Environment & Technology

[alms66]

In general, I’d like to see the environment play a much larger role than it currently does in civ. That would include such concepts as tile attrition and true movement (both of which are planned mods by TheLopez, btw), as well as having a larger influence on technological progress. There is already a mod which does this to an extent (by TheLopez), though it only does a limited amount of what I’ll describe below.

Environment, in civ, can be broken down into Starting Location, Primary Tile/Feature, Secondary Tile/Feature, and Landmass Situation. Each of these environmental conditions will affect a civ’s ability to research certain techs in its own ways through use of environment flags on technologies. For example, how can you develop Sailing, if you don’t have a single tile of water within your entire empire? The obvious answer is that it should not be allowed. Another example, why would a civ living in a dense, highly productive jungle develop Agriculture? The obvious answer, as history has shown numerous times, is that they wouldn’t. But the environment doesn’t serve to just limit people, it also offers distinct advantages. For example, the Inca and Tibetans have (or have had) settlements at elevations where most people cannot survive (in civ terms, mountain cities) while the Inuit live in places where most would freeze to death (ice cities in civ terms).

Starting Location should affect which techs you start with (like what’s done in the mod I mentioned previously, by TheLopez), but it should also affect the path of development by making the civ more likely to follow a certain path of tech development by making techs based on the Starting Location 20% cheaper, and thus more attractive to research.

Primary Tile/Feature is what I use to refer to the most common tile type and feature combination present within the civ’s cultural borders, whether that is grassland, desert, ice hill, plains forest, or some other combination of tile and feature. The Primary Tile/Feature of a civ also reduces techs based on it by 20%.

Secondary Tile/Feature (as above, but only a 10% reduction – if there is no secondary, the civ gets an additional 10% to its primary)

Landmass (LM) Situation is what I use to refer to the civ’s placement on a landmass, which can either be Coastal, Interior, or Island. This environmental condition also serves to reduce the cost of related techs by 20%.

So, with all environmental conditions considered, a tech might be reduced in cost by as little as 10% or as much as 60% (and very, very rarely, even 70%). Now, using the standard tech tree, this would only have a small effect on the game, but if the tech tree were designed with this feature in mind, one could create techs which apply to only certain environmental conditions. Such techs could allow unique units, buildings, wonders, tile improvements, etc., that grant civ-specific, desired advantages, given a particular environment.

Prohibited techs would be those associated with an environment that the civ does not have access to. For example, a civ with 100 tiles in its cultural borders comprised of 4 tundra, 13 forested tundra, 12 hilly plains, 10 grassland, 20 plains, 15 coast, 14 ocean and 12 mountains would not be able to research (a hypothetical) Camel-Riding tech because the tech requires a primarily desert environment. This example civ would be primarily a Plains-dwelling, Coastal civ, with forested tundra secondary, and (let’s just assume) a grassland Starting Location. This equates to the following bonuses:
Starting Location (grassland) = 20% reduction
Primary (plains) = 20% reduction
Secondary (forested tundra) = 10% reduction
Landmass Situation (Coastal) = 20% reduction

A few example techs with environmental conditions (from existing tech tree):
Fishing (Coastal LM Situation)
Sailing (Coastal LM Situation)
Agriculture (River Start Location & Primary/Secondary not jungle, ice, tundra, or mountain)
Horseback Riding (plains)

 

[Khan Quest]

An interesting proposal. How would you deal with game balance? Seems to me that anything less than a temperate, coastal start would be disadvantageous.

Not being able to farm because you have more tundra than grasslands would be brutal. Perhaps a civ with a tundra start could (with hunting) build a hunting camp improvement on a tundra tile for +1 food. The camp could become obsolete x turns after agriculture is finally discovered. Or instead, with animal husbandry a herders camp would give the +1 food. Something similar would have to be done with jungle and desert starts.

 

[alms66]

Well, simply put, I was thinking that there would be unique tundra, desert, jungle, etc. techs that grant such civs a fighting chance within their own environments. Whether those advantages were the ability to found cities on ice or mountain, extra food from certain terrain, unique units (such as a unique settler that founds those ice or mountain cities), unique buildings, unique wonders, unique tile improvements, etc. is all perfectly debatable.

As for game balance, well, historically there weren't many powerful empires coming out of jungles, deserts or the frozen north. Exceptions to that rule were generally powerful because they conquered other lands and were better able to flourish that way. Also, what I gave above were just example numbers which might as well have been random numbers, balance would have to be achieved through testing.

Something I forgot to mention was that your Starting Location should basically drive you towards a desire to have an empire made up entirely of your civ-environment (desert civ, tundra civ, forest civ, etc.), which would be highly unlikely, but should be the most rewarding outcome (the more of a certain type of terrain you manage to horde, the more benefits you should get from it).

 

[NYHunter]

Ah, but what if they did develop agriculture. Civilization isn't about what did happen, it's about what could have happened.

Another example, why would a civ living in a dense, highly productive jungle develop Agriculture? The obvious answer, as history has shown numerous times, is that they wouldn’t.

 

[Mxzs]

I also like this idea; it was something I was playing with in my "Techs as Sets" proposal.

Spoiler :

Terrain would have a prerequisite for many of the basic techs, in the sense that the tech would have become available for research as soon as the terrain was "developed." For game purposes, I was going to define "developed" as "has a road in it." For instance, Animal Husbandry would have become available for research only after the player had Cow, Pig, or Sheep within his borders and he had put a road in that tile. The idea was that the player would have to do something active still in order for the tech to become available; roads are a pretty basic kind of investment.

Now, please let someone come along and tell me that TheLopez already has this feature in his mod. My day needs ruining ...

I came to think that the idea would lead to tweaking in a couple of other areas for it to work. First, there needed to be more improvements added to the game, along the lines that alms66 proposes: improvements to jungles and tundra and desert, most prominently, that would let civs in such environments lift their payouts--at least to the level of unimproved Grassland if not to the level of Farmed Grassland. These improvements, however, should only be available to civs that are actually in such environments.

One nice side effect of this: Civs that move out of their beginning climate zones (temperate, tropical, arctic) would be at an initial disadvantage vis-a-vis those already in that zone, because they wouldn't have the tech that would let them fully exploit those tiles.

 

[alms66]

Ah, but what if they did develop agriculture. Civilization isn't about what did happen, it's about what could have happened.

Sure, they could have developed agriculture. I mean they could have spent thousands of man-hours clearing and leveling jungle. Then they could have switched to farming, spending 12+ hours a day out in the fields, whereas before they were spending 4 hours a day to supply their food needs.
Now, I'm not pulling these numbers out of thin air, they're actually quite well known by anthropologists, and once you see them, it becomes clear that (assuming you are a native jungle-dweller) you would have to be completely insane to switch lifestyles.
It's practically a proven fact that it's not economically feasible for native jungle-dwelling peoples to switch to an agricultural lifestyle (as we know it and until modern times), that's why it hasn't happened historically - that's my point.

 

[NYHunter]

That sounds like a fun alternative history!

Okay, being serious now:
I agree. I just love making fun of the "what if" argument that Firaxis and their army of solid followers always use to try and justify everything they do.

Sure, they could have developed agriculture. I mean they could have spent thousands of man-hours clearing and leveling jungle. Then they could have switched to farming, spending 12+ hours a day out in the fields, whereas before they were spending 4 hours a day to supply their food needs.
Now, I'm not pulling these numbers out of thin air, they're actually quite well known by anthropologists, and once you see them, it becomes clear that (assuming you are a native jungle-dweller) you would have to be completely insane to switch lifestyles.

What is it with this historical relevance and facts and realism? What did I tell you this game was about? Bad!

It's practically a proven fact that it's not economically feasible for native jungle-dwelling peoples to switch to an agricultural lifestyle (as we know it and until modern times), that's why it hasn't happened historically - that's my point.

 

[dh_epic]

If you look at all of the Civilizations in the game, none of them were born in the jungle or in the tundra. I'm pretty sure all of them developed agriculture. Agriculture is -- in general -- a pre-requisite for even being considered "civilized". The earliest civilizations seemed to favor being born in some kind of river valley, to promote agriculture. The more classical civilizations seemed to favor being based on a sea or ocean, for trade purposes.

The truth is that starting locations are already too much of a factor in whether you win or lose. Having something you were randomly assigned affect your technology would be a step in the wrong direction. I know it's realistic, but it isn't fun to play a competitive game when others are simply born with an advantage.

That said, it would be very neat to have various choices you make affect your research. Maxing out your population in 3 cities promotes innovations in food and health. Warfare for 10 consecutive turns promotes military innovations. Games should empower choice -- not chance.

 

[alms66]

What is it with this historical relevance and facts and realism? What did I tell you this game was about? Bad!

Would it have helped if I had said "realisticaly"? Anyhow, I wasn't trying to argue that it was historically correct or realistic, just that it's more of an impossibility for jungle-dwelling civs to develop agriculture rather than a simple accident that they didn't.

If you look at all of the Civilizations in the game, none of them were born in the jungle or in the tundra. I'm pretty sure all of them developed agriculture. Agriculture is -- in general -- a pre-requisite for even being considered "civilized".

There are many "definitions" of what a civilization is in the game that we could use, I have always gone under the assumption of a unified cultural group (which includes the Inuit, Mongols Chineses, etc.), not a group of people who developed Agriculture (which is obviously a much more narrow group). And if we were to truly define a civilization in the game as one who developed agriculture, we'd only have 7 or less civs, as most aquired it from others.

I know it's realistic, but it isn't fun to play a competitive game when others are simply born with an advantage.

For you, perhaps, but not for everyone. Personally, I'd prefer those inborn advantages to dictate "difficulty level" rather than a crap-load of arbitrary advantages given to the AI. I also loved Rhye's of Civilization for civ 3, played on a random map - as that's the closest I've ever seen any version of civ get to the sort of gameplay I'd like to see, which is really sad when I think about it, because I want so much more...
Anyhow, I loved how your starting location dictated your early survival, but how you grew your civilization from that point, decided whether you won or not. But then again I'm also the type that would stick it out if my starting location was surrounded by mountains that I couldn't cross and only had room for 2-3 cities in poor terrain...
Yes, I'm in the minority, I know.

 

[dh_epic]

I wasn't suggesting we limit Civilization to those who discovered agriculture, but only those who had it. Without agriculture, you can't have cities or settlements. That said, there are rare exceptions (the Pacific Native Americans were supposedly able to have permanent settlements due to an abundance of fish). Anyway, the real point is that having some terrain bonuses for jungle mastery or tundra mastery would be a little ridiculous. For the most part, we're talking about civilizations on rivers, lakes, or seas.

Rhye's is a great mod, but there's a problem with having all kinds of different starting locations. With some civilizations starting earlier than others, and some even having a high probability of collapsing early, there was NO sense of fair play or competition. Some civilizations didn't even have anything to play for. Hence I started pushing for what would eventually become the "UHV" system, which finally changed this from a simulation of your civilization's destined collapse and into a game about realizing your country's unique goals.

It's a great mod. But it can never work as anything but a mod. One is because the thrill of Civilization is having a variety of maps. You can't use the rules for Rhye's for a variety of maps, because the starting locations and times are intrinsically tied to our real world. The second problem is multiplayer. You can't have a fair multiplayer game without balanced starting locations. As it stands now, there's already lots of people complaining that the starting locations play too much of a role in your success. (The third problem, if you agree, is that most people want to play from 4000 BC to 2000 AD. Rhye's lets you play a snapshot of history.)

Once again, it's arguably the best mod out there. But it's not something you can adapt to the main epic game.

 

[alms66]

Rhye's is a great mod, but there's a problem with having all kinds of different starting locations. With some civilizations starting earlier than others, and some even having a high probability of collapsing early, there was NO sense of fair play or competition. Some civilizations didn't even have anything to play for. Hence I started pushing for what would eventually become the "UHV" system, which finally changed this from a simulation of your civilization's destined collapse and into a game about realizing your country's unique goals.

It's a great mod. But it can never work as anything but a mod. One is because the thrill of Civilization is having a variety of maps. You can't use the rules for Rhye's for a variety of maps, because the starting locations and times are intrinsically tied to our real world. The second problem is multiplayer. You can't have a fair multiplayer game without balanced starting locations. As it stands now, there's already lots of people complaining that the starting locations play too much of a role in your success. (The third problem, if you agree, is that most people want to play from 4000 BC to 2000 AD. Rhye's lets you play a snapshot of history.)

I was refering to Rhye's for civ 3, not civ4. I don't like the new one, as there's no option for random map play, and I really don't see the point of recreating history as much as Rhye does.

 

[dh_epic]

Ahh, I never played the original Rhye's mod. What is it about it that you like?

 

[alms66]

Never played it? If you have C3C, why not fire up RoCX and play a game or two?

If not, the main points other than having the maximum number of civilizations playable in civ3 (31 - the more the better IMO) are:
-There was an ebb-and-flow to the game, not just a steady climb up - I remember plenty games where I was on top of the world through the ancient and middle ages, then went crashing down to the bottom in the industrial age
-terrain such as marshes, jungles and mountains acted as barriers, slowing exploration and expansion
-It was the first version of civ I played where bigger wasn't always better - I won several games against opponents much larger than myself

And unless you play the mod, I don't think you can grasp how much the environment of your civilization affected all three of those points to make a great experience. Civ 4 tried to capture many of these elements, no doubt in part due to Rhye's involvement in it's development, but it failed, miserably in some cases, not so much so in others. To this day I still prefer a good game of RoCX to vanilla civ4 or any modpack for civ4 that I've tried.

Keep in mind, if you do play it, that I never go for conquest or domination victory, I always shoot for a time victory and only fight wars that I have to (defensive, to grab a coastal city if I'm landlocked, weaken a neighbor that won't stop bullying me - that sort of thing, only very rarely to grab a resource) because, while there was a time I loved to conquer each and every city on the map, that has grown tedious and tiresome in my old age . If you play differently, you may get different results.

 

[Mxzs]

the real point is that having some terrain bonuses for jungle mastery or tundra mastery would be a little ridiculous. For the most part, we're talking about civilizations on rivers, lakes, or seas.

Why would it be ridiculous?

Starting location advantages/disadvantages is still one of the areas where the game is unbalanced. Putting in such terrain bonuses could be a way of evening the odds, letting the civs distinguish themselves a bit, and also give civs an advantages relative to those that arise outside their ecological niche.

 

[dh_epic]

It's just a little unrealistic, is all.

Plus I think starting locations are the one area where we should find more ways to empower the player's choices... rather than empowering their lucky start.

 

[Mxzs]

Plus I think starting locations are the one area where we should find more ways to empower the player's choices... rather than empowering their lucky start.

Well, actually, I'm talking about empowering their unlucky starts. I don't see any reason to give civs that start in a temperate location any more advantages. I'm suggesting giving those unlucky enough to start in Siberia or the Congo some hope.

"Unrealistic"? Northern Europe is extremely inhospitable relative to many other regions on Earth. Many regions that at first glance seem unlikely as the sites of major civilizations--Cambodia, Mesoamerica, the coastal deserts of Peru/Chile--birthed remarkable civilizations. And the cultures that are often cited as proof that civilizations need a particular kind of launch pad can be equally well cited as examples of civilizations that lapsed into cultural stupors that led to their being destroyed or assimilated by powerful outsiders. Egypt and Babylon entombed themselves in their pyramids and ziggurats and were not revived--only exploited as giant plantation-states--by Rome and Persia, respectively. India and China survived in a kind of fossilized splendor but were periodically revived by the irruption of invaders: the Mughal in the one case, and the Mongols and the Manchus in the other. (China fell apart after the Tang, IIRC, and the Ming--the one native dynasty falling between the Mongols and the Manchu--was a relatively fallow, inwardly looking period in the country's history.)

The game currently pays too much attention (in a backhanded way) to Jared Diamond by making so much depend upon starting location. Diamond too much ignores the way that social organizations can modify and leverage an environment, and that men--who live in a social ecology as much as a physical one--are made by their cultures and not only their pastures. Giving civs landform-specific tools seems to me a way of evening the odds while also acknowledging that people are ingenious enough to respond to adversity by fashioning practices that make the environment respond to their needs.

I hope that didn't sound like a rant, because I didn't mean it as one.

 

[dh_epic]

Actually, that was quite persuasive. But then, do you only give bonuses to people who are unfortunate enough to start in jungle or tundra?

(For the record, even in Cambodia, Chile, and Panama -- civilization spread or popped up there because there were clearings where agriculture could flourish. The Incans, Mayans, and Aztecs all mastered agriculture. That said, it's good that the discussion has shifted to game play rather than realism. It's not a stretch that some civilizations could develop special abilities to deal with their environment, and indeed some did.)

 

[Mxzs]

Actually, that was quite persuasive. But then, do you only give bonuses to people who are unfortunate enough to start in jungle or tundra?

Well, realization within the game is the real trick, innit? Do you kludge it in or do some kind of basic redesign?

I'd lean toward the latter, both for the sake of elegance and because the idea can be expanded in a number of directions.

As I mentioned above, I started thinking along these lines when I was still tussling with that benighted "techs as sets" idea. What I'd do is add new improvement actions to the worker menu and have them activated by new techs (at least one for tundra and one for jungle). Building a road in a tile containing that terrain would add the tech to the research queue. If you researched it, you'd get the ability to add the improvement to that terrain that would raise its productivity at least to that of an unimproved Grassland tile. All techs that take Agriculture as a prerequisite would take these new techs as alternate prerequisites.

Spoiler :

An example of this in play: The player begins in a Siberian landscape; he sends his worker into the tundra where he roads one of the squares. The next time his research menu opens, he finds the relatively cheap "Herding" tech. When he researches that tech, his worker gains the ability to improve the tundra squares with a "Nomadic Camp" improvement that raises its productivity.

This would make not just the tech acquisition but its very availability depend upon player actions. It thus wouldn't clutter up the research screens of civs that don't need it; it would in practice become available only to those who would benefit from it. Better still, any civs that moved into such a terrain niche would be at a disadvantage until they roaded and researched their way to the improvement.

 

[NYHunter]

I agree. It was just more kidding around.

Would it have helped if I had said "realisticaly"? Anyhow, I wasn't trying to argue that it was historically correct or realistic, just that it's more of an impossibility for jungle-dwelling civs to develop agriculture rather than a simple accident that they didn't.