Change Mining function!

latenight · June 6, 2002, 13:56

I have never understood the mining function applying to grasslands and plains. I dislike the look of the map in late game due to the complete domination of mines everywhere--c'mon already!! I remember that someone somewhere came up with a great idea of converting the mining icons to towns so that the map would look better without total mine clutter. I'd like to suggest a compromise. How about limiting creation of mines to mountains and hills. Allow workers to create towns (mines dressed up as towns) in plains and grasslands--perhaps tundra as well. I think this would be much more realistic and pleasing to the eye. Comments?

Jaybe · June 6, 2002, 14:20

Limiting creation of mines to mountains and hills. ...

Sorry, but that is SO Civ2!

The trick is to just consider it "production enhancement." It isn't literally a mine shaft in the ground. Yes, I know it's ugly, and so are all the roads and rails in the late game. But it's also easy to see what's there.

Willem · June 6, 2002, 14:52

You can do that in the editor, simply set the mining bonus of the terrain to 0.

Willem · June 6, 2002, 14:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Jaybe
Limiting creation of mines to mountains and hills. ...

Sorry, but that is SO Civ2!

The trick is to just consider it "production enhancement." It isn't literally a mine shaft in the ground. Yes, I know it's ugly, and so are all the roads and rails in the late game. But it's also easy to see what's there.

Well if they aren't there in the first place you know it's always going to be irrigated farmland so you don't even have to think about it. And yes it is literally a mine shaft in the ground, and it doesn't make sense. You don't see mines all over the landscape. Plus they're ugly as hell.

ShredZ · June 6, 2002, 15:57

Or just change the graphic so it looks like a town... or wut ever you want...

Pythagoras · June 6, 2002, 17:33

Quote:

Originally posted by ShredZ
Or just change the graphic so it looks like a town... or wut ever you want...

Id like to see graphics that showed a mining town instead of a mine and maybe a farm instead of irrigation. That would be coo.

nato · June 6, 2002, 17:53

I have thought about this, and it has one big advantage.

There would no longer be a choice about whether to mine or irrigate grasslands/plains. Thus automated workers would be brought a major step closer to human-controlled micro managed workers, and might make them more palatable to use to some.

Of course it does this in a kind of backwards way, by removing an option (which generally is a bad thing to do), but still ... automated workers would become closer to optimal. Also, since game features are removed and simplified for the AI's conveniance, this change might be one Firaxis would like.

One drawback would be grasslands/plains that are cut off by mountains and hills from fresh water access. These tiles couldn't be developed until electricity.

Destroyer · June 6, 2002, 19:12

Mining plains is very important. Late in the game you can get 3 sheilds from a mined plains, which is great if you dont have any hills or mountains within your city radius.

Also, forests are a complete waste of space, as once you have rail road, two sheilds is a limitation, and mined plains are at least as good.

And who cares what they look like? Civ is and always will be an ugly game compared to what else is out there. As lond as I can tell the difference between each tile, it dont matter.

Willem · June 6, 2002, 20:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Destroyer

And who cares what they look like?

I do. The mines are ugly and I won't use them in my game.

Jethro83 · June 6, 2002, 20:18

I consider mines in grassland and plains to be possible. But only as a small-scale mining operation. They really should consider adding a second level, industrial/modern mine improvement (like they did with irrigation/farmlands in Civ II). While regular mines should still be possible in grassland/plains, the next step up should only be possible on hills and mountains.

Destroyer · June 6, 2002, 21:05

The "second level" is already included after a tile is railroaded.

Farmland was removed and included as part of the rail road bonus.

Cyclotron · June 6, 2002, 22:02

Whatever happened to strip mines? If you don't like grasslands being mined because of the graphics, then just change the graphics.

Willem · June 6, 2002, 22:10

Quote:

Originally posted by cyclotron7
Whatever happened to strip mines? If you don't like grasslands being mined because of the graphics, then just change the graphics.

They're still ugly. I always play on huge maps, 256 x 256. That makes each square roughly 100 miles. And you don't see a strip mine every hundred miles in the world. You can see hundreds of miles of farmland though. It's just not realistic having a mine on every single square of the game, and it looks like crap.

Cyclotron · June 6, 2002, 22:15

You mine every tile? For efficiency's sake, it's better to mine the shield tiles and irrigate the rest. At least, that's what I do. Frankly, I'm glad mines are there to provide variety. Endless irrigation...

Willem · June 7, 2002, 00:44

Quote:

Originally posted by cyclotron7
You mine every tile? For efficiency's sake, it's better to mine the shield tiles and irrigate the rest. At least, that's what I do. Frankly, I'm glad mines are there to provide variety. Endless irrigation...

Endless mines...

Take a look at the AI territory after awhile. You'll see mines on almost every single square. At least, thanks to Zeb_Fisher, my irrigated tiles at least look appealling. I can't say the same for all those square greyish/brown things all over the map.

Skanky Burns · June 7, 2002, 01:33

In the editor you can set it so you can't mine on grasslands or plains. While chances are you probably wouldn't anyway, it would force the AI (and your automated workers, if any) to also never mine flat land.

Or change the graphics.

Willem · June 7, 2002, 01:42

Quote:

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
In the editor you can set it so you can't mine on grasslands or plains. While chances are you probably wouldn't anyway, it would force the AI (and your automated workers, if any) to also never mine flat land.

Or change the graphics.

So nice to see that you've been reading all the posts in this thread Skanky.

And if you remove the mining bonus, you can't mine on grassland even if you wanted to.

Jethro83 · June 7, 2002, 02:31

Quote:

Originally posted by Destroyer
The "second level" is already included after a tile is railroaded.

Farmland was removed and included as part of the rail road bonus.

Railroad is nothing more than a top-up of the first level of mining and farming. Its not really in any way a second level. It just makes the back and forth transfer of resources quicker and easier (ie. food and water to miners, raw materials from mines to smelter/refinery in city). And food harvested in the irrigated lands would make it to the city quicker, therefore reducing the spoilage.

Second level is making the tile improvement into something new and more advanced. The hole in the ground we see now in the game doesn't seem to me anything like the large scale mining operations around the place (such as the mines I see driving around the region I live at). And I was thinking farmlands used more advanced techniques on top of irrigation.

nato · June 7, 2002, 03:47

Quote:

You mine every tile? For efficiency's sake, it's better to mine the shield tiles and irrigate the rest. At least, that's what I do. Frankly, I'm glad mines are there to provide variety. Endless irrigation...

I myself really love how endless irrigation looks ... very wet and fertile and nice.

Does everyone agree that mining the shield tiles and irrigating the rest is the best thing to do (in general)?

I myelf always irrigate, unless its near the coast, and the city would have no other source of shields.

Perhaps my biggest civ dream has always been to let cities share food and shields. Thus you could have bread basket towns specializing in food, feeding moutain mining towns. Gold is shared throughout the civ, shields and food should be to. Maybe in Civ4! or Civ27 ...