Vegetation, Climate, Ecology, and Pollution

[Simon Loverix]

Laurent:
There are some kinds of pollution (phosphates) that can be beneficial, but usually it's one of the following cases:
1) Some species benefit at the expense of other species, which means the total BM stays the same or even decreases.
2) It's only temporary.
3) Some species proliferate and are afterwards 'recycled' into the ecosystem, in which case it's a plain benefit. Since most farming methods will aim at the same yield each year, the
So, it depends on the specific effects linked to a specific type of pollution.

Mark:
Is this more suitable?
0 waste 1 desert 5 low cover 20 high cover 20 light forest 5 forest 5 climax forest 3
I was actually thinking of these ranges as maximums, to be adjusted by terrain etc. So far the big bonus for Egypt came from the extra nutrients brought each year by the Nile. It can be treated as a 'free' Kapital extra, thus enhancing total output.

Does the number of sites increase with better technology? I think it shouldn't. You can get more out of a site with better methods, but you can't get farmland from the void.

Thanks for the explanation. I was not sure whether these things came from the tech or the investment. It covers everything that prevents loss of crops, benefits soil etc. and has to do with farming, right?
So this happens each year: BM = BM + Kapital(noted as BM) + BM regeneration - produced amount
The BM regeneration must be there, it is meant to happen to every square each turn. This is to simulate non-sustainable methods, when they are harvesting more than is added with Kapital and natural recovery. It's probably best to have a list of squares that are 'messed with', to save on clocks. Standard farming can also be considered sustainable, then it's only necessary to penalize BM when it's explicitly ordered to do overcropping.

How are we keeping track of land use so far? Later in the game there will probably be big cities that cover an entirely square, farming is no longer possible there. It could also be useful for draining 'in progress' and when the land is flooded again, to avoid brusque changes.

[Mark_Everson]

quote: Originally posted by Simon Loverix on 04-29-2001 07:19 PM Is this more suitable? 0 waste 1 desert 5 low cover 20 high cover 20 light forest 5 forest 5 climax forest 3

Yes, much better

quote: So far the big bonus for Egypt came from the extra nutrients brought each year by the Nile. It can be treated as a 'free' Kapital extra, thus enhancing total output.

I think I would handle natural nutrients as an increase in sites. Essentially sites in an agricultural context are the aggregation of all natural resources that bear on production. Since the Nile's nutrients are 'free' it should be handled in sites IMO.

quote: Does the number of sites increase with better technology? I think it shouldn't. You can get more out of a site with better methods, but you can't get farmland from the void.

You're right it doesn't generally. The exceptions are drainage or deforestation resulting in more sites.

quote: So this happens each year: BM = BM + Kapital(noted as BM) + BM regeneration - produced amount

Something like this could work, I'm not clear on the details yet... But the econ model is a steady-state model. It assumes that the techniques being used are long-term sustainable. I am not sure there is that much advantage in modeling unsustainable farming techniques. Sure it can happen, and has, but generally there is no advantage in it for a long-horizon game like Clash. I personally would favor leaving it out, as another detail in a perfect world model, but one that doesn't give the player much benefit.

quote: How are we keeping track of land use so far? Later in the game there will probably be big cities that cover an entirely square, farming is no longer possible there. It could also be useful for draining 'in progress' and when the land is flooded again, to avoid brusque changes.

Right now there are only vague plans of the sort you mention, but nothing solid.

[Lord God Jinnai]

quote: 1. Gaseous ---------- - local effects: Large quantities of exhaust fumes and industrial pollution from smokestacks cause diseases, damage to infrastructure (soot) and acid rain. - range effects: Part of the acid rain also occurs following any local wind current. If there is no wind, this part also occurs locally. - global effects: All air pollution is recorded. If the total exceeds a certain fraction of the atmospheric volume, global warming may occur (possibly delayed). Also everywhere the chance to acquire cancer increases.

Several things. First the material that produces Acid Rain actually reduces greenhouse effect.
2nd you need a range for the gas to travel and i would assume for simplicity sake that all gaseous pollution has the same range before it falls.
3rd I though we agreed a long time ago that the world wouldn't ness go into 'global warming'. There could be 3 possible scenerios.

quote: - Solid pollution causes immediate local temporary effects. It is also stored as a special and will do damage again with intervals, decreasing in amount each time until removed, recycled or depleted. (Alternately, it's also possible to have it cause permanent damage just once and disappear, as a simplified rule.

Well nuclear waste shouldn't deplete each time because the in-game half-life will not occur but maybe once if they cheat or go far into the future.

quote: - Nuclear Explosion: BM=0; PBM reduced to 1/10 of its original value; the square now has a special: Radioactive Elements: decrease pop. growth, increase mortality rate (because of various cancers)

It is still possible to farm several years after in a nuclear zone. Although the health risks are enourmous. However they do so in Russia because they have no where else to farm, even knowning there food is killing them slowly because they haveto eat.

quote: - Volcano: The terrain of the square becomes mountainous; a Volcano geo-special is created; the BM is reduced to 0 and the BMP to desert or low cover at maximum; air pollution occurs. Note that this is a very big volcano, one that affects 10,000 km²; we might leave it out or adjust its effects downwards.

The former is only true when the volcanoe erupts, afterword the land become among the most fertile in the world.

quote: - Draining: reduces PBM a little and halves BM. However, the water disappears and the square becomes ordinary dry land as long as the draining is maintained. It still has its previous BM (up to its new PBM) and possibly still needs to be deforested to be suitable for farming

Depending on the size and time, this should showly require less and less drainage as maintainance unless its beeing fed by a watersource other than rain.

quote: * Roads: Road construction does not cause any changes (besides open space reduction), except in forests: climax forest is reduced to forest, forest has a chance to become light forest and light forest stays the same.

The amount of damage should depend on the land transportation technology.

quote: * Strip mining reduces the BM and PBM to 0. When the mining activities stop the PBM rises again to desert. Reforestation programs are possible with a better chance than in normal deserts because the climate probably was better before the mining started.

Um, i haveto disagree with that last part. It will even on its own return to a forest or grassland (whatever it was before) without intervention, although the process is usually longer. The vegitation produced here is unique however as it only occurs where depleted strip mines are do to the time and quanity of minerals left behind as waste.

quote: You're right it doesn't generally. The exceptions are drainage or deforestation resulting in more sites.

Also the use of dikes and just the natural deltas created.

[Simon Loverix]

Mark:
Non-sustainable farming techniques are most likely to kill a civ, and the player. So we can better leave it out, or we won't sell a single copy .
Maybe this is something for hight difficulty levels.. Salt saturation can be coped with, fe by Babylon: they lost their supremacy, but were able to recover. Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, on the other hand, perished.
I still think natural regeneration should be used for squares that are not farmed or otherwise steadily exploited. Combined with the gradual differences in the vegetation types, it can give a smooth recovery without excessive bookkeeping.
The regeneration of BM is in fact the maximum number of farm output for a given square, without damaging it permanently.

So a site in agricultural terms is in fact a unit of production potential (surface of farmland * quality of the farmland), not actual production space? This might be the base of a formula..
surface-->terrain * quality-->PBM = nr of sites
I think I could work the regeneration into quality.

Land use:
The amount of 'wet' that is kept under control in a wetland is determined by Kapital investment, so that's covered enough.
It would be useful to keep an eye on urbanisation:
urban % : the 'urban desert'. No farming, infrastructure everywhere.
settled % : any land in exploitation. Plants and animals, but controlled
wild % : the wilderness. Predators roam free, no lights at night
IF we need it, of course.

Questions on the production function:
What do a, b and c represent? How are they defined? Why do they need to add up to 1?

LGJ:
Acid rain: :cool Can you explain a bit more?
Range: I meant it would just follow the local wind current (if any) to the end.
Scenario's: I read that and meant the particular scenario applicable in that game.

Nuclear: Maybe the PBM reduction can be a little less drastic, 1/4 or something.
Volcano: What do you think of having the volcano 'fertilizing'(+PBM and consequently + farming sites) the adjacent squares?
Draining: Those other sources being a large body of water, ie sea, lake, river or wetland in a river course.

Roads: Do you mean advanced transport requires heavier infrastructure? I agree. Apart from that, how can we determine the pollution coming from using the road?
Strip mining recovery: We can look at neighbouring squares at take a fraction (1/2 or so) of that PBM.

Biomass:
It's just for the sake of the definition, but BM also covers biodiversity.

Rivers:
How are rivers tracked? Can we have them as an object (correct me if I'm misusing terms), consisting of pointers to map squares, in order:
- the source
- a few dry squares, covering the distance were the river is not yet big enough to cover an entire square
- ordinary river terrain
- the ocean, sea or lake squares that are near the mouth

This would also allow to have Wetlands inserted into the river courses, either as source, wetland were the river slowly flows through or delta near the end. The same goes for lakes, as a river sometimes forms a lake, that still has an outlet. Finally, underground rivers could be covered this way (if we need them).
Advantages of this method: It's easier to use the river when dealing with trade and transport routes, at tactical level in the military, to monitor anything that follows river streams, going from explorers over trade tot pollution. The river are a coherent whole that way. We also have the opportunity to easily include the volume of the river, and how much has been used by industry and for irrigation.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Simon, assume I more-or-less agree with what you posted unless I say something.

quote: Originally posted by Simon Loverix on 04-30-2001 08:23 PM The regeneration of BM is in fact the maximum number of farm output for a given square, without damaging it permanently.

Its not clear to me that this is true... farming uses all kinds of inputs not available to nature to boost BM per site.

quote: So a site in agricultural terms is in fact a unit of production potential (surface of farmland * quality of the farmland), not actual production space?

Yes, this is in the old discussions in one of the econ threads. Searching for 'farm' and 'site' would probably find the discussion for you. It would probably be useful in other areas for you to read over that discussion between me, Richard, and F_Smith.

quote: This might be the base of a formula.. surface-->terrain * quality-->PBM = nr of sites

Perhaps this is right! Though I'm not certain (my brain isn't working very well )

quote: The amount of 'wet' that is kept under control in a wetland is determined by Kapital investment, so that's covered enough.

I think this is too complicated. I have always assumed that once the drainage is paid for, the sites are available for free. Your approach is more correct, but requires the already-complicated farm kapital to do another job, makes valuing drainage by the AI much more tricky, and I think the player doesn't get anything for the extra effort.

quote: Questions on the production function: What do a, b and c represent? How are they defined? Why do they need to add up to 1?

From the production fn bit on the econ web page: Each of labor, natural resources, and capital has its own exponent (a, b, and c) that describes how production increases when you change the amount of that particular input. Also please search for 'production function' on the forum, since this has been discussed before. a+b+c needs to be 1 to give proportional returns to scale. That means if All inputs are doubled, the output also doubles. It is a good property for production functions to have, although not absolutely required.

[Simon Loverix]

Mark:
'The regeneration of BM is in fact the maximum number of farm output for a given square, without damaging it permanently.'..or adding any nutrient surplus from other sources.

Partial draining:
Ok, let's keep it simple. Making matters more complicated is easy enough.

Thanks for answering my off-topic economy question. I don't have very much time these days to read previous threads.

Anyway, here are they: the functions to derive sites from PBM:

T(errain)= D 9/24, F 8/24, R 6/24, H 3/24, M 1/24

W, D, LC, HC: PBM*T
LF, F, CF: (2400/PBM)*T

examples:
desert flatland: 0-5 sites
forested hills: 5-2 sites
climax forest valley: 4-1 sites
high cover flatland: 10-20 sites
light forested mountains: 2-1 sites

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Simon, looks pretty good!

What do you do when your forest is being cleared to become HC? My guess from looking at your equations is you take the minimum value from the two formulae ( in this case F or HC ). Does this sound right to you?

[Simon Loverix]

When a square is being deforested, its BM goes down in a pace dependent on tech level. The square would first become light forest and then high cover when the appropriate BM is reached (60, the best farmland available). It could go lower due to erosion effects of the deforestation.

For now I'm doing the PBM/BM equations. I'd like to try them out in the map generator, but it seems to be on a sidetrack for now.
When that's done, I'll summarize this tread into a basic model. Then it's time to ask what input other models expect/need/can use from the ecology and vice versa.


[This message has been edited by Simon Loverix (edited May 07, 2001).]

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Simon. What I meant was you have these two formulae and there is potentially a discontinuous jump between LF and HC. We are striving in Clash not to Have discontinuous jumps because they promote micromanagement by the player, and are hard for the AI to cope with. A tile IMO should not on one turn be LF and then the next turn become HC. It should be a process that slowly removes BM in stages from the deforestation.

In that context my original question is when you are deforesting a BM into HC how do you prevent big jumps in the number of sites going from one formula to the other. Handling it by the result being the min number of sites that comes out of the two formulae prevents a big jump when deforesting LF into HC.

[Lord God Jinnai]

quote: Important species are each (or not all of them, or maybe more) randomly assigned at the start of the game to one (or more) ecological provinces with the appropiate climate, terrain and vegetation (fe no horses in woods, or dromedaries in sub-artic forested hills). This indicates wether the animal is native in that region. If they're domesticated, they're treated as infrastructure. They automatically spread to an adjacent eco-province if it is of suitable climate, terrain and vegetation (check if provinces change or once every century). Also, they can be spread by humans (mustangs), intentionally or unintentionally (rats). The same goes for plants, but ecological provinces can also be very well suited for the cultivation of a certain species (as a special). The species doesn't need to be native to the region, but the climate etc. must be suitable. Reefs only in Sub-Tropical or warmer climate. Wine and palms only in Warm Temperate or warmer. Cereals only in Cold Temperate or warmer. Krill and kelp only in Sub-Artic or warmer. Some important species: rats (spread of diseases, damage vulnerable ecosystems, eat supplies), cats, dogs cotton, silkworm, sheep, flax, rubber, hardwood, fur animals spices, sugar cane, coffee, tea, tobacco, cocoa; olives, figs, dates, wine, bananas, peanuts horse, camel (cold deserts), dromedary (hot deserts), donkey (mules are infertile crossbreeds) cereals, maize, potatoes, rice; onions, beans, soya beans, peas, lentils

Basically this is good, i think it needs a few tweeks. First off a species shouldn't automatically spread to an ajacent province if every aspect is favorable. This should be dependant on the climate range its toleraable to, the generic diveristy, human interventions to increase/descrease it and a base maxium chance. This would be good for new species also. Before I get flamed for that remark, i don't want to see many new species at all, but there have been new species that have appeared since humans came about. I would limit the total species at a given time (excluding genetically eng. ones that are domesticated or agricultural use) and if it reaches that point, no new ones. The player can name these when they appear, or do so in a file. (IE a screen saying Scientists discovered a new type of plant that evolved from !" There would be an option to name it, or use default name and another message would appear saying what it was). I know this isn't how it is in nature, but i cannot see a way around it since in nature it takes a while.

When a non-native species is introduced, it should adversely affect the enviroemnt if it takes hold if it has no natural means of population control (ie preditors, seasonal change, tempature). It should take 500 years for a species to be considered native, give or take 200 years. This would be the main reason for the new species thing in the above paragraph.

Finally even if a species is listed as domesticated, there may still be a population of wild species in an area, so it should be kept track of.

[Mark_Everson]

LGJ:

Still trying to build the Universal Detailed World Simulator again I see...

[Simon Loverix]

Discontinuity:
My goal was to have something like a Bell/Gauss curve with an optimum between 50 en 60 BM. Alas I don't remember enough from my math classes to recall such a formula.. can you help me out? It should go down slower on the forest side to a minimum of, say, 2 or 3. Maximum 3 in desert etc.

What commodities need a number of sites?
There's still need for a lumbering sites equation, right? Like this:
T(errain)= D 9/24, F 8/24, R 6/24, H 3/24, M 1/24
sites= ((BM-55)/7)*T

Origin of Species:
Can we do it this way for each square or eco-province?
Suitable for species or not : 010101101100010101
Species is present i/t wild : 010001000100010001
Bonus sites for each species: 000000400000020001
(=specials for good farming or breeding conditions)

The suitability for a province or square depends on terrain, climate, vegetation, water type. This might be too much calculation for square-level, but it might be doable on eco-province level. It is recalculated once every 100 years, when a new crop is tried or when the area changes.

Chance to spread: once per century, only possible if area is suitable, chance decreases for high BM. Most spreading will be done by humans, though (trade, migration etc.). Also, this is not very drastic - it could be left out. But if it is put into the game, let the chance be high enough to have it occur regularly. In colonization, colonists had the ability to learn a profession by doing the job. chance 1/100(or 200 or 300). I saw it happen twice.

For new species, define them and their abilities beforehand. They will not all be present at the start of the game and some can still be discovered or evolve, but you have control which species and how much there will possibly be. For introducing new species: smaller ecologies (islands) are more vulnerable then large-area ecologies (continents, oceans). Once a species is present, it is also native, but there's no need to keep track how long. So let the damage to environment be a one time only event (a decrease in BM, proportionally to the difference of the size of the home continents of the respectective species).

Domesticated animals are considered infrastructure, so they're separate. They are also considered non-competitive in the free. Advancing in genetic engineering could increase the appropriate tech, and thereby the production of eg. cattle. So it's a helper tech of tech:Meat Production or tech:Farming.

Site improvements:
This is covered in the infra model, right? I would like those improvements:
draining: wetland is considered dry (for farming purposes)
irrigation: WT or warmer is moister, so PBM increases
deforestation: (consumed immediately) decreases BM per unit
terracing: hill or mountain is considered rolling (for farming)
chinampas: lake or wetland is considered dry (for farming)

I think this thread holds the title for 'Longest Mean Message Length'.

[Lord God Jinnai]

quote: Origin of Species: (snip) I cannot endorse myself, or encourage any coder to work on things like this. As I have explained repeatedly (several times also before you came on board Simon) I Strongly feel that this goes Way beyond what it is practical for us to do in a Game. We are having trouble just getting coded and working Core things the players want to Actively deal with like the military, economy, and technology, and GUIs for these and the map. This detailed species modeling stuff is something Few players will care about and will not IMO add significantly to Clash game experience. If implemented this proposal will just suck up resources that are needed elsewhere in the project. Have you thought that if this detailed species modeling to have any meaning for the player we will need to have specific GUI elements to feed species info to the player? It would just add lots of work and chew up clock cycles with Very Little return in Fun to the player! I see that both of you (Simon and LGJ) are interested in this topic. That's great, but this is a Clash 3.0 topic, if ever. I simply can't spare the time to further comment on specific species tracking because my time is consumed with Clash 1.0 issues. But I suggest you label this in further discussions as an 'advanced' topic with the far future in mind. Because I think the average visitor who reads such posts will depart the forum forever, bemusedly shaking their heads if they read such an increadibly detailed world model for handling Animals and Plants. This is not speculation, I have heard such comments from visitors, and we have had members Leave the Project because there was too much talk about inessential items, sucking up time and resources! Detail is good to a limited extent in a central area like military, but IMO a poor choice in areas peripheral to the main game excitement.

How's about this compromise...first off your right about getting to detaled which was not what i planned. We have most of what we are going to have at the beginning of the game. We could have 2 plant and 1 animal species defined that would appear only if certain criteria were met. These would be coded in already. The player, if he wants to could add 3 more plant ones and 2 animal ones and define their criteria (which could be initial). If they don't, the game won't look for itand it won't upset anyone. I think if we could have diseases that appear later on we can do so for species without making so complicated the player would turn away.

[Mark_Everson]

quote: Originally posted by Simon Loverix on 05-10-2001 06:25 AM Discontinuity: My goal was to have something like a Bell/Gauss curve with an optimum between 50 en 60 BM. Alas I don't remember enough from my math classes to recall such a formula.. can you help me out? It should go down slower on the forest side to a minimum of, say, 2 or 3. Maximum 3 in desert etc.

I'm sorry Simon, but I don't get your point. By optimum do you mean 'average', or maximum? What you need to specify to use normal distributions is a mean (average) and a 'standard deviation' The rule of thumb to use is that 2/3 of the time values will be within one standard deviation (SD) of the mean. This is as far as I can contribute without understing exactly what you are saying in the quote above.

quote: What commodities need a number of sites? There's still need for a lumbering sites equation, right? Like this: T(errain)= D 9/24, F 8/24, R 6/24, H 3/24, M 1/24 sites= ((BM-55)/7)*T

Actually there are only 'Resource' sites in the econ model. They are a combination of forest sites, mining sites and other types of natural resources like furs. And then in addition there are specials like gold handled separately. I guess I can sum forest sites with the other types to get the Resources sites number to use.


Origin of Species: (snip)

I cannot endorse myself, or encourage any coder to work on things like this. As I have explained repeatedly (several times also before you came on board Simon) I Strongly feel that this goes Way beyond what it is practical for us to do in a Game. We are having trouble just getting coded and working Core things the players want to Actively deal with like the military, economy, and technology, and GUIs for these and the map. This detailed species modeling stuff is something Few players will care about and will not IMO add significantly to Clash game experience. If implemented this proposal will just suck up resources that are needed elsewhere in the project. Have you thought that if this detailed species modeling to have any meaning for the player we will need to have specific GUI elements to feed species info to the player? It would just add lots of work and chew up clock cycles with Very Little return in Fun to the player!

I see that both of you (Simon and LGJ) are interested in this topic. That's great, but this is a Clash 3.0 topic, if ever. I simply can't spare the time to further comment on specific species tracking because my time is consumed with Clash 1.0 issues. But I suggest you label this in further discussions as an 'advanced' topic with the far future in mind. Because I think the average visitor who reads such posts will depart the forum forever, bemusedly shaking their heads if they read such an increadibly detailed world model for handling Animals and Plants. This is not speculation, I have heard such comments from visitors, and we have had members Leave the Project because there was too much talk about inessential items, sucking up time and resources! Detail is good to a limited extent in a central area like military, but IMO a poor choice in areas peripheral to the main game excitement.

quote: Site improvements: This is covered in the infra model, right? I would like those improvements: draining: wetland is considered dry (for farming purposes) irrigation: WT or warmer is moister, so PBM increases deforestation: (consumed immediately) decreases BM per unit terracing: hill or mountain is considered rolling (for farming) chinampas: lake or wetland is considered dry (for farming)

IMO Drainage and Deforestation are the only critical ones here. The rest could be handled under the 'Farm Kapital' infrastructure class just like farm tools maintaining fields, etc are.

[Simon Loverix]

Detail:
I didn't think it was essential and didn't count on it to be implemented, since the AI can use Every Single Cycle. For me, it was rather a 'what if..' discussion that might yield something interesting to apply elsewhere, and if there would happen to be room to implement it, it's ready for use. I like to discuss it. But for now, back to basics.

Sites:
What I was trying to say was that the best farmland should be BM 50 to 60,
and decrease for a smaller (poor land) and higher (trees in the way) BM.

Site improvements:
I would rather have them separated, since irrigating temperate land does no good, terracing a plain would not be very useful and you can only fish a lake without the appropriate infrastructure. But if these categories are to detailed in comparison to other infra classes..