Global Catastrophes

I CONFESS! I copied and pasted most of this post from a suggestion I made in the "Call to Power III" ideas thread last week. .(If a member cannot plagiarise himself, who CAN he plagiarise?) But since Civ4 is definitely in development, I figured the idea might be more relevant here - if anyone agrees with it.

There should be some sort of "Global Disasters" list in the Cheats, allowing you to inflict massive damage to all civilizations without knowing the ultimate result. On the harder levels of the game, these global disasters would occasionally happen unannounced - maybe once per game, at a random turn. (Yes - I know there's a thread on random events ).

The specific disasters could include:

Giant impact (continent-wide fires, mass extinction, cosmic winter etc);

Supervolcano (similar global winter, lots of pollution, huge lava flows);

Geopocalypse (gigantic earthquakes worldwide: most cities flattened, random terrain changes, social breakdown leads to barbarian proliferation).

New ice age (glaciers expand, sea level drops, farmlands lost)

Alien invasion (superadvanced barbarian-type units appear everywhere);

GM virus breakout (populations crash in all civs, many cities deserted);

Judgement Day (someone builds a wonder called GlobeSat, or AI Defence... or even Skynet... and it becomes self-aware, nukes cirties in all nations, then becomes a new AI civ with a very powerful military bent on conquering the world. No-one can negotiate with it, either).

The Alien invasion disaster would have to be restricted to the later stages of the game, when the human & AI civs would be advanced enough to have at least some chance of defeating the invaders.

Any thoughts, folks?

If you know about the random events-thread, why make a new thread? I play civ for whole a lot of other reasons than getting my civ wiped out by the Random Number Generator. No thanks - I think it is a terrible idea. Sorry

It could be neat, but I would want a choice if I wanted it on or off in a game. I Don't want to be half way to a spaceship or other type of victory and have my plans ruined by an Alien Invasion, or Global Thermonuclear War.

I agree with Shyrramar... terrible idea. If this is any way considered, it would have to be a player option to turn it off. If not, prepare to hear a lot of moaning and whining similar to the culture flips, but to a greater scale.

Now, small minor events, as discussed in the other thread is a good idea. But nothing game breaking.

Originally posted by Pariah


Judgement Day (someone builds a wonder called GlobeSat, or AI Defence... or even Skynet... and it becomes self-aware, nukes cirties in all nations, then becomes a new AI civ with a very powerful military bent on conquering the world. No-one can negotiate with it, either).

The Alien invasion disaster would have to be restricted to the later stages of the game, when the human & AI civs would be advanced enough to have at least some chance of defeating the invaders.

Any thoughts, folks?

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Why does this remind me of T3: Rise of the Machines?

Anyway, the alien invasion could happen in any time period. In periods where there is no mass communication the aliens could land and just stay unseen and dorment. Then they would eventually be discovered and there would be widesread knowledge about where they are once you discover xxxxxx so they would gradually start appearing on the map.

May I add a few of my own? Most are not widespread disasters, but would affect a rather large area.

Meteor impacts: Dramatic weather changes may cause some terrain to change types.

Hurricanes: Some population of victim cities are destroyed and city and terrain improvements may be destroyed.

Forest fires: I'm talking about the large ones. Cities may be burned, terrain improvements destroyed, forests destroyed. Increase in the Greenhouse Effect.

Greenhouse effect (could also be global warming): gradually starts to melt the icecaps. Water levels rise, coasts push inland.

Originally posted by homeyg
Greenhouse effect (could also be global warming): gradually starts to melt the icecaps. Water levels rise, coasts push inland.

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The game already has global warming, which is the same thing as greenhouse effect. There is a thread here called something like "Bring back coastal flooding" that addresses what you are talking about here.

Originally posted by sealman
I agree with Shyrramar... terrible idea. If this is any way considered, it would have to be a player option to turn it off.

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My original idea was that it should be primarily a Cheat menu option. Civ2, after all, has a "Kill Civilization" cheat, which can clear the world of anyone in a flash. The global catastrophe cheat would simply shake things up, and force established AIs to rebuild. It might make a stagnant game interesting again.

You guys are probably right, though, that it shouldn't happen randomly - unless the human player chooses to let it. There could be an option in the initial game setup, with "NO GLOBAL DISASTERS" set as the default.

Aliens will be cool

Have you seen the Civ2 "Alien Invasion!!" thread, deo?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=56023

This is a great idea. You might want to add more common natural disasters, such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornados, even normal weather conditions such as rain, snow, etc.

geowhiz1 said:

This is a great idea. You might want to add more common natural disasters, such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornados, even normal weather conditions such as rain, snow, etc.

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General weather is not feasible in a turn based game were one turn = many years.

Actutally I thought of a way that was unrealistic, but strategic. Unfortunately that thread is lost forever to me so I will move on . There have been much more formalized super-disasters discussed elsewhere in this forum. I will find a link to this thread.

BTW, plagarism is defined as treating someone else's work as your own. As long as you cite the source correctly it is not plagarism.

An alien invasion would be cool. It would give the SETI Program another good use.

The "Terminator" idea would be interesting as well. Planet Earth against the machines. Hmmm...

This is not the terminator thread, but it details many apocalyptic disasters. The time travel/terminator thread will be up soon.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=99489