An option to turn off the %$!&! pollution

[Ivan the Kulak]

This has been mentioned before, but I'm bringing it up again anyway. In Civ2 the interface worked much quicker, and the city worker wasn't taken off the tile. Dump some engineers on it and bam! - problem solved. In Civ3 it goes something like this: spend a bunch of time hunting down some free workers on the slower map screen. Figure out how many it takes to clean up the square, move them there, and order them one by one to clean it up. Then, open your city screen. Put the laborer back on the tile (unless another city has taken over the tile at the start of the next turn - then it gets even more complicated). If you're using your workers on automatic (clean up pollution only) you still have to look at every city every turn, and if you have alot of pollution that turn, they may not clean it up in the order you like, causing the loss of shields, perhaps even delaying the production of something important for a turn. This is why I always have some free workers to pile on by hand anyway, even though it takes longer.

I kept track in the last game I played and realized how much time I spent dealing with this - every single turn. This does not add to the gameplay, or make it more difficult - it's simply tedious, like working in a factory and putting parts a,b, and c into part d, and pushing button e so machine f will paint tile g. An option to turn this off for those of us who do not have unlimited civ playing time would be MOST welcome.

More time per turn on this means more time used up per game, and thus less games played. Curiously, tricks like setting factories and hospitals to eliminate shield and pop pollution do not eliminate it entirely - you still get pollution, although less of it.

 

[joespaniel]

I agree that it becomes tiresome to chase pollution.

Edited my game so that pollution takes less workers to clean up.

 

[WillJ]

Originally posted by Ivan the Kulak
This does not add to the gameplay, or make it more difficult

Yes it does. It gives a negative aspect to factories, coal plants, etc.

What I'd like to see is a toggle switch in the interface between:

a) No pollution at all (for all you lazy types -j/k)

b) Pollution, but the citizen keeps on working that square; it's just that he doesn't produce anything (for all you slightly lazy people who don't mind losing one happy face, gold, or science a turn; or who would rather trigger "pollution-induced specialists" when you see fit)

c) Pollution, as it is in the game (for all you micromanagers out there who wouldn't want to lose the production of a specialist)

This would satisfy everyone, AFAIK.

Edit: About b and c: Silly me, I should have realized that this would be better: When pollution occurs, the citizen working that square becomes a specialist, and when the pollution is cleaned up, the citizen goes back to working that square. This might be hard to do, though, considering that it hasn't been done in any of the patches as of yet, and it would be very helpful.

 

[RX2000]

I agree, factories and early power plants are WAY too powerful without the pollution balancing it. I wouldnt really care if they made an option to turn it all off though. If other people want to ruin their games thats their problem, not mine.

 

[Peebo]

its all about the hydro plants and solar plants. zero pollution. boo ya.

 

[RX2000]

Yep, I'm with you there Peebo. The problem is, some people want as much production as quickly as possible, so they build a bajillion factories and coal plants as soon as they can, then whine when pollution pops up everywhere. (Not saying that about anyone in particular.)

 

[Ivan the Kulak]

I never build coal plants - I always wait for Hydro, and of course I try to get Hoover Dam if I can (my most anticipated wonder). The problem is the stuff you need to cut the pollution comes so much further down the tech tree. Until you get there its a nightmare cleaning up the mess. I like the option B, where the city worker is not taken off the tile, or becomes a pollution specialist (This specialist could cost one gold per turn until pollution is gone). Though I like to micromanage to a certain extent, I don't want to do it when I have a large number of cities and many of them are not producing anything important.
Maybe a little modding is necessary here - Medicine could give you the Hospital, and Sanitation could give you the Sewer System (reduces pop pollution) and the Sanitary Landfill (reduces pop pollution). Something similar could be done for Industrialization.

My point to all this is the time involved. In civ2 it didn't take nearly so long to deal with - but if you didn't, there were SERIOUS consequences (global warming,destruction of the environment). In civ3, its like a nagging, time consuming problem - but if you don't clean it up, the worst that happens is you lose some, production, and food when a few tiles here and there start to turn into desert. The civ2 model, IMO, was much better.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

How about having an option to choose the level of pollution at the startup screen, much like the level of barbarians - ie from no pollution to "raging" pollution?

 

[joespaniel]

Originally posted by R8XFT
How about having an option to choose the level of pollution at the startup screen, much like the level of barbarians - ie from no pollution to "raging" pollution?

YES!

 

[marceagleye]

Better yet, let the citizen keep working the tile and have the pollution corrupt 100% of the food, 50% of the commerce, and 0% of the production until your workers clean it up.