Chopping and Balance

[Mutineer]

I found I chop only one/two max 3 forests on start of the game.
All else chopped only strategically, for wanders et.

Bronze working still sentrepeace of the strategy, but not because of chopping, but because of slavery.

Why?
Because early avalible resources provide lot of food.
Slavery is very efficient method to convert food to hummers.

Personally, I would be in favor of separating tech needed for slavery with tech needed for chopping, as together they are compalsory.
You can chop or you can whip, but bronse working provide bouth, making alternative research path mach less effective.

So, from my point of view it is not chopping that overpowering, It if Bronse working. You get chopping, slavery and Bronse out of it. It is just way to mach.

 

[DSChapin]

Not to mention Axemen, which are in many ways the most useful ancient unit. Bronze Working is often a bigger deal than Iron Working in Civ IV.

 

[MrPaladin]

true, a bunch of axemen can hold their own against swordsmen... they are also nearly as good at city raids

 

[Brighteye]

There should be an environmental aspect to chopping. Many a civilization has been done in when they chopped their way into massive ecological disruption, like the Easter Islanders, the Anasazi, the Mayans, Iceland, etc. How you implement that I don't know, but it should definitely be a factor.

Iceland? There was never forest there because it's a new island. The reason it's barren is because it's still mostly volcanic rock. It's not because they chopped away all the vegetation.

As for chopping, I like the ideas that the yield starts low but increases with technologies, so that chopping in the modern age is still beneficial, but pales in comparison to lumbermills. Perhaps lumbermills should give an extra 1 hammer even if not being worked.

I also like the idea that chopped land can become desert. Perhaps when you chop you risk 'demoting' the land into plains if it was a grassland forest, and desert if it was a plains forest. The risk would be related to how much of each land type was around the tile, and if you were working it. If you aren't working it then the risk should be low, but the chance of forest regrowth high.
Combined with a lower yield this would make chopping a nice bonus, which it ought to be, but unreliable (you might be fairly sure that the tile will regrow, but you can't rely on it happening soon). The spreading out of the bonus over time by reducing the yield and having forests regrow is one of the most important ways that people want chopping balanced.

The concept of land types changing would encourage people to be more careful about chopping; chopping by a river is less dangerous, but clear cutting your land is a big risk. In fact, perhaps having lots of forest around the tile could reduce the chance of it becoming worse, so that you don't get penalised for one chop, but mass exploitation of the effect causes you problems.

 

[Jmaz]

I just tried a game (Catherine, Epic, Large, Continents, Noble) where I automated the workers but used the options of not clearing forests and not replacing previous improvements. I kept two workers busy myself. I chopped where needed and built cottages-mines in the right spots. It turned out nicely. The game took a little longer but I had a nice looking map that was adequetly forrested in the end.

I just don't like having to manage the workers every turn, nor do I think that the auto workers are very efficient. This turns out to be a viable option so far.

 

[gdgrimm]

One thing that has long struck me as essentially unbalanced in Civ IV is the power of chopping. While there is still a healthy (no pun intended) debate about whether to chop all your forests or not, almost every high-level strategy treats chopping not just as a useful tool, but as a centerpiece of the path to victory. The only thing with similar overimportance is the use of cottages (often with the Financial trait).

Honesly, I don't think Chopping is overpowered. You are correct to say that it's a necessary part of strategies when playing on higher levels. But so is building Farms, and building Mines, and building both offensive and defensive military units. Would you consider Farms overpowered just because you have to build them to win?

To be considered overpowered, I'd have to always, under all circumstances, beeline straight to Bronze Working and immediately start chopping. Sometimes, I do that. But other times I ensure I get an early religion first, or perhaps learn fishing or animal husbandry first, depending on what leader I'm playing and what the environment is like.

Yes, I will eventually end up chopping, just like I'll end up fishing, and farming, and mining.

I don't see how that's a bad thing.

 

[Armorydave]

Well said gdgrimm. Seems fine the way it is currently. I feel the same way about cottages.

 

[Cu Chulainn]

But in earnest, the realism part has little to do with it. It should be about gameplay. 8 forests around a city represent 240 hammers worth of production (at normal speed) ready for the plucking.

Keep in mind that this number doesn't even account for the possibility of resource or trait bonuses for wonder building. With both the Industrious trait and a production resource 8 forests would amount to 600 hammers toward a wonder. Obviously such a combination is nothing to plan on, but the game I played as Gandhi and started out near stone was a very, very easy game.

 

[Paeanblack]

What about the following adjustment for chopping:

When a forest is chopped down, there is a 25% chance the tile will turn into desert.

 

[The Tyrant]

I don’t think the production bonus needs to be changed. Wood has long been a strategic resource. There are many historical examples of widespread deforestation for increased production. Some have been mentioned above, but another that I’m aware of is that when Japan invaded Korea, they denuded the peninsula of trees for their war effort. IRL, chopping forests has always been an efficient way to quickly increase production capacity. The aim should be to find a meeting point between realism and game balance.

In normal gameplay, workers and settlers are built based on the combined food and hammer production of the city. As Mutineer pointed out, slavery allows swapping food for hammers. Likewise, chopping lets you swap hammers for food when building workers or settlers. Both units are already built based on food and hammers, so increasing the rate at which they are finished by increasing hammers is not an issue. For me, the issue is the exploit of queue swapping to chop workers and settlers while letting your city grow. I really like Kerrang’s ideas on preventing the abuse of queue swap.

I like the idea of possible terrain changes when large-scale deforestation takes place. Another option to encourage less chopping is to give a slightly larger health bonus for forests. In most games, everything you do in the early game is done with the idea that those actions are investing in the end game. I build a cottage early because later it will pay off. I reduce the growth rate of my cities to add specialists because in the long run it will pay off. If forests gave more of a health bonus people might be less likely to chop – “I pass up the easy production bonus now because in the long run having those forests will pay off.”

As for the point that bronzeworking allows slavery, chopping and bronze all for one early tech... Good point. I'm going to have to give this some thought.

 

[jeremiahrounds]

Chopping is balanced but the tech that gives chopping [bronze working] is not. Slavery needs to be moved to horsemanship i think. [not for historical reasons for game play reasons] I think slavery is the one to many good things about bronze working.

But the actual tuning of chopping seems to be ok.

 

[jimbob27]

I think the AI needs to chop more..... or at least.... build a lot more workers.

By my second or third war, my entire nation has every square in the city borders completely improved, yet most of the citys I invade are less than half done. The AI only seems to chop trees when they want to improve whats underneath and I don't think this should be the case. Whilst they're waiting for railroads, I send my workers off to chop any forests I can find (forests on neutral land still give hammers) when they're waiting for railroads. I often find myself right on another civ's borders..... chopping trees that should have been chopped years ago by the AI. If a patch came out that made the AI chop more, then I'd be happy. It sometimes feels like cheating, chopping for an early wonder..... because you KNOW you'll get it.

As far as strategic resources, throughout history theres no resource more important than wood.

Deforestation has been a massive part of history. In 4000bc you could walk from france to china without ever leaving the forest. Other than a few patches... we've pretty much cleared the whole of eurasia. Its only in the last few centurys.... since wood became less avaliable, did people start constucting "regular" buildings out of stone. Before then EVERYTHING was made from wood.

Deforestation=land=agriculture=man's dominance over animals=civiliasion.

 

[Paeanblack]

maybe animal husbandry should unlock slavery. It makes sence, if you can get animals to do what you want, then why not humans? It would also balance the game. Add to that a 20% chance of grassland turning to plains, or of plains turning to desert when you chop a forest and all is fine. That square should turn back to what it was in 20 turns time, to represent the ecosystem recovering.

If you let the square revert back, that defeats the whole purpose of the penalty. Chopping is a huge boon right now...but 25% chance of straight-to-desert would balance nicely.

 

[Shadowsong]

It's a little bit bugged but I think it's ok if it stay as it is.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'd say the best method of dealing with it would be to increase the worker cost (perhaps substantially) That way its not an Easy/Fast production.

 

[RomanHoliday]

I won't repeat the historic importance of "chopping", as others have made thier point quite well.
I object to the notion of desertification of chopped tiles. South America is chopping down its rainforests to build farmland. Land that supports trees must be able to support other plant life, like with farms. If there was some sort of erosion rule, perhaps. In reality, if I chopped down Yosemite, it would have a negligible effect in terms of the global environment.

Don't get me wrong, I'm quite the environmentalist in reality.

 

[Watiggi]

I don't think it's unbalanced. But I don't hesitate when considering whether it should be chopped. As far as I am concerned a forest gets chopped. Maybe that is why people consider it unbalanced as working it isn't as beneficial.

Now if forests (on grassland) brought in 2 hammers instead of one. Hmmm, then I would have to think about what to do. I think that would be better as I would then have to make a decision. A decision that is equally beneficial but delivers 2 different bonuses is a good thing and may be what people consider balance.

Maybe that's what should happen. If, what you loose when chopping was as valuable, then having to make a choice could be harder (and better) with benefits going both ways. As it stands now, chopping is far better than working the forests. I would like to see something like that: getting more from working on forests (or simply having forests around) - especially on grassland forests to the point where I would stop and have to re-consider whether to chop or not.

Watiggi

 

[Sobsob]

I would say yes for the simple reason that it makes the start of the game an automatic one every game ie rush to bronze working worker,worker settler.When I first started playing if I started next to a fish ect I would research fishing if I didn't have it then knock a workboat out to grab the extra food but still grow,but when you discover the power of the chop it is laughable in comparssion.Also bronze working is far too strong axemen extra hammers if copper found slavery and the chop.IMO I would make bronze working only reveal copper then get axemen later as they are so powerful early in the game especially if the enemy has no copper.

 

[Drakken]

I think it is not unbalanced but is put in the wrong era of the game. It is certainly unbalanced in the early part of the game. Wholesale deforestation occuring in the ancient era is absolutely ahistorical and silly. I changed the game to not allow chopping until machinery. Jungle is left until steampower. This results in more realistic ancient period.

 

[Boris the Tonk]

Drakken is right that there was no wholesale deforestation but The Encyclopedia Brittanica says that chopping down forests was practiced in the Neolithic Age (around the time when a game of Civ4 starts) before bronze working was developed.

Of course the game is not a direct historical simulation and we adapt our strategies to fit the rules. Yes chopping makes early wonders more achievable and is often a race to grab bronze working/workers and chop your way there but if them's are the rules - just chop faster.

So my first inclination was to vote for a slight decrease but the arguments I've read make me inclined to leave things as they are.