CO2 logic

funkymunky

Warlord
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Dec 14, 2001
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112
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Louisville, KY
Does anyone have an explanation of the logic for how CO2 is produced in the GS expansion? I just played my first game with it, and with only two factories and one oil power plant found myself leading CO2 production, over opponents who I could see had three or four coal plants. I'm trying to figure out where all my CO2 emissions came from.
 
Yes, actually, like @Pietato mentions, units seem to produce way more CO2 than power plants, if you're in a warmongering mode and you have many of them... Not sure about the 'needs a rework' part, but it certainly needs some restructuring of the overall weights of factories VS units
 
CO2 is produced per spent amount of each resource regardless of your destination. A battleship contaminates the equivalent of 1 coal when it is created and 1 additional per turn.
It's too much so that it barely allows you to have units if you do not want to pollute
 
To provide a few more numbers:
  • The resources contribute different amounts of CO2 based on the following numbers:
    • Coal: 820 units CO2 per unit coal
    • Oil: 490 units CO2 per unit oil (roughly 2/3 compared to coal)
    • Uranium: 48 units CO2 per unit uranium (roughly 1/17 compared to coal)
  • Power plants converts resources into power based on these numbers:
    • 1 coal = 4 power
    • 1 oil = 4 power
    • 1 uranium = 16 power
  • Units that require a resource for upkeep also provide CO2. It is - to me - unclear exactly how the conversion rate is. My guess is that 1 Ironclad/Battleship provides the same amount of polution each time as burning 1 coal in a powerplant (which is super bad design).
  • Railroads seem to add to CO2 emission, but it is not clear - to me - how much they emit, and if emission is on a per-turn basis or only when laying down the railroad.
Additionally:
  • CO2 emission required for temperature to increase depends on map size based on these numbers:
    • Duel map: 500 000 CO2 for 1 degree temperature increase
    • Tiny map: 1 000 000 CO2 for 1 degree temperature increase
    • Small map: 1 500 000 CO2 for 1 degree temperature increase
    • Normal map: 2 000 000 CO2 for 1 degree temperature increase
    • Large map: 2 500 000 CO2 for 1 degree temperature increase
    • Huge map: 3 000 000 CO2 for 1 degree temperature increase
  • It is unclear - to me - how many degrees temperature increase is needed for each level of the climate change meter to increase.
 
IMHO units should contribute 0. Especially since the railroad already contributes some. I barely build anything, and it's enough to screw over the entire world. And Firaxis expects us to not have a military to defend ourselves?

The system doesn't work well for me, I just say screw it, the world is going to flood. I try to beeline computers and get flood barriers up asap.
 
and with only two factories and one oil power plant found myself leading CO2 production, over opponents who I could see had three or four coal plants

Power plants only produce CO2 when there is a demand for electricity. If your oil plant is feeding numerous tier 3 buildings it produces a lot more CO2 than four coal plants that only feed the factory on their respective IZ. In fact one coal plant could feed all four of those factories if within range, and using only one coal per turn that way. Don't know if this was the case of course, but just the fact that they have more plants doesn't mean they cause more pollution.
 
The numbers displayed in the climate screen, like CO2 by resource or civ - are they just a sum of the burned resources? Or are these some sort of cumulative values from the entire game? E.g If I stop using coal entirely, will the number drop to 0?
 
I agree with the above that the system needs a rework. In my last game, I was well ahead of the AI tech-wise, so it was my world to pollute if I had so wanted. Instead, I did not produce any coal units/buildings, avoided railroads, and tried to use hydro power until oil came online. Then, I had two oil power plants and upgraded a dozen units. It was enough to start the clock, even though the rest of the world did not even know what electricity was. This seems extreme.

Also, when I was finally able to convert my two oil PPs to nuclear, I did notice that my CO2 output did not change. This makes no sense.

The design team should revisit the mechanic and clean it up to work properly. Not only should the numbers be rebalanced and corrected, but the game should have a set floor of CO2 emissions necessary to begin the clock. That way, the world would not see any effect from one civ with only minimal CO2 output. It is not like 1750s Western Europe was the only impetus for changes we are seeing now...
 
The numbers displayed in the climate screen, like CO2 by resource or civ - are they just a sum of the burned resources? Or are these some sort of cumulative values from the entire game? E.g If I stop using coal entirely, will the number drop to 0?

It is the cumulative value of all the pollution produced during the entire game. If you stop burning coal in factories and units your contribution will stagnate at the last value but will not go down to zero.
It makes some sense according to this:
https://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-residence-time.htm
 
It is the cumulative value of all the pollution produced during the entire game. If you stop burning coal in factories and units your contribution will stagnate at the last value but will not go down to zero.
These values are in hunderds and small thousands. Do you think it means that they are scaled because 1 coal = 820? So, lets say 1230 from coal would actually mean 1230000?
 
These values are in hunderds and small thousands. Do you think it means that they are scaled because 1 coal = 820? So, lets say 1230 from coal would actually mean 1230000?
I do not think so. I believe that 1230 units of coal burned throughout the game are 1230x820 = 1008600 and 1009 CO2 scaled for in-game. And 1230 CO2 pollution of coal in-game are 1230000/820 1500 coal burned throughout the game.
 
I figure that units' contribution represents the massively under-represented CIVILIAN economy ... as in automobiles, however they are powered.

Wouldn't it be easier to represent that with a per Pop CO2 figure? That would appear to be a better proxy for automobiles, etc.
 
Wouldn't it be easier to represent that with a per Pop CO2 figure? That would appear to be a better proxy for automobiles, etc.
FXS obviously hadn’t developed it to that point yet; perhaps they will in the next expansion or civ7 (not the way to bet, though).

Just as the units are abstractions, so must the players exercise their imagination to rationalize all the other abstractions in the game.
 
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From a game design PoV, using units to represent civilian population is an inexcusably bad choice, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and refuse to believe that is their reasoning until they say it themselves. I'm perfectly ok with a feature to represent impact of limitless growth, but linking that to military units is a 100 % no-go because it interlinks two completely different aspects of the game an punishes the player for doing something that is a necessity in game, namely having a standing army for defense.

I agree that the obvious and only viable way to handle CO2 from civilians would be a per-pop penalty that would trigger once you research combustion. This should also allow you to build some sort of public transport - either as a building in the city centre, or as it's completely own public transport district. This would also allow some cool interaction with the railroad system which is arguable quite half-hearted in its implementation. So you could have a public transport district where you could put down a bus terminal (reduces per pop CO2), a train station (bonus gold and/or production from connecting to other cities via railroads) and perhaps even a domestic airport (causes CO2 but will give bonus tourism).
 
From a game design PoV, using units to represent civilian population is an inexcusably bad choice, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and refuse to believe that is their reasoning until they say it themselves. I'm perfectly ok with a feature to represent impact of limitless growth, but linking that to military units is a 100 % no-go because it interlinks two completely different aspects of the game an punishes the player for doing something that is a necessity in game, namely having a standing army for defense.

I agree that the obvious and only viable way to handle CO2 from civilians would be a per-pop penalty that would trigger once you research combustion. This should also allow you to build some sort of public transport - either as a building in the city centre, or as it's completely own public transport district. This would also allow some cool interaction with the railroad system which is arguable quite half-hearted in its implementation. So you could have a public transport district where you could put down a bus terminal (reduces per pop CO2), a train station (bonus gold and/or production from connecting to other cities via railroads) and perhaps even a domestic airport (causes CO2 but will give bonus tourism).

This was pretty much the way it worked in Civ II where large cities were the main source of pollution after the discovery of automobile with some buildings (Factories, power plants etc) increasing it and others (recyling centre, mass transit) reducing it. If they could do it then can't see why they can't now.
 
So a sea going nation should build campus so the can get to computers fast, throw up any sea defences they need then build a massive amount of ships and get the coal fires burning.
This with then make bits of land crumble allowing them better access to inland cities.
With range 4 battleships/missile cruisers and canals they could make more of a mess.

On a side note, I played an SV chopping game last night, chopped everything in sight. I had 3 droughts which are chopping punishments and sure, they last a few turns and are nasty and you can do little about them if you have not bought the buildings they require but they are not crippling.
For a start they do not effect the entire land of a city so you can normally re-assign pop and survive and secondly if you lose a pop or 2 it is not a big loss, you just lose production for a few turns and need a few more builder charges.
It certainly has not stopped me chopping in the slightest.

I believe chopping adds to global warming and CO2, it seems to say so ingame, anyone have more info on this? Maybe the works creates x CO2 by default and trees counteract some of this?
 
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