Feedback: Maps and Terrain

[davidtylr]

What if you need rubber to build a highway.

 

[Simon_Jester]

What i am seeing with this is just like real life have movement between citys faster as the civilization advances.

I think it would be good with the more advance road to have some sort of ongoing price so civilasation is a bit ore reluctent in putting the more advance roads everywhere and more into creating a route.

Yes, it's obvious that this is what you intended.

My objection is that as you've set it up, the price of the more advanced roads is too high to justify the effort of building them. Why bother upgrading from railroads that let your infantry move four squares per turn to highways that let your infantry move five squares per turn, when doing so means your workers will be tied down building the road network, and when your people will be made sick, and when you'll have to spend a bunch of money?

It's not worth the trouble.

Costs have to be proportionate to benefits, or people won't do things.

What if you need rubber to build a highway.

I don't know, what if you do?

Obviously, civilizations with access to rubber will enjoy faster unit movement. If rubber is a rare resource and there isn't enough for everyone in the world to have some, that has a big effect. If not, it has a little effect. On the other hand, if we stick with your plan there's not much real advantage to building the highways in the first place, since they make people sick and only increase movement speed by 25% relative to the railroad network.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Some Civilopedia drafts for terrain:

POLLUTION
Humans have accidentally contaminated their environment for millenia. Poor sanitation practices can trigger the outbreak of terrible plagues. Overgrazing by herd animals can ruin pastures; woodcutters with no tools heavier than stone axes can strip entire islands of trees.

But with modern industry's power to produce vast amounts of goods comes the power to produce vast amounts of waste. Industrial activities can contaminate the land on a scale never imagined by ancient civilizations. Subtle poisons can infiltrate water and soil, leaching out of mine tailings or the wastewater produced by factories. Careless procedures can lead to spills of deadly chemicals that destroy vast amounts of wildlife- and the industries that rely on those wildlife. Widespread use of pesticides and herbicides to encourage crop growth can kill off species of insects and birds critical to wild ecosystems around the farmland.

Cleaning up polluted land is extremely difficult compared to polluting it in the first place. As such, most modern nations have increasingly strict environmental protection laws, to keep the ecosystems they live in from being utterly destroyed.

[Question: why have you got pollution giving +1 gold when adjacent to a river? If anything, I would make pollution worse when it's adjacent to a river, perhaps doubling the sickness penalty, because then it's getting in the water supply. I would also give pollution an associated food penalty, a significant one, because it ain't too bright to eat crops grown on dioxin-tainted soil]

REEFS

Not all ocean waters make for smooth sailing. Wherever there is an island chain, there will be seamounts and rises that only *almost* break the surface of the water, creating patches of extremely shallow seabed studded with rocks that can tear out the bottom of even the sturdiest ships.

Reefs are often great shelters for marine life of all kinds, but are hazardous for navigation, especially in ships designed for deep water sailing. Travel through reefs requires a skillful steersman and good charts- and even then, the patterns of sandbanks and coral formations in shoal waters can change unpredictably.

WETLANDS

In low-lying terrain, where water is plentiful and the water table lies close to the surface, it is common for the land to be muddy and heavily overgrown with vegetation. This type of terrain can be known as a bog, fen, marsh, swamp, or generically as "wetlands."

Rather than the large trees found in jungles, wetlands usually have a great deal of grasses and shrubs, along with smaller trees such as mangrove and cypress, along with a wealth of animal life. Many wetlands are unique environments compared to their surroundings, with different levels of moisture, temperature, and salinity than the drier ground around them or the oceans they empty into. This makes them important to the ecological balance of the region.

Human interaction with wetlands is complex. Swampy ground is difficult and dangerous to move through, often riddled with quicksand and bodies of water that make land vehicles useless, movement on foot difficult, and even small boat traffic a challenge. It is usually unsafe to build on wet ground, as heavy buildings will simply sink into the mud, never to be seen again. Construction on such unstable terrain requires the use of piles sunk deep into the swamp, and even then is often uneconomical for use on a large scale. Wetlands also serve as breeding grounds for insects that can carry diseases such as malaria.

For all these reasons, many civilizations have attempted to drain the wetlands around them of water, so that the land can be used for other purposes. This often causes environmental damage and can destroy the livelihood of the inhabitants.

 

[davidtylr]

I don't know, what if you do?

We will have none of that here!

 

[Xyth]

What if you need rubber to build a highway.

Yep, I'll make the Highway require rubber and oil. I'm thinking I'll keep it relatively straightforward: Roads --> Paved Roads --> Railroads ---> Highways. I'm still working out the details but how does that sound?

I was kinda hoping of giving Railroads and Highways somewhat different functions so that you'd build networks of each but Civ4's route system just isn't flexible enough unfortunately. Railroads ---> Highways makes a certain amount of sense historically, and Railroads ---> Electric Railroads feels a bit naff.

[Question: why have you got pollution giving +1 gold when adjacent to a river? If anything, I would make pollution worse when it's adjacent to a river, perhaps doubling the sickness penalty, because then it's getting in the water supply. I would also give pollution an associated food penalty, a significant one, because it ain't too bright to eat crops grown on dioxin-tainted soil]

A side effect of the way I implemented pollution is that it blocks the +1 wealth that most cleared riverside tiles normally get. That was the only way to restore it. I'm fine with removing it, pollution should be economically harmful as well as unhealthy.

At the moment the pollution is removed when the polluting improvement is. So if you built a farm where a mine was there will no longer be any pollution on that tile. I considered having it remain but that would require a graphic and trying to get the AI to understand it. The AI doesn't know what causes pollution, only that it is making its city unhealthy and compensates accordingly with more sources of health. I'm not sure the AI would cope with a food penalty.

Thanks for the latest batch of pedia texts, excellent as always.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Yep, I'll make the Highway require rubber and oil. I'm thinking I'll keep it relatively straightforward: Roads --> Paved Roads --> Railroads ---> Highways. I'm still working out the details but how does that sound?

I was kinda hoping of giving Railroads and Highways somewhat different functions so that you'd build networks of each but Civ4's route system just isn't flexible enough unfortunately. Railroads ---> Highways makes a certain amount of sense historically, and Railroads ---> Electric Railroads feels a bit naff.

Hmm. How about-

Railroads enable fast movement and industrial bonuses. Highways enable commerce bonuses, but aren't actually as fast- this is realistic; military logistics rely heavily on railroads even where good road networks exist. So you'd build highways in addition to the rail network, where practical.

Railroads retain the usual 1/10 movement effect; highways might be less than that (perhaps they build more quickly? I dunno...)

EDIT: I propose that the early, slow-movement "road" be renamed "path" or "trail." I think that more accurately conveys the idea that this represents a caravan route through howling wildnerness, or some other largely unimproved route unfit for moving large armies at speed the way Roman roads were.

Also, if "paved roads" require stone, railroads require coal, and highways require rubber AND oil, it's going to be damned hard for a civilization to build any kind of transportation network if it gets unlucky with resource allocation. Stone, especially, isn't really all that common on most maps- it's almost as rare as marble quarries.

A side effect of the way I implemented pollution is that it blocks the +1 wealth that most cleared riverside tiles normally get. That was the only way to restore it. I'm fine with removing it, pollution should be economically harmful as well as unhealthy.

Fine by me. There should be SOME serious penalty, though- if the AI is too dumb to handle it, we could always go the Civ II route and turn nuclear fallout into 'just another' form of pollution. The AI knows what to do about fallout, right? If fallout tiles suddenly appear on its land, it'll be smart enough to clean them up, I'd think.

Then we just rename "fallout" something like "contamination," being ambiguous about whether the contaminant is arsenic from mine tailings or cobalt 60 from the nuclear groundburst that just went off next door.

 

[Xyth]

Okay, let me know what you think of this:

Road
Requires The Wheel
• Built by Workers or Labourers (2 turns)
• Connects Improved Resources and Cities


Paved Road
Requires Engineering
Requires Stone
• Built by Workers (4 turns) or Labourers (3 turns)
• 1/2 movement cost
• 1/3 movement cost with Civil Service
• Connects Improved Resources and Cities


Railroads
Requires Railroad
Requires Iron, Coal or Oil
• Built by Labourers (4 turns)
• Units can move 8 Tiles per turn *
• Connects Improved Resources and Cities
• +1 production with Mine, Quarry, Lumbermill


Highway
Requires Automobile
Requires Rubber and Oil
• Built by Labourers (4 turns)
• 1/5 movement cost *
• Connects Improved Resources and Cities
• +1 commerce with Village, Town, Workshop


* Railroads would be faster for foot units but highways would be faster for vehicles and mounted units.

I propose that the early, slow-movement "road" be renamed "path" or "trail." I think that more accurately conveys the idea that this represents a caravan route through howling wildnerness, or some other largely unimproved route unfit for moving large armies at speed the way Roman roads were.

I thought about that but to me such names feel too small-scale. While these routes aren't impressive feats of engineering they can still be significant in scale and importance - just like the Silk Road(s).

Also, if "paved roads" require stone, railroads require coal, and highways require rubber AND oil, it's going to be damned hard for a civilization to build any kind of transportation network if it gets unlucky with resource allocation. Stone, especially, isn't really all that common on most maps- it's almost as rare as marble quarries.

Stone should be distributed a lot better in 0.9.5, I made quite a few tweaks to resource placement when overhauling map generation.

Fine by me. There should be SOME serious penalty, though- if the AI is too dumb to handle it, we could always go the Civ II route and turn nuclear fallout into 'just another' form of pollution. The AI knows what to do about fallout, right? If fallout tiles suddenly appear on its land, it'll be smart enough to clean them up, I'd think.

Then we just rename "fallout" something like "contamination," being ambiguous about whether the contaminant is arsenic from mine tailings or cobalt 60 from the nuclear groundburst that just went off next door.

In theory it should be possible to keep it separate from Fallout, introduce a 'Scrub Pollution' worker task, and the AI could understand it. The problem would be that the AI won't be able to distinguish between pollution that's on a tile that still has a polluting improvement and one that no longer does. It would try to scrub both which is not really what we want.

I suppose I could get around that by having two different types of pollution but I think at that point it's probably getting more complicated than it needs to be. Also, the AI still won't know not to build polluting improvements in locations that it might want to remove them later. I think it's best to leave it more or less as is for now.

 

[Keinpferd]

Railroads
Requires Railroad
Requires Iron, Coal or Oil
•Built by Labourers (4 turns)
• Units can move 8 Tiles per turn *
• Connects Improved Resources and Cities
•+1 production with Mine, Quarry, Lumbermill


Highway
Requires Automobile
Requires Rubber and Oil
•Built by Labourers (4 turns)
• 1/5 movement cost *
• Connects Improved Resources and Cities
• +1 commerce with Village, Town, Workshop


* Railroads would be faster for foot units but highways would be faster for vehicles and mounted units.

That's the kind of idea (if it's new), that makes one asking, why hasn't anybody come up with that before.

 

[davidtylr]

Okay, let me know what you think of this:

Road
Requires The Wheel
• Built by Workers or Labourers (2 turns)
• Connects Improved Resources and Cities


Paved Road
Requires Engineering
Requires Stone
• Built by Workers (4 turns) or Labourers (3 turns)
• 1/2 movement cost
• 1/3 movement cost with Civil Service
• Connects Improved Resources and Cities


Railroads
Requires Railroad
Requires Iron, Coal or Oil
• Built by Labourers (4 turns)
• Units can move 8 Tiles per turn *
• Connects Improved Resources and Cities
• +1 production with Mine, Quarry, Lumbermill


Highway
Requires Automobile
Requires Rubber and Oil
• Built by Labourers (4 turns)
• 1/5 movement cost *
• Connects Improved Resources and Cities
• +1 commerce with Village, Town, Workshop


* Railroads would be faster for foot units but highways would be faster for vehicles and mounted units.

That's how i was thinking. A little more planing when it comes to building roads.

 

[tchristensen]

Played the Earth map scenario last night with a friend. I played the Polynesians and started aptly in New Zealand. Friend played England.

I am unsure if you are aware of this but New Zealand is completely bare of any form of resource other than a crab? England has a resource on every tile square?

I do realize that historically England was a more powerful civilization, and much older, than New Zealand, but there must be some form of resource in your country? Sheep? Iron?

Australia is also pretty desolate except for a few key areas.

Perhaps you may want to look at this in the future.

Troy

 

[Xyth]

The maps haven't been updated for a long time, they don't even have any of the new resources placed on them yet, let alone any wetlands or reefs. It's on my to-do list but I'm not a mapmaker (all the included ones were made by others and included pretty much as-is, other than the starting locations) so it might be a while before I get to them.

 

[Xyth]

This has been mentioned a few times now so I'll make a request for specific feedback on it. Which resources do you think should be changed so that they are revealed by a particular technology?

Currently I'm thinking Cocoa, Coffee, Tea, and Tobacco could probably be hidden until Crop Rotation or Horticulture. Their related buildings, the Tavern and the Grocer, aren't unlocked until around this time too so I think it makes sense.

Maybe Stone and Marble at Masonry. Not sure on those though. Any others?

 

[civ_king]

Since I'm fixing up an Earth Map how shall I deal with the resources that spread like cows and horses in North America?

 

[Xyth]

Since I'm fixing up an Earth Map how shall I deal with the resources that spread like cows and horses in North America?

Lets stick with historical distribution of such resources for now and see how that feels. It's easy to place a few extras down the line if felt necessary. Really appreciate you taking the time to work on the map btw.

 

[Caesar Augustus]

I disagree about revealing Stone and Marble at Masonry, if only because Masonry unlocks the Pyramids which are easier to build with Stone. As it currently stands, if I see stone within my borders or close by I can make the decision to head for Masonry and build the Pyramids. If you make Stone appear with Masonry, I'd be researching Masonry without knowing if I was going to get much use out of it. It's no big deal at the moment because you're gonna research Masonry ASAP to get to Monarchy, but you've indicated that you intend to tease those two apart at some point; once you do Masonry becomes a somewhat more optional tech. Without knowing ahead of time whether or not you've got Stone and Marble you have no way of knowing whether or not spending the resources to research Masonry is a good idea.

You could definitely make Rubber and/or Incense appear later. Gas and Oil seem to appear quite a bit before they really need to, as well. You could easily hold off on them until somewhere in the mid-Industrial Era. The only one of the 4 I've mentioned that I would consider an absolute need is Rubber.

 

[tchristensen]

Thoughts on the subject:

Playing the Polynesians I discovered at least on the one Earth map that New Zealand has no real resources other than a crab. I'm not an expert, but I would think New Zealand and Parts of Australia could have some additional resources -- sheep?

As for techs revealing resources, I favor all resources being tied to technological achievements. I argue that exploration and exploitation of resources is part of the game, just as much as the Fog of War. It is not that one cannot guess where resources are from the circles the game creates as one moves a settler around the landscape, but it does offer enough "guess work" where you simply are "not" given the keys to the resources from turn 1 of the game.

 

[Xyth]

I disagree about revealing Stone and Marble at Masonry, if only because Masonry unlocks the Pyramids which are easier to build with Stone. As it currently stands, if I see stone within my borders or close by I can make the decision to head for Masonry and build the Pyramids. If you make Stone appear with Masonry, I'd be researching Masonry without knowing if I was going to get much use out of it. It's no big deal at the moment because you're gonna research Masonry ASAP to get to Monarchy, but you've indicated that you intend to tease those two apart at some point; once you do Masonry becomes a somewhat more optional tech. Without knowing ahead of time whether or not you've got Stone and Marble you have no way of knowing whether or not spending the resources to research Masonry is a good idea.

Yeah that's the conclusion I've come to about Stone as well. And yes, Masonry will no longer be a requirement for Property in the next version.

You could definitely make Rubber and/or Incense appear later. Gas and Oil seem to appear quite a bit before they really need to, as well. You could easily hold off on them until somewhere in the mid-Industrial Era. The only one of the 4 I've mentioned that I would consider an absolute need is Rubber.

Rubber is currently revealed at Calendar because it's used by the Ballcourt (Mayan UB) and history was used by Mesoamerican cultures since ancient times. I agree that for the rest of the world this is pretty early but i don't think it's detrimental to gameplay to have it this way.

Incense is a good suggestion, I think I'll have it revealed at Ritual. Incidentally I've decided to have Coffee and Tobacco revealed at Horticulture but leave Cocoa and Tea unconcealed for the time-being.

Playing the Polynesians I discovered at least on the one Earth map that New Zealand has no real resources other than a crab. I'm not an expert, but I would think New Zealand and Parts of Australia could have some additional resources -- sheep?

I forget how big New Zealand is on those maps but I would add Potatoes (kumara) in the North Island, Jade (pounamu/greenstone) in the South Island, flax (harakeke) in both, and fish, shellfish, whales and seals in the surrounding water. Gas in the waters off Taranaki (the promontory on the west coast of the North Island).

As for techs revealing resources, I favor all resources being tied to technological achievements. I argue that exploration and exploitation of resources is part of the game, just as much as the Fog of War. It is not that one cannot guess where resources are from the circles the game creates as one moves a settler around the landscape, but it does offer enough "guess work" where you simply are "not" given the keys to the resources from turn 1 of the game.

Revealing resources is fun but can also hinder strategic planning, especially at the start of the game and especially for the AI. I agree that HR is currently too cautious in this area though. All about finding a good balance.

EDIT: Perhaps Gems at Mining?

 

[Caesar Augustus]

I wasn't aware of the Mayan UB. I'm not sure I like it being revealed so early even so. I'm aware that Mesoamericans (and indeed Native Americans throughout Central America and northern South America) used rubber regularly. By the same token, Arabs used various distillations of oil throughout the Renaissance. While they were both used, neither resource was exploited commercially or industrially to any great degree until the industrial age. It might be reasonable to have Rubber appear on the map early, the kind of large-scale exploitation that is implied by a Plantation should wait a while.

 

[Simon_Jester]

I disagree about revealing Stone and Marble at Masonry, if only because Masonry unlocks the Pyramids which are easier to build with Stone. As it currently stands, if I see stone within my borders or close by I can make the decision to head for Masonry and build the Pyramids. If you make Stone appear with Masonry, I'd be researching Masonry without knowing if I was going to get much use out of it. It's no big deal at the moment because you're gonna research Masonry ASAP to get to Monarchy, but you've indicated that you intend to tease those two apart at some point; once you do Masonry becomes a somewhat more optional tech. Without knowing ahead of time whether or not you've got Stone and Marble you have no way of knowing whether or not spending the resources to research Masonry is a good idea.

This is a good point. Deciding which techs to research in the early game, and in which order, is critical to getting your civilization off to a strong start. Civilizations that don't start near a coastline would be foolish to emphasize fishing; civilizations that start near lots of cattle and sheep need to get Animal Husbandry (or whatever we're calling it now) early on, and so on.

So I think that there's no point, and some harm done, by making any resource that can be tapped in the early game invisible at game start, with the possible exception of copper, horses, and iron.

You could definitely make Rubber and/or Incense appear later. Gas and Oil seem to appear quite a bit before they really need to, as well. You could easily hold off on them until somewhere in the mid-Industrial Era. The only one of the 4 I've mentioned that I would consider an absolute need is Rubber.

Why is it important that these resources become invisible until shortly before they become necessary?

Incense was, historically, used from very early in ancient times- there was a lot of trade in it during the classical era. And it provides a happiness bonus even without cathedrals in your cities in the current edition, doesn't it?

If so, I'd say incense should be visible early on so that you know it's worth building cities somewhere in the vicinity of the incense tiles in the desert- same argument as with stone and marble.

Rubber is currently revealed at Calendar because it's used by the Ballcourt (Mayan UB) and history was used by Mesoamerican cultures since ancient times. I agree that for the rest of the world this is pretty early but i don't think it's detrimental to gameplay to have it this way.

Especially since, for now, Rubber is a low-priority resource. It provides a minor productivity boost and that's it, so you don't frantically build cities to tap rubber resources any more than you would to tap, say, fish. There's no harm done by revealing it early.

I forget how big New Zealand is on those maps but I would add Potatoes (kumara) in the North Island, Jade (pounamu/greenstone) in the South Island, flax (harakeke) in both, and fish, shellfish, whales and seals in the surrounding water. Gas in the waters off Taranaki (the promontory on the west coast of the North Island).

Since potatoes were introduced to New Zealand circa 1800 (kicking off the oddly named Potato Wars among the locals), I'm not entirely sure they should be available on the island from 4000 BC.

If we're going to put potatoes in New Zealand, we should also put them in Ireland (where their availability in the 1700s had just as big an effect as it did in New Zealand, greatly changing the way the poor tenant farmers of Ireland lived on their small plots). And in other parts of the world where they are now cultivated heavily, but where they weren't available until the Columbian exchange.

The same arguments apply to horses in the New World (since there weren't any historically- actually, for game balance we'd probably want some horses in the New World on our Earth map even if it means breaking history). And to cotton, which was a New World crop in real life but which spread quickly to Egypt, India, and other places post-Columbus. And to sugar... and, well, you get the idea.

So which way are we doing it? Are natural resources to be placed wherever they played a major historical role, or only in places where they were available in nature to the natives circa 4000 BC? Because of the Columbian Exchange this is a big deal.

 

[civ_king]

This is a good point. Deciding which techs to research in the early game, and in which order, is critical to getting your civilization off to a strong start. Civilizations that don't start near a coastline would be foolish to emphasize fishing; civilizations that start near lots of cattle and sheep need to get Animal Husbandry (or whatever we're calling it now) early on, and so on.

So I think that there's no point, and some harm done, by making any resource that can be tapped in the early game invisible at game start, with the possible exception of copper, horses, and iron.

Why is it important that these resources become invisible until shortly before they become necessary?

Incense was, historically, used from very early in ancient times- there was a lot of trade in it during the classical era. And it provides a happiness bonus even without cathedrals in your cities in the current edition, doesn't it?

If so, I'd say incense should be visible early on so that you know it's worth building cities somewhere in the vicinity of the incense tiles in the desert- same argument as with stone and marble.

Especially since, for now, Rubber is a low-priority resource. It provides a minor productivity boost and that's it, so you don't frantically build cities to tap rubber resources any more than you would to tap, say, fish. There's no harm done by revealing it early.


Since potatoes were introduced to New Zealand circa 1800 (kicking off the oddly named Potato Wars among the locals), I'm not entirely sure they should be available on the island from 4000 BC.

If we're going to put potatoes in New Zealand, we should also put them in Ireland (where their availability in the 1700s had just as big an effect as it did in New Zealand, greatly changing the way the poor tenant farmers of Ireland lived on their small plots). And in other parts of the world where they are now cultivated heavily, but where they weren't available until the Columbian exchange.

The same arguments apply to horses in the New World (since there weren't any historically- actually, for game balance we'd probably want some horses in the New World on our Earth map even if it means breaking history). And to cotton, which was a New World crop in real life but which spread quickly to Egypt, India, and other places post-Columbus. And to sugar... and, well, you get the idea.

So which way are we doing it? Are natural resources to be placed wherever they played a major historical role, or only in places where they were available in nature to the natives circa 4000 BC? Because of the Columbian Exchange this is a big deal.

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

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