Tundra buff?

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Jun 26, 2012
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With GnK desert starts are now not only viable, but positively sought out by some players. By comparison, the other traditional weak start, tundra, has not really become any more useful.

The tundra faith pantheon is much weaker than the desert one, and there is no tundra petra. There are also no 'tundra flood plains', and snow gives you no bonus, even on hills. Ice pack messes with your naval plans, and it seems to me barbs are more likely to spawn. There is also no 'tundra solar plant'.

Historically tundra has been hard to farm :), but desert isn't any better.

I was wondering if others shared my opinion that tundra starts need a buff for the sake of balance, if not why not, and if so what bonuses would be cool?

I thought of a few possiblities:

Russian bear stylee, units in cold enemy territory could recieve a combat penalty of some kind.

There is loads of research in the poles atm, there could be a science bonus like per tile bonus on snow or pack ice, or maybe boost to observatory power/research centre.

Cold waters are generally more fertile than milder seas (excluding reefs), perhaps a food boost to sea tiles/resources/water buildings

There's currently political beef over north pole oil, there could be a stronger bias to strategic resources at the poles.

What do people think?
 
I think one of the big problems of Tundra start will be the lag of food. In Deserts, you will have Flood Plains and Oasises to help you out, but in Tundra there are really not a lot of things apart from the occasional Deer to give you food. You are able to farm Tundra river tiles, but they still give reduced food compared to normal terrains.

I guess oceanic resources like Fish and Whales can help with your start, but this will force you to develop a research path that you would (at least I would) normally leave until later, which puts you behind compared to other civs. Also, comparing Desert to Tundra, I think there is a larger range of bonus and luxury resources available in Desert - or am I mistaken? Plus many of the resources that appear in Tundra - Iron and Oil for instance - will not help you out in early game.

You are also right that the Tundra faith pantheon is less useful because it doesn't trigger on forested Tundra tiles - after all, the Desert one does trigger on Flood Plains, if I'm not mistaken, which makes a huge difference.

As for what to do about it, I'm not sure. Most of the suggestions you list would only kick in mid-to-late game, which would be too late. I do think rivers in arctic regions are usually very rich in fish, so somehow giving a food bonus to river tiles might help out, make it come with Fishing/Sailing technology perhaps? Of course this would sort of clash with the ideas of farms being the improvement you put down on Tundra/River tiles. A wonder á-la Petra would also be a cool boost.

Apart from that, from a logical point of view, I guess it makes sense that Tundra start is less fertile, but I do agree it makes for poor game balance.
 
comparing Desert to Tundra, I think there is a larger range of bonus and luxury resources available in Desert - or am I mistaken? Plus many of the resources that appear in Tundra - Iron and Oil for instance - will not help you out in early game.

You are also right that the Tundra faith pantheon is less useful because it doesn't trigger on forested Tundra tiles - after all, the Desert one does trigger on Flood Plains, if I'm not mistaken, which makes a huge difference.

As for what to do about it, I'm not sure. Most of the suggestions you list would only kick in mid-to-late game, which would be too late. I do think rivers in arctic regions are usually very rich in fish, so somehow giving a food bonus to river tiles might help out, make it come with Fishing/Sailing technology perhaps? Of course this would sort of clash with the ideas of farms being the improvement you put down on Tundra/River tiles. A wonder á-la Petra would also be a cool boost.

Apart from that, from a logical point of view, I guess it makes sense that Tundra start is less fertile, but I do agree it makes for poor game balance.

Yes, resources are more varied in deserts. there are also natural wonders like Mt.Sinai that spawn in desert, wheras nat wonders seem to be rare in tundra. Yes, desert folklore gives +1 faith on every desert/flood plains/oasis, everything.

I'd intended the OP to be a discussion of tundra cities throughout the game as the city doesn't move, but agree that the most important part of that is at the start, and looking back the OP may have accidentally implied I was looking only at the start, so sorry about that.

Idea of better rivers - Potentially, though it may look a little odd about the farms as you say. Maybe a tundra buff to the watermill, or perhaps granary works on river too? Actually, scrap that, these feel just as weird!

I'm not trying to say that all starts should be exactly equal, it's just it seems like there was a big effort in GnK to make desert starts better, so I wondered why tundra was left out given the desert buff was clearly for better balance in the game. I also wasn't saying the putative bonus has to be in food, it could be that tundra cities are still small but more efficient in some other way.
 
How about changing the tundra pantheon to +1 production on unforested tundra tiles
 
If we were to do that,it should be all tundra tiles. The only reason forest is not included currently is because it would overlap with the Celts ability.

I however think we just need a civ that thrives in Tundra, ice,snow. Maybe Inuit.
 
Well, later, tundra can be valuable. If I see a big chunk of tundra near enough my city, you can bet I'l going to lay a city on it sooner rather than later to claim it as my own. Tundrea tends to be very rish in iron, oil, and uranium.

A third or fourth city, however, isn't as vital as a first. Where tundrea hurts is when your first settler lands in the middle of it. Food generally comes from trapping and a tundra city won't start rolling until at least that and iron working, assuming it has iron and not more advanced resources.

Late game, when one tundra city can provide enough oil for your whole game, and you have access to several buildings for extra food, it's not so bad. Early, tundra is a generally dead area with nothing to help.

Just adding some tundra lux resources would be a huge help probably, allowing a tundra start to land a few cities without happiness issues. It has to be a careful balance however because, already, a tundra capital may well be the most productive city on the map in the end game.
 
As chance would have it, I just started a game as Byzantium yesterday where I landed right on the borders of Tundra for my start. As I had several Deer around my city and many more in sight I picked Goddes Of The Hunt for my Pantheon which made those tiles super awesome (4F,1P on Forest/Deer tiles). I was sort of lucky, however, because I also had 3 Salt tiles next to my city, of which 2 were sitting on river also, and with Salt being kind of imbalanced, that really helped me. Ironically, there's not a single piece of Iron around, the only Iron I've seen on the whole continent so far being a lump of 2 sitting with a City State.

To add to what was said above, however, I really do think the Tundra belief should add Faith to all Tundra tiles, even with Forest. If Celts start on Tundra, good for them, but as the Celt Faith ting is extremely short-lived and not very useful anyway, it's hardly going to be a game-breaker.
 
Maybe a Petra like improvement that gives the same benefits to Tundra?
 
I like the idea of terrain bonuses for tundra that benefit the defender. The "Winter" damage effect I think is pretty nifty (-10 hp per turn for enemies in your tundra, -20 for enemies in your snow)
 
I like the idea of terrain bonuses for tundra that benefit the defender. The "Winter" damage effect I think is pretty nifty (-10 hp per turn for enemies in your tundra, -20 for enemies in your snow)

Agree. I would say perhaps double the maintenence cost of units in foreign tundra/snow. That would reflect the cost of supply lines without crippling an invasion. Only the strongest, richest civs of the era would dare invade a tundra civ...
 
I like the idea of terrain bonuses for tundra that benefit the defender. The "Winter" damage effect I think is pretty nifty (-10 hp per turn for enemies in your tundra, -20 for enemies in your snow)

Agreed.

What if the Tundra wonders would be like this?

Tent Ring
- unlocked with Optics
(I don't know of any "wonders" that were in the tundra region)
City must be on or bordering a tundra tile.
Can build a camp on any tile in this city, gives +1 :c5food: and +1 :c5production:.
Camps in this city give an additional +1 :c5food: with fertilizer.

Science station - unlocked with Refrigeration
+ 50% science in this city, must be on or bordering snow/tundra.
 
Agreed.

What if the Tundra wonders would be like this?

Tent Ring
- unlocked with Optics
(I don't know of any "wonders" that were in the tundra region)
City must be on or bordering a tundra tile.
Can build a camp on any tile in this city, gives +1 :c5food: and +1 :c5production:.
Camps in this city give an additional +1 :c5food: with fertilizer.

Science station - unlocked with Refrigeration
+ 50% science in this city, must be on or bordering snow/tundra.
How about just letting floodplains spawn on tundra riverside? Then it would be roughly even with desert: 4:c5food:1:c5gold: farms, faith from a pantheon, and the lack of Petra and oases balanced out by furs and forests.
 
How about just letting floodplains spawn on tundra riverside? Then it would be roughly even with desert: 4:c5food:1:c5gold: farms, faith from a pantheon, and the lack of Petra and oases balanced out by furs and forests.

Unfortunately, floodplains make no sense in tundra.
 
Instead of flood plains how about bogs? +1 food for potatoes. That probably doesn't make much sense.
 
Dance of the Aurora needs the buff. How about 2 faith instead of 1 and +2 food in a city built on or next to tundra?
 
Unfortunately, floodplains make no sense in tundra.

Since when do things need to make sense? :crazyeye: Farming desert without fresh water makes no sense, both in and out of the game. But every AI does it.
 
Dance of the Aurora = +1 faith and controlling faith's units pay 1/2 movement costs on tundra in your territory
 
I agree with some of the ideas regarding military in tundra and snow (how about -10% combat strength for units on tundra/snow tiles outside of friendly territory).

However, the ideas about including things like floodplains, bogs, peat etc. (basically anything to make it more fertile) I disagree with. Thats like getting rid of any distinguishing features that set the terrain types apart. It's all well and good to balance the game, but you need to maintain differentiation. Otherwise, you may as well just get rid of all the different terrain types while you're at it and have just "generic terrain type x" covering the globe. There's too little differentiation for my liking as it is, it almost makes no difference where you spawn ("oh look I've spawned in plains, I won't be able to grow my cities well. Oh hang on look there's wheat and deer and if I just build a granary, hey presto!")
 
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