Mountains should be able to be mined into with a certain technology and deserts should be able to be cultivated with a certain technology. Completely useless tiles add nothing to the game, have no productive value and really do not contribute to the overall fun or realism of the product.
Deserts and Mountains should be improvable.
- Thread starter Tamed
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No, it means you have to really think about where you are placing your cities. There are places in the world which are simply not hospitable to civilization.
Chalks
The blue pieces
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How does this not contribute to the realism? Deserts rarely get improved in the real world (although perhaps the ability to do this at great expense would be a nice feature, since there are places which do do this).
The idea of being able to mine any mountain on the planet for some mystical resource seems completely far fetched. In the real world, mountain ranges are almost entirely unused by humans in any way. We don't just mine the entire alps or something.
What a strange thing to suggest.
Onagan
The Dutch
It shouldn't be possible to settle on a desert and ice hex.
Nor should it be impossible.
Players get starts sometimes so atrocious they have literally no chance of competing. The tech could be costly, but the way to improve these tiles should exist.
An idea could be a deep mining tech for mountains, where you could turn them into maybe 3 hammer tiles (far from overpowered) but it would have a high chance of caving and ruining the tile.
Deserts could be cultivated with water, if you could use dams and dikes to actually redirect rivers.
Players get starts sometimes so atrocious they have literally no chance of competing. The tech could be costly, but the way to improve these tiles should exist.
An idea could be a deep mining tech for mountains, where you could turn them into maybe 3 hammer tiles (far from overpowered) but it would have a high chance of caving and ruining the tile.
Deserts could be cultivated with water, if you could use dams and dikes to actually redirect rivers.
Chalks
The blue pieces
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Although I agree that things like desert and coastal water reclamation (at an extremely high cost to make it only something you would do rarely) would be a nice feature, since it is something that happens occasionally in real life. Japan, for example, has cities built on reclaimed ocean and I believe Dubai has areas of reclaimed desert.
But the idea of just "mining" mountains when they have no resources to increase production doesn't make any sense to me. We simply don't do this.
But the idea of just "mining" mountains when they have no resources to increase production doesn't make any sense to me. We simply don't do this.
Alot of mountains have valuable things in them. Make it a mid-game tech and make it cost alot to go check them out, just don't let them be useless or volcanoes. It's just a stupid, worthless game mechanic.
It adds nothing of value and is simply boring.
It adds nothing of value and is simply boring.
Zomgmeister
Emerged Lurker
I completely agree. Make it very hard and usually economically wrong, but possible thing to do.
I had lots of fun in Civ 2 terraforming Sahara. That was too easy there, of course.
I had lots of fun in Civ 2 terraforming Sahara. That was too easy there, of course.
mjs0
The 4th X
Impassable mountains have tremendous value as a terrain feature that blocks troop movement. Based on what little we know about Firaxis' intentions with unit movement and combat it appears that defensive terrain and choke points formed by impassable terrain such as mountain will be a critically important feature in Civ5. With the advent of hexes this becomes even more important as the diagonal route between mountains that so often existed in previous versions is also not there.
Look at the borders between countries in real life, many of them are defined by mountain ranges that are all but impassable except where roads have been taken through passes at lower points between the peaks. (This is modeled in the game by a hill tile between two mountain tiles.)
The new rules seem designed to create natural boundaries between countries at mountain ranges (as well as swamps and, I would hope, rivers although we have no evidence of that yet) as not only are the mountains impassable and thus owning them brings little benefit but also the cost of taking ownership of those tiles is higher than other terrain.
In addition, even without this new dynamic, I would contend that fun in Civ comes from choices...and the choice one is forced to make of whether or not to settle in a sub-optimal city location, near a 'useless' mountain, for strategic reasons would be devalued if the mountain suddenly became a viable source of resources.
Look at the borders between countries in real life, many of them are defined by mountain ranges that are all but impassable except where roads have been taken through passes at lower points between the peaks. (This is modeled in the game by a hill tile between two mountain tiles.)
The new rules seem designed to create natural boundaries between countries at mountain ranges (as well as swamps and, I would hope, rivers although we have no evidence of that yet) as not only are the mountains impassable and thus owning them brings little benefit but also the cost of taking ownership of those tiles is higher than other terrain.
In addition, even without this new dynamic, I would contend that fun in Civ comes from choices...and the choice one is forced to make of whether or not to settle in a sub-optimal city location, near a 'useless' mountain, for strategic reasons would be devalued if the mountain suddenly became a viable source of resources.
Zomgmeister
Emerged Lurker
Sure, mountains without movement improvements should stay impassable for majority of units. But certain ones, like workers, may be excluded from this rule. More than that, we probably won't have workers in Civ 5, and it's fine, because CTP land improvement system was superior. Basically mountains could be improvable and stay completely impassable.
Though it is pretty nice both to be able to build tunnels through mountains, ensuring passages for your armies, and to be able to sabotage them, effectively breaking enemy supply lines or something.
Though it is pretty nice both to be able to build tunnels through mountains, ensuring passages for your armies, and to be able to sabotage them, effectively breaking enemy supply lines or something.
Chalks
The blue pieces
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First of all, I completely disagree that terrain that you cannot benefit from "adds nothing" or is "boring". Otherwise the game could be made perfect by making every single tile +10 food +10 production +10 gold.
It is the variety of terrains that adds strategy to city placement decisions and makes the game interesting. And having baron tiles is part of that system - a vital part.
You simply shouldn't be able to build on every single location on earth.
I think that perhaps a "deep earth mining" technology that makes additional resources appear on the map that were previously too deep to access would be a nice feature - especially in Civ 5 where resources are finite and probably likely to run out as the game progresses.
However, I get the impression that the reason I think these features are nice (to add more depth and variety to the resource gathering system) are completely different to your reasons, since apparently you only care about being able to populate every tile on the map with a city.
TM Moot
King
i don't mind desert and tundra being next to useless, but the mining of mountains would be good, but only after a mid/late game tech is researched
Hello, this is my first post!
I like this idea, maybe only during later times so natural borders would stay impassable during a long time (altough remember Hannibal crossing Alps with elephants...but not without problems) .
You could also make a late age ski station improvement to win some gold.
Disgustipated
Deity
I live in the desert, so I feel qualified to speak. OK, I'm not qualified, but I will speak nonetheless. 
I feel deserts were represented well enough in Civ4. You could have oasis which would provide some marginal food for a civ that had that in their radius. Or if you had a river tile, you could have flood plains which were very nice tiles to work. Not to mention you could have resources appear on desert squares such as incense.
Take a drive outside the city I live (Las Vegas), there isn't much there. Water for irrigation is either pumped from the ground (which is a fairly late improvement in civ terms) or taken from the rivers (represented with flood plains). My city only exists because it can get food from California and other places (it would be nice to bring back food trade routes that existed in Civ2, but I digress). The only major industry my state has other than gambling is mining. And the mining generally occurs in the hills, which is well represented in Civ4.
I feel deserts were represented well enough in Civ4. You could have oasis which would provide some marginal food for a civ that had that in their radius. Or if you had a river tile, you could have flood plains which were very nice tiles to work. Not to mention you could have resources appear on desert squares such as incense.
Take a drive outside the city I live (Las Vegas), there isn't much there. Water for irrigation is either pumped from the ground (which is a fairly late improvement in civ terms) or taken from the rivers (represented with flood plains). My city only exists because it can get food from California and other places (it would be nice to bring back food trade routes that existed in Civ2, but I digress). The only major industry my state has other than gambling is mining. And the mining generally occurs in the hills, which is well represented in Civ4.
I think certain civs should treat deserts and mountains differently - the Incas should totally be able to farm a mountain. So, if you're an inca, a mountain tile would be like 1f2p, and then you could farm it to increase the food bonus. Same thing with the desert and some desert-dwelling civ (maybe arabians?)
Good point. I think the Incas should be able to build terraces in hills and mountains. It could be a unique terrain improvement feature for them.
Israel also has a lot of farms in the desert.
Here's my idea for mountain mining: Have the city build an improvement to make the mountain get terrain improvements, because they are impassable workers cannot improve them on their own.
Here's my idea for mountain mining: Have the city build an improvement to make the mountain get terrain improvements, because they are impassable workers cannot improve them on their own.
King Kalmah
Magyar Madness
I live in California aswell and its mostly a desert in the south.The North is where all the water comes from.It should be industrail age and onwards for improving deserts....
