Can you make some extra cash by plundering yourself?

The strategy would be to find an unworked tile, build an improvement there, and then plunder it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

For this to work, you need (1) an unworked but improvable tile; (2) one or more idle workers; and (3) a unit to do the plundering. All of these seem plausible. Speaking only for myself, I seem to have a lot of idle workers hanging around in the midgame (right before Railroad, especially) and in the late game.

The best would be a hill tile that can be mined. Mines pay an average of 10 gold. If you have two workers, you could build a mine every two turns. That works out to 5 gpt, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Am I missing something?


Waldo

Can you make some extra cash by plundering yourself?

The strategy would be to find an unworked tile, build an improvement there, and then plunder it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

For this to work, you need (1) an unworked but improvable tile; (2) one or more idle workers; and (3) a unit to do the plundering. All of these seem plausible. Speaking only for myself, I seem to have a lot of idle workers hanging around in the midgame (right before Railroad, especially) and in the late game.

The best would be a hill tile that can be mined. Mines pay an average of 10 gold. If you have two workers, you could build a mine every two turns. That works out to 5 gpt, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Am I missing something?


Waldo

you cannot plunder yourself:mischief:

I give my arm (but I won't give my head) that you can.

I give my arm (but I won't give my head) that you can.
You can destroy your own improvements, but you won't get any money from it.

worst thing is if you capture some nearthundra city and the borders grow before you can pillage away the impovements on tundra.

First of all you cant even work terrian outside of yer cultural borders, second, you cant get any money from pillaging yer own upgraded terrian.

The only way this could work is to build a city, upgrade the terrian, have someone (barbarians?) destroy it, pillage everything before anyones culture expands over it.

Prolly wouldnt be worth it, making only around 100gp - unless you had nothing better to do with yer workers...

You don't get cash for destroying your own improvements.

It drives me nuts that the pillage, fortify, and promote to city raider buttons are all styled the same. I end up pillaging my improvements rather than fortifying or promoting my troops when I'm playing at late hours.

The only way to pull off something like you suggest would be to donate a few workers to a weak neighbor and then use him as a punching bag. Let him improve the tiles, declare war and destroy all the improvements, extort some more gold for peace, wait until he's repaired the damage, lather, rinse, repeat.

When I'm at war I weigh the tradeoff between the worker-turns saved by NOT pillaging a city that'll soon be mine, or the GOLD generated by pillaging as I approach.

It's not an exact science, but if I have a lot of workers just hanging around with no more improving to do, I'll lean more toward "pillage now, rebuild later". If my workers are maxxed out on other project, am unlikely to pick up new workers with a city conquest, then I lean more toward leaving tiles intact so that the captured city will be more productive sooner. When I DO pillage a Town, I'm careful not to wipe out the cottage, as it only gains a tiny bit of gold, and will just regrow on its own after you take the city and work the tile.

Won't work. As mentioned before you get nothing when you destroy an improvement inside your borders. It's really only a slash and burn tactic to keep someone else from benefitting. I can't imagine why you would, unless you KNEW that city was not going to be yours soon.

Won't work. As mentioned before you get nothing when you destroy an improvement inside your borders. It's really only a slash and burn tactic to keep someone else from benefitting. I can't imagine why you would, unless you KNEW that city was not going to be yours soon.

"Scorched Earth" retreat, LOL. Worked for the Russians from time to time.

yeah but in Civ you use up your movement pillaging. so your scorching your earth but probably loosing that unit next turn. and if you get to the point where you have a mass retreat and have to just abandon cities, you would need all the units you can get.

yeah but in Civ you use up your movement pillaging. so your scorching your earth but probably loosing that unit next turn. and if you get to the point where you have a mass retreat and have to just abandon cities, you would need all the units you can get.

Where I've used scorched earth is in a limited scope, of just wiping out towns along a contended border where for whatever reason I'm unable to pike away any cav units the AI will flood in to pillage them. If I'm gonna lose the Town anyway, might as well do so in a way that won't add gold to the AI's treasury.

To prevent that I *TRY* not to put cottage cities on borders, or on coasts. Try. Maps don't always give me the luxury of being picky about it, in fact it's a cruel tendancy of "randomness" that all the best flat river grassland IS... right along the border. And all the rear-area cities? Plains hills of course!

To prevent that I *TRY* not to put cottage cities on borders, or on coasts. Try.

I do the same thing. Where I have the option, on border cities I'll farm the tile closest to the border and cottage on the interior tiles. The other thing that sucks about border tiles in border cities is when they culture flip. If the AI's going to steal my tiles, it's going to be a farm, not a town.

It also helps to farm tiles outside fat crosses that are near borders. Sure, it might give the AI a bit of cash, but they'll usually stop to pillage instead of marching right to your city - if the AI gets fifty gold but I have time to bring in reinforcements, I'm happy.

It drives me nuts that the pillage, fortify, and promote to city raider buttons are all styled the same. I end up pillaging my improvements rather than fortifying or promoting my troops when I'm playing at late hours.Hence why the hotkeys are so useful. 'F' for fortify, and so on... it's quite a lot more handy, and leads to fewer errors. :)

Hence why the hotkeys are so useful. 'F' for fortify, and so on... it's quite a lot more handy, and leads to fewer errors. :)

Yep, I use the keyboard as much as possible, but like I said, this happens when it's late. Late at night, I simply can't handle the keyboard, other factors :mischief: have me leaning on the mouse almost exclusively.

You don't get money for destroying your own improvements. If you did, it would be a huge exploit: you could generate massive cash just by building enormous stacks of workers and military units, and successively improving and pillaging the same tile, many times in a single turn.

"Scorched Earth" retreat, LOL. Worked for the Russians from time to time.

You made me laugh, because I was thinking the same thing. Be sure to salt the ground so nothing will ever grow there again! (see Homer Simpson re: Ned Flanders' flower beds)

Civ 3 had a different version of this, you could just mass workers build forests and chop them. It worked for those cities producing only 1shield per turn due to corruption. You could use your army of workers to quickly get basic infrastructure up in new cities. This was considered overpowered and a patch came which stopped wonders from getting chopping shields. And that was when Civ3 you get only 10shields per forest, Imagine it in civ4 with 30shields per forest :lol: .

Maybe in multiplayer you can try this exploit. You declare war on your friend and both of you send 1 chariot into each others territories .Your workers do a basic improvement like cottage,mine and enemy chariot pillages it and viceversa getting both of you gold per turn.

First of all you cant even work terrian outside of yer cultural borders, second, you cant get any money from pillaging yer own upgraded terrian.

The only way this could work is to build a city, upgrade the terrian, have someone (barbarians?) destroy it, pillage everything before anyones culture expands over it.

Prolly wouldnt be worth it, making only around 100gp - unless you had nothing better to do with yer workers...

I was surprised in my most recent game to find that you can rail tiles outside your territory, as I was thinking you could only road them. Roading doesn't help any future economy, but railing sure can.

Where I've used scorched earth is in a limited scope, of just wiping out towns along a contended border where for whatever reason I'm unable to pike away any cav units the AI will flood in to pillage them. If I'm gonna lose the Town anyway, might as well do so in a way that won't add gold to the AI's treasury.

To prevent that I *TRY* not to put cottage cities on borders, or on coasts. Try. Maps don't always give me the luxury of being picky about it, in fact it's a cruel tendancy of "randomness" that all the best flat river grassland IS... right along the border. And all the rear-area cities? Plains hills of course!

Naturally for those border cities, you can do the sanest thing and tend to build cottages on the sides furtherest from the border, and with the more bordering tiles put more of your farming and other things. The enemy can still pillage the farms of course, but they aren't such a dramatic turn for the worst that having towns pillaged are. In my own case, I don't worry about towns on coasts at all. The only worry is that some marine or berserker will land on it and pillage right away, but in the case of the others I have a full turn to destroy them. I actually can't recollect ever having a town pillaged on a coast tile before.

I was surprised in my most recent game to find that you can rail tiles outside your territory, as I was thinking you could only road them. Roading doesn't help any future economy, but railing sure can.

not just the economy either. if i'm just gonna raze the cities and move on to the next ones, i bring along my army corps of engineers. they railroad a path once a city is gone and the tiles around it are no-man's-land, so that i can get my troops to the next city faster.

last night Asoka railroaded some of the tiles in my fat cross before i even had steam power (deity OCC so yeah, i was a bit slow *giggle*). he was missionary spamming everybody on the map and that made it quicker for him i guess. bless his heart, he built one on a mine, so i got an extra hammer, what a nice guy.

Yes, it's pretty funny to see a future enemy being lame enough to get into your territory and start roading or railing. I have this obsession of ALWAYS building a road before I build a rail, even though you don't need to. One good thing about that though, is that it takes twice as long to be pillaged.

... Late at night, I simply can't handle the keyboard, other factors :mischief: have me leaning on the mouse almost exclusively.

that is fantastic :)

I do the same thing. Where I have the option, on border cities I'll farm the tile closest to the border and cottage on the interior tiles. The other thing that sucks about border tiles in border cities is when they culture flip. If the AI's going to steal my tiles, it's going to be a farm, not a town.

It also helps to farm tiles outside fat crosses that are near borders. Sure, it might give the AI a bit of cash, but they'll usually stop to pillage instead of marching right to your city - if the AI gets fifty gold but I have time to bring in reinforcements, I'm happy.

They'd have to pillage 12 farms to get 50 gold, at a minimum of 12 turns they give you to prepare a defense. That's a lot of culture-push to outside the fat cross, although with creative leaders I've sometimes had a good culture spread.

At a minimum I road and/or railroad all the border tiles because very nearly all the AIs stop to whack roads, and they get no pillage gold from it--just slows them down artificially.

What's funny is when I have an oil tile in the border lands because no matter how impregnable a defensive stack I have on that tile: mech infantry, marines, tanks, gunships, etc., an attacker like Montezuma will expend every possible unit he can to try to get to that tile for pillage until he's down to 1 or 2 cavs weakened to 0.5 strength and they run off elsewhere for easier pillaging, in which case then my Marines clean 'em up. As someone said before, the AIs don't have any sort of a reasonable set of war tactics, and I've found the biggest difference between losing and winning, is simply knowing how the AIs fight wars, and anticipating that "doctrine" with a counter-strategy:

1. They have priorities on what they want to pillage, and will completely wipe out nearly all of their attacking force to try to get to that 5 to 10 gold they get from it, or to deny you a resource like iron, oil, horses, etc., depending on the era. Good defense of those tiles, even with a large stack of obsolete units (which in your zone just saves you maintenance if you lose 'em in battle), goes a tremendously long way toward wearing even the strongest of opponents down in their onslaught.

2. They almost never use siege weaponry to wear down defenses to zero. They will (foolishly) attack a city with their stack after only one or two wear-downs of city defense. I've often found having more than one strong defender unit is over-redundant, because combined with city defense modifiers, often a single Longbow defending a city on a hill can wipe out 4 or 5 Knights as they rush at the walls. When I draft or whip or otherwise rush a defense together to counter a stack of doom heading for a city, I calculate for a 1:3 ratio of strong defender units against their strongest attacking units. Then a 1:2 ratio of specialist defenders or counterattack units (e.g., Pikes, Maces) versus their appropriate target units (cavalry, melée, et al) With ratios like that a city can hold, without whipping or drafting or depleting the overall defensive unit pool beyond that level.

3. On defense, the AIs will swarm the first approaching stack to a city with half of the siege weapons (cats, cannons, artillery) they have, and hang the rest of them back for... forever, LOL. To counter this counterattack I try to send a smaller "scout" stack to my siege location (forest-hill, forest, hill, or on top of a vital resource or Town, in that order of preference, depending on what options there are in the avenue of approach), and even if the scout stack gets wiped out by a muscular defense, the main stack will be met with MUCH lighter resistance, and the bombardment of the defenses can go on as planned.

4. When an AI attempt to take a city fails, they don't learn from it. They keep on trying and trying, sometimes forever, and even when they pick a new city to attack later, it's often with the same techniques, the same mix of units--which usually isn't very mixed at all, but normally very heavy on cavalry and a small amount of artillery, the counter for which is anti-cav units (pikes, rifles, etc.) and a small amount of cavalry. Just enough artillery to slightly soften up the stacks.

5. As mentioned above, usually the AI has one particular of what I call a "rely upon" unit, that is, about 90% of its production will be of that unit. For the Japanese it'll be Samurai in the appropriate era. For most of them when the Cavalry unit is relatively new they'll "rely" on that one--NO MATTER HOW MANY RIFLEMEN YOU HAVE, which means easy warfare if you have West Point and Heroic Epic in a high-prod city cranking out rifles with Combat II and Formation. They pick up zero clue from this that it's time to change up the attacking units a bit. Even rifles with just Combat II from non-WP cities have better than even chances of beating down Cavalry, and even 2 Pikes per Cav are good odds if you haven't gotten to Rifling yet. Anyway, the predictability here gets just plain ridiculous after a point.

All in all I've found it best just to be prepared to shift to a wartime footing, rather than have tons of units "showing force" at the borders to prevent an invasion. BRING THEM ON, and when they do, their attacking units get obliterated, their WW skyrockets, their production falters, and they only have minor farm- and mine-plunders to show for all the losses. Often these idiots are offering peace before I even have my offensive stack built from my queue-swaps, such is the devastation they encounter on attack. And it's not over for them until "all their cities are belong to us", for that continent anyway. Methodical, patient, clever war strategy just takes one city after another, and the only real challenge to it is keeping the economic infrastructure and cultural improvements whipped up to be able to "digest" all that massive conquest, the ability to absort a large number of cities in as short a time period as it can be done. And even there the conquest process itself helps out in the plunder amount given for taking cities. Even if at the end of a continental blitz my slider's down to 30% due to the massive influx of city upkeep, WW unhappies, 4 or 5 cities still in Resistance mode, tiles pillaged, and all the other overall economic damage that war brings, that's still 30% of a LOT of cities, so tech advancement doesn't slow down near as much as I initially feared in my earlier games. As I've played more I've become less shy about just keeping the conquest on the march, and don't worry about the freakin' slider until the post-war Rebuilding Phase.

IMO. Other people's mileage may vary.

I actually can't recollect ever having a town pillaged on a coast tile before.

I've only seen it when they give me a surprise swarm of Gunships. I have to pretty much write that coastal city off, economy-wise, if I didn't have it built up with a lot of SAMs and Mech Infantries to whacka stacka Gunships. And because Mechs are also good against Marines, Mechs are my typical coastal counterattack workhorse unit, in the modern era. Prior to the enemy having Gunships it's usually enough to have one of each unit in each coastal city, and quite a few extra artillery, as they nearly always just land a stack next to the city giving me a free turn to barrage them to smithereens. Then a "floater stack" of cavs or other highly-mobile units, each covering a number of coastal cities they can react to--which makes a good railway system vital, and Engineering prior to that, as then you can reduce your counteroffensive stack workload considerably. Particularly important if you have a lot of coastline to defend!

I've only seen it when they give me a surprise swarm of Gunships. I have to pretty much write that coastal city off, economy-wise, if I didn't have it built up with a lot of SAMs and Mech Infantries to whacka stacka Gunships. And because Mechs are also good against Marines, Mechs are my typical coastal counterattack workhorse unit, in the modern era. Prior to the enemy having Gunships it's usually enough to have one of each unit in each coastal city, and quite a few extra artillery, as they nearly always just land a stack next to the city giving me a free turn to barrage them to smithereens. Then a "floater stack" of cavs or other highly-mobile units, each covering a number of coastal cities they can react to--which makes a good railway system vital, and Engineering prior to that, as then you can reduce your counteroffensive stack workload considerably. Particularly important if you have a lot of coastline to defend!

Yes, I forgot about the blasted gunships, as they can be a real bother should the enemy muster up quite a force. My last game they did muster up a very large force by transports and carriers. They had a very large fleet and I had only one functional surface fleet making port for that sea. It's almost like the game wanted to prove me wrong. I had three cities that were split apart during conquest of a civ earlier, and we were playing very late (maybe around 2150). These cities were so relativelyt new though, that losing them to the masses didn't matter too much. The only problem was though I had destroyed approximately 30-40 land units on the previous turns, I somehow didn't notice him land the largest force yet in that very area and therefore lost all my subs which were in for repair. Actually, IIRC, if I had any cottages in beside that port, they were more inland tiles because the port was so bad off for production and me wanting a surface fleet that most of the tiles were getting hammer builds.

Another thing about that game, was that since I was into the 5th or 6th future tech already, need for towns as a whole was minimal. That's another thing for you guys that haven't played too deep yet. You play to 2150 or so, and the global warming nonsense is on many turns destroying 2-3 tiles, including the improvements on them (not touching the roading). It really makes for a bit of a ripoff game. Here you have been playing so long into the game, only for some unproven bit of political extremist nonsense destroying everything you were building, and for what? Suddenly the key to the game, what little is left of it, is to try to start building merchants en masse and in many cases to destroy your old towns into waterwheels and as such to try to key from starving to death. The game loses a lot of it's appeal due to not being able to do R&D like you used to (only future techs left), but that doesn't even slightly compare to the ridiculous global warming nukes. I wish there were a button to turn that garbage off, or at least tame it to 33% of it's current level. The funny thing is that when the nukes started going off right and left, it didn't seem to increase it any. It looked as though when the game gets so late in time that it will just get worse. As far as I could tell, there was nothing I could do about it. I might had considered going with the environmentalist wacko civic to see if that would help (although NONE of my cities had a single point of choking pollution), but my unfortunate decision earlier in the game to attack the civ that wasn't the strongest, finally backfired against me when the strongest decided to join in after I had lost two of those three split off cities. I consider myself defeated and quit. There's no way I could fight off the two best civs because the global warming kept destroying everything. I think I got it worse than my opponents (my capital was particularly decimated) but even if I could hold them off, having everything destroyed like that and just barely making do on making units, all to try and achieve a dominant victory was just too much of a chore.

One thing's for sure, if you want to play a conquest/domination/culture only type of game with no time limit, you better be ready to start your absolute onslaught no later than when you get tanks, because otherwise there won't be anything left worth having and it will be frustrating alone just trying to flag the tiles that got destroyed and try putting waterwheels on them. Pretty rotten too, because I bet you anything the AI doesn't adjust to the GW decimation properly. I didn't have enough workers to rail my entire empire, and then I have to spend time making blasted waterwheels on GW tiles (at least if those tiles were by rivers), and to make matters worse there's always the issue of radiated tiles that came my way courtesy of the civ I attacked (though the GW started long before that).

One funny thing about playing in the GW era, and that is that the new power in the game becomes the coastal cities, because the nuking GW doesn't touch the ocean water tiles. If you have some say 4-5 hills and nothing else but water, you got it made, because the nuking may repeat on your mined hill, but you can always rebuild it. If you have a city with no river or water connections, it's just a matter of time before you're down to one citizen left, and only then because the GW doesn't affect the cities.

It really makes foe a bit of a ripoff game. Here you have been playing so long into the game, only for some unproven bit of political extremist nonsense destroy everything you were building, and for what?

If it annoys you that much in a game, just wait until it starts happening to your actual planet. I can only imagine how mad you'll be at the designers of this blasted Earth.

It really makes for a bit of a ripoff game. Here you have been playing so long into the game, only for some unproven bit of political extremist nonsense destroying everything you were building, and for what?

Civ2 was more forgiving: grass became plains, plains became deserts, etc., BUT, you could use "Engineers" (modern workers) to re-transform that terrain back to more productive land, which made a large swarm of them essential if you had a lot of pollution going.

To me the unproven political extremist nonsense isn't that global warming is happening, but that the cause of it is necessarily farting cows, cars, and other nonsense these people religiously cite for it. I think a much larger factor here is the flaring of solar radiation, totally beyond our control. A star generates far more heat than a factory, QED.


Suddenly the key to the game, what little is left of it, is to try to start building merchants en masse and in many cases to destroy your old towns into waterwheels and as such to try to key from starving to death. The game loses a lot of it's appeal due to not being able to do R&D like you used to (only future techs left), but that doesn't even slightly compare to the ridiculous global warming nukes.


To be quite honest if I haven't won space race by about 2010, an AI has. And if my pollution is bad enough to make Civ's "Global Warming" effects become a factor, it's also hurting city growth bad enough that I've been motivated to install Recycling Centers, Supermarkets, Hospitals, etc., to counter that (which amuses me: a Supermarket can put a stop to Global Warming! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay, mystery solved! LOL...)


One funny thing about playing in the GW era, and that is that the new power in the game becomes the coastal cities, because the nuking GW doesn't touch the ocean water tiles. If you have some say 4-5 hills and nothing else but water, you got it made, because the nuking may repeat on your mined hill, but you can always rebuild it. If you have a city with no river or water connections, it's just a matter of time before you're down to one citizen left, and only then because the GW doesn't affect the cities.

Which is yet another "realism challenge" for Civ, because the projections for planet earth are that coastal cities will be underwater as the ice caps melt, raising ocean levels. Present day Venice is already seeing this effect, and New Orleans had it happen indirectly (via a storm).

(which amuses me: a Supermarket can put a stop to Global Warming! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay, mystery solved! LOL...)

This is a great irony. Supermarkets, at least in the American style I'm familiar with, are great contributors to carbon dioxide emission.

This is a great irony. Supermarkets, at least in the American style I'm familiar with, are great contributors to carbon dioxide emission.

Yep, the cartoon physics of Civ just keep adding up and up.

Supermarkets in Civ4 don't reduce (or affect) global warming.

Supermarkets in Civ4 don't reduce (or affect) global warming.

I always thought high "unhealthy" levels increased it? That's been my experience when I've tried to "farm" my way out of unhealthy conditions in a city. 3+ green frownies and the GW just start slamming you every other turn.

The health of your cities has no effect on global warming.

If it annoys you that much in a game, just wait until it starts happening to your actual planet. I can only imagine how mad you'll be at the designers of this blasted Earth.

I can't recall seeing entire resources such as mines and the terrain itself being done IRL. It annoys me precisely because it doesn't happen IRL. It's not even close. We have seen regional temperature changes, to where places like Greenland were once actually green, but that would involve weather change at worst. What we are seeing in the game is a deluge of laser beams from the sky; totally ridiculous!

Skallagrimson:

Civ2 was more forgiving: grass became plains, plains became deserts, etc., BUT, you could use "Engineers" (modern workers) to re-transform that terrain back to more productive land, which made a large swarm of them essential if you had a lot of pollution going.

To me the unproven political extremist nonsense isn't that global warming is happening, but that the cause of it is necessarily farting cows, cars, and other nonsense these people religiously cite for it. I think a much larger factor here is the flaring of solar radiation, totally beyond our control. A star generates far more heat than a factory, QED.

See my prior response about GW, I admit the climate may change, but that is CLIMATE, not laser beams from on high. Yes, it is correct there would be something of a gradual change like in CIV2, but part of the farce is that the entire tile is destroyed, mine, farm, anything (excepting the roading), and the whole thing is changed into a desert. As I said, it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so frequent, and, as you point out, if you can terraform it, but to a large extent terraforming is almost as fictional as these ridiculous laser beams so I'm not so sure I'm up for terraforming. There has always been global cooling or warming, and as to what causes it I couldn't care less, but I only know that won't stop the wacko element from claiming anything they object to, like cars, is the cause of it.

To be quite honest if I haven't won space race by about 2010, an AI has. And if my pollution is bad enough to make Civ's "Global Warming" effects become a factor, it's also hurting city growth bad enough that I've been motivated to install Recycling Centers, Supermarkets, Hospitals, etc., to counter that (which amuses me: a Supermarket can put a stop to Global Warming! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay, mystery solved! LOL...)

I don't know if I explained that game enough before, but I HAD taken all those improvements in EVERY city, yet it did no good. There was not a snigle city where the food being made was being compromised by some pollutant. Unless going to the enviromentalist civic puts you over the edge, then there's nothing you can do to stop it. Part of the problem, I'm imagining, is that the rest of the civs may have chopped to such excess that they are polluting things so much my non-pollution doesn't matter, but if that so it's still a sorry game for me to play. BTW, I am not playing with political or spacerace victories on and no time limit, therefore I "would" be able to play an extended game if it wasn't for the alien laser beam invasion that is GW.

Which is yet another "realism challenge" for Civ, because the projections for planet earth are that coastal cities will be underwater as the ice caps melt, raising ocean levels. Present day Venice is already seeing this effect, and New Orleans had it happen indirectly (via a storm).

Yes, the exact opposite of what the game is doing. You have your best cities as coastals and your inlands as largely destroyed by laser beams.

The health of your cities has no effect on global warming.

I sure have found this out the hard way.

I can't recall seeing entire resources such as mines and the terrain itself being done IRL. It annoys me precisely because it doesn't happen IRL. It's not even close.

This is totally wrong. Desertification in real life is a huge problem. Historically, the primary cause has been other human activities, not global warming, but that will shift as global warming accelerates.

This is totally wrong. Desertification in real life is a huge problem. Historically, the primary cause has been other human activities, not global warming, but that will shift as global warming accelerates.

Even so, any desert making by some indifferent force, let's say GW, not only doesn't do it in one fell swoop on the terrain itself, but it also doesn't destroy the typical civ-type improvements such as mining. The GW might as well be phasers from the Enterprise.

Even so, any desert making by some indifferent force, let's say GW, not only doesn't do it in one fell swoop on the terrain itself, but it also doesn't destroy the typical civ-type improvements such as mining.

Does global warming in Civ4 destroy mines on desert hills? I agree that doesn't seem right. It should just change the terrain to desert, but that shouldn't make it different from existing deserts.

Does global warming in Civ4 destroy mines on desert hills? I agree that doesn't seem right. It should just change the terrain to desert, but that shouldn't make it different from existing deserts.

Technically I can't tell you that. But I am guessing it doesn't bother tiles which are already desert (lightning not striking twice in the same spot:lol: ); at least I didn't notice it occur any. If true, that would mean that once it decimated a tile that such a tile would then be immune to further damage even if it were a tile that could be improved slightly again. Then again, I could be wrong and any improvement may re-attract it again, but I would imagine the programmer would make the desert terrain very low priority on the strikes even if it wouldn't prove immune. So the lesson could be, if you play long enough, every single non-city or non-water tile could be destroyed down to desert level, and therefore it could appear that the strikes had stopped altogether at one point, but unfortunately that would be for lack of targets and not that it got any better.

Hey didn't Kevin Costner "star" (I use the word star loosely) in some dumb movie about everybody living watery existences? Perhaps he covertly programmed this GW garbage.

Charles, I guess the bottom line is: don't play that long! ;)

Charles, I guess the bottom line is: don't play that long! ;)

You're telling me:D . Yes, it's a majorly flawed addition to the game to let you play as long as you want, but to make it totally worthless. The longer you play the game, the more what you built will be destroyed. Basically the longer game is the Civ we're so familiar with, working in reverse.

You're telling me:D . Yes, it's a majorly flawed addition to the game to let you play as long as you want, but to make it totally worthless. The longer you play the game, the more what you built will be destroyed. Basically the longer game is the Civ we're so familiar with, working in reverse.

so basically, here is the message hidden in the very late game :
in a few years, the earth will start deacaying, and there is nothing you can do about it...

so basically, here is the message hidden in the very late game :
in a few years, the earth will start deacaying, and there is nothing you can do about it...

No, it's not really the earth that is decaying, but as the game works that the sun will start nuking the map. What's really dumb too, since the sun seems bent on some revenge there is no evidence for (IOW, IRL, it's slight variations of weather, etc), it decides to ignore the cities and the waters. How is it a sun burst nuke can destroy both your woodmill, the forest, and the ground below it (turning it to desert) and yet totally ignnore the cities? Actually if they took away the tile destruction, and instead had it destroying buildings within the cities I would find it more pleasing, because you can at least still build the buildings again in many cases, despite that idea still being a farce.

Another funny aspect of this is to compare it to nuking within the game. A nuke can strike your city and there's a pretty good chance it doesn't destroy all the little cross's tiles. Some get radiated and turn to plains, while others seem to destroy the improvement and leave the terrain alone (although perhaps radiating it as well). The only thing that leaves the sun nukes more pleasing to the player, compared to the real game nukes, is that as far as I know the sun nukes don't destroy or damage units, but that may not be a correct observation, as I have so many of my units within cities and the sun nukes can be difficult to keep up with at times, that it may destroy a unit and I never catch it.

Anyway, it really is pathetic that you can play this game for so long and then have it go into destruct phase. The worst of it is that I bet a lot of this is brought on by the AI civs no longer having any qualms about using nukes, and if they are at war they will use them; quite a lot of change from before 2.08. Perhaps if you played with the political victory on (I do not) then perhaps the former reluctance to use nukes would re-surface, but all I know is before 2.08 I was playing it the same non-political way and the nukes pretty much weren't flying (and I wasn't sending any either).

As many options as there are for this game, there is none more game-breaking than to not have a way to dismantle or at least greatly reduce this damned sun nuking. It would also be interesting if there were also an option to dismantle nukes ever being discovered, but at least the UN can effectively take them out of the game if the political game is allowed.

Again, Sid just doesn't want you to play that long. He wants you to get it over with: conquer the world, colonize space, do something decisive and either win or let the AIs win. If you drag it out he will destroy your game, tile by tile.

Actually if they took away the tile destruction, and instead had it destroying buildings within the cities I would find it more pleasing, because you can at least still build the buildings again in many cases, despite that idea still being a farce.

This doesn't make any sense. Global warming will destroy arable terrain, so that's a perfectly reasonable thing for it to do in the game. It won't destroy buildings or kill people directly, so that would be a nonsense thing for it to do in the game.

As many options as there are for this game, there is none more game-breaking than to not have a way to dismantle or at least greatly reduce this damned sun nuking.

It's trivial to eliminate global warming from Civ4. In GlobalDefines.xml, just set the value of GLOBAL_WARMING_PROB to 0.

This doesn't make any sense. Global warming will destroy arable terrain, so that's a perfectly reasonable thing for it to do in the game. It won't destroy buildings or kill people directly, so that would be a nonsense thing for it to do in the game.


Global warming makes cyclons, tornadoes, floods,... more likely. So it WILL destroy buildings and kill people.
think Catherina

DaviddeJ: This doesn't make any sense. Global warming will destroy arable terrain, so that's a perfectly reasonable thing for it to do in the game. It won't destroy buildings or kill people directly, so that would be a nonsense thing for it to do in the game.

Other than the Biblical story of Divine Power onto Sodom, where do you recall like 5% of a city (if we can call the fat cross the entire city) being destroyed down to a desert? That essentially is what this game is doing. And I'm not talking about some region that took 20-30 years or more to become arid, since this does it either instantaneously or within the scope of a year, depending on how you look at it. Even so, since these nukes do nothing to water, just how is it that something which is already adjacent to water, and already was desert in the case of flood plains, gets turned into useless desert as though the water connection disappeared? The whole reason it's arable in the first place is it's connection to the river, and these nukes do nothing to rivers or oceans and yet something adjoining rivers is nuked just as badly as grasslands not adjoining rivers or oceans?

It's trivial to eliminate global warming from Civ4. In GlobalDefines.xml, just set the value of GLOBAL_WARMING_PROB to 0.

That's good to hear. So if you set it to 5 what would happen? Knowing the rate it has and how that works is quite essential if you really don't want to eliminate it altogether, as I don't.

And I'm not talking about some region that took 20-30 years or more to become arid, since this does it either instantaneously or within the scope of a year, depending on how you look at it.

No, the game is surely modeling processes that take place over a time scale longer than a single year. But the Civ4 model doesn't contain any way to represent "18% desert" or "43% desert" or "77% desert", for a single tile. It is just desert or not desert. So the game has to use a system where there is an arbitrary abstraction, some threshold at which the tile changes from grassland to desert. It is just an abstraction and this is hardly the only one in the game.

The whole reason it's arable in the first place is it's connection to the river, and these nukes do nothing to rivers or oceans and yet something adjoining rivers is nuked just as badly as grasslands not adjoining rivers or oceans?

You want a higher level of realism than it is reasonable to expect. Nothing else in this game is that realistic.

So if you set it to 5 what would happen?

I think you just get 1/4 of the standard rate.

That's good to hear. So if you set it to 5 what would happen? Knowing the rate it has and how that works is quite essential if you really don't want to eliminate it altogether, as I don't.

Once Global Warming isenabled (Nukes fired) there is a GLOBAL_WARMING_PROB/100 chance each turn global warming occurs...

Edit: Shouldn't leave the computer - DaviddesJ was much quicker :crazyeye:

DaviddesJ: You want a higher level of realism than it is reasonable to expect. Nothing else in this game is that realistic.

Not really. How difficult would it be to make something that is already a desert, that adjoins a river, not affected by the GW nuke? I mean, afterall, a lot of tiles get gold from adjoining a river, so what would be so hard about making those floodplains immune to it so to speak? Like I said, oceans and rivers already are immune to it, as they don't even strike there. Another way to achieve that would be to have nukes not hit everything that it already doesn't hit, like cities, and add floodplains to the list. It's not whether it's too realistic that is the obstacle, but in this case whether people are willing to reason this out. Sure there's other things that are unreasonable, the larger issue of GW for a start, but naturally they have to decide where to pick up some of the issues and leave others alone. The mere fact that GW is in hyper-drive, apart from changing the ratings as you suggested, therefore destroying the fabric of the entire purpose of the game (unless the purpose of the game was to kiss up to Algore), is reason enough to think some things through which may be very minor adjustments indeed, such as making floodplains added to the do not strike list. Also, it's just blatantly silly that GW woudl destroy tile improvements, but in one sense it makes sense, since formerly the tile could contain a mine for example, but since deserts don't have mines and the nuke changes all to a desert, therefore there can't be a mine anymore.

Not really. How difficult would it be to make something that is already a desert, that adjoins a river, not affected by the GW nuke?

It would be easy. Go do it. That's why Firaxis made the game easy to mod, and released the SDK.

The reason it doesn't work that way is not that it is hard. The reason is that the level of "realism" you are asking for is not a design goal of Civ4.

But it's clear your motivations for all of this whining have little to do with the game, and more to do with your dislike for the facts we face in the real world. I can't help you with that.

Once Global Warming isenabled (Nukes fired) there is a GLOBAL_WARMING_PROB/100 chance each turn global warming occurs...

Edit: Shouldn't leave the computer - DaviddesJ was much quicker :crazyeye:

Ah, perfect explanation then. Now I only wonder for curiousity's sake, since I don't have the game in front of me, just what that default rate is. I would also wonder if that rate was the rate for each and every tile that is eligible for each civ or what? Obviously if you quarter the default rate you will quarter it's annoyance, but it would be nice to know just what that percentage is affecting, the whole board, each civ's territory, each city's fat cross, or what.

It would be easy. Go do it. That's why Firaxis made the game easy to mod, and released the SDK.

The reason it doesn't work that way is not that it is hard. The reason is that the level of "realism" you are asking for is not a design goal of Civ4.

But it's clear your motivations for all of this whining have little to do with the game, and more to do with your dislike for the facts we face in the real world. I can't help you with that.

Yeah sure. I'm still waiting for those examples of GW nukes that you keep saying happens IRL. I provided Sodom, which wasn't due to GW, and Greenland due to cooling, and yet you have no examples of GW even slightly related to this game or Algore. Yeah, sure. It's nothing but false prophetic nonsense.

Besides David, if I were some kind of programmer, which is where this ease of adjusting these things comes from, which means about at least 95% of the buyers can't adjust such things, then it's quite possible I wouldn't mention it at all and adjust it myself, but seeing as how some people might object to it and wish it to be changed, just like anything else may wish to be changed I whine so they might consider it - thank you.

Yeah sure. I'm still waiting for those examples of GW nukes that you keep saying happens IRL.

Desertification on a comparable scale to Civ4 tiles has happened, and is happening, all over the world. Much of Madagascar has become desert, for example. And it is happening at a rapid pace in the Sahel and in China.

Of course, current desertification isn't due to global warming, which has hardly started yet. You can't complain that Civ4's treatment of a future phenomenon is inaccurate because it hasn't happened yet in the real world. (That's why it's called the "future".) But wait until global temperatures rise another 3-4 degrees C, and you'll certainly see some deserts created.

Ah, perfect explanation then. Now I only wonder for curiousity's sake, since I don't have the game in front of me, just what that default rate is. I would also wonder if that rate was the rate for each and every tile that is eligible for each civ or what? Obviously if you quarter the default rate you will quarter it's annoyance, but it would be nice to know just what that percentage is affecting, the whole board, each civ's territory, each city's fat cross, or what.
the chance is 20/100 per turn after Global warming is enabled that one random tile on the map experiences Global warming...

Desertification on a comparable scale to Civ4 tiles has happened, and is happening, all over the world. Much of Madagascar has become desert, for example. And it is happening at a rapid pace in the Sahel and in China.

Of course, current desertification isn't due to global warming, which has hardly started yet. You can't complain that Civ4's treatment of a future phenomenon is inaccurate because it hasn't happened yet in the real world. (That's why it's called the "future".) But wait until global temperatures rise another 3-4 degrees C, and you'll certainly see some deserts created.
I just don't see how you can tell me that it's happened in history, and then now tell me it hasn't. IOW, what you're telling me is there are a bunch of influential bozos peddling it and therefore it sort of becomes fact, right? Because it's en vogue, right? That doesn't qualify as history to me. I have no problem admitting that a hotter sun could well produce problems here, in fact many would say the way the dinosaurs had it, allegedly, would qualify as something like that (though more likely having to do with global formation more than something the sun did to it).

I can see how you're coming up with this history angle though, because you're building it on the vapors of the future. Problem is, this game isn't about the future. Ah, now I'm wrong aren't I? No, not really. See any future units in the game? The game timewise can easily go into the future (despite the fact that the nukes are often falling way before then) but when your only glimpse of the future is future tech, which is just a happiness and health bonus, you are basically just playing the last unit and the last building advances for eterinity. Sort of a timelock on the present. So if no GW nukes have not been seen to this present day, how can the game technically represent them? Oh, just to be a bit nitpicky, and I know they don't have time or should they bother with such nitpickiness, but there have been two nukes, so to speak, dropped in history, in fact far more than that when you count all the testing that has gone on particularly by the USSR and USA, and where is the GW? You said it yourself. So, despite the nitpickiness, notice how dropping literally hundreds of nukes hasn't changed the climate and yet in the game the GW nukes start with the first missile going off. There's of course plenty of reasons to object to using or making mukes, but GW isn't one of them.

Man, I'm glad you got me into this discussion, because history backs how nukes don't cause GW (anything else is speculation, such as auto exhaust). For all the talk I have heard about GW, I have never heard anybody make the point of the literally hundreds of nukes that have gone off, particularly in the 40's-70's and the weather was predicted as going through GC (global cooling) if anything, which of course hasn't happened either. there's periods of cooling and periods of heating, all of which seems completely unaffected by nukes.

the chance is 20/100 per turn after Global warming is enabled that one random tile on the map experiences Global warming...

Maybe that chance is based on a per missile nuke basis? Because otherwise how could you personally get three in one turn as I did often enough? I was playing the default setting. Perhaps as time progresses it gets worse, either respective or irrespective of the number of nukes going off?

Just out of curiousity I found this:

http://www.batguano.com/nuclear/nuctesting.html

Maybe that chance is based on a per missile nuke basis? Because otherwise how could you personally get three in one turn as I did often enough? I was playing the default setting. Perhaps as time progresses it gets worse, either respective or irrespective of the number of nukes going off?

You are right, I ignored this part:


for (iI = 0; iI < getNukesExploded(); iI++)


so per default there is a 20/100 chance for one random tile per nuke fired per turn. The whole GlobalWarming code is in the spoiler tags.



void CvGame::doGlobalWarming()
{
CvCity* pCity;
CvPlot* pPlot;
CvWString szBuffer;
TerrainTypes eWarmingTerrain;
bool bChanged;
int iI;

eWarmingTerrain = ((TerrainTypes)(GC.getDefineINT("GLOBAL_WARMING_TERRAIN")));

for (iI = 0; iI < getNukesExploded(); iI++)
{
if (getSorenRandNum(100, "Global Warming") < GC.getDefineINT("GLOBAL_WARMING_PROB"))
{
pPlot = GC.getMapINLINE().syncRandPlot(RANDPLOT_LAND | RANDPLOT_NOT_CITY);

if (pPlot != NULL)
{
bChanged = false;

if (pPlot->getTerrainType() != eWarmingTerrain)
{
if (pPlot->calculateTotalBestNatureYield(NO_TEAM) > 1)
{
pPlot->setTerrainType(eWarmingTerrain);
bChanged = true;
}
}

if (pPlot->getFeatureType() != NO_FEATURE)
{
if (pPlot->getFeatureType() != GC.getDefineINT("NUKE_FEATURE"))
{
pPlot->setFeatureType(NO_FEATURE);
bChanged = true;
}
}

if (bChanged)
{
pPlot->setImprovementType(NO_IMPROVEMENT);

pCity = GC.getMapINLINE().findCity(pPlot->getX_INLINE(), pPlot->getY_INLINE());
if (pCity != NULL)
{
if (pPlot->isVisible(pCity->getTeam(), false))
{
szBuffer = gDLL->getText("TXT_KEY_MISC_GLOBAL_WARMING_NEAR_CITY", pCity->getNameKey());
gDLL->getInterfaceIFace()->addMessage(pCity->getOwnerINLINE(), false, GC.getDefineINT("EVENT_MESSAGE_TIME"), szBuffer, "AS2D_GLOBALWARMING", MESSAGE_TYPE_INFO, NULL, (ColorTypes)GC.getInfoTypeForString("COLOR_RED"), pPlot->getX_INLINE(), pPlot->getY_INLINE(), true, true);
}
}
}
}
}
}
}

I just don't see how you can tell me that it's happened in history, and then now tell me it hasn't.

What you said in #34 is that it's not realistic for large areas of the world, on the scale of Civ4 tiles, to change to desert. This is not true, and there are plenty of historical examples of this happening.

It is true that the rising CO2 level in the atmosphere, by itself, has not had such identifiable effects yet, because it takes a long time for CO2 to produce severe climate change, and also the level is not nearly so high as it will be in the future. Global warming, in real life, is a problem that will primarily occur in the future.

On the other hand, desertification, on the scale of Civ4, is happening right now, across the world, even without global warming as a driver. So for desertification to occur in Civ4 seems very reasonable to me, whether or not it has anything to do with global warming.

But ultimately it's just a game. Certainly global warming has nothing to do with the use of nuclear weapons, and why they are tied at all in Civ4 is rather mysterious. But there are a million things in Civ4 that make less logical sense than this. Obviously, you care more about this one because you wish global warming weren't a real life problem, and you somehow transfer this emotion to Civ4. Oh well.

You are right, I ignored this part:


for (iI = 0; iI < getNukesExploded(); iI++)


so per default there is a 20/100 chance for one random tile per nuke fired per turn. The whole GlobalWarming code is in the spoiler tags.



void CvGame::doGlobalWarming()
{
CvCity* pCity;
CvPlot* pPlot;
CvWString szBuffer;
TerrainTypes eWarmingTerrain;
bool bChanged;
int iI;

eWarmingTerrain = ((TerrainTypes)(GC.getDefineINT("GLOBAL_WARMING_TERRAIN")));

for (iI = 0; iI < getNukesExploded(); iI++)
{
if (getSorenRandNum(100, "Global Warming") < GC.getDefineINT("GLOBAL_WARMING_PROB"))
{
pPlot = GC.getMapINLINE().syncRandPlot(RANDPLOT_LAND | RANDPLOT_NOT_CITY);

if (pPlot != NULL)
{
bChanged = false;

if (pPlot->getTerrainType() != eWarmingTerrain)
{
if (pPlot->calculateTotalBestNatureYield(NO_TEAM) > 1)
{
pPlot->setTerrainType(eWarmingTerrain);
bChanged = true;
}
}

if (pPlot->getFeatureType() != NO_FEATURE)
{
if (pPlot->getFeatureType() != GC.getDefineINT("NUKE_FEATURE"))
{
pPlot->setFeatureType(NO_FEATURE);
bChanged = true;
}
}

if (bChanged)
{
pPlot->setImprovementType(NO_IMPROVEMENT);

pCity = GC.getMapINLINE().findCity(pPlot->getX_INLINE(), pPlot->getY_INLINE());
if (pCity != NULL)
{
if (pPlot->isVisible(pCity->getTeam(), false))
{
szBuffer = gDLL->getText("TXT_KEY_MISC_GLOBAL_WARMING_NEAR_CITY", pCity->getNameKey());
gDLL->getInterfaceIFace()->addMessage(pCity->getOwnerINLINE(), false, GC.getDefineINT("EVENT_MESSAGE_TIME"), szBuffer, "AS2D_GLOBALWARMING", MESSAGE_TYPE_INFO, NULL, (ColorTypes)GC.getInfoTypeForString("COLOR_RED"), pPlot->getX_INLINE(), pPlot->getY_INLINE(), true, true);
}
}
}
}
}
}
}



Thank you very much, so that all makes sense now, at least, that is, if one believes that nukes cause GW; which they don't. In one particular game I have in mind, I must had fired about 15 myself, after having been nuked successfully at least five times, and two other civs had gone at it and fired a minimum of another 20. So that was at least 40 that had been fired. I am also curious if it includes the ones shot down or not, since the 40 or so I counted saw at least 10 of the ones I fired shot down. I would assume that they at least had the brains to make it just the nukes that detonated, but then making nukes to cause GW is such a farce I do have to wonder.

DaviddesJ: What you said in #34 is that it's not realistic for large areas of the world, on the scale of Civ4 tiles, to change to desert. This is not true, and there are plenty of historical examples of this happening.

I'm not sure I made myself clear in regards to that, but given the drive of my argument that should be quite apparent. I was asking for examples of any incidents of GW on the scale of this game. You gave me some examples of other causes which you didn't mention what they were, but also pointed out they weren't due to GW. If we went even further with the argument, to lay part of the foundation for this game, that nuke explosions cause GW, even if we could attribute something to GW, we sure couldn't attribute it to the nuclear explosions. Naturally, those explosions have something of an effect for the immediate area, however large or small that may be, but of course that has nothing to do with GW. I even doubt the weather itself is affected in the immediate area, at least not after the first week. I would think that precipitation and temperatures would be normal. Yet in this game we can explode one nuke and thereafter the world is subject to random GW.

Well I'm glad to see that we're understanding each other here, as it's quite clear as I read more into your last post. As far as your analysis of my motivation here, I think you're quite wrong. What I have stated here is pretty much it, though I haven't stated everything. I just don't want to get into it any deeper than I have, but the main gist of my raising this concern in the first place was spot on what I said, ie, that I think it's ludicrous to have GW so blatantly overpowering in the game and reverting us back to cavemen (nukes should do that all by themselves thank you). This does raise another concern however, one that alleviates the Civ4 folks quite possibly. That is, that the game was put out with the nukes, so to speak, not working, such that the AI would either barely use them or not use them at all, and now we have this. We know what has caused this rude change don't we? Yet another reason for me to hate the Blake patch change. Well, at least ori has given those like me a workaround, but it is a pity the game is as it is regarding GW nonetheless.

I was asking for examples of any incidents of GW on the scale of this game.

OK. You need to look to other planets for that (Venus). It hasn't happened on Earth, yet.

One of the problems is that the "scale" is very different for you, because you apparently play games where lots of nukes are used. Most people avoid that, so the issue doesn't come up.

We all agree that the use of nuclear weapons shouldn't have anything to do with "global warming", to the extent that Civ4 is supposed to model the real world. Obviously, the designers did want to put in negative consequences for using too many nuclear weapons. It would probably be more "realistic" if the game just ended in a loss if too many nukes are used. I'm not sure if you would like that better, though.

No, I wouldn't like that better, but it's about the same thing as the current unmodified game.

Yes, I am somewhat of an expert in the field of Civ nuke research :nuke: , but I emphasize "somewhat". No, my main problem with 2.08 has been the Blake changes, and since I quit so often before the modern age due to losing in some fashion, my forays into the nuke realm have only been a couple of times. I had been there more frequently pre-blake but even the nuke portion was vastly different back then.

I was partially not blaming the original programmers for the current nuke mess, because I would have to doubt if it ever worked in the first place, even before the masses got the game. If it doesn't work, you aren't liable to change the game and realize how radical it is when it does work. Naturally, there are other angles to this sort of thing, such as they could program the AI's to be more reluctant to use them (and I would wonder if blake didn't do the extreme opposite). The sad thing, as it was for me for a while, is that if there's a war going on between other civs and they break out the nukes (I'm actually wondering if they will EVER hesitate to use them if they are at war and have them) then I start getting GW cheapshots as a result.

Another part of the problem regrading the heavy useage of nukes and the GW problem is that I am playing games with no time limit. I suppose if you played within the usual game time limits then GW and nukes aren't quite as annoying, but if you have no time limit, a given option in the game, then it doesn't take too long to figure out that there will be no shifts in power, let alone conquer the whole board at some point, simply because the game gets so decimated by them over more turns. I must have had half of my capitol's tiles destroyed by GW before I got fed up with it. Funny thing was the proper nukes didn't even hit that city. I guess the enemy civ could see how hitting such a GW decimated city was pretty pointless.

ori: I'm unclear what I need to change in that script, assuming I can access it, to change the rate to say 1% instead of 20%. Can I use the standard Windows txt editor to change it, or is it one of those C++ things that I have not the software or any knowledge of?

ori: I'm unclear what I need to change in that script, assuming I can access it, to change the rate to say 1% instead of 20%. Can I use the standard Windows txt editor to change it, or is it one of those C++ things that I have not the software or any knowledge of?
If you just want to change the rate you can modify the .xml using any editor - but I would recommend Microsoft's XML Notepad (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=72D6AA49-787D-4118-BA5F-4F30FE913628&displaylang=en) since it is easier to find the required tag and not accidentally mess with other stuff than in a simple txt editor.
What you want to do is: open ...\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Assets\XML\GlobalDefines.xml (for Vanilla) or ...\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Warlords\Assets\XML\GlobalDefines.xml (for Warlords) and search for:

<Define>
<DefineName>GLOBAL_WARMING_PROB</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>20</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>
just change the "20" to any integer value you like (I would not recommend a negative value though - this might produce unwanted effects :D)

Alright, thanks a lot. I thought that if I did a search on "20" I would probably come up with it, but I did need to know what I needed to edit it because I do recall how people were saying how modifiable it is, and that is where I heard of C++ mentioned. I have no idea how much programming on any game goes to text or not.

You can just use "Notepad" (Windows text file editor) to change it, or the program ori suggests.

If you wanted to change the GW mechanism (e.g., add a special case so that improvements that can exist on desert tiles aren't destroyed if the tile is changed to desert), then you would have to write C++ code. But just changing the rate is much easier.

It's also easy to just modify the game to prevent nuclear weapons from being constructed, if that would make you happier.