Terrain Actions!

While thinling in a LotR Mod, I come to this:
in MORDOR, armies should lost Hps b the ver fact of being there!!!

So, I suggest it would be possible to program a terrain to take away an HP per turn!!!
Like a "Ashes" terrain or so.

Very usefull in Moding!!!


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Other possibilities are to generate an Unit or a certain amount of gpt.
(again, very usefull in modding)

For example, a certain point could generate an treasure unit. Or a Dragon Unit. Or...
Awesome possibilities in modding!

Also, a place could generate gpt by the simple fact of being in your borders (the graphic of a gold vein still with no mine in Heroes of Might & Magic IV comes to my mind, but the possibilities are much more than that.

If you had "villages," (microcities created by workers instead of colonies and outposts and such) that were limited to one citizen working only the city tile itself, they could have buildings in them, including unit creating buildings.

Yes. Or even just some buildings, limitated for example to 1/10 of your number of cities (to limitate to a reasonable number)

But what I trully want is that possibility of taking HPs per turn!!!
Wouldn't that be a great idea for scenarios?

I do agree with non-expansive civs and villages.

I do like the idea of adding functionality to terrain.

Add/Lose HP - This would be useful for modding and possibly fallout/extreme radiation.
Add/Lose XP - Could be useful for a SMAC mod.
Generate Gold/Science - Since these are not connected to a particular city.
Generate Units - Could be useful for general civ game early on.

my comments...
Add/Lose HP - and to LOTR mods, for MORDOR
Add/Lose XP - Could be useful for a SMAC mod > Could you explin this one?!?
Generate Gold/Science - Since these are not connected to a particular city. > yes
Generate Units - Could be useful for general civ game early on, although this could be made adding special barracks or castles or something... this one I don't know.

Add/Lose XP - In SMAC there were 'monoliths'. these structures would increase XP the first time they were entered, or repaired health to full anytime.

To allow easy scripting is good. You could setup a whirlpool at sea, or coral reef to wreck shipping on etc..

Terrain actions that affect units' health/xp is cool. Terrain actions that affect your wealth or science without being in range of a city is bad. It's just a workaround for getting the SMAC crawler unit without building it, and that was an incredibly unbalancing unit, almost a cheat.

You will probably be able to trigger unit spawning in practically every concievable way using Python scripting program.

You could even script the terrain HP loss/gain thing (e.g. x unit types on x terrain type lose/gain x HP on x--all?--turns).

But I'd personally prefer to have an in-game mechanism like having a terrain health modifier value that can be set via an editor.

This terrain causing loss of health thing has been brought up countless times and used other games: RoN has units losing health when in enemy borders; called 'attrition;' preventable by bringing supply unit along. Civ4 should definitely have something along these lines because Civ3 is completely stale when it comes to this sort of thing.

Players have been asking for terrain modifiers in relation to combat for along time as well. Terrain applications are way underrated by designers IMO.

That coral reef would be cool also

rhialto said:

Terrain actions that affect units' health/xp is cool. Terrain actions that affect your wealth or science without being in range of a city is bad. It's just a workaround for getting the SMAC crawler unit without building it, and that was an incredibly unbalancing unit, almost a cheat.

Click to expand...

So, the point against THIS idea is?
A unit you can do time and time again, allow massing it (unbalancing the game), a terrain just moddable or so common as, say, a vulcano, wouldn't really unbalance it: it would just add an interesting feature, IMHO.

"But I'd personally prefer to have an in-game mechanism like having a terrain health modifier value that can be set via an editor." > Yoshi, that's my wish too.

"Terrain applications are way underrated by designers IMO." > yes, very much.

"This terrain causing loss of health thing has been brought up countless times and used other games: RoN has units losing health when in enemy borders; called 'attrition;' preventable by bringing supply unit along."
Oh no! That was not the idea. In a game such as CIV, it wouldn't be possible to do so in a way in such a way like for example in Europa Universalis: when you have just a unit atacking (and not 18000...), that would disgrace our attack!, thus messing up all combat in the game. Here, just a certain type of terrain, rare or modded, would have that effect in a very small part of the map, and not in all non-ROP territory...

Here, just a certain type of terrain, rare or modded, would have that effect in a very small part of the map, and not in all non-ROP territory...

Click to expand...

RoN was an example. In Civ4, the idea is to have certain terrain types cause loss of health (or even a certain map square regardless of type). This could all be modded as long as there is some health modifying characteristic to the program that can be applied to terrain. The reason why I mentioned RoN and attrition is because something that would be difficult to mod would be having the negation of the health-loss effect for all squares within borders so that you could override the health-loss thing in your own territory (e.g. if Mountains cost health then Mountians in your territory don't cost health to any units you have on those Mountain squares but still do to enemy units). The point is adding that functionality so that players can then mod as they like. It will have to play some role in the vanilla game though, otherwise it won't get added.

actually the attrition concept would make culture a lot more important in civ. it would really favor builders and paratroopers, especially if they reduce the attack penalty and strengthen them.

yoshi, note that when I thought 1st of it, it was to a Middle Earth scenario.

Mordor "ash" terrain would take heath to Gondorian troops all the time, even if inside cultural borders, if they were not in a city.

The idea was this one, although now we can imagine a miriade of variations to the concept...


sir schwick, about Atrition, I'd be against for the reason I stated berore: with hp ranking 2 or 3 sometimes (conscript/regular warriors in the beginning of the game, for instance), would kill the game. Besides, it would made civ a defensive game, which is to avoid at all costs: attack shall be encouradged, right?

not if they do the smart thing and increase HP by a factor of 10. If that was done would not be so common and attrition would be a wear down rather than a kill factor. Actually, smart attacks should be encouraged, not just having a large military.

Could you explain better that "smart attacks should be encouraged, not just having a large military."

Seems good, but odd. Wouldn't it be good to have a large military to win military?
In what situations?

it means taking out critical outposts and attackign quickly. a large military that slowly lumbers in will take a lot more damage in attrition, while a smart strike can give you the edge you need

Fantasy terrain apart, this is what I have wanted to suggest for terrestial terrain too.

If a galley leaves the coast it may well sink, but put a spearman in the desert for centuries and it won't even feel the heat. Desert squares should be as deadly as sea or ocean squares. If you go into the tundra and aren't properly equipped, you die, as Napoleon's grand army learned to its cost.

A desert like Sahara isn't all sand dunes, so having different types of desert like coast/sea/ocean may make sense, the same goes for the cold frozen waste. Seasonally frozen sea can be a fourth kind of sea. Since every turn is at least a year, there will be times where the sea lane is free, but there are considerable risks, and trade suffer. On the other hand the squares are passable by foot at wintertime. Armies in the North did that all the time.

I am not sure whether attrition (hit points) or catastrophic loss like with galleys at sea, representing sand storms or blizzards, is the best approach for realism and playability. Armies have been lost in the desert when they've tried to reach an oasis and failed. If you run no risk of losing the unit in the wilderness, the terror of nature isn't truly represented. If there had been a mechanism for attrition mountains should have a low rate of attrition too.

Of course this would make for a more interesting game, and more specialized units like beduins in the desert.

Units that become veterans or elite in special terrain may be terrain specialist ("desert rats").

Good ideas, Jonax. I support the idea of units potentially dying when in hostile terrain (desert, tundra, etc.) in the same way that galleys can potentially be lost at sea. It would seem to be easily implementable too...

Superb idea, especially like the idea of whirlpools. And yes Deserts/Tundra should be a nightmare for troops unless they are experienced.

instead of a "whelled" box it could have several boxes:

- whelled
- desert sensitive (most ancient units, till advent of cavalry)
- tundra sensitive (most units, even cavalry, as napolonic...)
- mountain passers...

As you can all see, terrain is REALLY underrated in CIV series...