Can we FINALLY build cities on mountains? Also, other Civ4 questions

chomusclavus said:
No, I never have and can't try it right now.

Now, can modders design canals and allow mountain city building?
Like someone above pointed out, build a city on the isthmus and you've got your canal. No need for added game mechanics.

And what's the big deal about not being able to build cities on mountains? So you can't... I don't see why you're so worked up about this.

And are you seriously saying that a limit of 512 cities per game is a problem? How large a map are you planning to play on anyway?
 
I don't think I saw this one answered, but yes you can airlift workers now. Also, you no longer need airports on the receiving end (though it increases incoming units, I believe).
 
1200 years ...

Archaeologists estimate that the native Americans who built Cliff Palace arrived in Mesa Verde as early as 1 A.D. They apparently lived a quiet and peaceful life on the Mesa tops until about 1200 A.D.




You know, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a "Civilization dependent special ability" to live on and/or work mountain tiles.
 
Kolyana said:
1200 years ...
You know, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a "Civilization dependent special ability" to live on and/or work mountain tiles.

i wouldnt like it in the official game, but if Civ 4 works on "movement cost" and "Can Build Cities" the same as Civ 3, then it should be moddable.
 
There was another one somewhere that looks similar to the second picture you posted, Kolyana. It may even be that one. I saw on a documentary that some High Priest of a civilization had his people carve out what was at first a temple then more people added to it and it became a city inside a mountain. Now I wish I would have been able to watch it more closely as it would have relevance here. :p

I think the OP has some great points. I have already considered canals, I dont think I should HAVE to settle my city on that PARTICULAR tile to utilize it for crossing oceans (especially if 1 tile over is a better city location) when a canal is far from 'sci-fi' technology. Really, they could introduce it in the Rennessaince (sp?) Era.
The mountains don't bother me personally, I like having the impassable 'walls' for strategy. However, if one civilization can utilize them, they all should be able to. The point of Civilization is to have the 'Soviet America' or other odd combos. About the only unique thing we get is a unit and leader traits. I would love to have the Greeks living in mountain cities or something.

As for suggesting that someone go play a different game because they are applying constructive critism about a game is rediculous. I hope anyone who gets angry at someone for offering critism as the OP has, never ends up as a beta tester. That game will blow chunks.
 
Another point that cities aren't built on peaks. I don't see anyone asking to build a city on a peak. It isn't our fault the only representation of mountain ranges in Civ4 are peaks. Mountains aren't as symmetrical and perfect in real life as they are in Civ4, furthermore they often have plenty of habitable heights (plateaus/grassy slopes) surrounding them, such as shown in some pictures. Personally, I perceive the mountain tile simply as an elevated tile, not necessarily some gargantuan skyscraper of a high rise that no mortal man can climb. Not every mountain is some iconic frozen reach. The only place on this earth where humans have been unable to flourish is under the water, simply because we breathe air.
 
I think the problem is how they named the terrain in Civ 4, the fact is that they should have called Hills Mountains, as well as renaming mountains peaks (because the fact is I'm guessing on a good Earth map, the entire Appalachian mountain range would consist of nothing but 'hills', the Rockies and Andes might have a few chains of peaks, but have 'hills' around those)
 
The Appalachian Mtns. are indeed mountains in my opinion. I don't understand this inane dismissal of mountains - that they must all equal the height and hostility of Everest. The Appalachian Mtns. consist of billions of tons of rock.

Have you ever been? You know this particular range extends from Georgia to Maine, often far exceeding the surrounding lands in height, much of which is known as valley because of the contrast in height. Yet the Appalachians are well populated, as is the entire East Coast of the U.S. The Rockies are indeed less hospitable, but plenty of its range plays host to tourism as well as standard day-to-day civilization.

I guess by this logic of what can and can't be done by our species, the Pyramids and Stonehenge were put here by aliens. Not to mention the statues on Easter Isle.
 
SomethingWitty said:
Point 3: Lhasa is built in a valley. Vail is built on the bottom of some ski slopes. There are no real life cities built on the summit of major mountains.


Untrue, ever been to Machu Pichu?? thats built right on top of a mountain. and its an ancient city to boot.
 
chomusclavus said:
Point 1: OMG!!!! The devs have never even HEARD of tunnels, haven't they???? Rail tunnels go through mountains IRL.

Point 2: Also road routes that aren't tunnels are "Khyber Pass", "Peshawar Pass", and "Kasserine Pass". I-70 goes through the Rocky Mountains. Looks like Civ 4 is going DOWNHILL!!!!!

Point 3: Also cities are built on mountains in RL. There's Lhasa, Tibet. Vail, Colorado, various Swiss cities, various Nepalese cities. The list could go on and on! It would be nice if we could still build on them, though it's reasonable to make it more expensive to add improvements there.

Point 4: Panama Canal is used by ships of MANY nations. A city in between oceans- can only be used by ONE nation. Canals can also be as long as the country's finances permit. There's also the "Grand Canal" in China. See how long that is? Why'd you say "Gasp" before saying no?

Do the Firaxis devs WANT to throw the Civilization franchise right out the window??

1: I would think that tunnels are built with the least amount you have to dig (of course you'll have to make sure you're digging the right soil and such), but you don't drill through a mountain.
2: point taken, but there are bound to have someone who'd mod it in. Frankly there's no need to say that a game goes downhill just because you can't have ground units on a mountain/peak tile.
3: Some of these mountain cities are built out of necessity. They can be a pain to grow. It's harder to get resources to it. Various stuff like that. Even Firaxis allowed you to put cities on mountains, I'd imagine it would take penalties.
4: point taken, but I'd think I'd ask my workers to build something more important than a canal. AFAIK most canals are not designed for warships to pass, making the effort of having it in the game practically useless. And if you build a city to make a "canal", it can be used by all nations that have a open passage with the nation that put the city on there.
I don't see how any of these points are game breaking, and some are even not particularly significant (like the canal one). If you get to have destroyers or battleships or carriers, they move pretty quick on the water too. I don't see how not having these minor points is "throwing the franchise out the window".
 
There are passes. Mountains on a diagonal, you can pass in between them, and you even see your units walk up the pass and back down, if you have quick moves off.
 
"Hills" are habitable mountain areas as well as "mountains" are not in Civ4. What is so difficult to understand with it?

As a Civ4 tile has some measure of est. 50 km, you just get an abstract view of this area. The point of Civ4 is that no _significant_ settlements are to be placed where in an area of 50x50 km seem to be a lot of peaks. Those parts of Switzerland, Austria, Nepal, China, USA etc. pp. are indeed hardly significantly settled. Some castle on top of a peak does not count as a city, a significant city could not be maintained in such heights.

As well no significant army could ever cross such a line of peaks (some ten mountain infantry soldiers may, of course), it is not said as well that a valley could be crossed by an army, you need it to be passable. Tunnels and passes are build where mountains are "narrow" or where the pass is simply some naturall valley between two peaks.

The abstraction level made with Civ4 is ok, I think. No problem of understanding what is meant by a peak. It is high, it is steep, it is rocky. It is impassable for my army, have to go through the valley or over the pass :)
 
Zhahz said:
I love the Civ series, particularly Civ IV, and I sometimes wonder if some folks are playing the right game!

IMO, you want something other than Civilization! Hope for modding, play Empire Earth (and wish it wasn't an RTS), or wait for something else. :mischief:

So your alternative is, basically, don't play anything? Great.
 
It's worth bearing in mind that if a civ had a special ability to settle on a mountain, then it would be impossible for civs without a mountainous trait to onvade that city. Irrespective of the realism, that'd really throw the balance of the game.
 
Now how do I send these suggestions to the Firaxis Devs? Where's a suggestion entry form that I can fill out? It might be somewhere on their site, but where exactly?

Thanks for letting me know.
 
Theres only one single way that Civ:CTP ever scored over the real Civ, and that was the idea of disease - Civ III sort of had it, but it didnt spread. One of the primary reasons that places like Machu Pichu were built high up was to put them out of the elevational range of mosquitos.
I think a very nice mod would result if the developers took a read of Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. He argues that one of the principle reasons Europe did so well overall was the immunity Europeans had to a wide variety of disease. Billy Turner III has gone so far to say in The Earth Transformed by Humans that possibly 90% of the native population of the Americas was eradicated by small pox, and that the Pre-Columbian Aztec capital may have had as many as 5 million inhabitants - making it roughly equivalent in size and population to Dallas/Fort Worth - the Spaniards would have had a far more difficult time even with guns if small pox hadnt come before them.
CivIV does adress what happens when a higher tech level meets a low one (5 knights charge Troy, defended by 2 Riflemen - Knights 0 Riflemen 2), but not when foreign disease encounters a native population.
So a mechanism for disease, which might work with the same lines as religion does - in other words, it occurs within a population, and then spreads with exploration and trade, and one of two bonuses for building on a peak. The first would be an incredible defensive bonus, the second a resistance to disease. You build on a mountain, you get a single hammer or gold, -1 food (to limit size) but a good defensive bonus and -10% chance of disease occuring.
 
Roxinante said:
I think a very nice mod would result if the developers took a read of Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. He argues that one of the principle reasons Europe did so well overall was the immunity Europeans had to a wide variety of disease.

its an excellent book, it takes history and turns it on its head, saying that rather than the greeks being resposible for western civilisation, the head-start from the middle east and fertile land in europe was the reason. but it says a lot more than germs were responsible, for example the climate, the local wildlife, etc.
 
Gav said:
its an excellent book, it takes history and turns it on its head, saying that rather than the greeks being resposible for western civilisation, the head-start from the middle east and fertile land in europe was the reason. but it says a lot more than germs were responsible, for example the climate, the local wildlife, etc.

Well it really says the interconnected complex of Middle East+Indus valley+China was responsible for Northern (Eurasian) civilization's edge over African, American, and Australian civilization. The Greeks still typified the unique geography... (water based) that gave Western (European) civilization the advantage over Eastern (Asian) civilization. (Just the right amount of travel to allow ideas to spread, but not empires large enough to suppress those ideas)
 
Zelgadis75 said:
Untrue, ever been to Machu Pichu?? thats built right on top of a mountain. and its an ancient city to boot.

Machu Piccu was a summer mountain retreat for an Incan emperor that was briefly used as a refuge from Spanish conquistadors and was subsequently abandoned- because it was a terrible place to have a city.

In Civ 4 Machu Piccu would be a hill. It's only at 7,800 feet, and not nearly as high in vertical relief. It's not snowed in eleven months of the year It's a tough hike, but anybody can get there by walking.

It's certainly not the massive set of glaciated, impassible peaks that the mountains in Civ 4 represent.
 
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