Enough terrain types in civ4?

[Mirc]

In civ3 (vanilla, I don't know anything about other versions) there are only Deserts, Flood Plains, Tundra, Hills, Plains, Grasslad, Forest, Mountains, Snow-Capped Mountains, Jungle, Pine Forest and Bonus Grassland. I'm not talking about ocean, sea and coast. This means 13 types of terrain.
Will these be the only ones in Civ4? I think they should be at least 25 types of terrain:

Tropical wet forests
Tropical dry forests
Savanas
Rain Forests
Temperate evergreen forests
Jungles
Pine Forests
Palm-Trees
Stepes
Sand desert
Rocky desert (I'm not sure this is the english name, but I hope you understand)
Plains
Arid Plains
High-Altitude Plains
Grassland
Bous Grassland
Hills
Forest Hills
Mountains
Forest mountains
High mountains
Tundra
Frozen plains
And near rivers or lakes not only Flood Plains, but also Fertile plains.

 

[ogmoir]

Sorry for my ignorance, but what is the difference between for example tropical wet forests, rain forests and jungles? I'm sure there is one, but don't these at least overlap?

You can see the terrain types in Civ 4 here: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/#Landscape
I think those are enough, except that I wouldn't mind if there were a differentiation between deciduous and coniferous forests. Also, I'm with you on high-altitude plains (plateaus).

 

[peanut35]

this should be posted in Ideas & Suggestions, not in General Disscussion.

CivRules: Thanks

 

[Civrules]

this should be posted in Ideas & Suggestions, not in General Disscussion.

Moved...

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Sorry for my ignorance, but what is the difference between for example tropical wet forests, rain forests and jungles? I'm sure there is one, but don't these at least overlap?

You can see the terrain types in Civ 4 here: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/#Landscape
I think those are enough, except that I wouldn't mind if there were a differentiation between deciduous and coniferous forests. Also, I'm with you on high-altitude plains (plateaus).

Tropical wet is roughly equivalent to jungle. But there are many kinds of rainforest; there are, for example, temperate rainforests--I beleive there is a large one in the Pacific Northwest of the US and in British Columbia, in Canada.

 

[sydhe]

I'd add several kinds of wetland to that.

 

[apatheist]

Rather than having a taxonomy of 25 or whatever different terrain types, there should be different dimensions that combine to produce various types of terrain: rainfall, ruggedness, ground cover, and temperature. Rainfall options would be wet, moderate, dry, and desert. Ruggedness options would be mountainous, hilly, rolling, and flat. Ground cover options would be dense jungle, forest, savanna (mixed scrub), and grassland. Temperature options would be hot, temperate, cold, and arctic. 4 dimensions each with 4 options theoretically gives 16 types of terrain. It wouldn't actually result in 16, though, because it doesn't seem like it matters to differentiate a lot. The idea of rolling deserts, for example, doesn't really make sense to me. Swamp would be wet, flat, hot or temperate land. Tundra would be wet, cold land. I could see omitting savanna and arctic. Rain forest would be wet and any ruggedness; temperate rain forests would be temperate and hot rain forests would be tropical.

This is probably going to be trouble... I also think Civ needs to introduce the concept of elevation. I haven't come up with a satisfactory way of doing it, nor am I completely convinced it would be a valuable addition. I believe that having plateaus and continental divides, etc. that are not relatively unusable mountain squares would be valuable. I want real river valleys.

 

[Mirc]

I'm very sorry, I thought I posted it in Ideas&Sugesstions. My connection is not very good and I it is so slow I don't have time to look better.

 

[warpstorm]

But other than cosmetic differences, what is so unique about these terrains that they need to be added to fill a missing gameplay void? (One of my fundamentals of good game design is that more is rarely better than enough).

 

[Vietcong]

i dont think u need that many, but hears a list i came up with

Mountians
hills
grasslands
planies
deserts
forests *devited into ur basic forest, and a colder climit one with pine trees*
jungels
tundra
valcanos
swamps/marshish/wetlands
and flood planes
thes are enofe i think to cover most

 

[10Seven]

These are the known terrain types - coped from the link posted above;

1. Coast
2. Desert
3. Desert Hills
4. Floodplain
5. Forest
6. Grassland
7. Grassland Hills
7. Ice
8. Ice Hills
9. Iceberg
10. Jungle
11. Lake
12. Mountains
13. Oasis
14. Ocean
15. Tundra
16. Tundra Hills
17. Plains
18. Plain Hills
19. River/Fresh Water

To me it seems the real issue is how these might work - I particularly recall the excellent addition of LANDMARK TERRAIN, but which seemed to me crippled by not allowing different rules of restriction - such as preventing a foot unit from going on the normal terrain, but allowing it on landmark.

If Firaxis add a landmark terrain function, with more flexible rules of movement, then I'd be very happy

Some of the above, such as lake, may be like Civ3, where they were really just the same as coast, but for a few minor points - to the editor, the same...

EDIT
The list seems different only in the graphical presentation of differing hills - as opposed to Civ3 with it's 1 green hill, tough luck.

 

[Atrebates]

The obvious question is why so many (25?), there are only so many mixes of 1-3 food, shields and gold; only minus gold 'cos you don't get that from terrain any more (or is that roads don't add commerce any more - bugger) with possible varied bonuses from alterations such as mines etc...
Secondly, too many means a fractured map (probably, esp. with slightly smaller maps) with only tiny sections of each terrain type, I'd find that annoying but maybe I'm a minority there.
I certainly think there aesthetic reasons for multiple terrains but that doesn't justify time spent designing terrains, also it would be a big hit on system resources; if civ goes above 512RAM then in will go out of the market for most pcs (although by release date maybe okay)

 

[apatheist]

I like the idea of variety. Is nice.

Rather than having 25 unique terrain types, I favor a formulaic approach because it simplifies things. I can convert jungle into grassland or vice versa, so it's like I have half as many terrain types to deal with in terms of fracturing the map.

 

[Che Guava]

I like the idea of variety, too! Maybe they could be arranged by climate zone. For instance, you have seven simple terrain types, each with thier own bonuses/drawbacks:

-grassland
-plain
-forest
-mountian
-hill
-wetland
-desert

...then you divide the world into 4 climate zones, depending on latitude and elevation:

-tropical
-temperate
-boreal
-arctic

So, for example, a grassland (3 food, one sheild) in a tropical climate (-one food) would yeild 2 food and one shield, to simulate a savannah. that would give a total of 28 distinct terrain types, without complicating things too much...

 

[josephstalin]

Well, I like variety too. But this tables just makes things more complicated, than they should be. Terrain in civilization III represent all main real life types of terrain (I agree that not climite) good enough.

 

[Legionary37]

C3C had too many terrain types. Volcanoes had terrible base resources, and couldn't be improved, basically putting your city at risk and giving it less. The bogs (or swamp, it was introduced in Conquests) was a terrible addition to the game. Starting in a large swamp would really screw you over seriously.

I think the terrain that is in vannilla is fine.

 

[Afgnwrlrd]

I would add only stepes. Right now we have to think, "is it glassland, plains, tunra, desert...?"

 

[Mirc]

...then you divide the world into 4 climate zones, depending on latitude and elevation:

-tropical
-temperate
-boreal
-arctic

So, for example, a grassland (3 food, one sheild) in a tropical climate (-one food) would yeild 2 food and one shield, to simulate a savannah. that would give a total of 28 distinct terrain types, without complicating things too much...

Whooo Hooooo!
I perfectly agree with you! That was exactly my point! But I would add to this 4 climate zones a general one. Here, you have fewer types of terrain. I had to write about this option because I saw a lot of people disagree with the idea of more terrain types. If this option is not good, you should be able in Civ4 to choose what terrain types to have in the game (including all the new types).

 

[apatheist]

C3C had too many terrain types. Volcanoes had terrible base resources, and couldn't be improved, basically putting your city at risk and giving it less. The bogs (or swamp, it was introduced in Conquests) was a terrible addition to the game. Starting in a large swamp would really screw you over seriously.

Then the problem isn't what terrain types are in the game but rather that it picks sucky start locations.

Terrain that can't be improved isn't a bad thing. Every single tile in your territory got improved in Civ3, which was ugly and completely unrealistic.

 

[{|}$~\]

4 dimensions each with 4 options theoretically gives 16 types of terrain.

4 variables, each having 4 possible values, gives 4^4 = 4 * 4 * 4 * 4 = 256 types of terrain, not 4 * 4 = 16.