Feedback: Maps and Terrain

[Simon_Jester]

Incense has been used in Indian since before the game even starts, likewise for Egypt.

That was kind of my point- its use dates from "time immemorial" in many regions, so far back that hard evidence for when it began is hard to come by, sort of like evidence for the use of the wheel.

what you been smokin' Willis? Cotton has been cultivated in India since time immemorial (3500 BCE), indeed Europe developed its addiction to cotton after Alexander tried to invade India and they realized how much more awesome it is than wool

I'm terribly sorry, I completely fumbled this one. My biohistory is not all that stellar, and I incorrectly remembered cotton as a product of the Columbian Exchange, based largely on the fact that I know the Mesoamerican civilizations relied heavily on cotton before contact.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Ships that can not normally go in the ocean, can enter ocean reef spaces.

I wonder whether that was intentional.

 

[Xyth]

Ships that can not normally go in the ocean, can enter ocean reef spaces.

I wonder whether that was intentional.

That wasn't intentional but I can't easily change that behaviour. Such ships can only be set to go through all reefs or none, no matter the underlying terrain type. At first impression I don't think its much of a problem to leave it as is.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Agreed. Leave it as is.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Whether or not it is a problem, it has a significant impact (on the appropriate type of maps.)

In the two games I have played (archipelego, giant maps, extra coasts, normal reefs, one with low sea level and the other with medium sea level) there are many situations where one can use reefs to explore places that are on the other side of an ocean.
I could contact almost all or all the other civilizations with galleys (and a lot of patience.)
Granted, I could only trade with about half of them, but still that is a big difference.

One could trade technologies with almost everyone.
In theory one could colonize over the oceans and even conduct war.
(Although on a giant map that is impractical that early.)

This is not a terrible situation, but I think it could be better.
There is just too much connectivity early on for what purports to be a map of the globe.

Ideally, one would find a clever way to not allow reefs plus ocean travel until ocean travel is allowed.
If this can not be done directly, perhaps one could only allow somewhat later ships, Cogs, Galleas, etc. to travel on reefs.

In any case, I think it deserves some serious thought.

P.S. This is one of the reasons I think that the basic setting produces too many reefs. There were many reefs 1000 miles or more long.
Also the 3 coasts was too common for my taste.
As I have said, I think 1/2 @1, 1/3 @2, and 1/6 @3 would work better.

That wasn't intentional but I can't easily change that behaviour. Such ships can only be set to go through all reefs or none, no matter the underlying terrain type. At first impression I don't think its much of a problem to leave it as is.

 

[Caesar Augustus]

I don't want to sound dismissive, and while I do definitely agree that there are, at present, far too many reefs (I mean, reefs are common, but ones as massive as we see in-game are not), but a world connected ahistorically early is kind of the price you pay for an Archipelago map.

 

[Xyth]

Ideally, one would find a clever way to not allow reefs plus ocean travel until ocean travel is allowed.
If this can not be done directly, perhaps one could only allow somewhat later ships, Cogs, Galleas, etc. to travel on reefs.

It's actually remarkably difficult to do and would require enabling callbacks that would cause noticeable slowdown throughout the game. It's easier to tweak reef generation so that this situation happens less often.

P.S. This is one of the reasons I think that the basic setting produces too many reefs. There were many reefs 1000 miles or more long.
Also the 3 coasts was too common for my taste.
As I have said, I think 1/2 @1, 1/3 @2, and 1/6 @3 would work better.

I don't want to sound dismissive, and while I do definitely agree that there are, at present, far too many reefs (I mean, reefs are common, but ones as massive as we see in-game are not), but a world connected ahistorically early is kind of the price you pay for an Archipelago map.

They're currently appearing too often on archipelago maps because they're more likely to appear in coastal waters and archipelagos have a lot more of that than other maptypes. Also, playing with Extended Coastlines ups the occurrence of reefs even further.

There are quite a few variables I can tweak with reefs, and fortunately many of these can be altered separately for each maptype. I'll see what I can do. I'll also try to provide some more player options for both reefs and coastal waters.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Is it possible to just not allow reefs in oceans?
In other words either just allow reefs in coastal waters or go back and erase any reefs that are in oceans.

P.S. As I have said before, reefs are a very good addition, and it is not surprising that they would need some tweeking.

 

[Xyth]

Is it possible to just not allow reefs in oceans?
In other words either just allow reefs in coastal waters or go back and erase any reefs that are in oceans.

I can't prevent them spreading from coastal waters into ocean*, but I can reduce the chance that they appear in oceans in the first place. Also, I should be able to make it so that reefs are less likely to have such long chains. I'll see what I can do.

* Well, actually I could write a routine that checks every ocean tile and removes every reef it finds but that would be unnatural looking and result in some maps having hardly any reefs at all.

P.S. As I have said before, reefs are a very good addition, and it is not surprising that they would need some tweeking.

Yep, I didn't spend as much time fine-tuning them as I wanted to, since 0.9.5 was so delayed.

 

[Robuzon]

I've actually found the ability of early naval units to enter Reefs to be a positive play mechanic. I think its a nice way to give a chance[i/i] for early civs to cross small oceans. It also felt like a realistic and natural behavior for the unit. I pictured the reefs as including small atolls and sandbars that would make navigation possible, though dangerous.

Is there a way to increase the penalty for Reef travel for specific units? Perhaps early units could still cross them but be smashed to bits in a few turns.

 

[Xyth]

I've actually found the ability of early naval units to enter Reefs to be a positive play mechanic. I think its a nice way to give a chance[i/i] for early civs to cross small oceans. It also felt like a realistic and natural behavior for the unit. I pictured the reefs as including small atolls and sandbars that would make navigation possible, though dangerous.

That's what I was thinking too. What I'll try to do is have several options available so the player can find an ideal setting to suit them.

Is there a way to increase the penalty for Reef travel for specific units? Perhaps early units could still cross them but be smashed to bits in a few turns.

One suggestion was for them to cause X% damage if a unit ends a turn on a reef. This would be fairly easy to implement.

 

[Howard Mahler]

I think this would work fine, and I think would look more natural.
Reefs tend to stay in shallow water near the coast, rather than extend into the deep ocean.
(Atolls are different, based on a seamount, and smaller than a space on the Civ map.)

"* Well, actually I could write a routine that checks every ocean tile and removes every reef it finds but that would be unnatural looking and result in some maps having hardly any reefs at all."

 

[Simon_Jester]

Well, a single chain of atolls is large enough to be semi-significant on the scale of a Civ game.

 

[Robuzon]

In my current game I just experienced: "A Reefs has grown near Blah-Blah City"

Is new Reef growth an intended function?

 

[Xyth]

In my current game I just experienced: "A Reefs has grown near Blah-Blah City"

Is new Reef growth an intended function?

I put it in so that Marine Reserves could slightly increase the growth rate of reefs, to correspond with the Forest Reserve. Without a Marine Reserve reefs can still grow but it should be very uncommon. I don't really have an opinion either way on whether its a desirable feature or not. Thoughts welcomed.

 

[Simon_Jester]

I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense, because reefs represent actual physical landforms (an uneven, rocky seabed with many small islands and rocks sticking up out of the water, presenting hazards to navigation). It would be like having Hills or Peaks have a growth rate.

And coral reefs (the ones that actually do grow, to some extent) take millions of years to reach significant size- geologic time, not historic time.

As a gameplay mechanic it would make more sense if it were possible to clear reefs the way it does forests. In vanilla Civ, a smart player will probably chop down a lot of forests, emulating the process of deforestation we've seen over much of the Earth. Forest Reserves allow you to start reversing that trend in the end-game.

But since reefs cannot be cleared, it doesn't work so well there.


Also, to be clear: the "pollution" terrain modifier is something you have certain terrain improvements (like mines) create, and which exists as long as they do and goes away when they do. What are its exact effects- decreased city health is about it, right? And which improvements create it?

 

[Xyth]

I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense, because reefs represent actual physical landforms (an uneven, rocky seabed with many small islands and rocks sticking up out of the water, presenting hazards to navigation). It would be like having Hills or Peaks have a growth rate.

Agreed, removed.

Also, to be clear: the "pollution" terrain modifier is something you have certain terrain improvements (like mines) create, and which exists as long as they do and goes away when they do. What are its exact effects- decreased city health is about it, right? And which improvements create it?

Each polluted tile causes 1 for the city and will block the +1 that some terrain types get if they're adjacent to a river. It's caused by Mines, Quarries (but not on Peat due to a technical limitation), Oil Wells and Offshore Platforms. If those improvements are removed or replaced the pollution will vanish too.

Looks like I've also attached it to Workshops at some point, I'm not sure that was a good idea and I'll probably remove it.

 

[Xyth]

I was having a look through Next War and discovered some code that allows resources to deplete and disappear from a worked tile. I think this could be an interesting mechanic if applied carefully. What do you think? Which resources should or shouldn't deplete?

 

[Simon_Jester]

The problem I see with that is that Next War has four civilizations on the whole map, each with access to multiple strategic resource tiles. Depleting one or two Oil tiles isn't so inconvenient when you have five of them, you lose productivity in individual cities and the benefits of corporations may decline, but you can still run your military-industrial complex.

We're running a lot more civilizations on the same map, and if your one and only Oil square depletes, you are screwed- because realistically, you're never going to have much luck using non-oil weapons to conquer someone who has oil in the Industrial or Modern era.

So vital strategic resources cannot be safely depleted, in my opinion. Not in HR.

Of the luxury resources, you could theoretically justify depleting almost anything.

Gold/silver/gem/jade/peat/whatever mines can play out.

"Plant" resources can experience soil depletion- this happened in the American South after a few decades of slave-grown cotton plantation farming, the soil's nutrients were depleted and the land was no longer prime cotton country.

Horse/cow/pig/sheep/etc "domestic animal" resources are relatively unlikely to deplete, since those animals can live pretty much wherever grass can grow.

Deer, elephants, fur, and other "wild animal" resources will deplete due to over-hunting- indeed, will do so predictably, even in ancient times. Elephants used to be native to North Africa, that's where a lot of ancient ivory came from... but by the fall of Rome, they were gone.

 

[Eucalyptus]

Is it possible to incorporate (as an option) a version of the map-darkening
feature of the PAE (Pie's Ancient Europe) mod into HR? This feature adds an extra dimension of historical accuracy by ensuring that map-making isn't trivial: Scouts can't be used to map out a large continent before 2000BCE. It is also fun!

For those who haven't seen it, in PAE, until some point in the tech tree, map tiles revert to black shortly after units leave them. Your cities remain visible, as do those with your religion, if I am not mistaken. At some intermediate point, coasts and rivers become mappable, and later, other features.