Seasons in Civilization IV

Yet another topic that I was unable to find in the list of Civ4 threads. (Not that I'm openning this thread for that reason, mind you.)

For those of you that remember, one of Civ2's unique modding traits was that you could change Rules and graphics--even events--mid-game. (This isn't possible in Civ3 because the program reads the game data from the .bic/.bix.biq file rather than the saved game file.) This was fully exploited by modders to the point where most scens with turns of monthly increments would prompt the player to load a whole new set fo rules and terrain appropriate to winter conditions and then change them back again on the appropriate turn.This great 'feature' has been dearly missed in Civ3 and because it's lacking this, Civ3 scens will always be inferior to Civ2 scens in this sense.

The changing of seasons (mainly from warm conditions to cold conditions) has literally dictated the course of wars and the development of societies thoughout history.


Where Civ4 is concerned, I can think of script types (using Python) that could potentially create the effect of changing weather condidtions:

- Change values of individual items
- Change what graphics folder the program associates with what item

Example:

- Wheeled unit base MP value reduced in winter
- Plains graphics changes to snow-covered terrain
- Roads give less movement bonus
- Irrigation gives no food output

...and so on.


But this is complicated to do and it assumes that the scripting language can do any of this (is appropriately 'hooked.'

It seems to me that something as fundamental as this should form a part of Civ's vanilla game. Here's what I'm proposing:

Alternate Terrain:

- Each terrain type has a 'sister' terrain type.
- Default game set to switch alternate terrain on or off based on the month.
- Feature would only be available to scens dealing in turn increments within a year.

In the editor, it would be nothing more than a caption titiled, 'Alternate Terrain.' Whatever terrain is indicated in the caption, the selected terrain changes to in winter months (or whatever name the player chooses to give the alternate trigger).

This wouldn't deviate from Firaxis' 'quest for simplicity,' just add a bit to startegy and that graphic-based 'atmosphere' that so many of you care so much about.

(I may make a mock up image of this using the Civ3 Editor's Terrain window so you can get a clear idea.)


That's the simplest way of doing it that I could think of.

No real interest huh? Well at least Firaxis is keeping up with player wants here.

Sounds great. Maybe they could also have yearly seasons, but in the World Maker (starting normal game), you could set how often seasons changed. Also, the 'average' season could last much longer than normal, because it would be kind of annoying to have a great settler house become dormant because of tundra every 9 turns. The setting on the World Maker could be : No seasons, mild seasons (low effect [10-20% affected]), moderate seasons (effect [25-33%]), and raging seasons (high effect [40-66%]).

World seasons: Good idea. Kind of like Total War where each year is different (e.g. a year with an early winter--random value--results in less food output).

World Maker Settings: Also good; the equivilant of Barbarian settings only using weather.

I'm going to think about that...

We come back to the classic argument of time scale. I know that turns just represent some passage of time, but in general we mean years. Your exaggerated seasons system(which I wouldn't necessarily mind) is just that, exaggerated. However seasonal and climatic conditions, as well as climate shifts, should affect the game.

What I am thinking is 'climate zones' that shift around based on some geological model. Eventually human activity such as large scale lumber, industry in rivers, etc., would also cause climatic shifts. These zones modify and could possibly change terrain types over time. Of course climate shifts really are only noticeably over many centuries, at least until modern times.

Part of climate determination would be mountain ranges, so stuff on the sea-ward side is extra moist while stuff on the inland side would be extra dry.

Forests would also factor in, and more stuff as well.

You can separate the turn based time scale with the seasonal time scale. Maxis did it with Sim City 4. The day-night cycle is there just for looks and is independent of the speed in which you run the time in the game.

I was also thinking of introducing a day night cycle into Civ4, my inspiration being the temporary Civ4 boxart with the lit up cities on the night side of our alternate earth.



The night side would exist as a band of darkness with the peripheries of the band being dawn and dusk. The band would move accross the map each turn. This would be purely for aesthetics, although Firaxis may introduce gameplay elements into this. For example, WW2 era bombers being less effective is bombing cities at night, while modern era bombers like the Stealth Bombers would have no such penalty. Naturally, there will be an option to turn it off if the player finds it distracting.

Given the game is now fully 3-D, seasons and day-night cycles only require new art, primarily in texturing so short of Firaxis being short handed in the art department, its quite doable

Climate Zones: Would be nice but WAY more compicated to program than it sounds. My Alterne Terrain system can fill that function by randomizing alternative terrain (i.e. instead of having it switch on queue). So if you want highland and lowland to have different climate zones, just give them different alternative terrain so when a'cold front' hits (randomized switch), they have different results.

Night map: This has been used effectively in some RTS games but seems a bit much for something as ridiculously simple as Civ.

changing seasons are not real practical in a turn based game where one turn is at least 1 year long.

SMAC had climatic zones to a limite degree. Most of it was local humidity and elevation, but mountain ranges did matter. Climate shifts might be harder to do, but would be an interesting factor in the latter game. Imagine regions that used to be uber-fertile having turned to desert. Of course oil might be underneath :grin:

Climate Zones:

Refresh my memeory, how did SMAC do this? (Haven't played in a while.)

Technically, you can already do this with Civ3 using the resource apppearance/disappearance denominators (e.g. Fertile Land resource may appear on Grassland tiles and then disappear).

It's not that I'm against what you're saying but it doesn't seem to fit with the game's (really) simple format. (It would have to be something really simple like what I was saying about the terrain swapping, for example or even an application similar to the Civ3 example I just gave.)

changing seasons are not real practical in a turn based game where one turn is at least 1 year long.

Click to expand...

See first post. (I initially meant changing seasons to function only in month-based turns).

You could apply seasons to year-based game using the alternative terrain if they changed the way time worked (see Time in Civ4 thread for that).

SMAC had cellular automation in regard to moisture, but nothing as sohpisticated as conscience climates. Resources are usually not an efficient way to simulate climate, which I wanted to change over the millenia. Europe expereinced a few mini-ice ages during the middle ages.

The Civ3 resources thing was just an example of what can be done by modding.

I know what you mean, but I'm asking that you find a REALLY simple way of applying this to what you know of Civ4 thus far. See Civrules' thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=108315&page=3


(Another advantage of using the alternate terrain thing is that you can mod it to create a different effect using Python (e.g. x turn = trigger alternate terrain in maprect = x,y,x,y,x,y,x,y; to use the Europe Ice Age you mentioned, area of Europe get alternate terrain starting on x turn and ending on x turn).

Actually with Python that kind of functionality should already exist. Assuming that, if they could get some kind of functionality for climates as well, then you could use either or both for some really interesting effects. Imagine adding in desert creep, glaciers, and even el nino. You could also have scripted terrain changes or even scripted climate changes. Having both functions increases the options exponentially.

Yes but the features have to be in the game first (i.e. you can't script stuff that isn't an already-existing function in the game). For example, if you want storm systems, they have to be in the game, unless you mod some kind of 'storm' terrain that appears randomly within a defined area of the map (e.g. el nino). Desertification might be possible using the present system (e.g. if desert terrain at x,y + 200 turns of Irrigation in adjacent sqaure, then adjacent sqaure changed to desert). Something similar for glaciers only in reverse (glacier disappears).

Where alternate terrain is concerned, you could do it via scripting by simply defining an area of the map (or the whole map and changing any squares with x to x and then changing it back on another turn--repeat for each terrain type). But if this is to be part of the vanilla game, it should be like default script or something because you can't expect players who have no interest in modding to do this (especially if its done using Python format which requires at least a basic understanding of programming).

[I think where scripting is concerned, what will happen is that those modders that know how to use it will juts put together individual events and then those who only have a liited understanding can just cut and paste the events into whatever order they want and only have to change some basic values like turn #. Eventually, people will just learn by example.]

sealman said:

changing seasons are not real practical in a turn based game where one turn is at least 1 year long.

Click to expand...

Although seasons changing is a nice idea, I have to agree with sealman.

But perhaps there could be a random bit of a climate change, like the comet that exploded in Earth's atmosphere causing the Dark-Ages.

sealman said:

changing seasons are not real practical in a turn based game where one turn is at least 1 year long.

Click to expand...

I'll third this too. Even though I do like the winter graphics for Civ3.

I agree that random climate effects would be a really worthwhile addition.

What I don't understand is why changing seasons aren't practical? (Perhaps I was not clear the first and second time: alternate terrain (i.e. going from regular terrain to winter terrain) is meant to be used in scens that with monthly turn integers. Not the regular game.

Well, if Python has the functionality I think it does, I guess I can always mod-in seasons like in the example I gave earlier.

I think its a rally great idea, especially for modern-days wars that last a couple of years.

It could also give many other possibilities in mods. For example, the terrain change could lead to the dry seasons or to the monsoon in Vietnam war. The possibilities are numerous!

Hands up for this suggestion!

especially for modern-days wars that last a couple of years.

Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean by this but hey, you agree with this so I won't question!

I mentioned before that in Civ3 I used resources to reflect climactic changes (i.e. 'High Fertility' resource appears on Grasslands, Plains, and Floodplain so you get a Terrain-based GA that gives the civ extra growth until the resource disappears at random). I can picture an element of this in Civ4 where you get a terrain change only instead of being one-time, it works according to some algorithm meant to simulate changes in climate patterns.

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BTW, just realised someone already posted a thread on this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=85907

Oh well. (Think of this as 'Seasons: Take II'. )

yoshi said:

Not sure what you mean by this but hey, you agree with this so I won't question!

Click to expand...

Sorry about my english! (I'm french)
What I meant is that season features would work better in modern wars that only last a couple of years, where a turn equals a month. you could make the terrain change every 6 months/turns for example.

I dont think it could work on a standard game or in mods like the roman empire, where a turn equals several years.