Real Natural Disasters

Real Natural Disasters 2.4.3

New version 2.4.3 as of 1.09 - Can be used with CQUI.

Supported languages: English, Português do Brasil, 汉语/漢語 (Simplified Chinese).

Adds a new gameplay mechanics - Natural Disasters - in the form of randomly happening events that damage some area. Implemented disasters: Earthquake, Flood, Meteor, Tornado, Tsunami, Volcano, Wildfire. New features in Version 2.0:
  • Visualizations
  • Disaster prevention mechanisms
  • Disaster resources
  • Many tweaks and improvements

Designed for vanilla and Rise & Fall. The mod seems to be working with Gathering Storm but since it has not been designed nor fully tested for GS - I do not recommend using it with GS.
Compatible with YnAMP.

Important note
This mod adds 4 new Lenses and needs one of the following mods enabled to work properly:
- More Lenses
- CQUI

Credits
- @Sknaht - Simplified Chinese localization
- @Rac - Português do Brasil localization, new awesome disaster icons

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This mod is no longer developed nor maintained on a regular basis. I will keep it fully working but it might take a bit of time after a patch breaks it. Please be patient.
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Version 1.0
How does it work?
The mechanism works like this:
  1. When the game starts or is loaded from a save file, the map is evaluated for each disaster to find possible places for it to happen.
  2. Each turn the mod checks if any disaster has happened. It is randomized and depends on couple parameters.
  3. If the answer is yes - the disaster of a chosen type happens with a specific magnitude, also randomized using a Gutenberg-Richter-type algorithm.
  4. The disaster affects all tiles in its range causing various types of damage, depending on magnitude and what is on the tile.
  5. A detailed devastation report is shown to the player on his/her turn.
  6. There are 4 new Lenses implemented: 3 shows possible places where a disaster my happen (risk areas) and 1 shows the recent disaster. The Lenses only show areas that the player has revealed.

Phase 1 - Map evaluation
Just a quick overview of where the event may happen:
  • Earthquake - hills and mountains that have at least one hill/mountain adjacent; some natural wonders are considered a mountain (everest, kilimanjaro, etc.)
  • Flood - all rivers and lakes
  • Meteor - land and coastal sea (excluded ocean so there won't be 'empty' hits)
  • Tornado - flatlands that have at least 2 other flatlands adjacent (so the tornado may actually move)
  • Tsunami - ocean areas 3-tiles away from land; tsunami always goes towards land
  • Volcano - all mountains
  • Wildfire - flammable tiles that have at least other flammable tile adjacent; flammable = forest, grass, some resources (e.g. tobacco, silk, wheat, etc.) As for now rainforest is not flammable.

Phase 2 - Did it happen?
Each disaster has a probability assigned on the tile level. So, e.g. the more mountains on the map - the more probable will be a volcano eruption, on Islands map expect more tsunamis, etc. The probabilities are calibrated in such a way that on the Continents map (a reference map) of the Standard size (8 players) for a Standard game pace (500 turns) there should be ~105 events for the entire game:
  • 25 earthquakes,
  • 15 floods,
  • 5 meteors,
  • 15 tornadoes,
  • 10 tsunamis,
  • 10 volcano eruptions,
  • 25 wildfires.
The above may change due to the map size - smaller maps will have less events (i.e. Tiny - 75), bigger more (i.e. Huge - 125). The probability of an event is also adjusted for Game Speed, so full length game will have the chosen number of events.

Phase 3 - Magnitude
Magnitude or the stregth of the event is also randomly chosen, but it follows the Gutenberg-Richter formula which was discovered for earthquakes. It says that the more powerful the event, the less probable it is. The correlation is logarithmic. The mod uses similar approach, so basically you can expect:
  • Cat 1 - 45% of events (minimal damage)
  • Cat 2 - 25% of events (moderate damage)
  • Cat 3 - 15% (extensive damage)
  • Cat 4 - 8% (extreme damage)
  • Cat 5 - 5% (catastrophic damage)
  • Cat X - ~1% (total damage)
Basically, the magnitude is a number in range 0..100. Each disaster type has a different range of magnitudes possible. It allows to simulate various effects for different types of disasters.

Phase 4 - Affected area
Each disaster works in a different way.
  • Earthquake - area around starting point (epicenter), 3-tiles radius
  • Flood - a second starting point is chosen adjacent to the initial one and from them the water flows 2-tiles into any flatlands tile (so, hills and mountains are not flooded)
  • Meteor - 2-tiles around epicenter (hit point)
  • Tornado - it moves in a straight line, up to 5 tiles from starting point; a hill or a mountain may change its direction; cannot go into water
  • Tsunami - a 2-directional wave is generated from epicenter that goes towards land; the wave goes for 5 tiles, so usually it reaches 2-3 tiles into the land. The wave is stopped by mountains and ice caps.
  • Volcano - 2-tile aroun d the volcano-mountain.
  • Wildfire - all flammable tiles into a specific direction (wind direction, actually) up to 4-tiles away from the starting point.
Magnitude is lowered with each tile away from epicenter. Usually by -10, in some cases -5 (e.g flood and wildfire).

Phase 5 - Devastation
Depending on the magnitude, the stronger the disaster, the more damage it does. Basically, magnitude is used to assess the final effect. Assuming that M is the magnitude for a given tile:
  • Units - can be killed with probability M/2, otherwise wounded for M hp. The unit may die due to wounds.
  • Improvements - destroyed with M/2 probability, otherwise pillaged. Yes - the farms, mines, etc. are actually removed from the map if destroyed.
  • City - losses some percentage of population, between M/4 to M/2. For average (50) disasters a city of 10 population loses 3 pop.
  • Districts - only Encampment and City Center - lose M*2 or M*3 hitpoints, depending on whether there are walls or not.
  • Buildings - destroyed with M/2 probability, pillaged with M probability, there's a chance that they will survive untouched
A detailed report is presented for the platyer - see attached pictures.

Phase 6 - Lenses and Report
For each disaster type a map of potential starting points is shown (risk areas). They have different colors.
The recent disaster is shown using specific disaster type colour with white line around it and starting point is marked with ZOC sign. When you select Recent Disaster Lens, a popup info with the report will be opened as well, so you can access it any time you want.

Version 1.1
- Startup Options that allow to select number of disasters, their strength and range.
- Disasters frequency is automaticaly adjusted also for Game Speed.
- Volcano Range is 2 due to ashes (not only magma).
- Improvements may sometimes survive (same as Buildings in Cities).
- Player's civ name is highlighted in Green in the report, so it's easy to find.

Version 1.2 - Improvements
- You can now turn down the volume of sound warnings using the volume slider for Special Effects in Audio Options.
- In the report, if the civ has not been met, its name will not be shown.
- 'Free' turn (no disaster, only info screen) will happen at 1st turn, no matter what the starting Era is.
- "No disasters" option added for modpacks that would include RND but someone wanted to play without RND
- Fixed some warnings when using CQUI, now the logs should be clear.

Version 2.0
  1. Visualizations for events
    • Earthquake - there are small fires and smoke coming from the ground, area is covered in light ash-clouds.
    • Meteor - there's a hit on the ground, and explosion and meteor shards are scattered around with some dust.
    • Volcano - there's an eruption out of the mountain, then it's covered in smoke, you can see sparks and fire, and ash cloud covers surrounding area.
    • Wildfire - there are fires all around!
    • If disaster area is visible, the camera will move there, so you can see those animations. However, if they are far, you might miss the begining.
    • Also, there's some glitch in the game and not all assets are displayed. You can observe this in Earthquake, some tiles have all animations, and some just few or none. No idea why this happens.
  2. Prevention mechanisms
    • Prevention basically means that Magnitude of a disaster on a tile that has some active protection is decreased by some number (10-20 usually). This in turn means:
      • All HP-related damage is decreased (so, units and district defenses)
      • Probability of damage and destruction is decreased
    • There are 2 buildings that actually prevent a disaster from happening within some radius around them.
    • Disaster Research Center - gives early warning for everybody within 6-tiles radius; decreases Magnitude by 10 for all disasters; Campus, +3 science
    • River Dam - prevents Flood within 3-tile radius (flood cannot start there but can spread to those tiles); Industrial Zone, must be adjacent to a River and needs Factory; gives +1 prod and +1 food to all River-tiles within a City
    • Fire Station - prevents Wildfire within 2-tile radius (fire cannot start there but it can spread there) and protects entire City from all disasters (Magnitude -10); Encampment, +2 prod
    • Breakwaters - protection against Tsunamis; Magnitude -20 within 2-tile radius; built in Harbor, also give +1 food and +1 prod to tiles adjacent to that Harbor
    • Emergency Shelter - this is the only building that protects city's population; Magnitude -20 for probability of citizen loss; must have DRC to built ES (need a warning to use shelter)
    • Project 'Disaster Resistant Structures' - protects all buildings and districts; once completed, it decreases Magnitude by 10 for all disasters; the price is increased cost of buildings (when constructing a building, -5 prod modifier is applied to the city); also the project itself is quite expensive (simulates cost of upgrading all existing buildings to new standards)
    • The parameter 'Disaster Range' in Advanced Options is also applied to the range of prevention buildings, i.e. if you choose +1 not only disaster will have bigger range, but also all buildings will have range increased by 1, too.
    • Prevention is additive but only from different buildings i.e. you can have -10 from DRC and -10 from Fire Station totaling -20, but additional DRC in range will not give anything more.
  3. Disasters will change some tile yields within their area, temporarily or permanently
    • Standard game resources spawn sometimes
      • Disaster area and magnitude are used to randomly decide how many resources are spawned. They should be rather rare, e.g. Earthquake of Magnitude 70 and area 37 (quite powerful) has ~60% chance to spawn a resource, Wildfire/Flood of Magnitude 40 and area 15 tiles (typical) has 25% to spawn a resource.
      • Earthquake - "mineable" resources (mine+quarry)
      • Meteor and Volcano - metals
      • Flood - farm-type
      • Wildfire - camp-, pasture- and plantation-type
      • Tsunami - sea resources on water and same as flood on land
    • There are 10 new resources specific for disasters.
    • Permanent disaster sites - meteor crater, volcano crater, earthquake epicenter
      • They spawn randomly after a really huge disaster (>70); they give science, culture and faith
    • Temporary disaster sites - for tornado, tsunami and 3 above in case when no permanent site will spawn
      • They can be Small or Large; small last 4-8 turns, large last 8-12 turns
      • They give science, culture and large ones also faith
    • Disaster specific resources
      • Can be temporary or permanent (random process); temporary means that the resource will disappear after several turns; you can see in the popup window for how many turns it has spawned
      • Flooded land - +1 food, always temporary
      • Meteor shards - +1 prod and +1 gold
      • Volcanic Ash - +1 food and +1 prod
      • Burned Ground - +1 science, -1 food (yes, minus)
      • Burned Ground with acess to Fresh Water - +1 science, +1 food (plus)
    • All disaster resources except permanent sites can be harvested by a Builder. Those harvests are quite juicy.
  4. Tweaks and improvements
    • Events will get slightly stronger with Eras, so the investments in prevention will be prudent; as for now 1 point of Magnitude per 25 turns (game speed adjustable)
    • Earthquakes - seismic areas are "smoothed" - singular / double tiles are removed, some gaps are filled, they are "more continuous" now; check Earth map for this!
    • Tsunami - slightly better algorithm that produces less tiles but better placed, ignores small (1-2 tiles) islands and focuses on real land masses
    • Tornado - limited to latitudes 20..60 on both hemispheres, also they don't start on coastal land tiles.
    • Volcanos - appear now only in within seismic areas detected by Earthquake algorithm
    • Wildfire - responds to forest/jungle removal and re-forestation
    • Sounds are not so loud (I actually managed to change this within WWise, not touching the .wav files at all)
    • Also, the sound will only play if disaster area is visible (at least 1 tile). If not - the window will open, but with no sound.
    • Mod saves data into save files. So, when you reload the recent (or current) disaster will be available, also places where all previous disasters had happened.
Author
Infixo
Downloads
7,491
Views
7,491
First release
Last update
Rating
4.20 star(s) 5 ratings

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Latest updates

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  2. Version 2.4.2 September Patch

    Version 2.4.2 - Updated for September 2019 Patch.
  3. Version 2.4.1 Icons, pt_BR

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  4. Version 2.4.0 Gathering Storm patch

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  5. Version 2.3 - Wonders immune, QoL tweaks

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  6. Version 2.2 YnAMP, Simplified Chinese

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  8. Version 2.1 Rise & Fall update

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    Version 1.2 - You can now turn down the volume of sound warnings using the volume slider for...

Latest reviews

Incredible mod with beautiful complexity by one of the best modders in civ history
Thats...somewhat interesting.

Thoughts:
I'd actually dont need reports for every disaster (and I also don't understand it, mostly - structure, logic...) - maybe optional or not needed at all (or we have notifications area in Civ6 - can it be shorten and placed there..?

Sound is a bit more devastating then the disaster :)

I also tried it with maxed settings... well, I haven't felt the apocalypsis. It was somewhat like "Huh, smth happened somewhere, my lands are in ruins :D ... oh, epicenter... nice.
BUT: it sometimes crashed the whole game totally (just quiting to desktop, no messages or something. On my turn, at volcano and earthquake...)

Any chance of animation like Civ6 default disasters ? ;)
Excellent mod in my opinion. One might wonder how come that Infixo makes the game better than the developers who are getting paid.
Good mod, in theory. In application, the obnoxious buzzer sounding every turn gets old fast, and can't be turned off. Redundant reports every turn that must be click-closed is also annoying.
Very fun. Could be a base feature!
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