General thread : Terrain & Terrain features

Trying to help organize the various ideas around here (thanks for Ybbor for his own organization) and gathering them in some threads dedicated to specific aspects of the game.
New ideas in latter posts will be organized/summarized in the first post.

Here the topic is the terrain system and other ideas (for terrain features).


NEW TERRAINS

* a special large river terrain or feature than enable at least "some" ships (needs a flag) to navigate part of them while still allowing land units crossing (except for wheeled units).


TERRAIN ADVANTAGES


TERRAIN SHORTCOMINGS

reserved

Sorry to bump an old thread, but this is a good one.

Here are my suggestions:

Perhaps some sort of earth-quake prone area?
Canyons between mountains

I think there ought to be more than one kind of grassland or plains. Maybe they could have a "Fertile Plains" or "Fertile Grassland" which would give more food. This way, the plains of the Ukraine or Holland would be more productive than the plains of Greece.

I have played Civ II and Civ III for 3 years - this is my first foray into the fanatic zone. My question is - how would one go about incorporating offshore oil and or gas into the game (as a new strategic resource)? You may ask - why bother? Well, I am sorely vexed when I discover motorised transportation but have no oil and hence cannot loose my Panzer Divisions.
Also I am a chemical engineer and think it would be cool.

So, offshore fossil fuels should appear at about the same time as jet aircraft. At least, computers and refining should be pre-requisites. Perhaps both onshore and offshore oil should have high appearance/disappearance rates to mimic depletion of reservoirs and new discoveries/exploration. This would also wreak some amusing havoc amongst the Civs as the resource moved about. Is it possible to build a 'road' across the sea to join the resource to a city? There would need to be a new terrain improvement - an Offshore Platform - this would look v. cool sitting out in the ocean. It could be pillaged by maritime units, as could the subsea pipeline (a.k.a. road) connecting it with the mainland.

Whaddya think?

I think great and important idea.

But I want to use this thread to put on a 'revolutionary' idea of my own:

Get rid of the different terrains! Organise the whole thing different:
1. First you have just the map with landmasses - watermasses.
2. The computer distributes the climate zones randomly around (perhaps not total randomly... . These are (polar), subpolar, normal, subtropical, tropical and have each some subclasses.
3. The Height is defined (also to a part randomly)
4. Flora, Fauna and geographical options are added: Forests (dependend on climate zone), rivers, streams, volcanoes, 'possible earthquake zones' and eacht tile gets a fauna type (depending on climate zone)
5. Resources are added.
6. Human features are added (pass situation (lowest point of the mountains), Fords (right word, the point where you can go over a river), etc

--> Each tile would therefore get a identification like for example this:

Jungle
1. Land
2. Tropical - monsum area
3. 1800 metres over sea
4. Forest, earthquake zone, african tropical (fauna type)
5. Coal
6. Pass

Each of these 'traits' has a number and the computer calculates the three things "food, wealth and shields" from them. Perhaps it could be done like this.

Land respectively water gives a basic number (food/shield/wealth):
(1/1/0)
the climate zone trait gives something from -1 to +2, here (+0/-1/+1):
(1/0/1)
The height over sea multiplies the factors, here perhaps *1/*3/*2:
(1/0/2)
Forest and fauna types (and rivers, etc) give something from -1 to +2, here the fauna type gives (+2/-1/+2):
(3/-1/2)
and the forest gives (+1/+1/+1), but because it is dependend on the climate, each factor is multiplied with (*2/*1/*0) -> (+2/+1)+0):
(5/0/2)
Coal gives (-1/+2/+2):
(4/2/4)
Pass situation gives (+0/+0/+2)
(4/2/6).

You see, because I did this calculation without thinking I've gotten a high number for a jungle .

But of course, this idea is a lot of work and doesn't make the mgame easier or better in a obvious way. To that it makes the game more complex and that's not really wanted. But nevertheless it's an idea.

mfG mitsho

Te Rauparaha said:

It could be pillaged by maritime units, as could the subsea pipeline (a.k.a. road) connecting it with the mainland.

Whaddya think?

Click to expand...

Or how about you have to ship a worker out to the oil resource in the ocean, and he could create an 'oil rig' (basically a colony) on the resource. Catch is that you have to control the sea way between there and an ycitie you want to have the resource. Basically you need to be at peace with civilizations whose culture is in the way or control it in your own cultural boundaries, just like the way trading luxurys with another civ works.

Could be a fun idea. Maybe have the oil rigs protected by marines or ships?

I did it in my Benelux map. There's a unit called "ingeneer ship" available with miniaturisation. It can build offshore platforms ( colonies ) and pipelines ( roads ) in the sea to use the North Sea oil. The problem is the AI doesn't use it !!

I played it with a human player, we had some GREAT NAVAL BATTLES

I'd love the navigable river.

thestonesfan said:

I think there ought to be more than one kind of grassland or plains. Maybe they could have a "Fertile Plains" or "Fertile Grassland" which would give more food. This way, the plains of the Ukraine or Holland would be more productive than the plains of Greece.

Click to expand...

Obviously this is strictly an American-based thing, but you could have "High-Grass Prairie" and "Low-Grass Prairie," since the Plains terrain is meant to represent prairies in the first place. (btw, I think the "plains" of the Netherlands would be Grassland.)

I think much more of this will be available with a 3d map. In 2d it is repetitive tiles, but in 3d you can much more easily show terrain gradiation. For one the program for the map generator needs vast improvement to show more realistic planets. real rivers would be awesome and impassable mountians are needed to add some realism to expansion and military campaigns. To have a mountain range form a natural boundary would limit expanison early on and cause you to really think about stratagy in military operations. Then add in the seasons (see this thread http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=92326 ) and you would have some really awesome dynamic maps.