Ecology Idea

MerchantCo

Merchant
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Feb 14, 2013
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Ecology should grant the ability to replant forest and jungle. It's a simple but harmless idea. Thoughts?

EDIT: By the time Ecology is unlocked, spending several turns to replant a forest is a lot. Turns become more valuable later on, wouldn't you say? But I do think it should take longer than normal tile improvements.
 
I'm pretty sure you could do this in civ4 (and certainly in civ5) but I don't think it was ecology that unlocked it. I like the idea but it may not be as 'harmless' as you think, some major gameplay changes could occur. i.e. chopping down and building farms, initially, then replanting forests everywhere ans using scientific theory's lumber mill production boost to get a load of production. In short, I like the idea, but I think it has a lot more gameplay effects than you realise.
 
Not a bad idea, but I agree that it could have some very interesting ramifications for gameplay. Perhaps make it take a certain amount of time to fully replant a forest or jungle, during which time the tile is unusable?
 
Not a bad idea, but I agree that it could have some very interesting ramifications for gameplay. Perhaps make it take a certain amount of time to fully replant a forest or jungle, during which time the tile is unusable?

Agreed, or it may get abused. I can see people spamming forests and have workers all planted to chop trees and finish 1 turn after a new wonder has started to get the production. Rinse repeat for several wonders.
 
This potential abuse could be addressed by putting a long build time on those improvements. Right now, trade posts on jungle seem to be the longest I know of (13 turns) w/o SP or Pyramids. If trees need time to grow, it doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that 12 turns to replant + additional turns to add a lumber mill or trade post would sort of provide a passive disincentive to cycle the tiles. You'd want to make the decision and stick with it.
 
I'm pretty sure you could do this in civ4 (and certainly in civ5) but I don't think it was ecology that unlocked it. I like the idea but it may not be as 'harmless' as you think, some major gameplay changes could occur. i.e. chopping down and building farms, initially, then replanting forests everywhere ans using scientific theory's lumber mill production boost to get a load of production. In short, I like the idea, but I think it has a lot more gameplay effects than you realise.

Replanting was in Civ III, I think.

It was not in Civ IV. Civ IV had naturally regrowing forests, but you couldn't artificially grow more forests.
 
Agreed, or it may get abused. I can see people spamming forests and have workers all planted to chop trees and finish 1 turn after a new wonder has started to get the production. Rinse repeat for several wonders.

We are talking Atomic Era wonders, chopping will have almost no impact on them.

It would be nice to be able to plant trees on those 3ring plains tiles and lumber mill them though
 
In my experience anything that required ecology + 13 turns would be a pretty niche change so I couldn't imagine a lot of balance problems from it. If you had any non-domination victory enabled it would be unlikely to have any effect at all.
 
Would be interesting to have a mod that does this, even if just to see what it does to gameplay.
 
Well Replanting a forest should probably consume the worker... that way it would make up for chopping.

You could have other restrictions... ie planted Forests must be adjacent to existing Forest, not adjacent to Desert or Marsh... probably not allow it in Tundra.

It would be a useful way to put food on non riverside hills though.

So I could see it balanced if it was
15 turns standard speed
consumed the Worker
Removed Any tile improvements the instant it was started
Not allowable on Tundra (only Grassland and Plains).. or possibly only allowable on Tundra if adjacent to existing Forest

Jungles I would say.
20 turns standard speed
does not consume worker
Removes Any tile improvements the instant it was started
Only on Plains tiles adjacent to existing Jungle
 
Civ3 had forests you could replant. Civ4 had forests that naturally regrew but it was much faster in the ancient times because turns would be entire generations or so. They could only regrow adjacent to other forests and only on non-improved tiles.

Anyways, I think the idea's pretty solid. Just give it a modest work time. The only reason I could see doing it would be to clear farms/trading posts and replacing them with lumber mills, which is fine by me if someone wants to dedicate the 2-3 workers to transform a food/gold city into a production city. Seems like it'd be useful for domination and making spaceship parts.
 
Would be interesting to have a mod that does this, even if just to see what it does to gameplay.
There is such a mod on Steam. Iirc. it's called "reforestation".

Personally I miss the Nature Park improvement with Ecology that was in one of the previous installments. Should give you some culture and/or science and/or tourism from forest tiles.
 
I like the idea. Another alternative idea could be to have plant forest revealed with foresty and Ecology give forests a +1 health or +1 food for the improved forest ecology/wildlife habitat. A second idea would bo to have Ecology unlock wildlife preserve for a +1 food or +1 health and nature preserve improvement for +1 health or +1 gold for tourism for both. Evironmentalism gives a +1 happiness for both also.
 
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