Editing GLOBAL_WARMING_TERRAIN to TERRAIN_COAST?

[Munch]

When global warming strikes, terrain is turned to desert, because of the tag:

<Define>
<DefineName>GLOBAL_WARMING_TERRAIN</DefineName>
<DefineTextVal>TERRAIN_DESERT</DefineTextVal>
</Define>

Has anyone experimented with the effect of changing this to TERRAIN_COAST (and is that even the correct name)? In theory instead of tiles becoming desert they would become coast tiles, but I can see that this might be a problem for city tiles becoming coast, and the game not knowing how to respond. So, are city tiles considered when the RNG picks tiles to transform?

 

[Vrenir]

I don't know the answer, but Global Warming seems to be something to hold off modding for the next month in the hope that there might be some new feature (in the events category) of BtS that could be perfect.

 

[Sto]

Global warming does not affect cities but does not change the tile type . Howewer , when you set a water terrain type to a land plot , it should change the plot type to water . to see what can happend , you need to test that i think . I 'm not sure to how global warming begin , i think that depend on the number nuke exploded .

Tcho !

 

[Munch]

Well, I've now changed:
<DefineTextVal>TERRAIN_DESERT</DefineTextVal>

To:
<DefineTextVal>TERRAIN_COAST</DefineTextVal>

... and the result is really interesting. To test I launched 44 ICBMs on a Duel size map using worldbuilder and it works fine, tiles were turning into coast squares every turn, eventually tearing my land mass to pieces! Brilliant!

Of course it wasn't a serious game, but I played a few turns more and tried to invade the other Civ, Germany, whose land was also rapidly disappearing. I had to transport my Mechanised Infantry using Galleons!

 

[Vrenir]

Did the cities delete themselves when their tiles turned to coast? Did the cities stay as little islands surrounded by water? Please do tell.

Idea: Would it be possible to tell the computer to change coastal tiles to sea tiles (and thus adjacent tiles to coast) at random for global warming, effectively causing the ocean to rise each turn and eat away at the coasts?

 

[Munch]

Did the cities delete themselves when their tiles turned to coast? Did the cities stay as little islands surrounded by water? Please do tell.

It seems that city squares themselves are not considered by the RNG for global warming modification, none of my cities were deleted, and no units on city tiles drowned. Yes, if you play the game for long enough then you will end up only with little islands where your cities are! I did this last night but forgot to take any screenshots.

I've got some new screenshots though to give examples; game is Duel size Ice Age, Quick speed Future start.

This is the initial land set up, after placing my city I gave myself 44 ICBMs in WorldBuilder:

Only 3 turns after launching my nukes, this is the land set up. Thebes has lost its bananas to the tide, and a few other tiles are submerged:

About 10 turns later, the wheat is lost and so Memphis has been separated from my capital. Also a nice lake has appeared 1N of the sugar:

Just like if you had manually added the coast tiles in WorldBuilder, the graphics look very slightly off - the tiles which have fallen prey to the tide are a darker blue than regular coast - not expected, but I think it makes it more dramatic.

Idea: Would it be possible to tell the computer to change coastal tiles to sea tiles (and thus adjacent tiles to coast) at random for global warming, effectively causing the ocean to rise each turn and eat away at the coasts?

I don't believe this is possible by only changing XML files. There is only one "TERRAIN_(terrain type here)" variable to change in GlobalDefines.xml to do with global warming. Also the tiles are picked indiscriminately I think, regardless of there proximity to coast, latitude etc, as long as they aren't city tiles (either that or I just happened not to see any cities get washed away).

It's all very apocalyptic. Unless your cities have sea resources - which aren't affected by global warming - they will only just be able to sustain themselves working the masses of coast tiles. Also unless you've built your cities on top of a crucial military resource, you eventually will lose all the resources, and will be sending around your Mechanised Infantry and Marines on Galleons.

Another interesting thing which I hadn't forseen, was the game adapting to circumstances. The only victory condition I had on was Domination, and as land outside of my borders disappeared, my percentage of land control increased! So, if the right tiles disappear, it is possible to get a domination victory this way.

 

[Vrenir]

Fascinating. Even as it is, I really do think that this is better than turning them to desert. I mean, now there are definite reasons not to end the world with global warming, or if you are a crazy dominion-set gambler, reasons to bring about a nuclear holocaust. Great idea.

 

[Munch]

Fascinating. Even as it is, I really do think that this is better than turning them to desert.

I agree, it's not perfect but I'm definitely going to keep this instead of desert!

I'm pleased at how well it worked out. The land was disappearing quite rapidly, perhaps because 44 ICBMs is a lot! Still, I think I might reduce the speed that global warming devours tiles before trying this out in a proper game.

 

[Sto]

THe only way to reduce global warming is to reduce warming_prob . The function take a random number for any nuke exploded and then if it's less than warming_prob , affect a tile . ie : if 50 nukes have exploded the function test 50 times a random number between 0 and 99 and each time it's less then warming_prob there is the effect .

Tcho !

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Very interesting. I could envision a situation where you change this to Ice, and instead you'd get nuclear winter.

 

[Munch]

Very interesting. I could envision a situation where you change this to Ice, and instead you'd get nuclear winter.

That's also easily done. Do you mean snow tiles (which you can walk across) or ice (which is impassable)?

Either would be interesting, but the latter will destroy all troops on a tile chosen for global warming, by encasing them in ice. Kinda similar to the coast effect, which claimed the life of one of my scouts. Could severely alter the balance of power during a war if someone's stack gets annihilated by nature.

 

[mark777]

thankyou very interesting

 

[thadian]

Does GW affect ONLY the player?

 

[thadian]

That's also easily done. Do you mean snow tiles (which you can walk across) or ice (which is impassable)?

Either would be interesting, but the latter will destroy all troops on a tile chosen for global warming, by encasing them in ice. Kinda similar to the coast effect, which claimed the life of one of my scouts. Could severely alter the balance of power during a war if someone's stack gets annihilated by nature.

or if your a coastal-dependant civ and your main cities go under!!

 

[(Alexandros)]

Interesting variation! Munch, do you think it could be possible to use both desert and coast as side-effects? I think this would be the most realistic option, since both cases seem to happen in the real world: Desertification and submersion

 

[Munch]

or if your a coastal-dependant civ and your main cities go under!!

Cities are never affected by global warming, and so can not be changed to desert, or coast, or ice etc.

Interesting variation! Munch, do you think it could be possible to use both desert and coast as side-effects? I think this would be the most realistic option, since both cases seem to happen in the real world: Desertification and submersion

At the minute, through simple xml file editing, no. But, for someone with python expertise I see no reason why the function which chooses a tile to change should not include a random number element; this would specify that if the number selected is above a certain threshold the tile turns to one thing (e.g. GLOBAL_WARMING_TERRAIN_1), otherwise to the other (GLOBAL_WARMING_TERRAIN_2). It's beyond me though, at the minute!

 

[Thorn]

Just stumbled across this. That looks great! I've always hated the 'turn tile to desert' thing. This reminds me of Alpha Centauri when I would cause so much global warming that all I had left at the end of the game was small island-cities. Of course, if the city wasn't dome protected it disappeared.

 

[jpinard]

I could see this not working well if you have a map with large contiguous continents. Or does it still work well?

 

[stljeffbb]

It seems that ice is not a terrian but a feature as I tried to modify to TERRAIN_ICE and got an error message...I think I'm going to try tundra as perhaps this is a good representation (without the extra commerce gold) of global warming....not complete oblieration, but greatly reduced.....

 

[Munch]

I could see this not working well if you have a map with large contiguous continents. Or does it still work well?

Well, tiles are turned to coast at random, regardless of whether they are near natural coast, rivers, or just in the middle of a fat continent. So it might not be the effect you want, but it is interesting. You'd get holes appearing in your continent which, given long enough, would form lakes and tear the continent to pieces.

It seems that ice is not a terrian but a feature as I tried to modify to TERRAIN_ICE and got an error message...I think I'm going to try tundra as perhaps this is a good representation (without the extra commerce gold) of global warming....not complete oblieration, but greatly reduced.....

Have a look in the file CIV4TerrainInfos.xml and you will see that there is no TERRAIN_ICE (you are right, it is a feature and not a terrain type), but there is TERRAIN_SNOW, which is the kind of snow tile you can walk on. So at least this is possible.. after all, encasing the whole world in ice would just be daft, cos you wouldn't be able to get anywhere.

But yes, turning the tiles to tundra does sound interesting, I'll try it in my next game - let me know how it works out! Does it remove tile improvements too? Can you only improve tiles turned to tundra if they are by a river?