Stealing plots and terraforming

[Standiball]

Hello,

First of all congratulations for such a marvelous mod, i have had a lot of fun playing with it, however i have a question / suggestion

Is there a spell, skill, etc, that allows me to take terrain for other civilizations and add it to my own?

If not i think it would be a great skill for peaceful civilization to make a domination victory

Additionally i think i would be a great idea to have spells that allow me to change the terrain according to my needs (from desert to plains, plains to grassland, etc and also the other way around)

If this kind of things is already implemented then it should be more clear in the manual since i was unable to find it.

Thanks for sich a great mod and keep up the good work

 

[BrokenSky]

Currently there is "living terrain" which means that certain terrain, (forests, jungle, marshes) If you go for pantheism and open one of the third level policies (I think?) you can spread your ownership of terrain through forests, and increase forest terrain strength. I'm not sure if this lets you conquer owned terrain though.

 

[Standiball]

Well I have tried that, however you do not have a direct control over which title is taken and if I recall correctly it does not work on desert tittles which makes them not that useful.

 

[Pazyryk]

Graphics engine won't allow changing terrain or plot types in game (desert, tundra, grass, plains, ... or water or hills or mountain), so you won't ever see those changing.

I don't plan to add any spells that simply take a plot. If there was a specific logic or rationale or game need then we can do it. For example, to take ownership of an Arcane Tower in hostile lands...

 

[iffi]

What defines who gets to own a boar or an oyster resource that is equally distant from two cities owned by two different civs? When a steal happens it seems to be always against me. Culture? And I'm quite sure in one of the earlier EaIII versions the AI stole a fish resource 4 tiles away from its city!

And speaking of these resources, for a long time I thought my cities could actually use the ones I grabbed 4+ tiles away. I thought it was one of the greatest things in the mod, and I hoped it would also diminish AI city spamming.
So the practical benefits are that I can improve a distant resource for a new small city from an established city, and that I (maybe, have not checked) get the happiness bonus from whales and furs and can trade them if I have several?

 

[Pazyryk]

Any city can "steal" a camp or boat resource if the resource is within 3-plot radius of the stealing city and not within 3-plots of the currently owning city. The basic idea here is that you can't permanently hold distant plots against some future city that is later settled near the resource. However, if we had whales or fish that were distant from any possible city (which we will have when I make that mod to AssignStartingPlots.lua) then they are safe since no one can ever settle within 3 plots.

An admittedly annoying consequence of this system is that you might have a fishing boat resource within 5 plots of the owning city and within 2 plots of another of your cities. You think it is safe but it's not. Any other city within 3 plots of that resource can build a fishing boat and claim it, including even your own city that is within 3-plots (then it would be "safe" since it is now within 3 plots of owning city). [Edit: I'm not exactly married to this idea of cities stealing from cities within a civ by building hunters or boats. It just sort of happened. A more sensible approach would be that the plot transfers automatically to a new city of yours if the new city is within 3 plots and the old owning city wasn't. That would at least make it so that you know a resource is safe if within 3 plots of any of your cities. And you know any distant resources are safe unless someone can or does settle within 3 plots of it.] --Edit2: the blue text part is now added in v6, so there will be no ambiguity about which plots can be stolen and which ones can't

You can't "work" a plot outside of 3-plot radius, but you do get automatic yield for these via hunting lodges, ports and other buildings (see help for specific buildings). In general, this yield is less than a worked plot ... however, it doesn't cost you a citizen to receive the yield. It's hard to calculate the "cost" of a citizen exactly, they eat 3f but provided 1p and ?s (depending) ... but it's more complex that that because you have to consider food needed to grow one pop and also the extra population counting against you for Cultural Level and for Knowledge Maintenance. So getting 2 or 3 yield without needing a citizen is usually pretty good in long term (but not so great if you are looking for short term advantage). It's a close call with yield generating buildings. These buildings usually cost more (2x or more than a Hunter or Fishing Boats) - but it's very situational what you will get from each one.

 

[darkedone02]

Is there any plans in the future that could add in natural terraforming into the game? For example after several years, that desert surround by plains will convert that desert into a plains?

 

[Loderunner]

As stated earlier, the game engine does not allow changing terrain. But, would a possible work-around be to create improvements that look like terrain? Is this how blight works?

 

[Pazyryk]

As stated earlier, the game engine does not allow changing terrain. But, would a possible work-around be to create improvements that look like terrain? Is this how blight works?

Yes. Or on some plots that have certain improvements that I didn't want to destroy, blight graphic is added as a resource. So it's kind of a mod kludge. Worth it for blight but I probably won't use it for anything else.