What about terraforming?

Kramsib · August 14, 2002, 13:50

Yes, yes, this is the third "What about?" from Kramsib.

In Civ II and in CTP you could turn some terrain types into others but now it is impossible in Civ III.

Of course, I am one of those crazy men who turned the Sahara into an incredible grassland.

There is something new about it in PTW information?

Thank you very much.

WarpStorm · August 14, 2002, 14:08

I haven't seen one word about terraforming in the stuff Firaxis has released. I doubt if it is in there as that's futuristic stuff.

XarXo · August 14, 2002, 14:46

A mountain in civ 3 is like the entire Pirineus mountains, so... Terramorf to hills is explode a huge amount of a-bombs. No.

Cookie Monster · August 14, 2002, 15:40

Terraforming the nuclear missle way exists in Civ3. Want to deny your opponent usable land? Terraform it with nukes. Leaves your hands silky smooth.

Adagio · August 14, 2002, 16:40

I don't like the idea of terraforming, it's a little bit too unrealistic to me...And I remember back in the days were I terraformed almost everything that existed, into grassland. In one of my games, I even changed ALL mountains + ALL dessert + ALL plains + ALL the rest, to grassland...what you get at the end: a VERY grassy world

Bleyn · August 14, 2002, 19:32

I also doubt we will see that sort of terraforming again any time soon. Not only is it too unrealistic, I suspect there are a couple of other reasons why it might have been eliminated.

1. As ADG pointed out, with a bit of effort a player could modify the entire map to a particular terrain type. Would definitely cause problems with strategic resouces. If you eliminated all of the hills and mountains, and an iron disappeared, it would have nowhere to reappear. The same is true of most of the other strategic resources, excepting only rubber and horses which never disappear.

2. That same ability to modify the terrain exactly to your liking could be a bit too much of an advantage in the late game if you were way ahead in the tech race. Playing on a hot, dry map or a cold, wet one where the amount of really good terrain is minimal would be meaningless during the endgame for a player that is well ahead in tech. Especially with Longetvity effectively allowing a doubling of the growth rate. That combination would be a little too powerful.

That said, I would still like to see terraforming added back in as an ability available in the editor. Especially if it was done in a fashion that would allow the modder to control exactly which terrain terraforms a unit could do. I think someone could make an interesting fantasy mod with this is a feature.

Kramsib · August 17, 2002, 07:35

That is my point of view, "give me the possibility and I will create a good scenario".

In fact, if you don't like the standard game you can change it (into a scenario very simmilar to the standard game). If you don't like scenarios (like ADG) you can continue playing the standard game.

Dragon's Lord · August 18, 2002, 05:24

one terriforming option would be to add more land to your area like if there is one space between england and france then build a man made land bridge it is possible look in japan they built an island for a huge airport...

Adagio · August 18, 2002, 05:45

Quote:

Originally posted by Dragon's Lord
one terriforming option would be to add more land to your area like if there is one space between england and france then build a man made land bridge it is possible look in japan they built an island for a huge airport...

In the Civ3 world map, that "one space" would be about the same size as Denmark...(Denmark is also just one space, or is it two spaces)

SABRA · August 18, 2002, 09:55

they should give us this option , and we should be able to edit it in the editor , so that we could make it costly , or just not , it would be great

Kramsib · August 21, 2002, 09:21

Yeah, Sabra knows what I am saying, Israel turned the desert into fertile land.

WarpStorm · August 21, 2002, 09:59

No, it's just irrigated.

SABRA · August 21, 2002, 10:03

Quote:

Originally posted by WarpStorm
No, it's just irrigated.

Sorry but its more then just 'irrigated' .

Indeed it's a bid sad that terraforming aint in the game .
It would be cool to have it with a patch .

XarXo · August 21, 2002, 16:27

Deserts are fertile, they only need water. In Libia there are a lot of wells and water bombs that created some farms in the middle if the sand. But for this you need a lot of

.

BTW, we, EUROPEANS, want a : €€€ : smily!!

Robert Plomp · August 21, 2002, 16:53

In civ2 and CtP you kept on changing the tyles.
It just never ended. And it came with tons of micromanagement.

I'm happy that it ends somewhere in civ3.

In fact there is a little terraforming in civ3, you can remove jungle and forrests, and it becomes grassland (in some cases)

I like that more than the civ2 version.
But chaning mountains and hills into something different.........nah.

and about desert and tundra, oh, whatever. It's good to have some of those spots on the map as well. Everybody has them, so it's no problem. If you could change it, it would only bring more micromanagement.

Oerdin · August 21, 2002, 18:44

There are a ton of things like terraforming that I would like to see added, however, Firaxis will not put any of it in. I've heard several reasons way ranging from the designers like the game as it is to Firaxis is lazy. The bottom line though is that if you want things like terraforming then you'll have to play CTP2. CTP2 is the only game that has the flexability to make most player's desires.

sabrewolf · August 21, 2002, 19:03

Quote:

Originally posted by WarpStorm
I haven't seen one word about terraforming in the stuff Firaxis has released. I doubt if it is in there as that's futuristic stuff.

not really.
we partially can do terraforming today:
- turn coastal tiles into grassland (look at holland)
- redirect rivers

statusperfect · August 21, 2002, 19:06

I think the terrain is too nice as it is. Please Firaxis. I Want more deserts and tundra. On a normal map there isn't enough of it.

And for terraforming... SCREW IT!!!

Caliban · August 22, 2002, 12:10

Quote:

Originally posted by statusperfect
I think the terrain is too nice as it is. Please Firaxis. I Want more deserts and tundra. On a normal map there isn't enough of it.

You forgot jungle...

Firebird · August 23, 2002, 05:16

In scenarios it is IMHO sad that we can't do terraforming. In normal play it doesn't matter as much. But as sabrewolf said we do it to some extend today.

I would also like options to fill more land on the planet than just between 20 and 40%. I know earth is around 30% land, but Im very rarely playing on earth. Think of a Mars-scenario like the one from civ2. Almost no water-tiles (at the beginning at least).

sabrewolf · August 23, 2002, 05:24

Quote:

Originally posted by Firebird
In scenarios it is IMHO sad that we can't do terraforming. In normal play it doesn't matter as much. But as sabrewolf said we do it to some extend today.

even if terraforming is mostly unrealistic, to remove the hardcoding (not allowing new worker actions) would be a good thing.

Quote:

I would also like options to fill more land on the planet than just between 20 and 40%. I know earth is around 30% land, but Im very rarely playing on earth. Think of a Mars-scenario like the one from civ2. Almost no water-tiles (at the beginning at least).

i noticed, that my 40%-land games are nearly double as long as the 20% land games. only the tech-rate is faster with more land (--> more cities --> more science). if you'd choose huge landmass with 80% land, probably most computers would break down

but again: remove the hardcoding!

i could immagine, that the random map generator doesn't work with higher values. but we could ask gramphos to try and tweak these limitations

WarpStorm · August 23, 2002, 05:40

Adding worker actions would be nealy impossible to do with their current editor. How would you add the new code that goes with a new worker action? This is not like adding a unit, where all you are doing is punching numbers and flags. Unless Firaxis came up with a whole bunch of worker actions that weren't used by default I don't see how this would work.

sabrewolf · August 23, 2002, 05:47

Quote:

Originally posted by WarpStorm
Adding worker actions would be nealy impossible to do with their current editor. How would you add the new code that goes with a new worker action? This is not like adding a unit, where all you are doing is punching numbers and flags. Unless Firaxis came up with a whole bunch of worker actions that weren't used by default I don't see how this would work.

currently, it wouldn't go.

but with two extra textfields, it would be possible:

convert [......] into [.......]
so you could bring back remove/build hills, convert grassland into whatever... not that i'd permanently mod it in, but it's nice to have.

Galvatron · August 23, 2002, 09:39

Well terraforming would be a good idea because otherwise you would stick to some useless deserts or wastelands the whole game which we are doing at the moment. You could enhance the productivity of the squares and bump up your city and it's not as futuristic as some people might say think of today where there are numerous projects to transform the desert into a fruitful land and they are successful.

Adagio · August 23, 2002, 10:44

Quote:

Originally posted by Galvatron
[...] and it's not as futuristic as some people might say think of today where there are numerous projects to transform the desert into a fruitful land and they are successful.

But has anyone transfered Mount everest into grassland? Or a dessert into ice?

Kramsib · August 24, 2002, 17:27

There is no sense transforming dessert into ice, but in a beautiful grassland, that is what I want, I want to save my people from desertization.

Someone hit the nail, a mars scenario would need terraforming.

And submarine and space colonies

Adagio · August 24, 2002, 17:37

Quote:

Originally posted by Kramsib
There is no sense transforming dessert into ice, but in a beautiful grassland, that is what I want, I want to save my people from desertization.

Sure, there's no sense in doing it, but I remember it was possible in both Civ2 and ctp1/2

If the time, it takes to terraform something couldn't be affected (much) by adding more workers, and the terraforming abilities was greatly reduced (So that e.g. turning mount everest into grassland is imposible), then it might be nice to have

Panag · August 25, 2002, 18:01

hi ,

indeed that is an option that should be included , ....

mountains and hills not , but all the other types of terrain should go , it should be costly , but reachable , ....

there should be an option to set it only for the human player (!)

have a nice day

Galvatron · August 26, 2002, 06:52

Quote:

Originally posted by ADG

But has anyone transfered Mount everest into grassland?

Well perhaps with some nukes. Might be an idea to terraform with nuke-rockets and Mount Everest would be easier to walk if it's grassland.

But you're right limit the possibilities to logical solutions and it would be a nice addition to the game. So we can stop desertization.

Away with these stormy deserts we want green islands!!

Panag · August 26, 2002, 06:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Galvatron

Well perhaps with some nukes. Might be an idea to terraform with nuke-rockets and Mount Everest would be easier to walk if it's grassland.

But you're right limit the possibilities to logical solutions and it would be a nice addition to the game. So we can stop desertization.

Away with these stormy deserts we want green islands!!

hi ,

, that is why there should be a couple options ;

global warming on , pollution on
global warming on , pollution off
global warming off , pollution off
global warming off , pollution on

the last one shall be used the most , ....

have a nice day