different terrain types, different types of farming, different yields

[eddie_verdde]

DIFFERENT TERRAIN TYPES, DIFFERENT FARMING
Unlike what happens in previous CIV games, you just can’t clear out a piece of jungle and cultivate the land for eternity. Farming depends mostly on the type of soil. Jungle or rain-forests soils are very sensitive to the changes introduced by INTENSIVE farming and will be able to support large farms for only a couple of years. After that the soil becomes exhausted and the land dries permanently.

It is believed that many meso-american kingdoms disappeared due to the consequences of the overuse of jungles for farming.

Furthermore, the complete clearance of jungle areas as you see in CIV would have a tremendous impact on global ecology.

Therefore, farming in equatorial regions should be different from farming in other regions. The food yields from jungle squares should be lower than other squares, since horticulture (a “lesser” type of agriculture) is the major way of obtaining food in jungle human communities.

 

[Synergy67]

As I have stated elsewhere, I dislike the encouragement by the way Civ II and Civ III work to cut down all your forests around your cities (which basically amounts eventually to nearly every forest and jungle within your cultural borders by late in the game). There should be rewards for keeping some natural terrain, making parks around cities perhaps, which would give a cultural and/or happiness boost and a greater likelihood of larger population for a city due to desirability of location factors.

In areas where farmland is scarce, removing some forest and converting it into farmland would be worthwhile, but it should be need to be near fresh water sources (irrigation long distances should be more challenging for a long way into the game). If you remove too much forest in an area, however, you might get dustbowls and erosion and the ruination of soils as Eddie is suggesting here. You might also ironically also lose some percentage of food due to so much wildlife disappearing with no more forests. Not all food is farming, espeically in ealier eras where much hunting/gathering took place.

Overall, we should be strongly encouraged by game dynamics to keep a certain amount of forests and jungles around--they offer other kinds of food, and they are needed to transform CO2 in O2 after all. Railroads and farmland spanning the globe is hardly the ideal vision of the future world. It's bleak sci-fi nightmare material.

 

[rhialto]

hI'd actually like to see the basic random map start with MUCH more forest. Most of Europe's original terrain was forest. Perhaps as mass transport techs are researched, forests start to generate extra trade arrows to represent more domestic tourism, but only if those forests are original forestş not replanted.

 

[North King]

Cutting forests en masse should definately begin to dry up an area severly. That is the reason the Fertil Crescent declined into a desert--all the forests had been cut, so there was no way to retain the moisture. When the irrigation canals were destroyed by the mongols, it was rendered almost uninhabitable.

 

[DirkHartog]

I would like to see the return of the ability to irrigate hills (even mountains, have a look at what the Incas were capable of).

Bringing this in line with this thread, I would like to throw in the observation of the combination of the volcanic soils of South East Asia combined with monsoon rains - they produce very high food yeilding rice paddies, including up the sides of quite mountainous terrain.

The most densely populated area of our planet has plenty of hills, mountains and jungles. In contrast to eddie_verdde, I would like to see high food yeilds from jungles, but only if adjacent to mountainous/volcanic squares.

 

[brinko]

i think it would be nice to see different detail across the land due to different crops being farmed. i liked when farms were in civ 2.

farm squares should be color coded and specific to different areas.
blue - flax
yellow - canola, wheat, corn
white - cotton
green- peas
etc...

this feature would be nice while invading countries with rich looking landscape.
as the invading armies pillage through the country side, the farm squares should turn a sparsley brown color, with few evidence that the previous crop was there. somewhat a brief historical track of evidence of what the armies can do.

 

[eddie_verdde]

Dirkhartog

yes, the incas were capable of maintaining crops in high altitudes, maybe because that was the only way they could get by in such a harsh environment...but irrigating mountains requires very specific conditions and lots of knowledge...it would be a good idea if civs that start on such harsh environments could develop specific habilities...

to reado more about this issue you can read my thread: "different food/shield output system"

 

[sir_schwick]

In SMAC, moisture content and rockiness were important elements. Climates were actually considered and terrain had varying amoutns of food output. Also, destroying forests often caused eco-damage and planted forests propogated. Besides, you could build Condensors and other things ot improve farmland. Overall SMAC had a decent ecology system missing from Civ.

 

[North King]

Dirkhartog

yes, the incas were capable of maintaining crops in high altitudes, maybe because that was the only way they could get by in such a harsh environment...but irrigating mountains requires very specific conditions and lots of knowledge...it would be a good idea if civs that start on such harsh environments could develop specific habilities...

to reado more about this issue you can read my thread: "different food/shield output system"

Actually, many societies terraced and irrigated mountains, the Incas being only one of the most famous. One of the reasons that the Incas could grow so much with so little was the crops they had at hand--potatoes were a miracle for the Incas, or maybe not really a miracle, as only a soceity that had such a versitile highland crop could survive in that kind of enviornment.

 

[eddie_verdde]

One of the reasons that the Incas could grow so much with so little was the crops they had at hand--potatoes were a miracle for the Incas, or maybe not really a miracle, as only a soceity that had such a versitile highland crop could survive in that kind of enviornment.

well...surviving in harsh environments requires much more than "miraculous crops".

Yes the Inca had great benefits from potatoe since it's a highly nutritious plant but the potatoe itself doesn't explain the successful living of Inca in the mountains of Peru. They also developed skills in bridge-building and in irrigation systems, they domesticated animals capable of living at high altitudes, and they had a complex (up and down) trade network to exploit the benefits of both highland products and lowland products...

And all this characteristics aren't exclusive of Inca people...communities living in similar ecossystems around the world developed similar skills (eg: tibet, nepal)

So, once again, this reflects the adaptability of human communities to harsh environments through the development of specific abilities...

And that's why I insist this issue should be considered in CIV4.

For more on this please read my thread "new shield/food output system" above