and Fungus) can stack with Improvements (like Farms and Windmills). Features cannot stack with Features, Improvements cannot stack with Improvements.

make windmills a feature? Is there a limited number of these?

Can these limits be altered via SDK?

[Rubin]

Originally posted by Blake
Forest:
+1f +2h (is modified by hills to 0f +3h)
+1e upon reaching maturity.
+1f with Tree Farms (and +100% growth while being worked).
+1f +1e with Hybrid Forests.
Reduces Pollution, reduction increases as forest matures.
Can be chopped for production, yield increases as forest matures (Starts at 0).

Forests on good land have a final yield of 3-2-2. On dunes they'll be 2-2-2, on wasteland 2-1-2. Hill forests produce +1h -1f. The forest is a feature and excludes most improvements.

This would be good in the explore branch. The general low mineral output of a clean (green?) industry and an early expansion paradigm could justify chopping expensive forests to rush production. Also, for a heavy industry approach, the ecodamage sink makes forests an attractive alternative to the more dangerous fungus and should tempt the player to get access to the explore branch.

Originally posted by Blake
Farm:
1f (always a minimum of 1f, even on wasteland)
May only be built on flats, requires fresh water until Gene Splicing (hardier plants)
+1f with Cent.Eco.
Modest Pollution (intensive land use).

The farm basically provides an initial food output of +2, making any tile with food on it profitable for growing pop. This +2 yield assumes that good food tiles will be quite scarse, making farms rather essential to feed population (at least until Tree Farms)

I think the nutrient output leaves very little room for changes. The +1f with Centauri Ecology basically makes Centauri Ecology a must-have technology (assuming Centauri Ecology is a tier 1 technology). This does not make sense to me; rather I'd have farms produce +2f by default or make Centauri Ecology a tier 2 or tier 3 technology.

Originally posted by Blake
Mine (Industrial Base):
+1h.
May only be built on hills and minable resources.
+1h with a Road.
+2h with a Magtube.
Modest Pollution.

There's not much to say about mines.

Perhaps confer a -1f to mined tiles and have this nutrient penalty lifted by a later build technology (which perhaps allows for flatland mines too). I see a lot of possibilities to specialize the mine output depending on the chosen technology branch.

Originally posted by Blake
Wind Turbine:
+3e
Windy areas only (Hills and coastside tiles bordering at least 3 water tiles, at this point).
+1e on Hills.
Truly Minimal Pollution.

The Wind Turbine is the first energy option, it's cheap, it has no tech requirements. It has severe placement restrictions. You wont be powering your economy on wind... but maybe it can get you started.

Water Turbine (Industrial Base):
+1h +2e
Requires flat land Riverside (same restrictions as in CIV)
Modest pollution.
+1h with Industrial Automation.

The Water Turbine provides a rounded yield, it provides both electrical and mechanical energy and water for industrial purposes (it is not clean power).


Solar Panel (Applied Physics):
+4e -1f.
+1e with Superconductors.
+1e with Something Else.
Slight Pollution. (It DOES blanket the land and prevent plant growth.)

The saving grace of the Solar Panel is that it works well in junk land - if the land has no food yield, the food penalty doesn't matter.

Three different energy improvements. It looks to me as if these require at least tier 2 technologies. I tentatively suggest Solar Panels to become available with a tier 2 discover technology; Water Turbines with a tier 2-3 build technology and Wind Turbines with a tier 2-3 explore technology.

Alternatively, Wind Turbines could have no prerequisites and in return the energy output could be reduced and perhaps a nutrient penalty could be added. Later explore or conquer technologies may enhance the output of Wind Turbines.

(Solar Panels could be the default energy improvement too--with reduced output (+2e, -1f, perhaps). Later discover technologies could increase the output to the suggested values.)

---

Generally, I get the impression that mines and farms (Wind Turbines (Solar Panels) too, perhaps) should be available by default, just like the terraformer unit. If we still want to have technology prerequisites for these improvements, I suggest facility alternatives to these improvements (e.g. recycling centers and processing facilities)--perhaps specialist alternatives that are bound to early game SE choices.