(Conditionally) Impassable Deserts?

Pavel Chichikov

Pavel Chichikov

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Taking a quick survey of the map, and with following conditions, I think this is doable and would add to historicity/gameplay/map-valuability/lag-reduction.

Desert tiles are passable on these conditions:

- A road/railroad has been built on the tile.
- They are within your cultural borders, or a Civ you have Open-borders agreement with.
- The tile is adjacent to a river.

Why?:

- Would isolate China during the Classical and early Medieval periods.
- Would keep East-Asia/Middle-East/Europe/Sub.S.Africa in general with in their own blocks
- Prevent humans from exploiting tech-trading as all high-level players should and must
- Prevent Thai/Khmer/Koreans/Mughals/Poland from taking Central Asian indies on spawn
- Roadbuilding becomes a worthwhile job for workers in the Midgame outside of America
- Make Aztec/Mayan settling of N. America more challenging
- Make the Malinese 3rd UHV doable for intermediate skill level players

Thoughts?
 
I like it. It improves the historical accuracy of the game (the Sahara really made SSA an island for a long time) and it prevents ahistorical exploration. Although, rather than make it impassable, I think it would be better to make it cause 20% damage/turn until the unit dies. That way, you have 5 turns to either get to the other side or die. Mechanized units and camel archers should be immune to the damage or units should be immune after researching a tech like refrigeration.
 
Almost pointless.

Even AI China can explore through Manchuria => Siberia. Actually they already do explore via that path instead of along the Silk Road - play some Russian games and you will see. You run into Chinese & Korean scouts easier if you explore along Siberia than if you go via Central Asia.

Same with anywhere else. Mexico - explore along the Gulf Coast => Mississippi => Alberta => Pacific Northwest. Africa - explore along the Nile & east coast and you can go all the way from Cape to Cairo (if you change the Terrain to prevent this, Ethiopia will be completely unplayable). The only area I can see actually affected by this is Arabia, with the only effect being Arabs flipping huge Barb stacks on spawn, which already happens anyway as AIs are incapable of killing those Barb stacks regardless of whether they can cross into deserts or not.

It would be easier to simply adjust the Barb AI, considering the Barb overhaul. Make them attack units that are close by (instead of just cities). There's no way any scout can survive the Barb SoDs.
 
ImNotHere said:
I like it. It improves the historical accuracy of the game (the Sahara really made SSA an island for a long time) and it prevents ahistorical exploration. Although, rather than make it impassable, I think it would be better to make it cause 20% damage/turn until the unit dies. That way, you have 5 turns to either get to the other side or die. Mechanized units and camel archers should be immune to the damage or units should be immune after researching a tech like refrigeration.
Click to expand...

I support your idea, it'd be more realistic. Although I guess we could also give Explorers that ability, with a 10% damage/turn and no movement bonus. That way one could reenact Sir Arthur Livingston's journeys and all that :p
 
Good idea. I have been always annoyed how barbarians come from unhabitet desert.

- The tile is adjacent to a river.
Click to expand...

- The tile is adjacent to a river or coast
 
Essentially, this rule would help fix the AI. Human players wouldn't be blocked at all, since there so many ways to get around it if you try.
 
You'd think this would help, but I predict it'll make the AI worse. The AI doesn't care about the ACTUAL distance, but the linear distance. For instance, England always goes all the way around the Americas and settle Vancouver because it's closer than South Africa, even those South Africa is half the actual distance. So what you'd have is all these countries going around the desert in a huge curve.
 
I like idea very much!

I always thought that is strange that jungle tiles are impassable for most units and desert tiles are not. Actually it should be other way around in historical perspective.
(I know it is for game mechanism rather than historical reasons...)

How about simple test to game balance / AI: Make desert tiles which are NOT next to any other type of tiles. Or maybe next to some kind of water tiles or whatever rule would work best have same kind of rules as jungle tiles.

And Arab Civ would get same UP as Khmer except it works for those "special" desert tiles. Camel Riders would be like Elephants and move in desert like they do now.
This way there are more reason Arab Civ to go it´s historical area in North Africa (and one reason in history why they went to there was their experience fighting in desert.(!))

In history deserts have had same effect as oceans and only recent times man have fully conquer them.
 
And it would give some meaning for oasis tiles which are now useless.

And of course mix with water tiles rules: after combustion military units too could go for those special desert tiles.

And about oasis tiles: you could found city on them or maybe next to them so you could have those special desert cities.
 
Zaduzai said:
Make desert tiles which are NOT next to any other type of tiles.
Click to expand...

So the penalty would only apply to most of the Sahara, and maybe to one tile in SW USA, and to Australia. The penalty would also apply to some of Arabia UNTIL the civ forms.

This would not accomplish any of the original goals except #5 (which isn't such a big deal) and #2 in part.

I think the only way for this idea to work is to have it apply in all cases (except maybe one's own territory). Although in general I'm pretty skeptical about this whole thread.
 
iOnlySignIn said:
Almost pointless.

Even AI China can explore through Manchuria => Siberia. Actually they already do explore via that path instead of along the Silk Road - play some Russian games and you will see. You run into Chinese & Korean scouts easier if you explore along Siberia than if you go via Central Asia.

Same with anywhere else. Mexico - explore along the Gulf Coast => Mississippi => Alberta => Pacific Northwest. Africa - explore along the Nile & east coast and you can go all the way from Cape to Cairo (if you change the Terrain to prevent this, Ethiopia will be completely unplayable). The only area I can see actually affected by this is Arabia, with the only effect being Arabs flipping huge Barb stacks on spawn, which already happens anyway as AIs are incapable of killing those Barb stacks regardless of whether they can cross into deserts or not.

It would be easier to simply adjust the Barb AI, considering the Barb overhaul. Make them attack units that are close by (instead of just cities). There's no way any scout can survive the Barb SoDs.
Click to expand...

All fair points. In response:

- I was going to say, this should probably be applied to Tundra tiles too.
With a bit of terrain tweaking I think this could still work, you'd only need 1-tile of terrain to block movement between 2 plain/grassland tiles.

- I see no problem with Ethiopia having to use galleys to settle further down the coast, in fact it's probably much more historical. Almost all of the East-African kingdoms were coastal trading societies who didn't venture inland.

- Vultures, Hittite...things & Camel Archers would obviously be an exception to the general rule, like Jaguars with Jungles.

- Scouts & Explorers might as well be disabled, imo the most useless units in the game.

- I've heard the terrain damage idea before, but personally I think it could never work. The AI would just kill stacks of it's own units trying to heal themselves like the Russian UP.
 
I feel ahistorical plus kind of against game balance for some civs and in my games many times there are too major battles in middle of Sahara, before combustion tech.

I have conquered many times Carthage / Phoenicia from sneak attack from Sahara. I think in real history Carthage felt pretty safe attacks from south. Mali too gets lot of attacks from Sahara which is totally ahistorical geopolitical thing. And of course now there are little reason European civ to start colonizing Asia (and Americas) because it´s easy to get trade routes to Asia even if they are in war with Arabs.

Well list is long. Main point is that as many have wrote above that desert have way too little effect. For example for military unit which have only one movement point desert do not have any effect.

BUT I understand that it would be big change for overall game balance.

And I agree that tundra tile rules should change too.
 
I think that some tech should enable military units in desert, like military instructions. Before that only special units can move in desert.
 
Pavel Chichikov said:
All fair points. In response:

- I was going to say, this should probably be applied to Tundra tiles too.
With a bit of terrain tweaking I think this could still work, you'd only need 1-tile of terrain to block movement between 2 plain/grassland tiles.

- I see no problem with Ethiopia having to use galleys to settle further down the coast, in fact it's probably much more historical. Almost all of the East-African kingdoms were coastal trading societies who didn't venture inland.

- Vultures, Hittite...things & Camel Archers would obviously be an exception to the general rule, like Jaguars with Jungles.

- Scouts & Explorers might as well be disabled, imo the most useless units in the game.

- I've heard the terrain damage idea before, but personally I think it could never work. The AI would just kill stacks of it's own units trying to heal themselves like the Russian UP.
Click to expand...
Adding Tundra to this would be good. But it would be even better if Tundra & Desert becomes passable with a certain tech.

I say let Desert be passable with Currency/Guilds, and Tundra be passable with Astronomy/Chemistry. Otherwise Russian UHV will be practically unplayable.

One more thing: Explorer is a very good unit. Very good to put Great Generals on as they have excellent mobility, fast access to Woodsman III, and will never be the one defending a stack (so they can't accidentally die). In most games I play I farm Explorer XP by making them kill Animals. Then later I attach a Great General to the one with the highest XP.
 
Those techs are bit early in coming in to make too much difference, I suggest Refridgeration.
Concerning Russian UHV, simply make Cossacks (along with that car-brand) one of the unit exceptions, Cossack forward settlement is certainly supported by the history.

Does Leoreth see any merit in this though?
 
Mind you, I don't like this impassible desert idea at all, but from a flavour standpoint, deserts should be traversable with Compass. That's when you don't get lost on the endless sea of sand anymore.
 
Neshalin said:
Mind you, I don't like this impassible desert idea at all, but from a flavour standpoint, deserts should be traversable with Compass. That's when you don't get lost on the endless sea of sand anymore.
Click to expand...

I think you are missing the point. You can travel in desert even without a compas because you can navigate with stars. However you cant bring whole army there because lack of military logistic which were invented as late as during age of imperialism. Even then military units in desert were not large but I dont think it can be influenced.
 
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