Elevations and terrain features

[pesgores]

Am I the only one who thinks it is stupid to have a map with the same constant elevation in all land tiles, except for hills and mountains?

There should be an elevation factor, on 500 meters interval, for late games when Global warming starts sinking coastal cities and people need to evacuate to higher grounds, for granting more terrain bonuses, for having certain resources only available on some altitudes, to make the game more realistic.

Also, bonuses from attacking/defending from different elevations, and high altitude lakes to provide fresh water to civs, rivers actually starting on higher altitudes and descend from there

Now, hills and mountains could still be added.

-Hills would be an instant 500 meters rise, with more chance of growing resources and more defensive bonuses, when high plains would have no special conditions, but to be high plains.

-Mountains would be an instant 1000 meters rise, impassable by most units, no wealth, hammers or wealth generated, untill one researches a certain tech and become passable for all units and starts being useful.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Colonel]

I think I like it, maybe not that much of a scale perhaps just a 10 level scale, highest mountains being 10, hills being 5. Then give each unit a value of from 0-10 on if it can go on a tile, obviously alter these values based on certain techs you discover.

 

[CivMyWay]

Nah...

 

[pesgores]

I think I like it, maybe not that much of a scale perhaps just a 10 level scale, highest mountains being 10, hills being 5. Then give each unit a value of from 0-10 on if it can go on a tile, obviously alter these values based on certain techs you discover.

Good.

Adding to that, Jungles and forests would raise that value, and terrain types too.

High altitude plains are cool...

 

[Rusty Edge]

I've been in favor of more elevation so as to include cliffs, plateaus, and below sea level elevation that would make it possible to depict things like the Great rift valley, Victoria falls, Niagra Falls, the DeaD sEA, dEATH valley, Grand Canyon, Loch Ness...Cliffs of Dover.

I hadn't thought about taking it to the level of a 10 scale, or changing the vegetation, that's more than I was asking for , but I'll take it.

 

[pesgores]

But 10 scale for terrain and possibility of units to pass through that terrain, nah. 500 meters per layer is much better.

 

[CivMyWay]

I've been in favor of more elevation so as to include cliffs

Yes I have thought this would be cool too. It should be relatively easy to do though, just create a new tile (with appropriate graphics) and make it impassable to cross a certain face (e.g. North).

 

[Camikaze]

Altitude could be good as a battle mechanic, i.e. it would be harder to attack 1000m high from a sea level tile. And it would make for some great aesthetics. So long as it doesn't play too much of a factor in the game (other than the aforementioned), and movement is realistic (i.e. it would probably be unrealistic to require 2 movement points to move up a 1000m hill, and then 1 point to move up a 900m hill) then it is a great idea.

 

[pesgores]

I thought it more of a battle mechanics enhancer and possibly visual effectsand not-so-visual as global warming and water levels rise. Coastal cities underwater...

Then if we get more future technologies, such as deep sea exploration and colonization, ancient cities underwater could have a turistic improvement.

 

[Truronian]

Global Warming causing a 500m sea level rise wouldn't be very realistic... Maybe a SMAC-esque elevation system would work. It would need to be less graphically obvious IMO, and keeping hill and mountain tiles would be nice.

 

[Camikaze]

Perhaps the graduations should be slightly exponential, then, to take this into account. Maybe:

• sea level
• 100m
• 250m
• 750m
• 1750m
• 3000m
• 4500m
• 6500m

 

[pesgores]

Yes...valid for plains, of course, and Hills and Mountains would raise some so the numbers wouldn'tbe ALWAYS the same.

What about below sea level? Ability to build dykes as improvements to gain more land.

Then, underwater elevations would be needed as well...

 

[Camikaze]

I think all that would be required is coastal tiles and ocean tiles as is currently the case, unless, of course, underwater future techs were to be added, but even then I don't see what particular impact underwater 'altitude' would have with regards to any possible tech.

 

[pesgores]

Then divide water tiles by 3 categories:
-Coast: able to be drained; cities built here without drainage only have a health penalty

-Continental floor: counts as the Civ4 Coast, which means pre-Astronomy naval units can pass; underwater cities have few handicaps

-Deep ocean: Civ4 ocean; underwater cities have some handicaps

 

[Atrebates]

I'm a big fan of variable terrain height causing feedback on weather systems (eg. rain shadow behind mountains causing plains/desert, gyres, currents etc...) Although I suspect such things are a waste of computer resources [generating the initial map] that only a few geology/planetary system gays like myself would care about.

However an 8 level gradational terrain system would only cost 3bits per tile. Fairly cheap to run during the game

 

[pesgores]

Whatever. As long as there is one model.

 

[exhile]

Don't complicate the game too much. The Civ5 funny posts will have a submarine climbing a mountain or some crap like that.

+3 Mountains
+2 Hills
+1 Plains, Grassland, Tundra, Deserts, Ice
*0 Sea
-1 Undersea

Not to mention, adding an air layer for planes and stuff will complicate matters.

 

[pesgores]

Nah. We need high altitude plains.

 

[Hail]

Nah. We need high altitude plains.

if "high altitude" plains == plains, then it's just eye candy. i see no benefit of your increaments of 500m altitude over -2...2 elevation scheme. 2 - mountains, 1 - hills, 0 - plains, grassland, etc., -1 - coast, -2 sea/ocean floor. making attacking and defending from dif elevations bonuses can be done already.

 

[pesgores]

Talk about realism, current civ maps are all ath the same 5 altitudes: ocean, coast, plains, hills and mountains.