Climate Changes

[Odin]

I think a world's climate should change throughout the game. The way it changes would depend on if you choose between a glacial period(10,000 years ago), an interglacial period(4,000 B.C.to today), or a non ice age time(most of earth's history)


DISCRIPTIONS

glacial: Large areas of glacier and tundra, not many shallow seas

interglacial: Small polar ice caps; many small shallow seas

non-ice age: No polar ice caps; many large, shallow seas

[zyxpsilon]

Interesting!
Not only, "ICE ages" are and were an important factor in historical evolution, but they had many overall impacts on tribes settling locations.
Fact is; the North american early population came from three other continents; Asia, Oceania and Europe.

Climate has been much more than "just" about glaciations....
Take, industrial pollution for example; nobody can deny that it has made our world extremely fragile for at least another three generations and maybe more.
Take, tectonic plates induced earthquakes; some say Madagascar and Galapagos weren't that much isolated from their mainland a long time ago.
Take, volcans (whole cities destroyed in a flash), meteorites (Dino's death sword from the sky!), etc.

Events from history can be "scenariored".
Pollution is already into the game itself, if you let it out of control.
Knowing that a 4000BC start can't take "glaciation" into account, tough, it is only possible to apply what you request in a >sweep-of-time< context. (which was discussed in great lengths in the early stages of development of Civ-3)

Hope they include your idea into it, that's EXACTLY what was missing in the first versions.

[Theben]

While it's a good idea for realism, I wonder how it'll fit with gameplay and game balance. A good chunk of the sahara became desert because of a 1/2 degree shift in the tilt of the earth's axis. This was after the agricultural revolution (during the empire of the Kush, I believe). If Firaxis includes a working 'Rise and Fall of Empires' into the game then yes. Have tiles change from one type to another depending on changes in rainfall and wind patterns. This should come under Random Events and be optional for strategists. Otherwiae no. It'll just piss off players whose great city has turned into a dustbowl.

I'm not sure whether it's too clever to think about climate changes before we have an idea about the actual climate model. I say let's figure that climate model out before we start considering the changes... K?

[Roman]

Glacial, Interglacial and Warm periods occur on too large a timescale to have any affect on the game. Hence they should not be included.

[JosefGiven]

quote: Originally posted by Roman on 02-12-2001 07:12 PM Glacial, Interglacial and Warm periods occur on too large a timescale to have any affect on the game. Hence they should not be included.

Yes, I agree with Roman. What does the player get, 6,000 odd years? Is that really long enough a timespan within which natural climate change can occur?

I'm all for isolated 'set-piece' disasters like earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes etc, though; as long as they are optional. If only we could switch such disasters off in the real world...

Atmospheric pollution, as it is currently represented in Civ II is the only way I think we should see climate change in Civ III.

[Lung]

Disasters are better, and easier to incorporate into the game. Also, i'm sure that they'd be more fun, too For example,

Volcanoes - random occurrence with random severity i.e more or less squares destroyed by lava and ash, with everything destroyed in affected squares, including cities and military units (except air, sea, etc). Slow regrowth with eventual food bonus plus multiplied chance of recurrence.

Floods - again random along rivers with destruction of tile improvements and weakening of any units in it's path according to severity.

Cyclones/tornadoes/hurricanes - random occurrence at sea followed by random paths/duration and partial destruction of coastal cities e.g population and city improvements. Must weaken upon crossing land.

Earthquakes - random occurrence/severity and relative destruction of relevant city/tile improvements and reduction in population.

Tsunamis - follows any oceanic earthquakes and destroys pop/city improvements according to severity.

Droughts - reduces land value and destroys tile improvements. To last random turns.

Avalanches - destroys city improvements and reduces population according to severity.

Bushfires - destroys land tiles/tile improvements/population in extreme events, although land tiles recover to original unimproved state in just a couple of turns.

Also, these events should all be accompanied by appropriate cool graphics Anyone have any other natural disasters i forgot??

I must admit, though, that this probably comes under the "no games within a game" rule followed by Sid

[Theben]

Even in 6000 years enough occurs to affect climates. Just think of all the rivers that have dried up, carved a new course, sprung up, etc. Lakes have come and gone (or just gotten larger &/or smaller). Vast stretches of land have gotten more/less moisture. All this within the last 6000 years. A lot of it within the last 3000!

The pattern of the land won't change (no tectonic shifts), but the amount of water it receives will.

[Roman]

Most of these changes were human induced, though. Eg. Irrigation in Mesopotamia caused salinization of the soil resulting in desertification.
True, rivers flood and change chanells, but not on large enough a scale (over this time period) to be represented by moving a river on another tile.

To keep the game slightly simpler (and more realistic considering the time scale), they should only include human induced climate change like in Civ2.

[Stuff2]

In north scandinavia the land gets 1 cm higher every year. 2000 years ago the seashore where several miles more on the inland than today (in sweden, the norwaigan coast is so steep that it doesn't do much difference). The vikings travelled on seashores that today are inland lakes or fertile land.

[Adm.Naismith]

Desertification occoured a lot during last 3 thousand years: Sicily (the southest great isle of Italy) was a granary during Roman empire, but now it hasn't enough water to cultivate much grain.

Egypt has similar problem. Israel fighted sands with some success. The contamination of water resources and their waste make water the next scarce vital resource not only in Africa, but in China too.

Prolonged wars changed lot of terrain too: during WWI and WWII lots of european areas lost its wild animals (killed by weapons, minefields, hungry population) and has many forests disappeared because of trees cutted and burned.

Human activity is responsible for the most of these long term effects, real root of many of the "random disaster" mentioned on other posts.

While earthquakes and tornados are the kind of disaster I don't like for playability reason (I don't like events I can't counteract by proper game actions and tactics, they ruin the game focus) I would like the extension of concept like CIV II pollution or SMAC global warming.

Of course the game should give to the player enough tools to monitoring this kind of events (I want some early warning that things are messing up, enough to chose to do something now or leave unpopular actions to another leader ) and apply proper countermeasure.

------------------
Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Grumbold]

Leaving aside glacial periods, the vast majority of large scale changes have taken place because of the intervention of man. Widespread deforestation, intensive farming and over grazing has caused many areas to become barren. Often the change is very rapid as a result. Climate shift and pollution has stopped the River Thames freezing - only a hundred years ago it used to freeze so solid in winter that ice skating from bank to bank was a pretty safe regular pastime for Londoners. Now it never freezes at all.

I could accept some small chances of environmental damage being a risk of making land improvements. A small chance of irrigation turning grassland into plains after a number of turns, for example. Something as dramatic as overgrazing turning vast tracts of plains into a barren desert would just be too disheartening for a ruler who has not got the tools to properly monitor and control the land use. I for one certainly don't want to be spending hours setting optimum targets for herd sizes and crop rotation, though I'd rather accept natural disasters and keep reloading every time Mt Etna blows and reduces my best cities to slag.

[Windborne]

It's not really on-topic, but I would like to note that many man-made changes are in the long run benificial, such as coal burning and greenhouse gasses. During the past several hundred thousand years earth has been in the middle of a natural disaster that evolved without the intervention of man at all. To put it plainly earths temperature during recorded history has been at an all time low due to the fact that much of it's carbon dioxide was trapped by plants in the form of coal during the cambrium age and before.

Yes folks, though global warming is bad for mankind, spreads deserts/swamps, sinks coastlines, etc . . . it is GOOD for life, those sunken coastlines are the area where life thrives best, coastal shelves, the minute the coast sinks thousands of new species would be able to evolve. Yes our view of the terrors of pollution are in many ways due to our short, and admittedly biased perspective. It could even be proposed that mankind evolved to burn coal and right the natural order of things. Not that I personally think we should, but it is a valid point. lol

[Windborne]

Back on topic again, I would love to see natural disasters so long as they are tied to specific regions that can be discovered over time either by experiencing the disasters, or by having technology make those "disaster" markers visible. Volcanoes, areas with harsh winters, and river flood plains immediately come to mind as things that would be visible early on.

[JosefGiven]

quote: Originally posted by Lung on 02-12-2001 11:36 PM Disasters are better, and easier to incorporate into the game...Anyone have any other natural disasters i forgot?? I must admit, though, that this probably comes under the "no games within a game" rule followed by Sid

Taking Sim City as inspiration...

-Rioting. A randomly determined series of violent and destructive acts that is more likely to occur in cities containing a greater proportion of unhappy people. Has the effect of destroying randomly chosen building(s). (Not to be confused with traditional Civ Civil disorder).

With respect to your "no games within a game" comment, the random disasters concept doesn't really qualify for this category, IMHO. They're just things, like the barbarian attacks, that happen to the player, or his/her AI opponents; that they then have to re-act to.

I think disasters add a little 'spice' to the game ...It's refreshing to think there are some events even mighty rulers have no control over!!(My rioting suggestion notwithstanding)

[Roman]

If there are random disasters, they should be preventable by certain improvements, like in the original Civ.

[zyxpsilon]

Event driven changes into a "world" map, for example, is necessary if reality is part of the evolution.
No one can deny;
- EL NINO (pacific ocean boiled up, a little too much for ecologist).
- Ozone depletion in the Artic stratosphere, radiation UV levels rising.


In a case of "historical" accuracy, events must interact with an empire building, conquering, researching, player.
It adds the pleasure of randomness but also the fact that one must sustain the truth about OUR behavior through times.
What stopped the Aztecs from flourishing in central america? Climate? European invasion? Epidemy?
What prevented the Greeks to settle in Australia?
The Great flood of the Bible?

Humanity has a tight grasp over Earth's resources and features... but "Gaia" packs its own power at populations.
If the Antartica ice melts too much... we might very well witness boats zooming from Michigan lake to Hudson bay on a huge "man-made" area of water!

Speculations? I wonder.

[Chuckles]

I vote for this over and over and I still would like something very similar to the random events model of civ1. It was great. Simple too.

[Straybow]

Naw, there are very few areas of the world where climate changes have altered the basic terrain type of a large area. Swedish coastlines may have extended a few miles farther, but that's nothing compared to a 100 mile wide tile. The civ2 terrain types are too limited to model crop effects.

Theben has understated the timescale of climate change. There have been 5 major climate changes in written history:

• Temperatures warmed up around 800 BC and then cooled slightly around 500 BC, staying above "average" until 300 AD.
• Temperatures were below average for about five centuries, then came
• the "Little Optimum," 800-1300. The North Sea and North Atlantic were calm enough to be traversed easily in longships (basically big rowboats with clunky sails) and wine grapes grew in England and Labrador (the Vikings called it "Vinland").
• The "Little Ice Age" saw Alpine glacier advancing visibly until the mid-seventeenth century! Grain harvests in Northern Europe fell by one third. Temperatures remained cool until the mid-nineteenth century.
• We are presently in a warming trend, although there was a slight cooling in the '60s and '70s.

Much has been made of the fact that the greatest periods of technological and cultural advance occured in the warm periods, whether in Europe, Near East, or Asia. The Renaissance and Industrial Revolution in Europe built on the momentum of the Late Medieval. The Medieval advances of the Near East were transfered to the West by the influx of scholars and other refugees caused by the fall of Constantinople in 1453… blah, blah, blah. All things very hard to model in a civ2/SMAC/CTP type system.

I must disagree with zyxpsilon. Climatologists are finding more and more evidence that El Nino/La Nina effects were common in earlier warm periods. It seems that the transition from cold to warm (like the present time) is worse than the stable warm periods. We have no data on ozone layer/UV flux for historic warm periods, nor evidence that these changes are significant in the present.

Deforestation, on the other hand, is already included in civ2. Forest tiles are easily turned into Plains, and SMAC added the bonus of shields harvested in the process. I think we'll see that in civ3. Any other climate effects should be left out or optional.

[Sean]

I can understand how local disasters, and the planning involved in dealing with them can improve a game. Though, personally I often just found them to be unneccasary annoyances in civ 1. Climate change, on the other hand, would become an unenjoyable pain in the game, by preventing such planning. While (perhaps) adding realism, it would take away from playability. We are not playing sim-history here! This is particularly true when it is "not your fault", i.e. from large amounts of pollution, or large scale agriculture.

------------------
Give me Liberty, or give me death!

[Sirotnikov]

I tihnk it would be cool if teperatures were changing. But when our science is developed enough, we should have a few turns warning. And maybe we'll have things like domes or dams to help deal with the changes.

I mean, if sea level rises in early age and gulps a city of 3, it's tolerable.

But i need some warning to build a dome around my 30 size city so it won't go atlantis on me.

[tmarcl]

quote: Originally posted by Sirotnikov on 02-27-2001 01:43 PM I tihnk it would be cool if teperatures were changing. But when our science is developed enough, we should have a few turns warning. And maybe we'll have things like domes or dams to help deal with the changes. I mean, if sea level rises in early age and gulps a city of 3, it's tolerable.

You do realize that a city size of 3 equals 30,000 people, don't you? Add to that the loss of money spent in developing the city as far as it has been (especially early in the game-you're looking at about 40 turns for a settler to build the new city in the first place, cost of building roads to the city, irrigation, military units being built there, any city improvements) and you're looking at a very expensive loss. Granted, in game terms, the loss of a size 3 city isn't much, but in real life, you better believe the government's going to be concerned.

Marc

[Sirotnikov]

I know but I'm talking from a ruthless leader's point of view. I wouldn't be too sad to lose a 3 size city, but I would be sad to lose a 30 size city.

Like Stalin once said "the death of one person is a tragedy, the death of 20 million is statistics".

Not that I'm anything like that in real life, but you have to be cold and calculated in Civ. Didn't you ever killed innocent population just to get sometihng / protect something? You wouldn't be able to do that in the real world these days, but you always have to give up something. It's a matter of priorities, and in the big picture, some human life is sometimes less important to leaders than the future of thier whole nation (or thier own lousy bum!! )