dunkleosteus
Roman Pleb
I've been thinking about this for a while. The Civ series has been moving towards terrain-driven strategy, with the introduction of hex tiles and 1upt in Civ 5 and cliffs and the new movement mechanics in Civ 6. With Civ 6's improved rendering capabilities, I think it's a great time to talk about breaking the mold a little more on climate and terrain.
Terrain:
As far as I'm aware, the Civ series hasn't introduced a new terrain type in a long time. We've had tundra, snow, desert, grassland, and plains for a while. The yields for each in the current state of the game are
Grassland: 2 food
Plains: 1 food 1 production
Desert: nothing
Tundra: 1 food
Snow: nothing
I think it's high time we added some new terrain types, to give a more varied landscape. I'm suggesting the addition of two new types of terrain: scrub and karst.
Scrublands are characterized by dry, dusty conditions with short vegetation. Unlike true deserts, they support many plants, but only the hardiest. Scrub land would have +1 food, the same as tundra. The difference would be that you could farm in scrubland adjacent to freshwater. Forests could not spawn in scrub though, and they don't turn into floodplains.
Karst is characterized by very porous limestone, which is often exposed. Vegetation is often limited due to dry conditions and poor soil retention. Karst regions have many caves and it is believed that half of all of the world's oil deposits are in karst limestone. Karst tiles have +1 production. Like scrub, karst tiles with access to fresh water can be farmed, unlike tundra. Karst can't have forests.
Features:
I think the game could use more features than it currently possesses. I think the forest tile should be split in two, with the current coniferous trees only appearing nearer the poles, and with deciduous forests appearing elsewhere. This change would only be cosmetic.
I think the marsh tiles need some care as well. The word marsh refers to wetlands characterized by grasses and reeds. I think in addition to marshes, we should have swamps, which are wetlands characterized by trees. Swamps provide +1 food and +1 production to their base tile yield, however I think that swamps and marshes should both give -1 appeal to adjacent tiles and -10% growth to adjacent cities. Swamps and marshlands are breeding grounds for disease-spreading insects, and stagnant pools of water are often havens for other water-born illnesses. Wetlands that aren't adjacent to cities won't limit a city's growth.
Civ 5 had atolls as a feature that could spawn on water tiles. I think it's disappointing that Civ 6 doesn't have any features that spawn on water tiles, but I think instead of atolls, we should have reefs (acknowledging that atolls are offshore islands created by reefs). These reefs would only spawn adjacent to land. Reefs are a feature that provides +1 food and culture when worked. They provide a minor adjacency bonus to campuses. They are unique for water features because they have a movement cost of 2, unlike every other water feature that I'm aware of. This is because reefs are very dangerous for ships, and navigating them takes care and effort to avoid wrecking yourself.
Cliffs: I really like that we have cliffs now, and I think it would be great if this could be expanded upon. I think we should have cliffs on land which behave similarly to cliffs on the shore: they are impassable without the cliffscaling promotion. On land, they completely block vision from the bottom (a unit at the bottom of a cliff cannot see the top of the cliff) and units on the top or bottom of a cliff do not impose zone of control on one another. Cliffs provide a very interesting mechanic for the game. Settling at the top of a cliff may provide a very strong location for defense. Cliffs also make ideal locations to garrison units or built forts. It will make the cliff-scaling upgrade for the melee class into a much more viable option. Additionally, it allows us to introduce a fun addition: waterfalls form whenever a river falls over a cliff. Waterfalls provide +1 appeal to adjacent tiles at their top and bottom.
Finally, I think glaciers should form as ice sheets on land in some areas, such as between mountains. Glaciers are impassable and have no benefits whatsoever, in fact, they'd probably spawn in great campus locations. But I really want glaciers, so I'm mentioning them anyway.
Natural wonders:
I think we need new types of natural wonders. Civ 5's natural wonders included many mountains, a lake, a reef and (for some reason) King Solomon's mines (which I believe would have dated after 4000 BC if they existed?). In Civ 6, we have more variation in our wonders, now with some that represent wetlands, inland seas, etc. We even have a natural wonder for cliffs, a brand new terrain obstacle introduced in Civ 6. We lack any man-made natural wonders, however. I think a good man-made natural wonder might be cave paintings. These predate the beginning of the game so much that it's reasonable to consider them independent of any culture in the game. I think it would be cool if this wonder was hidden until archaeology is discovered.
Another type of natural wonder I think it would be cool to have would be rivers. Many rivers today have significant cultural and religious importance, beyond their usefulness as sources of life and wealth. I made a reddit post a while back where I talked about this idea. I think it would be a good idea to have a number of different rivers that could exist that were largely different versions of each other. I said that the way these rivers should function is that any city settled on the river should get a tiny boost to a single yield, thus there would be a river for each yield type. The Nile river would give +1 food to cities settled on it, the Ganges river would give +1 faith, the Yellow river would give +1 production, the Amazon river would give +1 science, the Danube river would give +1 culture and the Yukon river would give +2 gold.
Even though these yields may seem small compared to other wonders, I think it is very balanced: river wonders would likely be very long (14+ tiles) and so it would be easy to fit a number of cities on a single river. Because these rivers are often the lifeblood of early civilizations, it would not be unreasonable for some civs to spawn ON the rivers, and a powerful bonus would let them snowball too heavily. On true start location maps, some civs would be guaranteed to start on these rivers. Unlike other natural wonders, rivers do not obstruct districts or improvements, so settling on a river wonder would not limit your city the same way another wonder might.
Waterfalls need their own wonders, too. Although they exist between tiles like rivers, they don't stretch as long and so can be treated more like the existing system handles wonders. I think waterfall natural wonders should not be able to spawn on river natural wonders, although those rivers should be able to form normal waterfalls. Waterfall natural wonders could include: angel falls (+2 culture to adjacent tiles), and Niagara falls (+3 adjacency bonus for industrial zones).
One more wonder that could form from a river would be a canyon (like the grand canyon for example). When a river creates a waterfall, it might instead carve out a twisting, rocky and cliff-like area of up to 5 tiles which becomes the grand canyon. It provides a +2 appeal bonus to adjacent tiles and maybe tourism later on.
Finally, I think an interesting natural wonder would be the giant Redwoods of the western coast of North America. It would form as a two tile wonder adjacent to coastal tiles on a forest. Each tile provides +1 appeal to adjacent tiles and +4 production to it's own tile (so if a grassland tile spawned the giant redwoods, the base yield would be 2 food, 4 production on each tile). Unlike other natural wonders, this wonder could be harvested with a worker, for a huge amount of production. Doing this removes the wonder tile and any effects it had from the game. This can't be undone.
[Karst isn't actually explicitly dry, and there are many wet karst environments. I'm having trouble locating a definition for what I'm looking for though- I know they exist. It's a hot, arid environment with little surface soil or sand and a lot of exposed rock).
Terrain:
As far as I'm aware, the Civ series hasn't introduced a new terrain type in a long time. We've had tundra, snow, desert, grassland, and plains for a while. The yields for each in the current state of the game are
Grassland: 2 food
Plains: 1 food 1 production
Desert: nothing
Tundra: 1 food
Snow: nothing
I think it's high time we added some new terrain types, to give a more varied landscape. I'm suggesting the addition of two new types of terrain: scrub and karst.
Scrublands are characterized by dry, dusty conditions with short vegetation. Unlike true deserts, they support many plants, but only the hardiest. Scrub land would have +1 food, the same as tundra. The difference would be that you could farm in scrubland adjacent to freshwater. Forests could not spawn in scrub though, and they don't turn into floodplains.
Karst is characterized by very porous limestone, which is often exposed. Vegetation is often limited due to dry conditions and poor soil retention. Karst regions have many caves and it is believed that half of all of the world's oil deposits are in karst limestone. Karst tiles have +1 production. Like scrub, karst tiles with access to fresh water can be farmed, unlike tundra. Karst can't have forests.
Features:
I think the game could use more features than it currently possesses. I think the forest tile should be split in two, with the current coniferous trees only appearing nearer the poles, and with deciduous forests appearing elsewhere. This change would only be cosmetic.
I think the marsh tiles need some care as well. The word marsh refers to wetlands characterized by grasses and reeds. I think in addition to marshes, we should have swamps, which are wetlands characterized by trees. Swamps provide +1 food and +1 production to their base tile yield, however I think that swamps and marshes should both give -1 appeal to adjacent tiles and -10% growth to adjacent cities. Swamps and marshlands are breeding grounds for disease-spreading insects, and stagnant pools of water are often havens for other water-born illnesses. Wetlands that aren't adjacent to cities won't limit a city's growth.
Civ 5 had atolls as a feature that could spawn on water tiles. I think it's disappointing that Civ 6 doesn't have any features that spawn on water tiles, but I think instead of atolls, we should have reefs (acknowledging that atolls are offshore islands created by reefs). These reefs would only spawn adjacent to land. Reefs are a feature that provides +1 food and culture when worked. They provide a minor adjacency bonus to campuses. They are unique for water features because they have a movement cost of 2, unlike every other water feature that I'm aware of. This is because reefs are very dangerous for ships, and navigating them takes care and effort to avoid wrecking yourself.
Cliffs: I really like that we have cliffs now, and I think it would be great if this could be expanded upon. I think we should have cliffs on land which behave similarly to cliffs on the shore: they are impassable without the cliffscaling promotion. On land, they completely block vision from the bottom (a unit at the bottom of a cliff cannot see the top of the cliff) and units on the top or bottom of a cliff do not impose zone of control on one another. Cliffs provide a very interesting mechanic for the game. Settling at the top of a cliff may provide a very strong location for defense. Cliffs also make ideal locations to garrison units or built forts. It will make the cliff-scaling upgrade for the melee class into a much more viable option. Additionally, it allows us to introduce a fun addition: waterfalls form whenever a river falls over a cliff. Waterfalls provide +1 appeal to adjacent tiles at their top and bottom.
Finally, I think glaciers should form as ice sheets on land in some areas, such as between mountains. Glaciers are impassable and have no benefits whatsoever, in fact, they'd probably spawn in great campus locations. But I really want glaciers, so I'm mentioning them anyway.
Natural wonders:
I think we need new types of natural wonders. Civ 5's natural wonders included many mountains, a lake, a reef and (for some reason) King Solomon's mines (which I believe would have dated after 4000 BC if they existed?). In Civ 6, we have more variation in our wonders, now with some that represent wetlands, inland seas, etc. We even have a natural wonder for cliffs, a brand new terrain obstacle introduced in Civ 6. We lack any man-made natural wonders, however. I think a good man-made natural wonder might be cave paintings. These predate the beginning of the game so much that it's reasonable to consider them independent of any culture in the game. I think it would be cool if this wonder was hidden until archaeology is discovered.
Another type of natural wonder I think it would be cool to have would be rivers. Many rivers today have significant cultural and religious importance, beyond their usefulness as sources of life and wealth. I made a reddit post a while back where I talked about this idea. I think it would be a good idea to have a number of different rivers that could exist that were largely different versions of each other. I said that the way these rivers should function is that any city settled on the river should get a tiny boost to a single yield, thus there would be a river for each yield type. The Nile river would give +1 food to cities settled on it, the Ganges river would give +1 faith, the Yellow river would give +1 production, the Amazon river would give +1 science, the Danube river would give +1 culture and the Yukon river would give +2 gold.
Even though these yields may seem small compared to other wonders, I think it is very balanced: river wonders would likely be very long (14+ tiles) and so it would be easy to fit a number of cities on a single river. Because these rivers are often the lifeblood of early civilizations, it would not be unreasonable for some civs to spawn ON the rivers, and a powerful bonus would let them snowball too heavily. On true start location maps, some civs would be guaranteed to start on these rivers. Unlike other natural wonders, rivers do not obstruct districts or improvements, so settling on a river wonder would not limit your city the same way another wonder might.
Waterfalls need their own wonders, too. Although they exist between tiles like rivers, they don't stretch as long and so can be treated more like the existing system handles wonders. I think waterfall natural wonders should not be able to spawn on river natural wonders, although those rivers should be able to form normal waterfalls. Waterfall natural wonders could include: angel falls (+2 culture to adjacent tiles), and Niagara falls (+3 adjacency bonus for industrial zones).
One more wonder that could form from a river would be a canyon (like the grand canyon for example). When a river creates a waterfall, it might instead carve out a twisting, rocky and cliff-like area of up to 5 tiles which becomes the grand canyon. It provides a +2 appeal bonus to adjacent tiles and maybe tourism later on.
Finally, I think an interesting natural wonder would be the giant Redwoods of the western coast of North America. It would form as a two tile wonder adjacent to coastal tiles on a forest. Each tile provides +1 appeal to adjacent tiles and +4 production to it's own tile (so if a grassland tile spawned the giant redwoods, the base yield would be 2 food, 4 production on each tile). Unlike other natural wonders, this wonder could be harvested with a worker, for a huge amount of production. Doing this removes the wonder tile and any effects it had from the game. This can't be undone.
[Karst isn't actually explicitly dry, and there are many wet karst environments. I'm having trouble locating a definition for what I'm looking for though- I know they exist. It's a hot, arid environment with little surface soil or sand and a lot of exposed rock).
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