Environmental choices

Civilizations should need to drink fresh water just like they should need to eat.

We has humans have had a huge and often negative impact on our planet.

. . . Often the rivers by towns would become so full of sewer waste etc the water would become undrinkable. Easter island used to be covored by trees till civs cut everything down and the environmental destruction destroyed their society. The dust bowl of the 30's.

. . . But environmental responsability is not at all reflected in civilization. At best they make it sound like an inevitable consequence of modern tech, otherwise it gets no mention at all. From ancient times on mankind has had an effect on its environment. And that effect has always come around to bite them in the ass.

. . . You overwork land and the land becomes less productive over time, you come up with tech to produce more from the land and you put poisons in the earth, the food becomes less nutritional (you have to eat more to get the same benefit calorie and nutritent wise)


. . . We could have an environmental tech tree, This would branch out and not be too dependent on alot of the normal tech but could cross paths as well.(optionally using regular or enviromnetal techs to reach the tech of either sometimes) Environmental techs would be technics as well as science that causes a more responsable way to handle our land & latter on, earth. Environmental tech will take more "beakers" then normal tech. Also things done via environmental tech will be a little less productive then normal tech. But environmental tech will avoid problems that the normal techs will get.

. . . Like land becoming less productive over time. Like water being less drinkable. Like negative health effects from foul air, water and land as well as chemicals from products we use. Like loss of natural resources. Also environmental techs will mean alternatives, like to that of oil for example. Speaking of such, you should use up such resources over time.

. . . Modern cities should require power, the source of that power will depend on which tech tree you follow, which will in turn effect other things. Like building a coal plant will be cheap, but you will require a city working a coal square, and getting nothing but coal out of that square (no production or food etc) and when you run out of coal the square becomes unusuable for anything else for quite some time, depending on what environmental techs you have.(what technic was used to get the coal)

. . . Irrigation limitations (only so many squares from the source and only downhill till latter tech) Rivers drying up from being used up and stopping short of reaching the ocean and so on

. . . These ideas have been brewing in my head for some time. I wanted to work it out percisely so I could make it nice and concise. But I wanted to some of the basic ideas out there. The details can be worked out by the lot of us latter.

. . . It doesn't necessarily have to be complicated, but I strongly feel in civ games the enviroment should effect and be effected by us.

. . . Oh one last idea, storms. They could travel across landscape and ocean causing damage and potentially ships to sink That could be the cause of loss of early ships, that and them being lost (a lost ship might go in one direction when you tell it to go another, till it comes across familiar landmarks) Over time the ship would lose health as it runs out of food and is eventually lost.

Some other ideas along these lines

I started a thread a while back about fresh water as a finite resource:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=122699
It died because nobody could pin down a simple, effective way for it to work.

If I understand what you are getting at here I am against it. I didn't like pollution in Civ before, and I really dislike some of the implications of your realworld arguments. Sorry, but I cannot support any of this environmentalist propaganda. Furthermore, I find it unrealistic and far more than I would want to think about in a game.

Find WHAT unrealistic? Please be more specific.

BTW I am NOT talking about civ3's so called pollution system.(sorry excuse for one)

Implication? Propaganda?! You got your head stuck up your ass if you don't think environmental issues are real. I suppose your one of those who think the first mission to the moon was faked, JFK was assassinated by the government, aliens exist and kidnap us on a regular bases, or that global warming is a 'debate' (only by drunks in a bar) and not a known fact by everyone in the scientific community.

The issue of how we use our land has been around as long as people have been around making active changes to our environment. And environmental impact of people effects them as much as they effect it. Thats what things like water treatment plants are all about, protecting us from our own environmental impact.

Why not include that which has been a part of civilizations, for as long as there has been civilizations? It would add dimension and strategy to the game, providing different ways to approach development, which would make the game more fun.

Texan is right. Things like this would unbalance the game. it might be more relistic but just not workable. Storms would be interesting but nearly pointless. remember a ship represents a small fleet not an individual ship. Fleets dont disapear in one turn in the real world. ALso how many storm fronts last for 100 years?

The idea of bringing bad consequences on foolish environmental policy is a very good one.

Unlike the fantasy dreams of Texan General, this is actually realistic and not propaganda : humans DO have a large effect on environment, and have to cope up with it.

I would prefer a much more "conceptualized" way to represent that, though.
Something like, when you start polluting, fresh water starts to require money (depolluting water and so on). And it seems that the "health" system actually does just that. So I wait and hope.

@future
Since when did it take a bunch of guys on horses a 100 years to travel a few miles? Civ has never been realistic when it comes to the amount of time reflected in each turn or the amount of population reflected in each pop head.

Things like what would be imbalancing how? Please be more specific in your feedback.

@Akka
Well spending money to clean up water should only be available as a option when you get the right tech, Meanwhile less water is available to the civ. The pollution gradually clearing itself up over time. Swamps nearby will allow for much faster self cleaning.

Likewise overworking the land or polluting it could cause it to be less productive in food produced.

Working the land harder would have its own perks for those who are willing to conquire and move on when the land becomes wasted.

Actually I heard the first civ that developed crops had to move on because the land eventually became so barren. A area called the "fertile crescent, the very first farmlands, eventually became a wasteland.

TruePurple said:

Since when did it take a bunch of guys on horses a 100 years to travel a few miles?

Things like what would be imbalancing how? Please be more specific in your feedback.

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Ok

Irrigation limitations (only so many squares from the source and only downhill till latter tech) Rivers drying up from being used up and stopping short of reaching the ocean and so on

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This idea is the primary one. Either you worded it badly or you are talking about a limit on irigation similair to the one on troops. This is a bad idea since it would throw off new cities and make perfectly good land unusable. If you look at the real world there is farms every where that isn't a town, shopping mall, or amusement park. I could understand makeing the farms less productive early on but with the intruduction of concepts like no till they have double food production but your basic consequence system seems to complicated and unbalanced.

The reason i say it takes 1 hundred years is that it is in game turns. 1turn =100years. I like the idea of storms but find it unnecesary for the game.

Only actual game factor effected by the number of years each turn supposedly takes is tourist attractions. So years passed each turn doesn't matter and is not worth mentioning.

future said:

If you look at the real world there is farms every where...

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Thanks to modern day technology, pipes pumps etc. As far as having a non irrigated farm, I didn't mention how much less food would be available as a result. Perhaps a RNG could determine how much rainfall a area got, if not enough food production suffers, except for irrigated areas. Food production units being smaller then the standard 1-3 units of previous games. Aqueducts actually built on the map will help irrigate towns and squares otherwise too far from a fresh water source.

future said:

with the intruduction of concepts like no till they have double food production

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I'm confused, is this something your recommending?

@TruePurple: I like the idea of env'tal egradation occuring over time and definitely think it should be implemented somehow. Furthermore, I think it would be a great equalizer, not an imbalancer, for civs. I mean, if the fertile crescent and the nile delta were as productive now as they were a couple thousand years ago, we might not have much a euro-centric world. Their location was an advantage then, but as time passed and human impacts began to take thier toll, the resource advantage turned elsewhere.

Here's how I would implement it: any tile you work has the possibility of being degraded/transformed into another, less productiveterrain type. For example, a grassland tile worked intensively for 40 turns might turn into a plain, or even a desert. If you leave it alone for another 40 turns or so, it might revert to a grassland, thus your terrain becomes a little more fluid with human intervention. How do you combat this? Technology. As you begin to learn more about sustaining your land (new agricultural/forestry/mining practices), the time it would take to destroy your land would increase.

I supposethat technology might bring negative consequences as well (as most technology tends to do!), but I really hadn't thought that much into it when I started this post...Whadda y'all think?

Its some clever ideas but switching terrain types (even with more types to switch to) is generally using a wide brush for fine tuning.

Those who take the industries tech tree could use a farm tile up faster but produce more food each turn. Environmental tech tree society it would be the opposite. Overall the environmental tech would get more food. But environmental tech would take longer to develop. And the industrial civ could simply move on and still be ahead.

What does it mean to use up a tile? Each farm tile would have a land weariness factor, this would be mostly hidden (unless you get this or that tech) as the land is used, depending on how many pop heads are farming it. (two pop heads working a land square would use up the land more then twice as fast) Anyways, 50% land weariness could cut production of that land by 50%.

The land would of course recover over time being unused. Techs like growing ground cover will allow this to happen faster. Pollution could be a form of land weariness, that takes longer to go away and can cause other problems like health issues.

Part of this could be mobile societies. Nomadic society has not been represented in the game. It should be. Nomadic methods would be useful for those societies that lean towards industrial or environmental. The industrials can use it to escape the damage they do. The environmental can use to to shift the wear and tear on the land. Being nomadic would have its own positives and negatives but mostly be for early game.

Well thats one approach. I welcome even more ideas like those of guava.

Hmmm, in the early age people were more interested in living day to day, than preserving the earth (wait, that's also true with much of today's world, in third-world countries). It would be unrealistic to even allow environmental options. And would you really want to be the one to have the environmentally conscious civilization? Yeah, sure, you get long term benefits, but for the first couple hundred or so turns, your opponents will have food, production, and consequently monetary advantages over you, advantages that they can and will use to mow your civilization over, and take your pure, pure land.

Also, I'm not really sure how much fun it would be worrying about my detrimental effect on the world while I'm raising a civilization to rule it. The earliest I think environmentalism should take a direct role (by way of technologies) would be the late-industrial age.

sorta.

If anything it would need to be something that just makes farms better. AkA no till

Hmmm, in the early age people were more interested in living day to day, than preserving the earth

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. . . People have been learning and forgetting that proper use of land has been crucial to survival for a long time. Some technology can temporarily protect us from our own problems, to a certain degree.

. . . We can work out the specific details of what techs provide what benefits and come with what drawbacks here. As well as systems of land uses, their pro's and cons. I've been trying to work out more specific details myself, its not easy but not impossible either. I welcome ideas from civ posters, I know we have smart people here.

. . . Choices of tech and land/water use would provide some interesting balance choices for players which can translate into more interesting game play.

. . . Environmental impact is what society is all about, from early times and not just industrial times. Managing water and land meant life and death for many people. thats why some societies were nomadic, overgrazing a spot meant it won't be productive for a awhile, but moving herds allowed you to get more from the land.

. . . No till, crop rotation, patchwork croping, fertilizer technology, transportation of water (irrigation via water ditches, via sprinklers, via drip pipes, aqueducts, pipes) sewage waste management methods, chimneys (which allowed for more efficient use of wood burning for warmth, crucial when many trees had to be cut down to keep a household warm each year and wood starts becoming scarce) and so on

If you ignored such issues, you could be screwed.

. . . Do all these factors need to be represented in the game? Heavens no, but if we could boil down these concepts into some simple reasonably concise mechanisms.. It we could have a funer, more realistic and maybe even educational to a degree. Plus gamers might actually give thought to such issues in RL once they realize it was a crucial part of survival in older times.

. . . Fun us the biggest reason to incorporate such factors in the game. Balancing resource use is a challenging fun factor in other campaign games. I see no reason Civ4 couldn't have a more mature form of such. It would help the game feel more real too, being able to be in there making such survival calls, and helps prevent the game from becoming too formulaic (do this this and this and you win)

The environmental issues are way overdone in real life and in civ too.
All that blahblah about greenhouse effect is taking too serious and is given too much credit.
It can also be a normal process to have global warming, as this is common through history (you have cold periods and warm periods) no need to worry.

Regarding the game: I am glad the whole pollution thing is out in Civ4. It just didn't make sence that such a big area would not produce a thing anymore due to pollution. The health system is better.

. . . It is very serious, watched a thing on pbs about it. How melting glacier's add fresh water to areas around greenland which disrupted ocean thermosystems which meant some places getting much colder (because these thermobelts are responsible for delivering heat from the equator) How global warming is responsible for continuous drought in other parts of the world. How moose and such face dwindingly population because of warmer weather, this is due to extra mosquitoes driving them to areas that don't provide good food, also causing extra snowfall in the winter making it hard for them to reach food then as well. How its devastating forests by making conditions where damaging bugs can get them. Florida could go under water as well as other low lying places(some already have) It means more extreme weather as well, since its the suns heat that fuels such weather.

. . . I could go on and on. Global warming sounds mild, but the effects are profound and clearly observable in many locations in the world. Too much credit? Most people don't give these issues enough credit, in many ways, with issues like global warming, we are already pretty screwed,(survival as a race? Sure, pay major time as a race? you bet!) its just a matter of how bad its going to be. It is not "normal" and it is man caused. Sasoundwave, you have no idea what your talking about. Moving on..

. . . Regarding the game, stop referencing civ3!.. please. I am not talking about civ3's pathetic excuse for an somewhat annoying pollution system. You are capable of talking about new ideas, without mixing them up with how they worked in civ3, right?!

TruePurple said:

Implication? Propaganda?! You got your head stuck up your ass if you don't think environmental issues are real. I suppose your one of those who think the first mission to the moon was faked, JFK was assassinated by the government, aliens exist and kidnap us on a regular bases, or that global warming is a 'debate' (only by drunks in a bar) and not a known fact by everyone in the scientific community.

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TruePurple said:

Sasoundwave, you have no idea what your talking about. Moving on..

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Texan General, sassoundwave, please ignore this guy. Insults, belittling and personal attacks are his standard way to relate with others that don't share his personal view of things. He's a troll, plain and simple. Also note the mispelling of sassoundwave's name, a standard strategy used by trolls to upset people. Just leave him alone. Trolls can't stand being ignored

Perhaps, but he's still right about the environmental issues.

Akka said:

Perhaps, but he's still right about the environmental issues.

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Although global warming is a known fact, there's no general scientific consensus about the actual magnitude of the phenomenon, expecially regarding the long-term impact on the worldwide climate. Science is not faith.

About the "perhaps" thing, Texan General expressed his disagreement with this idea motivating it with its implicit endorsement of environmentalist views he's quite skeptic upon, and the smart guy in question replied with personal attacks. If it doesn't mean being a troll, tell me what it means.

Yes, there is not a consensus about the magnitude of the mess. But there is a consensus (at least among scientists not paid by corporation, strangely) that it will be at least a BIG mess.

And about the "perhaps", Texan General didn't expressed simply his disagreement, he flagged the very idea of environmental problem as "propaganda" and told that it was unrealistic.
That's ignorance at best, willfull idiocy at worst. Fact is fact.