Global warming; does it matter?

[shannontreacy]

Hello; I just finished a game of Civ4 but continued after a domination victory, anyway as it went along I constantly received global warming warnings. By the time I packed up the globe was looking like the sahara desert, I think it started after I started nuking the American empire (but that might have been a coincidence).

My question is :- Can global warming be reversed?

 

[nzk13]

not as far as i know, (short of using the WorldBuilder)

 

[Willem]

I think it started after I started nuking the American empire (but that might have been a coincidence).

No it wasn't. Nuclear attacks are a major contributor to global warming.

 

[ezwip]

Due to politics only Global warming was coded into the game. Global cooling didn't exist, yet. The likelihood of that happening in history just seemed irrational. Climate change was only discovered two years ago. Realizing this perhaps Firaxis will recode the game for Obama to reflect this new discovery called climate change. Then we can have cooling right after the warming which is then proceeded by a huger warming! Which of course is how we know the planet to now work.

Firaxis was going to make Alpha Centauri but they spent all the revenue from Civ IV on carbon offsets. As a result Obama has cancelled the space program, and Civ V will have the option when playing America to purchase your buildings directly through Mexico, India, Middle Eastern Countries, Vietnam, and Russia. You will be able to lease a ride on a rocket to Alpha Centauri at the end. This will allow you to escape the flood caused by insane heating that covers the planet in 50 miles high of water.

 

[Willem]

Why do these global warming threads alway get bogged down by someone spouting their political beliefs? It's just a game, if you want to discuss politics there's plenty of forums for that.

 

[Nares]

Why do these global warming threads alway get bogged down by someone spouting their political beliefs?

Its introduction into the game is a political statement in itself, so it's no surprise to me that any discussion of its effects in-game lead back to the political discussion surrounding it.

+1 for labeling it "political beliefs," because the science for man-made warming has as much credential as religious beliefs and practices so often derided by "global warming" supporters.

I'd love to see a mod which completely removed it.

 

[attackfighter]

Why do these global warming threads alway get bogged down by someone spouting their political beliefs? It's just a game, if you want to discuss politics there's plenty of forums for that.

It's a horrible mechanic and it's only there cause Firaxis is made up of pc hippies (see also the totally lame religion system).

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Global warming is real. Is it human caused and what is the actual scale of it are different questions. But generally speaking it is real.

But the issue of global warming has cropped up a lot of times on this forum. And each time I see people shouting about it. In my personal opinion it has little or nothing with the validity of their beliefs and everything to do with the fact that it is a mechanic that no one seems to like.

So the shouting turns to: "It's not prooven... bla bla bla... Putting it in was political so we should remove it!"

But the translation is: "It's a mechanic that I don't like. But I don't want to look like I am whining. So I am going to talk about politics and look smart while criticizing that witch I hate."

Also, for that mod you requested. There is none that I know of that removes it but here is the next best thing. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=302649


And yes, I hate global warming too. Along with everyone hating you for using nukes and nuclear reactor meltdowns that blow up like Hiroshima.

 

[Willem]

Its introduction into the game is a political statement in itself,

It's nothing but a game mechanic. It's been in the game since the days of Civ 2, long before the debate over Global Warming ever came up. In particular Firaxis wanted some sort of consequence for using Nuclear Weapons. There's nothing political about it being in the game at all.

I'd love to see a mod which completely removed it.

Do it yourself, you'll find the values in GlobalDefines.xml. This line in fact:

<Define>
<DefineName>GLOBAL_WARMING_PROB</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>20</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>

Just change the probability to 0.

 

[God-Emperor]

The answer to the question in the title is no, it doesn't matter.

By the time it happens at all, the game is already nearly over. It is a minor nuisance, at worst.

The problems you saw are because you spent your time playing a game that had already ended. If you play long enough, the random flipping of tiles will make every single land tile turn to desert. But continuing to play for so long after the game is already over is pointless. Thus, all that global warming doesn't matter, just like everything else that happens after the game has ended.

In some mods, this may not be the case. If the modern and future eras of the game are extended, then it can become a problem. But it is a problem that is, on average, shared equally by all the other civs in the game so in some sense it still doesn't matter. It can cause your cities to shrink and your commerce (and therefore your research rate) and production to go down, slowing everything down. But it is doing the same to everyone else too, so it should not alter the balance of the game much (since it is random, it can affect the players a little unevenly - but usually not much). The main exception is that there are the corps - particularly the two that give food, and if you have one (or both) then the problems that the desertification causes you are reduced.

 

[kosiosko 1]

earlier verions of civ, allowed you to somewhat fix the problem, as jungles and plains forest were also used to degrade tiles, nothing to do in CIV IV

 

[PieceOfMind]

Climate change was only discovered two years ago.

You are trolling. Please keep your political rubbish out of the civ4 forum. You're entitled to your opinion of course but we don't want to hear it here.

 

[covok48]

GW goes back to civ 1 and I can appreciate it as a game mechanic to counter excessive use of nuclear weapons. Plus a nuclear winter (as opposed to warming) is very real possibility so I don't mind it in civ 4 either regarding nuclear weapons.

Given that, it absolutely infuriates me that it is a counter to excessive hammer production. Even though all my cities are healthy and I have built all the necessary buildings to promote health/ clean(er) living I still get global warming strikes. It has made the industrial park practically unbuildable and acts as a counter reward to all the tile improvements/ city building that has taken place the previous several thousand years.

 

[ezwip]

You are trolling. Please keep your political rubbish out of the civ4 forum. You're entitled to your opinion of course but we don't want to hear it here.

You jump on the one guy with a different opinion.

 

[Draakon]

Well, if you use a mod that has terraforming in, you don't need to worry about it.

 

[PieceOfMind]

You are a douche. Global warming is a hoax. This game is part of the hoax. Firaxis is satan. Muahaha.

edited to...

You jump on the one guy with a different opinion.

In future, you might like to think about what you post before you post. It doesn't surprise me at all you felt the need to call me a douche.
Moderator Action: Warned for trolling.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Why do these global warming threads alway get bogged down by someone spouting their political beliefs? It's just a game, if you want to discuss politics there's plenty of forums for that.

Why do GW threads get bogged down by politics?

Let's see...maybe because political beliefs by the programmers are the only reason it's in the game, maybe? If you compare climate change as we've seen it in reality to its effects in game, the in-game variant is both ridiculous and un-founded. Politics or not, the extent that humanity has caused GW has not been worked out. Also, GW has *never* been significant on the historical scale, which last time I checked was the scale civ IV purports to operate on.

People put up with it for god knows what reason, really. If you were to take the scale that to-date, observed global warming has been magnified in civ IV and apply it to other in-game events, a hydro dam bursting would create a lake so large it could swallow 10 cities.

So what do you expect from people? Global warming is a POLITICAL topic in general, and it is placed in a HISTORICAL game. A game that tracks turns by years in their smallest increments for the majority of the game.

The three major problems with global warming in civ IV are as follows:

1. The effect shows inherent political bias on a topic that has no place in a historical, and it pisses people off.
2. It is based on ridiculous factors in-game, and nearly impossible to control (for example, relying on environmentalism can make it WORSE! Seriously!)
3. Most distressing of all: it is an annoyance that does not penalize any one civ based on its actions, and actually doesn't change the relative positions of all civs much. Not at all if corps aren't a factor.

So here we have a gameplay element that fails every check for inclusion! It is unrealistic, annoying, and not reasonably determined by player actions (barring nuke sprees, and even then, it hits ALL civs evenly). And to answer the OP question, it is *not* reversible in any fashion. Fun!

+1 for labeling it "political beliefs," because the science for man-made warming has as much credential as religious beliefs and practices so often derided by "global warming" supporters.

Nails it perfectly. Maybe the poster who called out specific politicians swung a little too far in that direction (as the tendency of that sort of thing to ignite unfavorable responses is quite high), but if anything the people accusing him of trolling are probably more guilty of that action.

Fortunately, the most useful contribution in this thread thus far is the way to remove it:

Do it yourself, you'll find the values in GlobalDefines.xml. This line in fact:

<Define>
<DefineName>GLOBAL_WARMING_PROB</DefineName>
<iDefineIntVal>20</iDefineIntVal>
</Define>

Just change the probability to 0.

This is very easy, and takes maybe 30 seconds. Less if you find the file faster.

And for the record, unless something was changed AFAIK GW (aka desert fairy magic (FM)) is based on only a couple things:

1. # of nukes fired (a ridiculous way to balance their use considering it doesn't have a balancing effect at all, and yet its "balance" is still a naive or just ignorant justification of tying these two together.)
2. # of forest/jungle tiles (IIRC enough can block GW entirely)
3. Total amount of in the world.

Notice that 2 and 3 eventually cause global warming no matter what in games with the AI. On high levels, you can see it in the 1700's while going culture and building nothing unhealthier than a forge yourself. Also note that #3 does NOT care about whether cities are healthy or not! Using environmentalism for more health so you can build factories without starving will increase global warming!

One more time! Using environmentalism for its intended in-game purpose increases the incidence of global warming.

It's a top-down horrible joke mechanic. If a gameplay mechanic fails reality, gameplay, and even RELEVANCE checks, why is it in the game? Why is it in the game for 4 years, when the basic controls still do not operate 100% smoothly? Why bug overflow when issues like this are documented and known for years? It is beyond understandable why people hate this particular mechanic so much. There are so many angles from which to hate it, and virtually none to like it unless maybe you're one of those pause-button type grievers and you just like seeing it annoy people. Even those guys might not like it though.

 

[Junuxx]

Yeah, to what TMIT said, a localized pollution-related (but permanent) degradation of the terrain might be better already than randomized global stuff. As a game mechanic.

Remember that civ has always tried to model 'history' up to 2050 though. Depending on how accurate current predictions are, GW might well be quite "significant on the historical scale" by then.

 

[katipunero]

Global warming matters negatively fun-wise to an extent but I think it should stay as a game mechanic. However, the way things stand now, it's poorly implemented. How about making one of those random events where current research progress to a tech is penalized when global warming turns out to be nothing but a fraud. Or the reverse, a major boost in the production of space parts so people can get out of a doomed world faster.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Global warming matters negatively to an extent but I think it should stay as a game mechanic.

Global warming has effects that impact all civs, and pretty equally at that. Unless one civ is abusing it to make tiles useless while it runs a corporation, there is no net relative difference from global warming at all. Are you saying that corp-based global warming beatdowns affect the relative position of civs on a consistent basis before the game is decided? That's the only possible way it matters, and if you're saying that we must be playing very different games.

Random elements that are not reasonably determined by player actions are a bad thing for gameplay. Notice that some of the in-game events do not fail this test, but enough do so for random events to be my most hated game setting of all. It still bothers the hell out of me that they are allowable options in HoF while disabling tech trades or brokering isn't (the latter having far less impact on outcomes than huts or events, and being less random, in a setting that is supposed to make games comparable.....................................).

Anyway adding more fake difficulty isn't the answer. Maybe as an option, but random elements that are not influenced by player actions don't have a place in the default game. They might have a place in the card game "war".

Now, if you really want to penalize a player for pollution beyond basic un-health, civ II had a workable model. Cities would pollute their surrounding land if they were too unhealthy. If you take away sea levels rising from that, you have a working model to penalize pollution, and you could logically tie it only to buildings/factors that make sense. That a better model in an older game was dropped in favor of complete and utter garbage is preposterous.