Craters

[Gogf]

I've been playing with them for a while, but do craters really do anything, other than just make the terrain look devastated?

 

[LLXerxes]

they destroy all improvements (roads, mines, whatever) and I think they affect food...

 

[sabo]

they destroy all improvements (roads, mines, whatever) and I think they affect food...

BUt you can re-build a road on a crater right? and it has no effect then?

 

[danz]

BUt you can re-build a road on a crater right? and it has no effect then?

It's a little bit like pollution, you have to fill in the crater before it becomes fully productive again. It's a good way to slow down the enemy. Crater their entire frontier, and their frontline production gets hurt along with their mobility.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

It's like pollution that takes away one less food/shield/commerce then the normal tile would produce (ie; grassland craters would be: 2/0/0 - 1/0/0 = 1 food produced). I'm pretty positive on that.

 

[kryszcztov]

Craters suck, they are a bad addition to Civ3.

They act a bit like pollution : same number of turns to remove, but I don't know if they are counted like "polluted" tiles. They change the tiles to bare tiles, and take away 1 food and 1 shield to the tile, according to my experience, though I found some buggy stuff in one of my games. I invite you to take a look at this PBEM that I recently played and won. I was struck by craters and didn't like it, and commented more on that.

 

[danz]

I like them. It's realistic that a battlefield should be impacted by bombing campaigns. Whole provinces can be made unproductive by long wars. Such is life.

 

[Khshayarsha]

kryszcztov, I don't know about you, but in the version of Conquests that I play, craters are easily cleared, unlike pollution: Simply build any improvement over them. A road will do it. A single native Worker in Industrial Democracy will get rid of craters in just one turn.

 

[morchuflex]

What the heck are you people talking about? The only craters I've seen so far are volcanoes...

 

[kryszcztov]

kryszcztov, I don't know about you, but in the version of Conquests that I play, craters are easily cleared, unlike pollution: Simply build any improvement over them. A road will do it. A single native Worker in Industrial Democracy will get rid of craters in just one turn.

Not in my version. If I build a road over the crater, the crater stays, like an improvement. Only the depollute order gets rid of this stupid idea. Craters are completely unrealistic on Civ-scale and they really suck in terms of gameplay. I really know what I'm talking about now. And to think that I haven't played with the new arties, which can do the same (more effectively than man-o-wars) and which have lethal bombardment. C3C will always be broken, and that's just a little part of it.

 

[Nobody]

i like them, i like the fact that after a war the battle ground is left devasted.

 

[Khshayarsha]

kryszcztov, it looks like you are using version 1.22. The version I have is merely 1.00. Does this mean that crater clearing was deliberately made harder after it had been easy? Sorry to hear that.

 

[The Last Conformist]

While calling them "craters" is stupid, the fact that warfare wrecks the rural infrastructure even in the abscence of deliberate pillaging is perfectly realistic, and something I missed in earlier incarnations of Civ.

 

[Aggie]

kryszcztov, it looks like you are using version 1.22. The version I have is merely 1.00. Does this mean that crater clearing was deliberately made harder after it had been easy? Sorry to hear that.

I'd advise you to patch to 1.22. 1.00 is full of serious bugs. I consider it virtually unplayable. The corruption model is totally ruined, just like trade.

 

[Davidizer13]

The effects of craters are equal to that of pollution. It occurs sometimes when you bombard improvements. You can have a worker clear it, so it's not much of a problem. BTW, some of us have dialup, Aggie, which means it takes 3 hours to get the 1.22 patch. It puts a kink in my Ladder membership online.

 

[Bloodied66]

I think that while 'craters' are realistic to include, they should be harder to create. I think that after the tile improvements are gone, then further bombardment would have a chance of damaging the tile. The chances should be a lot lower, however, since (in reality) it would require vast bomber resources to actually damage a 100x100 mile area to that extent. A lower chance, requiring therefore more bombing runs, would be more realistic.

 

[Andrew_Jay]

Are craters caused just by bombarding, or do battles also cause them? I like the idea of churning up the frontline if you're trading lots of artillery fire and fighting a lot in one spot.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Are craters caused just by bombarding, or do battles also cause them? I like the idea of churning up the frontline if you're trading lots of artillery fire and fighting a lot in one spot.

Craters are caused by bombardment from either planes or artillery.

First you destroy railroads, then the roads + improvements, and then craters will appear.

 

[thetrooper]

Craters are caused by bombardment from either planes or artillery.

First you destroy railroads, then the roads + improvements, and then craters will appear.

In my recent game as England (Rule the Waves) on archipelago I had a fleet of 30 battleships on patrol along the enemy coast. When they bombarded the
countryside craters appeared instantly (if successful).

 

[Prince David]

In my expereince craters occur when you bombard the last improvement on a tile - usually roads & irrigation/mine. You can build road across this tile in order to reconect your trade routes, but you will not get full production from the tile until you "clear damage." Clearing damage is such a womping pain in the butt that I have become much more selective in my use of bombs. If I am trying to isolate a city, especially one I plan on occupying, I will now send in a unit to pillage (save those outdated armies!) rather than bombard. I save bombardment for red lining units and cutting off strategic resources deeper in enemy territory. Clearing dmages takes so long, especially when using my newly captured workers, that I find it hurts me more in the long run.

As for the like/dislike issue, I basically like. It's a royal pain, but it forces me to be much more strategic, which I like.