Catastrophes preventable by improvements

[Ralf]

In the old Civ-1 game, the granary-improvement saved you from reoccuring famines in that city. For some odd reasons, this idea of nature-disasters preventable by city-improvements was dropped in Civ-2.

I would like to see the idea revived in Civ-3. I think it should because it have a nice built-in anti-ICS effect. What do you guys think?

- Food-related improvements minimizes increasingly the effects of regurlary reoccuring famines. The more you have of them, the more famines are prevented.

- Health-related improvements (including Sewer-systems) minimizes increasingly the effects of regurlary reoccuring plagues. The more you have of them, the more plagues are prevented.

Its important that these disasters are *regurlary* reoccuring (every xx turn) in for example 10-20% of all your cities (selected by chance). Just like in historic reality. Othervise, most cheat-player are likely to just reload a previously saved game.

Any more nature-disasters preventable by this or that city-improvement?

[N35t0r]

When near to rivers, an otherwise useless improvement could lower the chance of floods, and with costly improvements to lower it even further.

[Builder]

Agree, this will make the game more realistic IMO.

[Adm.Naismith]

Sure!
Fire dept. = also in the past entire cities where sweept by fire (Rome, Los Angeles...)

Weather service = helps with modern ships and planes travel (increase trade revenue, because of reduced loss of cargo/passengers)

More improvements can follow...

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Deathwalker]

Good idea. This would add to the realism

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I have walked since the dawn of time and were ever I walk, death is sure to follow

[DarkCloud]

What would the catastrophies be, so far

Riots- Police Station, Aqueduct
Fires- Fire Dept.
Famines- Granary
Plague (-1 pop)- Sewer system

[Dauphin]

Volcanoes and earthquakes were in civ1 .. except you can't really defend against these.

[jdlessl]

For earthquakes, you need sound building design and maintenance. Nice idea, but it's a little too much micromanagement even for me! More in line with SimCity or something.

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Jared Lessl

[Roman]

Good idea, this ought to be revived from Civ I, though if you read one of the posts from firaxis they claim to have solved ICS already (they don't say how).

[Tiberius]

Yes, good idea.

Here's the list in my vision:

Riots (though it's not a natural catastrophe)- Temple, Colloseum, Cathedral, Police Station
Fires- Fire Dept.
Famines- Granary, Supermarket (completely eliminates famines, also adds +gold)
Plagues (-1 pop)- Aqueduct, Sewer system, Hospital (I think Firaxis shouldn't limit the growth of cities to 8 or 12, but increases the chances of diseases if the city has no aqueduct and/or sewer system)
Floods- Weather services (also increases trade revenue because of reduced loss of cargo/passengers, but only if you have harbour or airport in the city!!!). I'm sure there's more here, especially for ancient times, but right now I can't figure out what
Pollution- Recycling Center, Mass Transit, Fusion Plant. I think pollution should also increases the chances for floods, diseases, tornadoes.

OK. More???

[Adm.Naismith]

quote: Floods- Weather services (also increases trade revenue because of reduced loss of cargo/passengers, but only if you have harbour or airport in the city!!!)

Right. Good correction.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[airdrik]

floods-dams (dams stop flooding downstream altogether, but create reservoirs, a tile of 'ocean' square, or a widened stretch of the river depending on how it's implemented)

Other unstoppable disasters should be implemented and have things that lessen the blow, ex:
Hurricane-Damages everything in x amount of area, causes x amount of damage to population
Weather service reduces pop decrease to about 5%

Tornado-Desrtoys random buildings in one city(only one or two) as well as x amount of damage to pop
Weather service reduces pop decrease to .1%

Earthquake-damages buildings, causes x pop decrease(greater damages near source)
Improved building design reduces damages to 5% of total damage that would have been done.

Volcano-destroys up to 1 city, terrain=lava rock
Volcano detection systems allow pop to flee city before the volcano erupts, new city apears outside of reach of volcano w/99% of pop as first city or population in nearest city increases by the population of the city destroyed-1%

Tsuname-1 island is no more or a groop of ships in x area are destroyed or damage done to one costal city
Tsuname detection(weather service) allows ships/citizens to retreat before any damage is done.

comments, suggestions?

[Ralf]

Impressive list of suggestions.

Anyway, as i already implied - the idea of catastrophes/nature disasters can be implemented both in a bad, and in a good way:

The bad way: Random, unpredictable and unpreventable disasters. Such random acts of the AI often *only* leads to player-frustration and that reloading-a-saved-game routine.

The good way: non-random, predictable AND to a high degree *preventable* disasters.
The only random aspect should be that you dont know in which 10-20% of the improvement-lacking cities, its going to happen. (By the way: is 10-20% a good ratio?)

How often these disasters reoccurs should be dependent on game-levels and game-eras - thats obvious.

One thing is for sure: If Firaxis should revive this old Civ-1 idea in Civ-3, it must be very carefully tweaked and balanced: too many reoccuring disasters in too many cities early on in the game, and the player is likely to feel constantly backstabbed by the game-AI. Not fun at all!

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited January 16, 2001).]

[N35t0r]

yeah, and not everywhere...

Ignore this:

[Seeker]

Sure you could prevent earthquakes and volcanos! Just remember to pray to the CivGods...

"Volcano erupts near ___! Citizens demand TEMPLE!"

[zyxpsilon]

quote: Originally posted by airdrik on 11-16-2000 11:31 AM comments, suggestions?

Pretty much is ALREADY available, but...
GLOBAL-WARMING > tilt on Earth axis device!
OZONE-THINNING > O3 silos in the stratosphere!

Way out of technologically feasible developments.

Fear the most citizens... ET is coming to town?
UFO's-INVADING > radar stations!
BIOWARFARE-SPREADING > hospitals for the sick!

Naturally occuring catastrophic events are part of history, humanely invoqued ones are tougher to handle.

Improvements for the future and beyond, that's what we need in a game... anything less is pointless.

[airdrik]

Which civgods? Are there plurle gods or just one, or is there one? Idea for new thread: should civ3 have the Option of having one true religion?

Other than preying, there could be a way to control earthquakes, volcanos, and tsunames (tsunames are caused by underwater earthquakes, for you info) after discovering some future tech like tectonic plate control, or something. And tornadoes and hurricanes and other storms could be likewise controled by gaining some tech like weather control . These techs would actually give a wonder that is realy hard to build, but would stop all such natural disasters in your civ (and any civs that you ally yourself with).
[This message has been edited by airdrik (edited November 16, 2000).]

[Urban Ranger]

Floods could be stopped by city walls.

Weather related catastrophes might not be stopped (unless we get weather control), but life and properties losses could be reduced by effective weather servives.

Now a comet/meteor strike would be rather nasty. Might be able to stop it with Space Nukes or something like that

[DarkCloud]

quote: Floods could be stopped by city walls.

Good idea, but sometimes a flood is 'inside' the city.

[N35t0r]

quote: Originally posted by airdrik on 11-16-2000 11:00 PM after discovering some future tech like tectonic plate control, or something[This message has been edited by airdrik (edited November 16, 2000).]

have you, by any chance, read Arthur C. Clarke's Ritcher 10?

[airdrik]

No, I haven't. Expound, please?

[Theben]

quote: Originally posted by DarkCloud on 11-17-2000 07:13 PM Good idea, but sometimes a flood is 'inside' the city.

I think what he meant was that back in civ1 city walls prevented floods.

What, no Barracks to stop pirate attacks? Not that I mind not losing my 3-turns-'til-finished wonder from a random event!

BTW, random events should be optional. Pure strategists can turn them off, while realism seekers can keep them going. Maybe a "wimp" option, to allow for occasional, easy to deal with events as opposed to city-shattering comet strikes. Happy, Ralf?

[Shadowstrike]

What we could have too would be disasters wiping out improvements. Riots for example could lead the people to destroy a random number of improvements, floods could ruin resorts and seawalls, etc.

[N35t0r]

this guy wants to use thermonuclear devices to fusion tectonic plates together.

[Dauphin]

HsFB: That'll work.

[Vrank Prins]

Here’s an idea I wrote about on 06-11-2000 in the thread In the beginning: an article about ancient civilization by jrhughes98. It’s about a structural setback which IMO will make the game more challenging. A bit like we have now with global warming in CIV, but only more severe.

EROSION & SOIL DECOMPOSITION
Agriculture, especially in ancient times, very often has suffered severely from structural (!!) erosion in all its manifestations, because of insufficient agricultural merits/habits. Erosion has always been, and still is a very difficult phenomenon to handle. Soil decomposition is mainly caused by insufficient ways of irrigation, which causes salination of the soil; or for lack of (enough) fertilizer which causes soil-exhaustion.

Three modern-time examples.
In the late twenties and early thirties the prairiestates In the US suffered from what is called the dustbowl, caused by a combination of drought and a wrong agricultural habit. Luckily enough ways have been found to solve this problem, sometimes this meant that the former intensive use had to be brought to more moderate ways of using the land.
Parts of the former Soviet Union are seriously crippled because of soilsalination due to insufficient ways of irrigation. In parts of Spain and California this also is a subject of constant concern.
In parts of the west of the Netherlands, in the "peatpolders" of Holland and Utrecht we have to drain the water out of the fields and then pump the water out of the polders to control its waterlevel, so that tractors can ride over the meadows. By doing so over the last 70 years groundlevel has fallen 1 meter because of the oxidation of the peat (that’s also a form of erosion), which calls for renewed lowering of the waterlevel, which causes more oxidation, which etc. Uptill now no solution for this problem has been found. Usually polders which really have become useless to farmers (just too soppy) are made natureresorts . . . . .

In ancient times erosion & soildecomposition has caused whole communities/civs/colonies to collapse. There is a theory which claims that parts of the Mediterranean are still suffering from the ecological hazards caused by erosion because of too intensive timberlogging (f.i. to build fleets) by the greecs and romans. This also should have happened to indian tribes in New Mexico in the late middle-ages (12th to 14th century (?! I don't exactly know when, but around that time).

You would "experience" erosion & soil exhaustion in the game by at first accidental and slowly but steadily over a longer period of time dwindling agricultural output. When these problems have become structural it should be so that the solution, most certainly in the beginning of the game, lies a few advances away. OUCH . . . . This could cause cities to diminish, or that its social structure collapses (the less agricultural output, the less production, the less luxuries etc.). It may even cause a city to . . . . disappear. OOPS . . . .
Crop rotation may be an answer to your problem, artificial fertilizer.

I can think of a few others of these structrual setbacks in the game. This is only one idea about agricultural setbacks, but why not have them in the field of hygiene, economy, sociology, science’s etc.

Point is certain ways of doing things under certain conditions may have bad effects in the long run. Notice this, "under certain conditions, may . . . ", it shouldn’t be so that everywhere problems occur. But (!), they always occur when your population have grown beyond a certain point and starts to put pressure on things, the old insufficient ways.
[This message has been edited by Vrank Prins (edited November 22, 2000).]

[jdlessl]

Somehow I think that the underlying currents in the mantle would just tear the newly fused continents apart. I mean, the kind of energy it takes to move a continent is just plain awesome, and no pipsqueak sunbomb is going to make a dent in that.

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Jared Lessl