More Catastrophic events, please

HiRezAudio

Prince
Joined
Dec 29, 2007
Messages
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Now that the uniformitarian model of planetary development is pretty well discredited, it would make sense for me that this be reflected in Civ.
Some of the possibilities we could think about:
1 - Supervolcanic Eruption (or "Ultra-Plinian" eruption)
Very rare & given the timescales we currently understand these events to occur on such an event should only happen once in every fifty or so starts, but when it does hit it should have global effects.
Historical equivalent would be the Santorini eruption that devastated the entire mediterranean & caused the Egyptian civilization to collapse along with the Minoans.
2 - Impact Event.
These should certainly be included, and ranging in severity from planet killers through Tunguska type events down to a single city devastated (if it hits on a city tile, that is).
This could also lead to a planetary wonder of an Asteroid Shield/Net.
3 - Tsunami.
As we know all too well, these happen more often than we might like to think.
Effects should vary.
4 - Climate.
Before I start I need it said up front I do not subscribe to the Anthropogenic Warming theory - I believe it to be a cyclic event that has happened as recently as the 8th century BC, with a definite warming in the Mediaeval period followed by the so-called "Mini Ice-Age" in Europe, and there seems to be a great deal of evidence for a catastrophic global event that all but wiped from the map a global civilization at around 8,000 BCE, maybe later (the dating is very difficult but the event was literally earth-shaking) and it also seems there could well have been another at around 2500BCE and previously at around 5,000BCE.

Our world is not nearly as stable as we thought.......and global; events could be a fun mod. They should not happen too often & not necessarily in every game either.....but when they do happen their effects should be felt. Imagine another Carrington Event happening now?
 
i disagree with your frequency of supereruptions. civ is set from the time of the founding of the first recognisable cities: that is, not a settlement but a capital, one that rules surrounding settlements, the start of government of people beyond your own settlement, call it how you will.
once every 50 starts ratio would be too much.
to our knowledge there has never been a supervolcanic eruption, a true VEI 8, in this period. yes there have been truly catastrophic eruptions within prehistoric time shuch as mt mazama (crater lake) and thera (santorini), and tambora, but they have only affected the whole globe climatically (the 1816 tambora eruption causing the year without a summer). those kinds of eruptions i can see being at least one during a typical civ gameplay, more likely more than that, but the numbers should be capped; the most severe effects would be localised, as i said in my wish list thread for events like this. the global climate can easily be simulated by a year/turn or more depending on era, of poor food production, and that can be called a famine; which results in population loss in all cities - but not a massive one unless the eruption is right next to the affected city when it loses a lot of population and the surrounding land is contaminated by ash and the city undergoes some razing effects for set number of turns.

a super eruption is worse. much worse. there is suggestion that lake toba event may have nearly wiped out prehistoric humans, although i havent looked into that event, i think it would be a game ender or changer event and thus not happen every playthrough. i also say in my wishlist thread, maybe it should have a reset button in options such that once it HAS occured in a game all the conditions change. anyone with a civ next to such an event is dead. wiped out, and if thats the player its game over with no chance to recover.

if you are on the opposite side of the world, you get the notification that its happened, and then the win conditions change to survive. you have to keep your civ alive so you have at least some people and 1 city left despite shortage of food and the terrain all changing (for example there will be an expansion of ice south from the poles, pushing tundra south also and so narrowing the band on the planet food can be grown.) basically this kind of event should occur once during your ownership of the game unless you are glutton for punishment and reset it in options. it should be almost impossible to win once its happened on any difficulty.

but earthquakes and volcanos should only occur in zones or a designated hotspot, so not all mountain ranges would have volcano. i used to hate the idea in civ iv that any mountain might suddenly erupt. that was probably easy way to simulate volcanoes, but as a immortal ruler you would recognise some volcano shapes and maybe choose not to settle too close to them, just close enough to farm the fertile land.

tsunamis triggered by makor earthquakes would be interesting but again the code for the wave needs to be made such that it propagates out from a quake zone - so some coasts will almost never see one (think western europe atlantic coast - there is a real risk of one but its not happened often) and pacific ocean (seemingly far more frequent).

basically i think only a max of 3 severe eruptions would happen in a civ playthrough assuming it went all the way through the eras, with a chance of one super eruption one time ever as i said, and numerous earthquakes of various strengths some of which occur undersea and sometimes trigger a tsunami affecting coast hexes. OR maybe we could make the reset for super eruptions in options have 3 settings? off, 1 time only (unless option is changed which resets it when you apply/save) and approx 1 in 50 games chance of.

otherwise the supereruption would be a scenario where you play as normal not knowing when it will randomly happen maybe. but i agree with having other events to deal with so long as people can choose to turn plagues and other catastrophic events off if they want, or maybe choose which types they want. plagues might even help as well as hinder by forcing the pace of medical tech advancements?
 
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