Early disaster is too destructive

[myclan]

Just played as Qin. Built my scout and monument then first worker, and grew my pop to about 2.5. Suddenly a thousand-year flood came, my worker died before having built any improvement, and the pop suffer a -1. I had to rebuild my worker while it’s a bit late and Zulu destroyed me with 3 and more warrior.

 

[Troy Bruckner]

Very early floods are usually a blessing as they add a couple food and or production to the area.

 

[Futumch]

They are difficult to prepare for, especially really early in the game. In my most recent game as Chandragupta, my second city was at the mouth of a river which flooded 2 turns in a row. I still like to have the disaster settings at 4 though, even if sometimes it seems unfair.

Regarding your Chinese story above, could you have bought a Builder with gold to get you back on your feet again? Usually early on you should have found a goody hut or two (with a bit of Gold as a bonus).

 

[XplosiveLun]

Its actually very easy to mitigate disasters; just don't build any thing on them. Tiles with frequent disasters (expect droughts) have much higher yields than normal tiles even without improvement. Disaster prevention buildings are expensive to build at first but become affordable gradually. So only build them if you have huge cities that need housing desperately and are capable to build them.

 

[myclan]

Very early floods are usually a blessing as they add a couple food and or production to the area.

Yes, also they may destroy the tile that you even don’t have a improvement on it so no damage at all. But losing a worker early is such a huge loss. And though my capital is on a hill it still suffer from a loss of pop.

 

[Victoria]

You have my sympathies @myclan
Some people like the disasters and see them as additional challenge and others find the impact they have on your game early too harsh and out of your control.
Making disaster settings 0 does not stop disasters early.

I also quite simply hate settling on or near flood plains as they are used to be great 3 food tiles but are now useless 1 food tiles and that flood often just does not appear, certainly not early. Flood plains are called flood plains because they have flooded in the past? Not in this game.

I have has a city completely decimated by a hurricane, built a builder and had it sucked away by a water spout.

 

[Tech Osen]

I don't really mind having my game ruined by a disaster. I feel it fits the theme, I'm sure plenty of upstart civilizations met their end in such a way. More of a roleplay player obviously, I just hit restart.
Like yesterday when I started next to Chandragupta and figured I just start the inevitable war myself. Went well and then half my army got hit by a flood at his capital and it all went downhill from there. Stuff happens.

 

[Tiger Genocide]

I only play with disasters set to 1 nowadays. I cannot be bothered to play on higher settings when I get 2 big floods in 2 turns, in a row, knocking out my population and killing my first builder. That isn't fun for me. It's too much, even on setting 2. The AI can hardly do what it is supposed to do, so if that stuff bogs me down too much, it must be murdering them. Might be why they set up barbs to be able to wander inside AI lands and not attack the AI, but only you.

 

[Duuk]

Do you remember when natural disasters weren't included because "random events that destroy the player and can't be controlled by the player aren't fun" was a design decision?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

 

[Victoria]

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Didn't Ed solicit a steer from Sid on said subject?

 

[Leucarum]

I find disasters a mixed bag. 95% of the time they aren't a problem and they can be fun to play around, but 5% of the time they can just make you lose for no good reason. Like the time 3 sandstorms in a row wiped out my suguba/holy site cluster as Mali... Or a river flood wiping out half my army during an early defensive war on deity.

In those cases you are still not playing badly since the overwhelming majority of the time it's the optimal play. It's just that occasionally, for no reason, you randomly lose.

 

[Bibor]

I avoid settling *on* floodplains and adjacent to volcaones for this very reason.

As far as other disasters go, they tend to hit the same place. If it's a desert storm, it's going to be repeating on the same spot over and over again. Either avoid settling these locations (you can mark the location as soon as it happens the first time) or be prepared to permanently settle Liang there.

Twisters are the worst of the lot, and their spawn locations don't make much sense either.

 

[Tech Osen]

Twisters are the worst of the lot, and their spawn locations don't make much sense either.

They are hard to keep track of, more annoying than destructive in my experience.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Twisters: on more than one occasion I've built my first city and discovered that Twisters spawned regularly (like, every 15 - 25 turns) right next door. It's more than annoying when your units need Ruby Slippers to get more than 5 tiles away from your Capital without getting a house dropped on them.
Volcanoes. I don't put anything next to a volcano except the magically-exempt-from-disasters Wonders. If there is a resource next to a volcano, I ignore it as putting an Improvement there is asking the Volcano Gods to smack it a few turns later - and keep smacking it Forever.
On the other hand, just last night in a game, for the first time I got a note that one volcano had become 'dormant' and there was no more danger of it erupting - first time I have ever seen any disaster 'turned off' by the game as opposed to having to alleviate the effects by my own (or the AI) actions.
Floodplains. On Level 2 I have seen the same river flood 4 times in the first 20 turns of the game. Luckily, it wasn't my city that was settled on its Floodplains! I am grudgingly wiling to put Improvements on Floodplains, but not Districts, and if I have more than a few Improvements on the Risky River Bottom, I try to keep a Builder handy to repair the inevitable Flood damage.
Hurricanes. As far as I'm concerned, they are the Game's way of telling you that Coastal City Sites are not your friends, and that Poseidon is a thorough-going SOB.
Storms, as in Dust or Blizzard. Have actually not had that much trouble from them. When I play on a lot of blizzard-prone Tundra, I'm usually playing Russia, so I have my Magic Petrine Anti-Blizzard Cream to at least protect my units. In the desert, I admit that I assume anybody crazy enough to go there deserves what they get (having lived in a few deserts in my time)
Drought is a bit puzzling. It appears to tear up Improvements on a random basis, but I've never seen a unit affected. Are all my Recon, Ranged, Melee, Cavalry, and Siege Units accompanied by trains of water-bearing Camels? It appears so . . .

 

[PhilBowles]

I've actually had the reverse - I got hit by a bad flood which killed a unit and cost a couple of pop, but this was early in the World Congress era and the AI is too willing to try and win that competition. The poor AIs were pouring money into Hungary, little suspecting what that could mean for those with city states on their borders.

I like the disaster mechanic and disasters are a bit more relevant than they were when Gathering Storm released, but they need to work on AI behaviour to prevent a minor short-term hit from turning into a snowballing advantage when the AI bends over backwards to give you all their money for free. It's like the Civ V gold exploit except that you don't even need to ask anyone for gold or trade worthless luxuries.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I don't mind tiles being wrecked by disasters (well, except tornadoes which are so freaking random). What I mind is having to spend six million turns fixing a district becuase it got damp.

 

[lotrmith]

You have my sympathies @myclan
Some people like the disasters and see them as additional challenge and others find the impact they have on your game early too harsh and out of your control.
Making disaster settings 0 does not stop disasters early.

It is entirely in control because you choose where to settle and where you move your units and where you build districts and improvements.

I also quite simply hate settling on or near flood plains as they are used to be great 3 food tiles but are now useless 1 food tiles and that flood often just does not appear, certainly not early. Flood plains are called flood plains because they have flooded in the past? Not in this game.

Flood plains are called flood plains because they are plains that flood. In the past and present.

I have has a city completely decimated by a hurricane, built a builder and had it sucked away by a water spout.

Sounds realistic.

 

[Aurelesk]

Those last time, I tend to play Eleonor of Aquitaine in a specific way: I don't settle any cities (except the Capital) and I try to flip the world by building Oracle / Pangala (for those writers) and all those wonders with slots (and that specific Merchant). One thing I like the most is going for a Cultural Alliance (that allow cities to ignore loyalty pressure) and see the AI becoming too confident and settle a city near my border. Then, change the alliance type and see the city fall.

One of my last game, I started half in the desert. Grow up my population up to 12 and was about to flip a city with my great works and population pressure, then a Haboob level-5 showed up right on my city: -3 Population, then move the next turn, taking out 3 more Population: I ended up to 6 Population. 3 turns later: an other level-5 Haboob showed up and took out 3 more Population, ending up to 3.
The worst part? It only pillage my districts and fertilize tiles out of my 3-tiles ring.

Still continue the game and managed to flip half the world, and probably didn't finish because how boring the later game is. The "problem" is being able to flip a city-state easily. The worst part, even we refuse the city, they become free-state (instead of turning back to city-state) and our Great Work still count for loyalty pressure but since we refuse the city, some AI get the city. I manage to postpone this by feeding them Envoy for more Loyalty, but that is not enough.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

I guess that's mostly because you start with a scout and a monument. It is actually those inefficient moves cause your failure, instead of a flood.

 

[Victoria]

I guess that's mostly because you start with a scout and a monument. It is actually those inefficient moves cause your failure, instead of a flood.

So for a start, this comment is nothing to do with the topic
The trouble is on the scout front whacker always beat your times and opened a scout so you are not even correct. Civtrader6 opens scout, Dan Quayle opens scout. I guess the reason why you do not play GOTM now is all the best players there open scout and beat you or you claim they are cheating because they beat you.... which you have done more than once.
The monument comment was in a post where I said the only reason for opening a monument may be you want to get to craftsmanship quick but are stuck in jungle. Valid reasoning to my mind, it is not like a monument opening is the best by any means

The Chinese have banned you, there is a reason for this. Try to be better here eh?

Just lost over Why you do it lily. Why mock stupid people like me?