Terrain Adaption Mod

I don't want to make it sound like it's oh so simple about balancing, but it is, hehe(sort of). You start out with a simple formula and make sure that each variable is made to equal the same number.

1+2+3=6 (basic a+b+c=x)
3+2+1=6
2x2x2=6
24/4=6

According to these formulas, everyone should be on the same playing field, and it's your job as the player to know how to use your set of numbers. You playtest to redefine the formula for areas you oversaw, or (and this will happen) you just manipulate any variable an anomly appears. This will happen because sometimes the formulas become so vast they get really hard to keep track of. I dunno if that made any sense.

Hello friends, I just bought civ 4 and I would like to change some characteristics of the terrains; for example, I want to make mountain accessible by units, roads and railroads and producing 1 (instead of 0) and giving +50% to defence. Could you tell me how could I do it?

greetings

Pappotar

please clarify the following points -

1)
do the terrain adaptations based upon the starting location of your capital city only apply to this capital city, or do the adaptations also apply to ALL cities the civ later builds or conquers?

2)
if you later change your capital city, does the adaptation change to the reflect the new terrain of this capital city?

Shame on you for digging out the corpse of this long-dead thread.

The mod basically simply looked at each tile around your starting city and issued a specialisation to you. Thus, all future cities, founded or aquired otherwise, would get your bonus.

I know this is a bit shifty, but as you can see, I didn't exactly turn this into a sophisticated mod like I had planned to. Lack of time and lack of proper modability (as I had needed it) were both responsible for this.
Still have the folders on my desktop, so who knows, maybe I'll resurrect the idea at some point - but don't hold your breath.
_____
rezaf

joelwest said:

please clarify the following points -

1)
do the terrain adaptations based upon the starting location of your capital city only apply to this capital city, or do the adaptations also apply to ALL cities the civ later builds or conquers?

Click to expand...

rezaf said:

Shame on you for digging out the corpse of this long-dead thread.

Click to expand...

this thread was resurrected by the poster before me who bumped it back to the top of the list in Civ 4 modpacks. (BTW, no one has answered his question on how to modify mountain tiles to yield new properties.)

the answer to my first question is apparently "yes".

joelwest said:

2)
if you later change your capital city, does the adaptation change to the reflect the new terrain of this capital city?

Click to expand...

still awaiting an answer to my second question.

Ah yes, the digging out a corpse part was directed at Pappotar.
As for his question, last time I looked into modding, this was only possible by creating a dummy mountain terrain type with mountain graphics and have the map creation scripts spawn this type instead of the original mountains (or changing the original mountains to the "new" mountains by other means).
I'd presume with the SDK, it can be done by recompiling - unless you're willing to go through this hassle, I guess the "old way" is still valid.

Oh, and you could enable units to enter mountain tiles somehow, just the resource yield couldn't be changed otherwise, IIRC.

@joelwest:
The question to your first question is NO. No, they don't only apply to the capital city, they affect all future cities as well.

As for the 2nd question, no. That would make no sense at all, in my book.
_____
rezaf

rezaf said:

@joelwest:

As for your 2nd question, the answer is no. That would make no sense at all, in my book.
_____
rezaf

Click to expand...

if an empire is expanded to the point a better capital is available, in my own gameplay in the various mods of Civ 4 I have tried I have been known to change capitals, for example to reduce maintenance costs by making the capital more centrally located. the relocated capital may also produce more goods, particularly if it comes from a conquered neighbor.

logically in your mod such a change in captial would also change the "type" of civ you are now playing.

have I talked you into making this correction?

The idea behing the mod was to account for historical adaptions of civilizations - think of the first millenia as the childhood of a civilization, and if it spends this time in a jungle, it will be much better suited to living in jungles than a civ which uses to live in plains would be.
So changing an adaption because the capital was moved makes no sense at all - your civ doesn't get a second childhood, plus, it would make exploiting the system far too easy in the later game.
Say you were born and raised in France, and french has been your native language all those years. When, at 25, you move to russia, does that make russian your native language, even if you've never spoken it before.

That said, I won't be able to look at this code again for a long while, so you can't talk me into making any changes to it no matter what, but nothing stops you from making your desired changes yourself.
It's a pretty short, pretty simple mod which would be listed in the mod component forum (which didn't exist back then) nowadays.
_____
rezaf

I really like this idea.

But I think that it is better to let the starting bonus be something that becomes obsolete over time.
For example, it gives the opportunity to work jungles beneficially, by inducing a +1c +1p bonus. Once the jungle is cut, it becomes more beneficial, being a regular grassland.
Tundra is kind of hard to give something that becomes obsolete - perhaps a Plant Forest technology or something similar that becomes available to all civs at some point.
And settling mainly on grassland or plains gives the opportunity to build farms, becomes obsolete very quickly after researching agriculture, but you have a good start location anyhow, so you don't need that much of a bonus anyway.

Still - like the idea. Would be nice if someone picks it up to incorporate in other mods.

When I first read this, I thought you were giving unit's the adaption.

I won't comment on the balancing of the food tiles etc. since I don't even pay attention to that sort of stuff.

It would be good to have units built in the area it is, to have a free promotion suiting the terrain it is from.

If you are in the desert, have your units have a movement bonus (since they know how to survive and travel across it) or maybe a small power bonus cause they know how to fight in it.

If you're in the trees, a 10% fighting bonus in the woods (not just a defensive bonus, but overall)

rezaf said:

Ever since Civ1 I wondered whether a civ that had its roots , say, in the desert would not adapt to their home environment in some way. This little mod will try to reflect this in CIV.
...
When you build your capital, the mod will check the environment of your home for the presence of several terrain types. Your civilization will then adapt to the dominating one, giving you a unique tech which reflects your roots in one of several ecologies.

Click to expand...

Fantastic idea. It seems to me that technology generally eliminates the advantages of environmental adaptation, but that those adaptations were very important to the development of early civilizations. I'm going to pilfer and try it out in a few different ways.

I wonder, for example, how I could apply the bonus to unimproved land while still giving an incentive to improve land. That would change the very early game (and shape settlement patterns) without unbalancing the long game.

Failing that, what would be the plains version of the Guerrilla I, Woodsman I and Amphibious promotions?

This could be worked into a very interesting civilization mod: traits and special buildings/units determined by starting environment, not the player.