In BTS is there a way to play with mountains like old civs or they are alien objects impossible to climb / fly over like original CIV IV ?

In this Expansion which is the way/mod/edit you can suggest me to make them " playable " like old civs ?

We can go on the Moon,on Mars and we can't fly over mountains ??? :D :D :sad:

Thanks in advance

Gunter

No they remain alien objects ;).There is only an interesting event related to a mountain which needs to be settled to get a prize.

Call me crazy but I have never played CIV IV mostly for this reason .......

:confused: are you referring to this :nuke: ?

Sooner or later perhaps I'll buy CIV IV and I'll surelly mod it,they hard side will be to convince the AI to use them.....

I'm an old civ gamer anyway...

I think it should be available -very late- in the game to be able to build tunnels through the peaks..

:confused: are you referring to this :nuke: ?



Don't know what you mean but in the game there is a quest where you need to settle near an holy mountain....a sort of Mount Sinai to get a reward..... a quest which is interesting to roleplay.

I think it should be available -very late- in the game to be able to build tunnels through the peaks..

I assume helicopters and planes will have to turn their light on before using them :lol:

I really hope someone inside Fireaxis will be teached that helos and planes can fly over peaks otherwise Fireaxians will cover long distances in a very long time if they ignore that aspect of modern transports :D

Actually having peaks makes map more interesting to play, because they are natural barriers which can not be passed.The problem with airplane doesn't exist because land units can't pass these peaks and air units just bombard.
Peaks should not be considered just mountains but unpassable mountains, while hills also mountains, perhaps having a further distinction, between hills,mountains and peaks would have been better but in terms of gameplay it's not noticeable and in some cases these peaks make maps strategically more interesting

Mountains are like the Himalaya or the Alps. I like it, that they function like natural barriers.

On a strategic level, mountains IRL are pretty much useless and impassible. I thought it was worse in the earlier games when you could march entire armies straight across the Alps anywhere you wanted.

To be honest... you're not going to fly OVER Mount Everest. So it kind of makes sense.

To be honest... you're not going to fly OVER Mount Everest. So it kind of makes sense.

The cruise altitude of modern airplanes is around 10.000 metres so planes do fly over Everest/poles etc.. In addiiton in Civ IV every single mountain is the Everest where in the reality is not like that...or not ? ;)

For instance I am used to ski during the winter on 2000-3000 metres mountains where helicopters cross over them on a daily basis , I can reach those peaks with my bike or car,I can reach even 2800 metres with my motorbike on large streets ,it is a very common practice in 2007 in my country ;)

gunter

Call me crazy but I have never played CIV IV mostly for this reason .......

You won't play it because the mountains are impassable? Er, frankly, yes, that does sound crazy. :crazyeye:

I don't understand why people make such a big deal out of this. I don't mean to single out Gunter; it's an issue that's been raised a few times before, by various people. I really can't see why it's such a terrible thing to have an impassable terrain type in the game. Sure, they happen to look like mountains, and one could argue that mountains aren't completely impassable. So what? If it bothers you, just pretend they're something else; they're only in there for gameplay reasons, to add a little variety.

As Marioflag mentioned, there are workable, passable mountains in the game: they're called hills. They look a lot like old-style Civ mountains, and the plains hills even act almost exactly like old-style Civ mountains, but because they're labelled hills, people complain that there are no workable mountains...

You won't play it because the mountains are impassable? Er, frankly, yes, that does sound crazy. :crazyeye:

I don't understand why people make such a big deal out of this. I don't mean to single out Gunter; it's an issue that's been raised a few times before, by various people. I really can't see why it's such a terrible thing to have an impassable terrain type in the game. Sure, they happen to look like mountains, and one could argue that mountains aren't completely impassable. So what? If it bothers you, just pretend they're something else; they're only in there for gameplay reasons, to add a little variety.

As Marioflag mentioned, there are workable, passable mountains in the game: they're called hills. They look a lot like old-style Civ mountains, and the plains hills even act almost exactly like old-style Civ mountains, but because they're labelled hills, people complain that there are no workable mountains...

Of course that's not the only reason but it has its own weight.It is like when you wear a pair of dirty sun glasses ... one would say why do you care about those little spots,just pretend they are something else.

In addition I still have to understand which is the reason they didn't make them crossable :confused: , just add a 85% defense value vs terrain units 1/3 of movement ratio and the stuff is worked out. ;)

There is a random event that makes a mountain workable for like 1 food and 1 commerce, might be one that can affect any tile though as I only had it once yet ;)

I don't understand why people make such a big deal out of this. I don't mean to single out Gunter; it's an issue that's been raised a few times before, by various people. I really can't see why it's such a terrible thing to have an impassable terrain type in the game. Sure, they happen to look like mountains, and one could argue that mountains aren't completely impassable. So what? If it bothers you, just pretend they're something else; they're only in there for gameplay reasons, to add a little variety.

As Marioflag mentioned, there are workable, passable mountains in the game: they're called hills. They look a lot like old-style Civ mountains, and the plains hills even act almost exactly like old-style Civ mountains, but because they're labelled hills, people complain that there are no workable mountains...

It's never stopped me from playing, but impassable mountains represent a big, missed opportunity. I like choke points, too, but there are better ways to achieve it than creating a fairly common type of terrain which is essentially non-existent on Earth. Let's face it, Civ is, at its core, very much about what you do with each of the tiles on the map. Creating tiles with which you can do nothing and which are impassable doesn't keep me from playing, but it sure doesn't enhance the game. If you want choke points, you could just draw lines on the map and "pretend" they're some natural boundary. Make the high mountains difficult to do anything with and perhaps limited in the types of units which can traverse them, as in CivIII, but simply making them impassable is a cop out. After all, Hannibal crossed the Alps with elephants (!) to surprise the Romans in one of civilizations greatest events. Such an event is impossible in CivIV. Also, hills are hills, not mountains. Once you discover the wheel and can build roads very, very early in the game, they're not even speed bumps.

It's never stopped me from playing, but impassable mountains represent a big, missed opportunity. I like choke points, too, but there are better ways to achieve it than creating a fairly common type of terrain which is essentially non-existent on Earth. Let's face it, Civ is, at its core, very much about what you do with each of the tiles on the map. Creating tiles with which you can do nothing and which are impassable doesn't keep me from playing, but it sure doesn't enhance the game. If you want choke points, you could just draw lines on the map and "pretend" they're some natural boundary. Make the high mountains difficult to do anything with and perhaps limited in the types of units which can traverse them, as in CivIII, but simply making them impassable is a cop out. After all, Hannibal crossed the Alps with elephants (!) to surprise the Romans in one of civilizations greatest events. Such an event is impossible in CivIV. Also, hills are hills, not mountains. Once you discover the wheel and can build roads very, very early in the game, they're not even speed bumps.

On the scale that troops represent, geographically and in time, I think it's reasonable to have mountains impassible as they are. I also have no problem with dead tiles, I think it adds to both city planning and strategy. Civ is about working tiles, yes, and it's nothing strange that there are no resource tiles to counterbalance high resource tiles.

On the scale that troops represent, geographically and in time, I think it's reasonable to have mountains impassible as they are. I also have no problem with dead tiles, I think it adds to both city planning and strategy. Civ is about working tiles, yes, and it's nothing strange that there are no resource tiles to counterbalance high resource tiles.

You can have them be dead/resource-less and difficult (and even dangerous) to traverse without making them impassable, even for airplanes. When Hannibal crossed the Alps, he lost a lot of men and elephants because of the difficult conditions. In CivIII there was a little-known feature whereby a unit which spent too much time in unsettled jungle could die of disease. If you made the passage of mountains very difficult, slow and, in some cases, lethal, IMHO it would add another layer of interest to CivIV.

Let's face it, Civ is, at its core, very much about what you do with each of the tiles on the map. Creating tiles with which you can do nothing and which are impassable doesn't keep me from playing, but it sure doesn't enhance the game.

You say it doesn't, I say it does. Having impassable tiles makes the landscape more interesting from a strategic point. I also don't see why every tile should be workable. Sure, mountains, deserts and ice are tiles you can't "do" anything with, but so what? Who said every tile had to be useful? The purpose of the unworkable tiles is to create barren areas where it's not worth placing a city. To me, that makes the game more interesting. If you insist on every tile "enhancing" the game, go into worldbuilder and turn every land tile into grassland gems or pig. Yeah, that'll be exciting.

Everyone's entitled to an opinion, and by all means play the game the way that's most fun for you (surely someone must have modded this by now, with all the moaning we've had about it). However, I get the impression that a lot of the opposition to Civ 4-style mountains comes down to two reasons, neither of which do much for me.

Firstly, they look like mountain peaks and they're called 'peaks', yet they don't behave exactly like real life mountain peaks do. It's a bit like how people complain that the demographics screen counts walls as soliders, or that the cost called 'inflation' isn't really like inflation. It's just a name; these things are only really there for gameplay reasons.

Secondly, there's the 'gotta have it all' mentality. I want to build *all* the buildings in every city, I want *all* the other civs to be feel friendly towards me, I want to have *all* the wonders. I want *all* terrain types to be passable, and preferably workable. Why? It's not really going to hurt if you can't move through or work peaks. Your neighbours don't get to either. It reminds me of the Chinese game Go - when us Westerners first try it, we tend to want to fill in all of our territory with our colour stones - it can be quite difficult to explain to someone that this is the very opposite of what you need to do. We're so used to games where you have to actively grab every single item to win, or destroy every single one of your opponent's pieces, that it's quite a mental leap to play a game where your pieces only passively mark territory boundaries, and it's bad to place more than you need. I believe a similar mentality is at work when we feel angry that there are Civ tiles which we can't use. There's really no need for us to interfere with every single tile on the map, even though we're used to games where every single thing can be manipulated for our use. Let the mountain peaks go unmolested by our greedy civilizations! :lol:

If you want choke points, you could just draw lines on the map and "pretend" they're some natural boundary.

Thanks, but I'm happier having them marked out with a clearly visible terrain type which has at least some intuitive visual link to its function. It's just lucky for me that the game designers happened to do things my way; I wouldn't be devestated if they'd implemented mountains the way you want them, although I *do* draw the line (no pun intended) at arbitrary coloured markers representing natural boundaries, instead of having a nice straightforward terrain type.

After all, Hannibal crossed the Alps with elephants (!) to surprise the Romans in one of civilizations greatest events. Such an event is impossible in CivIV.

Okay, I can see how this might bother you if you feel inspired by this kind of thing. However, while the changes you suggest might make this particular event recreatable, there's a limited to how complex the game can be, and I'm sure there are thousands of important historic events which just won't fit into the current model. Civ is never going to be able to capture them all. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and it seems it's been drawn just in front of Hannibal's Alpine manoeuvres.

After all, Hannibal crossed the Alps with elephants (!) to surprise the Romans in one of civilizations greatest events. Such an event is impossible in CivIV.

Great example,I'm astonished about Sid missing such a fundamental part of the military story. Alps were treated in the deep even on Civ III where apline yellow troops were used to appear ......not to mention how many battles have been fought on Alps during WWI....and how many soldiers died over there in dramatic situations.....

Told that ... is there any easy to use mod or editor to allow both human and AI to use them ?

thanks

To be honest... you're not going to fly OVER Mount Everest. So it kind of makes sense.
Perhaps not in a helicopter but you sure could in a plane.
They go way higher then the peak of the Mount Blanc.

jets should cross mountains, but mountains shouldnt be workable. why settle neat mountains and complain they have no benefit? stop settling near mountains!

Why do people keep saying jets should cross mountains? They already can. Air doesn't move like normal units, they can recon, rebase, etc over mountains just fine.

You think Hannibal took his elephants over the peak of Mont Blanc? No, he went through one of the many valleys.

The way it is currently done in CivIV is correct, IMHO. Planes and bombers can fly overthem (well not really, but the operational distance isn't affected by mountains). And helicopters and all other land units are not capable of going over them.

The "Ice" terrain is saddened by this thread, because it too is a completely useless tile which blocks travel [over water] and has absolutely no tile yield potential ...

... and yet nobody cries over its existence in CivIV. And so somewhere beneath the Mountain tile is the sad, lonely and pathetic ice. :cry:

And what about desert not slowing you down and killing your units. Even today, people die crossing deserts. Why doesn't anybody cry about that not being in the game?

Seriously, though ... there are much more important things for the Firaxis programmers to expend their resources on than creating a "Mountain" tile to differentiate from the "Peak" tile then determining what yield and improvements it should have then blah blah blah.

It's just a tile in a silly game ... I doubt it's worth all the fuss ... as many have noted previously, very little of Civilization is very realistic.

However, while the changes you suggest might make this particular event recreatable, there's a limited to how complex the game can be, and I'm sure there are thousands of important historic events which just won't fit into the current model. Civ is never going to be able to capture them all. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and it seems it's been drawn just in front of Hannibal's Alpine manoeuvres.

I think my suggestion may have been a bit too nuanced. I like the idea of mountains being difficult to traverse and, in some cases, impossible to settle. I like that they create choke points (think "Khyber Pass"). But I also know more could be done with them, since it was done in CivIII. The "limit to how complex the game can be" and the "line has to be drawn somewhere" arguments are very weak, though. Heaven knows the game could have done without squealing pigs and animated sheep, which show the "line" may have been drawn in a very strange place.

As for the argument that "every tile needs to be workable," it's a straw man argument. I know I've never said it. But a big part of the human endeavor has always been to climb the highest mountain and to explore and, to the extent possible, exploit all the Earth's terrain. The treatment of mountains has good points. But the treatment of mountains in CivIII showed there's much greater opportunity if the treatment of mountains is enhanced. I'd gladly exchange a bunch of squealing pigs and dying soldiers doing back flips into a giant colosseum for that.

Perhaps not in a helicopter but you sure could in a plane.
They go way higher then the peak of the Mount Blanc.

Completely wrong,please visit this site .....and take a look at maximum altitude....not to mention the main picture :crazyeye:

http://www.defenseworld.net/html/features/helicopter_operations_india_s.htm

Told that, this is definetely an error, not a major one but it's a shame that mountains are aliens object not yet discovered ....