Should workers be able to build marshes or otherwise change terrain?

[eviltypeguy]

Someone mentioned it'd be rather useful if workers could create marshes on friendly territory. (Since marshes slow movement of units.)

After all, if you can clear a marsh once you get masonry, it seems logical to conclude you know how to create a marsh as well.

So this poll is to see how many of you think workers should be able to create marshes or otherwise change terrain.

I have a mod that I'm working on right now that gives workers the ability to create marsh tiles in friendly territory with the same restrictions that clearing marshes has (require masonry, takes several turns, etc.), and with the game engine restriction that only grassland tiles are allowed to become a marsh.

My early prototype works as expected, although I'm having fun working out some odd bugs due to the opaqueness of the Game DLL at the moment.

Keep in mind that I doubt this would ever work in multiplayer since it actually changes the map, and map transfer happens before game start in multiplayer (not that mods work in multiplayer anyway right now).

 

[Wardancing]

Tunneling through mountains, would be cool, but should take a long long time.

 

[Putmalk]

Workers should be able to grow forests, but after you take...5 turns or so planting the seeds, it takes 20 turns to form.

Other than that, I can't see much terraforming being done, realistically...creating marshes wouldn't be possible...right?

 

[Tee Kay]

In Civ3 we were able to plant forests and make the deserts bloom, or irrigate any other terrain for that matter by changing a few values in a scenario editor.

Good times.

 

[Andvare]

I'd prefer not to, but the Haudenosaunee (the real name of the Iroquois) are gimped without an ability to build forest.

 

[eviltypeguy]

Workers should be able to grow forests, but after you take...5 turns or so planting the seeds, it takes 20 turns to form.

That seems fair.

Other than that, I can't see much terraforming being done, realistically...creating marshes wouldn't be possible...right?

It seems like if you can remove a marsh, you should be able to create a marsh.

Maybe you must have Irrigation?

The logic I had behind allowing creation of a marsh was that you just needed to flood a grassland tile.

 

[eviltypeguy]

Another option might be to have Great Engineers be able to do this instead, but since those aren't exactly common, I'd still prefer workers to have this ability instead.

 

[Lanstro]

Maybe allow workers to seed forests, but nothing more. The fall from heaven mod had terraforming via its mages and I thought it detracted from the gameplay (since most games you just ended up terraforming absolutely everything into grassland).

 

[Thormodr]

Maybe allow workers to seed forests, but nothing more. The fall from heaven mod had terraforming via its mages and I thought it detracted from the gameplay (since most games you just ended up terraforming absolutely everything into grassland).

Nothing wrong with making your own pink spaceship...errr I mean Utopia.

I loved the elves and their druids in FFH2.

In the actual game, I'd say some limited terraforming would be good. Planting of forests certainly should be allowed as well as the irrigation of deserts.

 

[Windsor]

Allowing workers to build marshes would only make the AI look even more stupid than it already does.

What do you want to acheive with such a mod really? Help humans in warfare?

 

[Licinia Eudoxia]

I would like some options for this sort of thing, if only novelty's sake, changing terrain was something I loved, and in Fall From Heaven, I made sure to always get the spells that could change terrain and make my territory visually appealing where I could.

After awhile, I even just created a pseudo-worker unit Treant with modding that had all the terrain change stuff.

In Civ 5, I was thinking it would be nice to, instead of Future Tech, having a number of novelty technologies. Like you could have Terraforming, or "Careless Bioengineering," which lets workers create Jungles, or Teleportation which lets some units use basically the Paratrooper's Paradrop without the plane graphic.

I mean, once you're researching multiple Future Techs, I don't think stuff like creating some jungles or changing tiles a bit would be that big of a deal.

But then, I don't play super competitively with other people.

 

[eoran]

Plant forests, destroy mountains and stuff... like civ2/x

Ah, the global warming was nice too.

 

[eviltypeguy]

Allowing workers to build marshes would only make the AI look even more stupid than it already does.

What do you want to acheive with such a mod really? Help humans in warfare?

It's true that I can't currently make the AI smart enough to use this, but that will hopefully change once the game dll source is released.

As for what I hope to accomplish? That's easy; fun!

 

[PieceOfMind]

Nothing wrong with making your own pink spaceship...errr I mean Utopia.

lol, to my eyes it's purple, or more accurately magenta. But I s'pose 'magenta spaceship' doesn't roll of the tongue so nicely.

 

[Haiku]

Terraforming should be possible to some extent. I for one will be glad to do the following change:

- plant forest
- self growing forest
- improve desert to 'regulated desert' (improvement equivalent to a plain tile, but with maintenance. Still desert underneath)
- raze hill to plain
- one tile canal (more on improvement, with maintenance)

For the moment, I feel like marsh and jungle give too great bonus for what they represent. Thus, I'm not sure the player should be able to spam them all around the map. I don't want to see every choke point covered with marsh.

The science bonus on jungle should be rather move on any unimproved terrain tiles (no road, no trading post, no fortification, nothing). There is also many things to discover in untouched forests, or even wild riverside.

 

[Bandit17]

I do like the forest ideas along with maybe a man made lake. Both of these would fix the gimped UB's of the Iroquois and the Aztecs. Or just readjust the stats to these buildings...but something needs to be done.

 

[JoxerNL]

i think looking at the totall tech advancement, we should be able to terraform, hell we do it now in reality, how come we cant do it in Civ where we can have a Giant Death Robot, or a spaceship to Alpha Centaury?

We magickally lost the ability to plant trees and irrigate?

 

[CarloTheCurious]

Not necessarily marshes, but certainly forests (even if it takes a while).

 

[eviltypeguy]

So it seems like people generally think forests (over marshes) would be desirable?

If so, what technology should be required to be able to plant forests?

Ecology comes to mind; but it's awfully late in the tech tree.

 

[Maxor127]

I wouldn't mind terraforming late in the game. Usually there's nothing left other than crappy tundra or deserts by then. Civ5 already lets you do more with those tiles than it did in previous games though. I don't see the point in making marshes though. This would be very low on the list of additions I'd want.