Arioch's Analyst Thread

[Ahriman]

It's not really relevant to how the game plays.

Sure, but there's no gameplay reason to make grassland forest as bad as tundra forest either, and there are good reasons not to.

Tundra should always be worse than grassland.

It says yes if Grassland+Forest is the same as Plains+Forest

Why? These are both decent terrain types.
And why should these two be the same?
What was wrong with how they worked in Civ4?

 

[YoHo]

That was never in question.

The question was, does it make sense for Tundra + forest to be worth the same as Grassland + forest?

Logic says no.

If Tundra+Forest=Boreal Forest, then logic says YES.
The large percentage of our Lumber and paper products come from the Boreal Forest. If you want to make the case that southern Boreal Forests are the most productive and that if cleared they would be more productive, well that's true to a point, but UP Michigan or the Wisconsin North Woods aren't productive grassland.

So in the real world, The forested area would be equally valuable, but the cleared land would not.

So, it makes sense, within the context of the game, to make Forested Tundra equal to Forested Grassland, because in real life, the Boreal Forest is where much of our Forest Wealth comes from.

 

[Celevin]

If Tundra+Forest=Boreal Forest, then logic says YES.
The large percentage of our Lumber and paper products come from the Boreal Forest. If you want to make the case that southern Boreal Forests are the most productive and that if cleared they would be more productive, well that's true to a point, but UP Michigan or the Wisconsin North Woods aren't productive grassland.

So in the real world, The forested area would be equally valuable, but the cleared land would not.

So, it makes sense, within the context of the game, to make Forested Tundra equal to Forested Grassland, because in real life, the Boreal Forest is where much of our Forest Wealth comes from.

I don't know how much of boreal forests I'd actually consider tundra. I've been way north of Yellowknife in Canada, and if that's what Civ considers to be tundra, I'll accept that it should be much worse than grasslands or plains forest, whatever those should be as well.

Then again, on TRUE tundra, you don't get many trees at all. Sure there's quite a few in Inuvik where I stayed (google maps it - it's pretty damn north), but in other areas you actually start to miss seeing any vegetation higher than 2 feet. Say, Cambridge Bay.

I think the reason that we get most of our lumber from the boreals is simply the reason that not as many people live there. I'm positive we'd get a lot from further south if we didn't chop it all down for farms.

 

[Hamil]

In other News:

"The tools let you create maps of all sizes in the game, up to the "huge" size of 128 by 80 tiles (which we can tell you from experience is really quite huge)."

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy...tag=newsfeatures;title;1&mode=previews&page=1

The article is about the Maping-Tools and about a short Multiplayer battle.

 

[EmpireOfCats]

"The tools let you create maps of all sizes in the game, up to the "huge" size of 128 by 80 tiles (which we can tell you from experience is really quite huge)."

What ever it is, it won't be big enough for me . I'm a n+1 kind of guy when it comes to this game.

 

[SJSerio]

In other News:

"The tools let you create maps of all sizes in the game, up to the "huge" size of 128 by 80 tiles (which we can tell you from experience is really quite huge)."

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy...tag=newsfeatures;title;1&mode=previews&page=1

The article is about the Maping-Tools and about a short Multiplayer battle.

128 by 80? That is not very big! Not any bigger than Huge map in CIV IV. Looks like, from what I read, that their won't be a GUI based editor again for "XML" files.

 

[craig123]

I can't believe there's so much we don't know about something so fundamental. Without knowing tile/improvement yields, it's hard to speculate about anything. I had just assumed the basics would be kept the same, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

Tile yields are not "fundamental" to 99% of people who will buy the game. How many people will base their decision to buy the game on whether a grassland forest is better than a plains forest? The reason that we know 'so little' about it is probably because there are 1001 more interesting things to say about the game. And surely we can put together a pretty good idea of the tile yields from all the gameplay videos and pictures???

Yeah. I admit to a tl;dr attack with the last couple of posts, but the amount of discussion between people who know the game far better than I ever will makes me nervous. We've been hearing too much about the beautiful graphics (which are really, beautiful, no doubt) and the new combat system (which is new, yes) and not enough about the most basic game aspects. Why didn't the reviewers catch this?

Do you seriously expect a reviewer to include a table of tile yields in their review? Reviews are read mainly by people who know little-to-nothing about the game; that's why they all say the same thing (hexes, 1UpT, beautiful landscape, animated leaders, etc.). Even people on this site who have played the game haven't bothered to make a note of tile yields. It is boring and irrelevant to all but a handful of people (who will probably buy the game anyway).

The fact that there's been such a detailed discussion about forests shows how desperate we all are for more info. Greg? Anything?

 

[12agnar0k]

For the people listing "desert as bad terrain",
Actually in Civ5 it will be pretty good especially compared to Civ4, it will be much closer to the yield of grassland, tundra is in fact worse than a desert, only bested by the Swamp, which is pretty dismal even when drained. I'm not sure what snow/ice terrain gives (if it is in Civ5).

You can also use the game's "tuner" tool in-game, which lets you change in-game values and units in real time over the course of an actual game (making it a powerful cheating tool as well…but who'd ever cheat in a game of Civ, right?).

So this is new information, along with the stand-along world builder, we also have a tweaker for in the game too, some people will be glad to hear this who thought it wasn't in the game at all.

 

[MisterBarca]

In other News:

"The tools let you create maps of all sizes in the game, up to the "huge" size of 128 by 80 tiles (which we can tell you from experience is really quite huge)."

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy...tag=newsfeatures;title;1&mode=previews&page=1

The article is about the Maping-Tools and about a short Multiplayer battle.

That's over 10k tiles!

 

[Ahriman]

For the people listing "desert as bad terrain",
Actually in Civ5 it will be pretty good especially compared to Civ4, it will be much closer to the yield of grassland

Source please? Make sure you are not confusing flood plains tiles with regular desert.

 

[12agnar0k]

Source please? Make sure you are not confusing flood plains tiles with regular desert.

Fairly sure we have seen video evidence showing decent tile yields on desert terrain.

I will look for it later.

 

[MisterBarca]

What are these gray star icons next to certain technologies?

For instance, see next to Optics, after the Lighthouse icon:

http://well-of-souls.com/civ/images/tech_tree3.jpg

 

[stealth_nsk]

What are these gray star icons next to certain technologies?

Icons not designed yet. These are special abilities, like ability to embark units with optics.

 

[MisterBarca]

Icons not designed yet. These are special abilities, like ability to embark units with optics.

I see. Thanks.

 

[DeepQantas]

For Fertilizer and Civil Service it prolly means better tile yields. A generic icon for "Rule Change" ?

 

[City Raider]

Source please? Make sure you are not confusing flood plains tiles with regular desert.

In the "Confirmed Features and Versions" thread it states you can build a farm on desert. So that instantly makes desert better in Civ 5 than in Civ 4. So worst case, desert will at least get you one food. And assuming later techs or boosts apply to all farms, there might be something where you can get 2 food out of it.

 

[Ahriman]

Thats not the yield of the desert tile. And a tile that only yields you 1 food is useless, it can't even support the citizen working it.

The claim was:

Actually in Civ5 it will be pretty good especially compared to Civ4, it will be much closer to the yield of grassland

A zero yield (or 1h yield) tile on which you can build a farm is not pretty good, nor is it much closer to grassland.

 

[treadwin]

I think the new system for basic resourcing makes sense and can't see how it will make any real difference.

A forest's output is the same no matter the underlying terrain. The main resouce are the un-forested trees and the eco-system that it supports. I accept that the fringes of certain forests might be les productive, but this is true of forest bordering any desert, or swamp, not just tundra.

Hills are seen as valuable as subsistance pasture and a source of mining non-featured commodities that are similarly only marginally dependant on the soil quality.

The truth is that by making the terrain more homogeonous, it makes what you build on the land more important than the land itself. The Civ 4 model makes the citing of cities and the terrain you are dealt very important, but the decision of what to built on the land is pretty much made for you by the site of your city. The only decision I found myself really agonizing over was farm or cottage.

Now, in Civ5, the choices seem more difficult IMO. Mine or farm a hill. Trading post, or farm a grassland, Chop a forest/jungle or not. Where to build a GP building. Choose wisely my liege!

 

[City Raider]

Thats not the yield of the desert tile. And a tile that only yields you 1 food is useless, it can't even support the citizen working it.

The claim was:

A zero yield (or 1h yield) tile on which you can build a farm is not pretty good, nor is it much closer to grassland.

But it will be better in Civ 5.

Fine, 0F (des) vs. 2F (grass) in both civ 4 and 5. But when you can farm it in 5 it becoms 1 vs. 3 compared to 0 vs. 3 (civ 4). Now with added boosts to farms (new tech/sp ???), deserts are clearly better in Civ 5 than they were in civ 4.

It is much closer to grassland (in that it can be improved and you can get some food out of it). Base tile yields aren't that important. You shouldn't be working unimporved tiles anyway. It is what can you do with the tile.

The point is, desert tiles (in emergencies) can actually be worked and imporved. Obviously no one will work an improved desert over improved grassland, but maybe you work it over a 0F mountain.

Edit:

Desert river also gets 1 gold.

 

[12agnar0k]

Thats not the yield of the desert tile. And a tile that only yields you 1 food is useless, it can't even support the citizen working it.

The claim was:


A zero yield (or 1h yield) tile on which you can build a farm is not pretty good, nor is it much closer to grassland.

Desert isn't 0 food and 1 hammer though, I believe it will either be 1 food as standard or it may even be 2 food as standard (the same as grass land)
The fact that the Grassland was +1 food could have been irrigation, though I suspect not, I suspect Desert to be only 1 less food than the grassland, where as tundra gives 0 food as standard and can't even be farmed, or 1 food as standard and can't be farmed.

I will check for validity a bit later and post here.