Deserts and Mountains should be improvable.

[Disgustipated]

Ok it can be clarified a bit. In north america the deserts are almost terrafomed into paradise comparatively to how they were. However, we are not talking about terraforming, we are talking about improvements. Ancient people's lived in those north american deserts. They built stone houses and graineries and with irrigation farmed desert land.
This has not been limited to north america. Many great ancient empires were built in the desert. Egyptian, Babylonian, Mesopotamian, Carthaginian, Persian, ect. ect. all came from a desert environments that was IMPROVED upon for man to live there. They built farms, buildings, had animals, water wells, ect. ect. The peoples adapted, yes the improvements were not the giant farms of the Midwest US of today - But ancient peoples have often populated deserts on all continents and have adapted to do so.

Of course this all depends on how much desert we see in civ V. Gameplay is more important, I just dont want people to use a realism argument against desert improvements when so many people have lived and do live in deserts.

I'm not seeing this america. No offense to your post. I live in the mojave desert. It is desert! My city only exists due to food from other states. We would not be a city of 2 million without trucking and refrigeration. Many of these "cities" you mention in the 19th century in Utah and other places were little more than towns. And what you fail to mention is they were built on or near water sources. Which in civ terms is represented by river or an oasis resource.

I feel rivers and oasis resources adequately represents the extent that we can improve deserts. Yes there are towns in the desert. Most of these would be equivalent to a size 1 or 2 Civ4 city. Other cities are located next to rivers (which is represented in civ4 by flood plains). Cities such as mine are completely unsustainable on their own.

 

[Tee Kay]

This has not been limited to north america. Many great ancient empires were built in the desert. Egyptian, Babylonian, Mesopotamian, Carthaginian, Persian, ect. ect.

Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia thrived in what in Civ would be flood plain tiles, not desert.

 

[sputnik323]

I'm not seeing this america. No offense to your post. I live in the mojave desert. It is desert! My city only exists due to food from other states. We would not be a city of 2 million without trucking and refrigeration.

I feel rivers and oasis resources adequately represents the extent that we can improve deserts. Yes there are towns in the desert. Most of these would be equivalent to a size 1 or 2 Civ4 city. Other cities are located next to rivers (which is represented in civ4 by flood plains). Cities such as mine are completely unsustainable on their own.

1 No offence taken.

2 No modern city is sustainable on their own. NYC? Tokyo?

3 Floodplanes are relatively small when compared to areas irrigated from diverted water of rivers in the desert, it may not seem that way because modern cities have been built over previous Native American farm land. Being around Native American sites have taught me how much people can adapt and thrive in a desert environment.

4 I lived in the Mojave and other deserts for 30 years, I know how important water is.

5 Oasis in civ doesn't account for the true amount of springs and wells found in deserts.

6 Romans built aqueducts 20 miles long, other ancient civs (can't remember off the top of my head) built tunnels to bring in water from many miles away IN THE DESERT. -civ is partially about rewriting history.

7 Deserts can be a habitable place for animals and humans with ingenuity and work. Ive seen Cows ranched on desert land.

8 I dont think countries like Lybia, Niger, and Algeria are among US standards of living - yet they still have cities in the desert. Look in google maps satellite view

9 Not all ancient civs were around major floodplanes like Eygpt. Israel is not on a floodplane - And was a decent player in Ancient history. Same with Persia/Iran a mostly desert country which now has over 70 million people living in it. There is no major delta floodplane there like Eygpt or Babylon.

Realistically many empires were built in a desert environment and the land was improved for their needs. If for gameplay reasons people do not want desert land improved fine. But in the real world, many people live and have thrived in very harsh desert conditions.

 

[Disgustipated]

Those are some good points. That said, I'm still okay with the game as is. Maybe I'd like to see more modern use of deserts (modern age terraforming etc.), but I wouldn't want to hamper the ai.

I think making life easier on the AI was the main reason for Firaxis making mountains and deserts useless? Correct me if I'm wrong. I believe previous civ games had issues with the ai building too many cities in subpar terrain such as mountains and deserts. Even civ4 civs had a bad habit of building too many cities in tundra which I consider subpar at best.

The best solution of course would be to improve the ai to better analyze the cost/benefit ratio of cities in primarily desert/mountain/tundra regions. But considering the way maintenance works in civ4, do you guys really want to build a city in the desert? If there is a resource in the desert I especially want, I will usually build a city in nearby plains square if need be. But as I mentioned, you are going to take a maintenance hit by doing that. So programming the ai to recognize this would not be easy.

 

[Tavdy79]

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.

Japan's method of reclaiming land was different from the method used in the Netherlands. Instead of building dykes and pumping out the water, the Japanese blasted out mountains in the middle of the country, and dumped the rock into the sea. So they actually got a lot more than just extra land from the sea - they got extra land from the plateaus left by the flattened mountains.

Figuring out how to do this in the game isn't so straight-forward, however.

It should be industrail age and onwards for improving deserts....

Many deserts have soil that's amongst the most fertile on the planet if there is water available, and humans have been irrigating deserts for at least 4600 years to take advantage of this. The Norte Chico of north-western Peru are the earliest I know of, and their system of desert irrigation was used continuously for 4000 years by successive major civilisations in the same region, such as the Moche and Chimu.

However not all deserts can be irrigated - so perhaps the solution is to have two types of desert: one type that can be irrigated, and another which cannot.

 

[King Kalmah]

Many deserts have soil that's amongst the most fertile on the planet if there is water available, and humans have been irrigating deserts for at least 4600 years to take advantage of this. The Norte Chico of north-western Peru are the earliest I know of, and their system of desert irrigation was used continuously for 4000 years by successive major civilisations in the same region, such as the Moche and Chimu.

However not all deserts can be irrigated - so perhaps the solution is to have two types of desert: one type that can be irrigated, and another which cannot.

I like this idea like maybe there is an inland desert tile which is far from water or oasis and then there is a tile adjacent to water or grassland.

Also in CIV4 many had to build cities in the desert or close to that hard to grab incense.

 

[sputnik323]

However not all deserts can be irrigated - so perhaps the solution is to have two types of desert: one type that can be irrigated, and another which cannot.

2 types of desert would reflect the real world more accurately. Sand Dunes cannot be irrigated (although have some vegetation), and are just as bad as tundra to live in. Irrigated desert can be just as fertile as anything. -and there is much more workable desert land than there are marshes in the world.

 

[Oerdin]

I like the idea of making desert and mountains improvable with the right technology. The incas terraced the heck out of mountain sides making them productive for farming and Israel and even the crusader states of the medieval period have made the desert bloom with complex irrigation systems. If need be make civs get a certain tech before allowing it but make it possible.

 

[bob rulz]

I like the idea of having 2 different types of desert tiles. There is a lot of desert that is not able to be irrigated, such as sand dunes, or rocky deserts like you would find in southern Utah for example, but large desert areas in the modern world contain very fertile land that has been irrigated and converted to farmland. Yes, usually they are near rivers and not too far from grasslands, but they are desert nonetheless.

I recently read a National Geographic article about how Australia's drought is wreaking havoc on some of their farmland because so much of it was built over reclaimed desert that had no business being farmed to the extent that it was, but in non-drought times they were very productive and you could even say flourishing.

Having 2 different types of desert tiles would fix this dilemma.

 

[chongli]

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.

I'm sure there will be a world builder in Civ V. You can always do what my friend does: start a new game, immediately launch into the world builder and go around changing all the deserts around him into grasslands with cows, wheat, mountains into hills with gold, iron, copper etc.

Basically, when he is done his starting city (and surrounding area) has 1 of every resource.

 

[cardgame]

lol, sounds like a good strategy for OCC

 

[Thormodr]

Good article here about Turpan, China. A city surrounded by desert but due to an ancient ingenious irrigation system, it is famous for it's grapes.

Once upon a time, the residents of the area noticed it was damn dry, and water would be a swell idea. So they proceeded to dig lakes in the mountains to collect the snow-melt, and then dig long underground passage ways to bring the water to the area without it all evaporating. The upshot of this is that the area has over 5000km of underground/sheltered waterways, some up to 2000 years old, still performing their original function of providing the area with water to grow grapes.

http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.travelpod.com/users/chris-marianne/bigchina.1117971660.turpan_-_jiahe.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chris-marianne/bigchina/1117971660/tpod.html&usg=__lAu4BI_2iep-r5BL8117P_c0VmA=&h=375&w=500&sz=36&hl=en&start=15&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=oo1ieCl-E2f77M:&tbnh=98&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dturpan%2Bunderground%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DG%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-USfficial%26channel%3Ds%26tbs%3Disch:1

Turpan, Xinjiang Province, is a city known for its grape and melon harvest and Uigur people good at songs & Dance.The Turpan Basin lies 154 meters (505 ft) below sea level in the second largest depression in the world. But karez, an ancient irrigation system made this part of desert region fertile land for grapes, melons and cotton. (It is one of the hottest regions in China, so don't visit it during summer until the end of August). Tuyu Gully is a magical place at the foot of Flaming Mountain near Turpan.With great geographical and ecological contrasts, it is home to several ancient cultures, Buddhism and Islam, and is also home to the first Chinese who practiced Islam. Close to it you will find Keraz Well, an ancient Han irrigation project.

http://www.chinaculturecenter.org/tours/eventdetail.php?eventid=111

 

[Tee Kay]

Good article here about Turpan, China. A city surrounded by desert but due to an ancient ingenious irrigation system, it is famous for it's grapes.

More an exception (a rather fascinating one, nonetheless) rather than the rule. Turpan has the advantage of being near snow-capped mountains and oasis.

 

[Thormodr]

More an exception (a rather fascinating one, nonetheless) rather than the rule. Turpan has the advantage of being near snow-capped mountains and oasis.

I don't believe it was near an oasis. As mentioned, it got it's water from snow capped mountains. An ingenious feat of engineering anyway considering it was done 2,000 years ago.

 

[MatrixTheKitty]

I'm sure there will be a world builder in Civ V. You can always do what my friend does: start a new game, immediately launch into the world builder and go around changing all the deserts around him into grasslands with cows, wheat, mountains into hills with gold, iron, copper etc.

Basically, when he is done his starting city (and surrounding area) has 1 of every resource.

Yes, I believe we call this "cheating."

 

[SMA333M]

I agree... terraforming like in Civ 2 would be nice ... and mines on mountains