Forest Preserve spread rate bonus too low?

Thalassicus

Thalassicus

Bytes and Nibblers
Joined
Nov 9, 2005
Messages
11,057
Location
Texas
Anyone else think the spread rate bonus for the preserves is somewhat low? I plopped two down on the forests I saved next to my Great Person city as soon as I researched Scientific Method to see how it worked, with a National Park in the city a little while later at Biology. I pillaged two unused farm/road tiles next to the preserves to let it grow.

I figured in the next fifty years or so (the time it would take for newly planted trees to grow) a full grove of pine would have spread to both tiles, but now I'm at Future Tech and only one of the two open tiles has been expanded into through the entire Industrial, Modern, and Future eras... it's been centuries, I could have had a massive forest by this point if people went out there and planted trees, which seems to be the idea of the spread bonus of the preserve. It feels more like the natural spread rate without any real bonus (I almost thought of this for consideration as a bug... not sure if it actually is providing a bonus like indicated in the XML file), and is so low you have more benefit from developing the tiles.
 
I think I read elsewhere that on normal speed it's really rare. But when scaled into epic and marathon, spreads are actually quite frequent.

I know from my experience with epic games that even the normal spreading rate is high enough to see at least a few spreads during the course of the game. But on my recent normal games I've rare had any spreads.
 
Do you know if forests only spread to tiles adjacent to forest preserves or can they spread to other tiles (not adjacent), as well.
The Civilipedia is a bit vague on that.

PW
 
Agreed -- Forest Preserves in general sound really nice, but in my (somewhat limited) experience they're pretty worthless. It seems there are easier ways to get their bonuses.

And if they're spreading more often on Epic and Marathon games, then that's yet another time scale bug.
 
At the moment they seem to only be useful in the National Park city. I can understand why it can't spread too often, otherwise it would just become a chopping micromanagement that has no fun. It cannot go anywhere close to be controllable, otherwise you might as well let players plant trees.
 
two possible solutions to this:

1) they could make forest preserves unchoppable (sp?) and whenever it spreads it would be another preserved forest. That would allow for an increase in spreading rate without turning it into a chopping fest.

OR

2) Environmentalism could double the spreading rate like another tech ( forgot its name, sorry its 8 am) does for towns.
 
One thing to remember is roaded tiles cannot spread forest. And i don't think you can pillage your own roads, I can only pillage my farms or watermills, but it won't let me pillage my own roads.
 
In another thread I did read several people had forest spreading onto roaded tiles in their games, so it seems that it's just very rare but it still can.

As to unchoppable forests, that could cause problems if you someday want to convert your National Park into say a cottaged city (don't ask me why one would want to do that, please). Setting it in stone isn't good for freedom of strategy, I think.

If one goes as far as differentiating forests that spread from a preserved forest, then one might as well let it be chopped but make it yield zero hammers.
 
In another thread I did read several people had forest spreading onto roaded tiles in their games, so it seems that it's just very rare but it still can.
Click to expand...

I have definitely seen forest spread onto a tile that had a road (and nothing else) in it. It's just that they spread so rarely anyway that many people have assume it can't happen. I think they should spread more frequently, at least on normal speed which is what I play on.
 
weimingshi said:
One thing to remember is roaded tiles cannot spread forest. And i don't think you can pillage your own roads, I can only pillage my farms or watermills, but it won't let me pillage my own roads.
Click to expand...

Are you sure about this? I believe in Warlords it was determined from the XML that roads halved the normally very slow rate of forest and jungle regrowth. It was certainly possible for a natural regrowth of a forest to occur over a tile with no improvement on it but with a road through it. A road is not an "improvement" in that sense and can be added to any tile. I wonder if roads halve the effect of Forest Preserves in BtS, and would appreciate someone skilled enough finding where this is in the XML or python or whatever determines these things.
 
Forests can indeed spread to roaded tiles. I have had it it happen to me (before BtS, though), but chances are halved (I read in some thread).

Dammit. Always two minutes too late :)
 
You must be telepathic. :shifty:

Anyway, great minds think alike :smug:
 
In my experience the main reason to build preserves is not for spreading forest but for the bonus specialists you get with an National Park.
 
I think they are way to slow, I don't see a problem with chopping either, they come so late in game anyway that 30 hammers doesn't do so much for developed cities. And even if that is the problem, it is just to make the forest that the preserve spread give 0 or half hammers or something. No problem. Now they are pretty useless. I have had 5 preservs around 1 emty tile in 50 turns without none of them has sperad to that tile (or to any other tile). That is pretty useless...
 
I would agree that it's far too slow, and I've never understood the rationale behind limiting the growth rate due to roads. I really miss the old "plant a forest" option Civ 3 gave you (one of the few things I miss from Civ 3). If "forest preserves" are our only option for recreating or spreading forests in Civ 4, then they need to spread them a lot better.
 
Regarding forest growth:
Every turn every tile is checked. If Forest growth is allowed and if no improvement is on this tile then it has a chance for Forest growth as follows:
The tiles left, right, above and below (W,E,N,S) of the tile are checked: if they have forest and NO improvements the chance is 8, if they have forest preserve the chance is 64, if they have other improvements the chance is 0
These chances are added, e.g. each of those 4 tiles has a forest preserve:
64+64+64+64 = 256
this probability is multiplied by 1.25
IF the tile has a road/railroad the probability is multiplied by 0.5
E.g. no road on this tile: Prob=320 (this is the maximum probability).
The resulting chance for forest growth each turn is then 320/10000 - so still pretty scarce...
 
That doesn't seem right. I'm relatively sure I've seen diagonal forest growth (i.e. forests growing on a new square where the only adjacent forest was diagonal to it) which would be probability 0 according to this model. I'm also relatively sure I've seen forest spread out of a tile that was roaded (non forest preserve improvement so again should be probability 0 according to this model)

Also if this is indeed how it works for the most part wouldn't it be easier to have the base stuff scaled by 1.25 initially rather than just toss that in the end there? (i.e. use 10 and 80 instead of 8 and 64 to begin with?).

So is it true that a lumber mill or camp inhibits forest growth out of a particular tile? Is the orthogonality of forest growth true and is my memory just playing tricks on me? Same thing with roads on the tiles spread out of not into, do they play any part despite what I believe I've seen?
 
According to the World Builder, roads and railroads are classified under "Terrain", not "Improvements". That is, these are terrain features.

It goes something like this from my understand:
Base Terrain = water, land, hill, peak, ice
Modifier = ocean, coast, desert, plain, grassland, tundra, snow
Feature = road, railroad, oasis, floodplain, jungle, forest

I'm most probably a little off here and there, but that's the basic idea.

Anyway, back on topic. Does the tile that the forest is spreading from also be free of improvements? Won't lumber-milled forests spread?
 
roads/railroads are routes not improvements.
The code is:
Spoiler doFeature :

Code: 
void CvPlot::doFeature()
{
	PROFILE("CvPlot::doFeature()")

	CvCity* pCity;
	CvPlot* pLoopPlot;
	CvWString szBuffer;
	int iProbability;
	int iI, iJ;

	if (getFeatureType() != NO_FEATURE)
	{
		iProbability = GC.getFeatureInfo(getFeatureType()).getDisappearanceProbability();

		if (iProbability > 0)
		{
			if (GC.getGameINLINE().getSorenRandNum(10000, "Feature Disappearance") < iProbability)
			{
				setFeatureType(NO_FEATURE);
			}
		}
	}
	else
	{
		if (!isUnit())
		{
			if (getImprovementType() == NO_IMPROVEMENT)
			{
				for (iI = 0; iI < GC.getNumFeatureInfos(); ++iI)
				{
					if (canHaveFeature((FeatureTypes)iI))
					{
						if ((getBonusType() == NO_BONUS) || (GC.getBonusInfo(getBonusType()).isFeature(iI)))
						{
							iProbability = 0;

							for (iJ = 0; iJ < NUM_CARDINALDIRECTION_TYPES; iJ++)
							{
								pLoopPlot = plotCardinalDirection(getX_INLINE(), getY_INLINE(), ((CardinalDirectionTypes)iJ));

								if (pLoopPlot != NULL)
								{
									if (pLoopPlot->getFeatureType() == ((FeatureTypes)iI))
									{
										if (pLoopPlot->getImprovementType() == NO_IMPROVEMENT)
										{
											iProbability += GC.getFeatureInfo((FeatureTypes)iI).getGrowthProbability();
										}
										else
										{
											iProbability += GC.getImprovementInfo(pLoopPlot->getImprovementType()).getFeatureGrowthProbability();
										}
									}
								}
							}

							iProbability *= max(0, (GC.getFEATURE_GROWTH_MODIFIER() + 100));
							iProbability /= 100;

							if (isRoute())
							{
								iProbability *= max(0, (GC.getROUTE_FEATURE_GROWTH_MODIFIER() + 100));
								iProbability /= 100;
							}

							if (iProbability > 0)
							{
								if (GC.getGameINLINE().getSorenRandNum(10000, "Feature Growth") < iProbability)
								{
									setFeatureType((FeatureTypes)iI);

									pCity = GC.getMapINLINE().findCity(getX_INLINE(), getY_INLINE(), getOwnerINLINE(), NO_TEAM, false);

									if (pCity != NULL)
									{
										// Tell the owner of this city.
										szBuffer = gDLL->getText("TXT_KEY_MISC_FEATURE_GROWN_NEAR_CITY", GC.getFeatureInfo((FeatureTypes) iI).getTextKeyWide(), pCity->getNameKey());
										gDLL->getInterfaceIFace()->addMessage(getOwnerINLINE(), false, GC.getEVENT_MESSAGE_TIME(), szBuffer, "AS2D_FEATUREGROWTH", MESSAGE_TYPE_INFO, GC.getFeatureInfo((FeatureTypes) iI).getButton(), (ColorTypes)GC.getInfoTypeForString("COLOR_WHITE"), getX_INLINE(), getY_INLINE(), true, true);
									}

									break;
								}
							}
						}
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}
}
Except for Forest Preserve ALL other improvements are set for Growth Percent = 0 so yes they inhibit growth.
I forgot to mention that the plot cannot have forest growth if a unit is on it...
And Cardinal Directions are:

Code: 
DirectionTypes cardinalDirectionToDirection(CardinalDirectionTypes eCard)
{
	switch (eCard)
	{
	case CARDINALDIRECTION_NORTH:
		return DIRECTION_NORTH;
	case CARDINALDIRECTION_EAST:
		return DIRECTION_EAST;
	case CARDINALDIRECTION_SOUTH:
		return DIRECTION_SOUTH;
	case CARDINALDIRECTION_WEST:
		return DIRECTION_WEST;
	}

so diagonal is not possible...

Edit: The tile it is spreading TO can have an improvement (camp usually - but you could worldbuild a lumbermill on a non forested tile and it could spread...) so long as this does not forbid forest. The tile it spreads from can only have road/railroad AND/OR forest preserve
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

B
After +1000 hours playing, worst luck I've ever seen
Replies
10
Views
2K
mutax2003
mutax2003
T
America vs England vs France vs Russia
Replies
3
Views
562
Genghis the Barbarian
G
D
General improvement to the franchise
Replies
0
Views
173
DeckerdJames
D
The_goggles_do_nothing
[Mod Request]City Specialization Improvements
Replies
0
Views
229
The_goggles_do_nothing
The_goggles_do_nothing
E
The math for City Growth bonus seems broken and mislabeled
Replies
4
Views
743
TheMarshmallowBear
TheMarshmallowBear
Back
Top Bottom