planetfall
Emperor
Originally posted by Bamspeedy
Is this Civ, or is this Lumberjacking 101?
Corn Farming with trees, of course.
And before you ask, no we don't want SimCity4.
Firaxis: BETA Patch Info
- Thread starter Tavis
- Start date
Corn Farming with trees, of course.
And before you ask, no we don't want SimCity4.
Gojira54
The folly of Man
Great idea! Never thought of that before. You could also have Squadrons for planes....
nihil8r
space . . . madness
as far as squadrons, i don't think being able to assign the same kind of planes together is a good idea, but you should be able to permanently assign an escort to a plane. for example the squadrons would work like this:
fighter
bomber
and it would have the range of a fighter. when attacked it would defend as if it were two fighters; when bombing it would bomb as if it were two bombers. the squadron itself would have eight hit points (assuming you put veteran planes into the squadron).
and a squadron wouldn't be able to fit on an aircraft carrier, of course. you'd need a small wonder to build squadrons and they would cost the same as an army.
fighter
bomber
and it would have the range of a fighter. when attacked it would defend as if it were two fighters; when bombing it would bomb as if it were two bombers. the squadron itself would have eight hit points (assuming you put veteran planes into the squadron).
and a squadron wouldn't be able to fit on an aircraft carrier, of course. you'd need a small wonder to build squadrons and they would cost the same as an army.
Commander Bello
Say No 2 Net Validations
I strongly agree to the idea of Armada (naval army).
Nevertheless, this would most probably require severe re-balancing of naval units (which have incredible crazy stats, anyway - have you ever compared the Dromon and the Frigate???).
So, the Armada is something, we will see in Civ4.5, if at all.
As far as the forest discussion is concerned, I would like to put your attention onto my posting (#92) in this thread, which I feel could offer a solution which might be rather simple to implement and would not require much (if any) re-coding and / or changing of the AI's behavior.
Please allow me to quote my own bottom-line of that posting:
Any comment to this idea welcome.
Nevertheless, this would most probably require severe re-balancing of naval units (which have incredible crazy stats, anyway - have you ever compared the Dromon and the Frigate???).
So, the Armada is something, we will see in Civ4.5, if at all.
As far as the forest discussion is concerned, I would like to put your attention onto my posting (#92) in this thread, which I feel could offer a solution which might be rather simple to implement and would not require much (if any) re-coding and / or changing of the AI's behavior.
Please allow me to quote my own bottom-line of that posting:
Where "harvested" means just "used", and "chopped" means "chopped".
Any comment to this idea welcome.
planetfall
Emperor
Commander,
I missed post 92, thanks for the rehighlight.
Your idea is playable and would add another dimension to the game. But it only partially reaches my goals. The ideas behind forest farms are:
1. change map so developed lands is not all mines and rice fields. Give us a good reason to preserve tree resources.
2. reflect RL, where trees are a renewable resource. Encourage proper use of trees by giving incentives to players who farm trees and
disincentives to players who all overgrowth and excessive biomass buildup.
I would love to see this addressed in C4/5; but until then your idea would help somewhat to reach goal #1.
== PF
I missed post 92, thanks for the rehighlight.
Your idea is playable and would add another dimension to the game. But it only partially reaches my goals. The ideas behind forest farms are:
1. change map so developed lands is not all mines and rice fields. Give us a good reason to preserve tree resources.
2. reflect RL, where trees are a renewable resource. Encourage proper use of trees by giving incentives to players who farm trees and
disincentives to players who all overgrowth and excessive biomass buildup.
I would love to see this addressed in C4/5; but until then your idea would help somewhat to reach goal #1.
== PF
Jabie
Wanted in Monte Carlo...
Part of the problem with some of the lumberjacking suggestions is that they over-complicate the game. One chop per tile per age and forest growing taking 10 turns regardless (changeable in Editor) seem to be the most workable solutions. Love the idea of forest fires and trees reducing global warming though.
As for other stuff, love the updates to the Editor - more stuff to mod. Govt specific units is great.
Desirbale options: Trade any unit, not just workers. There's an arms trade in real life and it wouldn't be much more difficult to implement than trading workers is at present. Oh, and let my foreign advisor tell me more about my opponent, rather than me having to contact him to find he doesn't have anything I want. If I go to a foreign summit, I expect to be briefed beforehand. A reputation meter would be nice too. I'm given to understand the concept still exist in the AI behind the scenes, so it wouldn't be that much work to display it somehow.
Finally, will this patch only be available on-line, or can we apply for it from another source?
As for other stuff, love the updates to the Editor - more stuff to mod. Govt specific units is great.
Desirbale options: Trade any unit, not just workers. There's an arms trade in real life and it wouldn't be much more difficult to implement than trading workers is at present. Oh, and let my foreign advisor tell me more about my opponent, rather than me having to contact him to find he doesn't have anything I want. If I go to a foreign summit, I expect to be briefed beforehand. A reputation meter would be nice too. I'm given to understand the concept still exist in the AI behind the scenes, so it wouldn't be that much work to display it somehow.
Finally, will this patch only be available on-line, or can we apply for it from another source?
Commander Bello
Say No 2 Net Validations
Jabie, don' know where you reside, but here in Germany you may find those patches from time to time at the CDs being attached to game magazines
[Edit] That depends on the permission of the company, of course, but I've seen the 1.02 patch recently on such an CD.
[Edit] That depends on the permission of the company, of course, but I've seen the 1.02 patch recently on such an CD.
Crazy Jerome
Warlord
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2002
- Messages
- 210
Forests: My vote is for anything that makes forests a little more useful in the later game. I'm not sure where I stand on the realism/fun scale on this issue, other than I agree it's tricky. Actually, I'd like to see a special forest be a strategic resource (represeting many real-world instances of the same, such as redwoods, age of sail Maine masts, Lebanon cedars, etc.). They can disappear (burn down, get used by the local in non-government approved ways. 
). And they can appear, but only in an existing normal forest, or maybe rarely in jungle. Then the total numbers and the frequency of appearance/disappearance can be set high compared to other resources, even horses. Then make these special forests a stategic resource for all wooden ships after the curragh, the trebuchet (and probably catapult). (The curragh is left out because it is small, and a CIV on an island without the forests could be seriously crippled in the new contacts/map model of C3C.) Finally, you can harvest one of these forests for +10 shields (but obviously lose the resource). If the tile has been harvested before, you still get the normal 0 shields, +10 shields for special forest.
All that would be required to do this is a small tweak to the forest harvest logic and a modest addition to the special resource code to support resources that can only "appear" in a new tile of a certain terrain. I'd think that the resource tweak would have some nice unrelated benefits for certain mods. If you have a lot of these at a given point, it pays to work some. If you have very little or none, it pays to plant/leave plenty of forest in your territory to increase your chances of getting some--especially around small, corrupt cities.
Worker Gangs: I agree that if the idea is to make things easier, enhance stack commands. The Gangs as a unit should be saved for something that costs a modest amount and makes the workers perform better than the workers individually. There's probably a zillion ways. Perhaps they get free movement when you tell them to do one of those "from here to there commands." So if they are told to build a road from City A to City B, they immediately use as much work as needed to complete road in the current square, move for free to the next square, and apply any leftover work towards the road. A similar idea could be applied to automated gangs, where they don't get the free movement, but do get to apply left over work once they arrive at the new square. Since the AI's workers are automated by definition, this should help the AI.
). And they can appear, but only in an existing normal forest, or maybe rarely in jungle. Then the total numbers and the frequency of appearance/disappearance can be set high compared to other resources, even horses. Then make these special forests a stategic resource for all wooden ships after the curragh, the trebuchet (and probably catapult). (The curragh is left out because it is small, and a CIV on an island without the forests could be seriously crippled in the new contacts/map model of C3C.) Finally, you can harvest one of these forests for +10 shields (but obviously lose the resource). If the tile has been harvested before, you still get the normal 0 shields, +10 shields for special forest. All that would be required to do this is a small tweak to the forest harvest logic and a modest addition to the special resource code to support resources that can only "appear" in a new tile of a certain terrain. I'd think that the resource tweak would have some nice unrelated benefits for certain mods. If you have a lot of these at a given point, it pays to work some. If you have very little or none, it pays to plant/leave plenty of forest in your territory to increase your chances of getting some--especially around small, corrupt cities.
Worker Gangs: I agree that if the idea is to make things easier, enhance stack commands. The Gangs as a unit should be saved for something that costs a modest amount and makes the workers perform better than the workers individually. There's probably a zillion ways. Perhaps they get free movement when you tell them to do one of those "from here to there commands." So if they are told to build a road from City A to City B, they immediately use as much work as needed to complete road in the current square, move for free to the next square, and apply any leftover work towards the road. A similar idea could be applied to automated gangs, where they don't get the free movement, but do get to apply left over work once they arrive at the new square. Since the AI's workers are automated by definition, this should help the AI.
Dr Elmer Jiggle
King
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2003
- Messages
- 811
I haven't managed to read every post in this thread (though I got to most), so maybe someone has already said this, but IMHO the single biggest improvement that could be made to forestry would be to display whether or not a tile has been chopped yet. This could be added to the terrain information popup. I have no major problem with the 1 chop per tile rule, but if that's the rule, then there needs to be a better way to keep track of it than printing screenshots of every city and hand marking them (no, I don't actually do that 
).
).Dr Elmer Jiggle
King
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2003
- Messages
- 811
...
Second biggest would be to make it easier/possible to control which city gets the shields when the tile is within the radius of more than one city.
Dragonlord
Fantasy Warlord
Having read this thread with interest, here are my 2 cents worth:
1. Thanks Tavis! Bring on the revised patch!
2. I agree with the posters who favor a stack command over the worker gang (though it's a cool notion)
3. I don't need any forestry revisements, but agree it would be nice to be able to see the tile status (already planted or not)
1. Thanks Tavis! Bring on the revised patch!
2. I agree with the posters who favor a stack command over the worker gang (though it's a cool notion)
3. I don't need any forestry revisements, but agree it would be nice to be able to see the tile status (already planted or not)
planetfall
Emperor
CJ,
Forests-- you bring up an interesting point. Tree farms should not be on all terrains. Redwoods on tunda or plains or grass. I think not. The idea of requiring special tree tiles before building X,Y,Z sounds interesting but might overly complicate the game. I not sure there would be a benefit in adding a new strategic requirement. Navies are so weak now, why weaken them more?
The next question is one of balance. Why is there forest lumbering at all? Just to change terrain? Should there be any bonus for lumbering at all? There is no bonus in shield bonus for irrigating. To me it makes more sense to make special bonus from lumbering, 10 shields, to work more like a colony than as a onetime busy work activity. Even expanding lumbering to 1/age seems too much like busy work to me.
There is no other action that gives a 10 shield bonus. Why is it here? Either eliminate it as a one time event and redirect to tree factory or add other events that give special shield bonuses, i.e.,
-- gold mine bonanza on first build
-- irrigation first crop bonus
-- gem first gathering bonus
-- game first hunt bonus,
-- etc.
See where this is trending. Civ now morphs into a SimCiv game. Not good.
Don't think this is for patch but for Civ4/5 redesign.
My 2 pine branches.
== PF
Forests-- you bring up an interesting point. Tree farms should not be on all terrains. Redwoods on tunda or plains or grass. I think not. The idea of requiring special tree tiles before building X,Y,Z sounds interesting but might overly complicate the game. I not sure there would be a benefit in adding a new strategic requirement. Navies are so weak now, why weaken them more?
The next question is one of balance. Why is there forest lumbering at all? Just to change terrain? Should there be any bonus for lumbering at all? There is no bonus in shield bonus for irrigating. To me it makes more sense to make special bonus from lumbering, 10 shields, to work more like a colony than as a onetime busy work activity. Even expanding lumbering to 1/age seems too much like busy work to me.
There is no other action that gives a 10 shield bonus. Why is it here? Either eliminate it as a one time event and redirect to tree factory or add other events that give special shield bonuses, i.e.,
-- gold mine bonanza on first build
-- irrigation first crop bonus
-- gem first gathering bonus
-- game first hunt bonus,
-- etc.
See where this is trending. Civ now morphs into a SimCiv game. Not good.
Don't think this is for patch but for Civ4/5 redesign.
My 2 pine branches.
== PF
Charis
Realms Beyond
Again, great job Tavis, and good luck on the changes.
Worker gangs are good in concept, but won't work as described.
The exact number of worker turns depends on whether you are industrious, govt type, and the action. E.g., Clearing pollution could take from 6 to about 18 turns. Having a fixed size gang won't help the user much unless he gives up a lot on efficiency It's more like saying I can pay with a nickel and two pennies instead of seven pennies.
Also, this truly is a user-friendliness issue, not a player tech.
Bamspeedy's solution is more general, flexible and solves a bigger problem. Allowing units, any units, to be grouped and then will do the same action together as a group, would be super. As someone else said, the convenience of a transport or army, but no combat or other benefit.
Implementation:
* Right click on a unit:
- Choice to 'Load' if there is a group of the same base type in the stack --> You get the current 'Load' dialog but with groups listed
- Choice to 'Form new Group with unit'
* Right click on a Group:
- Choice to dissolve group
- Choice to 'Merge Group' or 'Load' -->
- Choice to "Name Group"
* When a Group attacks
- Every member of the group attacks the square chosen until there is nothing left alive in that square. By necessity the last winning unit would actually leave the group and have to move
- For artillery the end condition is when nothing has more than 1hp (or give two commands: Bombard to the Pain, and Bombard to the Death )
- You can by a right-click access a unit in a group and have it
do something different. If it leaves the square, it exits the group
* When a Group is attacked
- Calculations and priority totally ignore the group and any units in it are treated as if they were individuals (which they are)
- Any unit that retreats must of course leave the group
Issue: Transport, Army, Helicopter are real, tangible units that have a life of their own and can be attacked and killed. If the special code for a Group would be too tough, then could have a new unit called something like "Seargeant", "Team Leader", "Platoon Leader", "Commander". Their speed would be 1 in isolation, but would the speed of the slowest unit (like an army before the new +1). Att and Def 0, and a low shield cost like 10, since they're really just a convenience. Tech? Mil Tradition seems kinda late, a new low-ish cost optional Military Tactics at the end of the Ancient Era would be fine. They would be 'never build' for the AI since they would serve them NO PURPOSE, as their benefit is purely a user-frienliness issue.
You could call them a 'Company', 'Battallion', 'Division' if you wanted something cooler than 'Group' for a name
-- On forest chopping, it's a nice feature that can get a temple in a far flung land is less than a gazillion years, and it does so by ravaging the local land. Long term lumberjacking is a *major* pain, and I've only tried it for one game. The biggest downside BY FAR is not knowing what is 'original' and what is a replant.
Solution: Split 'Forest' into 'Forest' and 'Renewed Forest'. These have identical charateristics, F/S/C, bonuses, movement, etc. The game map is generated with only the original kind, and plant forest only produces the latter. For graphics give one a reddish tinge or some other subtle change to see at a glance. This would be a HUGE help and would not change the existing rule of one-good-chop AT ALL. Solution1: to avoid lumberjacking: Take planting forests out of the game, would it really be that much of a loss? Solution2: Take chopping out of the game, and add allow them to be 'mined' for +1 shield. Call it 'tree farm' instead of mine, but same idea. You set it up once and forget it. So a forest would be +1/+3 with the farm in place. That's identical to the +1/+3 of a railroaded mined plains, which is what forests end up becoming anyway. (Actually, the RR-plains still wins by one commerce point, so most forests will still disappear by game end) The downside is that pre-RR that's really kinda powerful. It could be setup to take a huge number of worker turns though, e.g. 24 or 32, or like clearing a jungle.
So that's my two cents plus support of some ideas raised by others,
Charis
Worker gangs are good in concept, but won't work as described.
The exact number of worker turns depends on whether you are industrious, govt type, and the action. E.g., Clearing pollution could take from 6 to about 18 turns. Having a fixed size gang won't help the user much unless he gives up a lot on efficiency It's more like saying I can pay with a nickel and two pennies instead of seven pennies.
Also, this truly is a user-friendliness issue, not a player tech.
Bamspeedy's solution is more general, flexible and solves a bigger problem. Allowing units, any units, to be grouped and then will do the same action together as a group, would be super. As someone else said, the convenience of a transport or army, but no combat or other benefit.
Implementation:
* Right click on a unit:
- Choice to 'Load' if there is a group of the same base type in the stack --> You get the current 'Load' dialog but with groups listed
- Choice to 'Form new Group with unit'
* Right click on a Group:
- Choice to dissolve group
- Choice to 'Merge Group' or 'Load' -->
- Choice to "Name Group"
* When a Group attacks
- Every member of the group attacks the square chosen until there is nothing left alive in that square. By necessity the last winning unit would actually leave the group and have to move
- For artillery the end condition is when nothing has more than 1hp (or give two commands: Bombard to the Pain, and Bombard to the Death
)- You can by a right-click access a unit in a group and have it
do something different. If it leaves the square, it exits the group
* When a Group is attacked
- Calculations and priority totally ignore the group and any units in it are treated as if they were individuals (which they are)
- Any unit that retreats must of course leave the group
Issue: Transport, Army, Helicopter are real, tangible units that have a life of their own and can be attacked and killed. If the special code for a Group would be too tough, then could have a new unit called something like "Seargeant", "Team Leader", "Platoon Leader", "Commander". Their speed would be 1 in isolation, but would the speed of the slowest unit (like an army before the new +1). Att and Def 0, and a low shield cost like 10, since they're really just a convenience. Tech? Mil Tradition seems kinda late, a new low-ish cost optional Military Tactics at the end of the Ancient Era would be fine. They would be 'never build' for the AI since they would serve them NO PURPOSE, as their benefit is purely a user-frienliness issue.
You could call them a 'Company', 'Battallion', 'Division' if you wanted something cooler than 'Group' for a name
-- On forest chopping, it's a nice feature that can get a temple in a far flung land is less than a gazillion years, and it does so by ravaging the local land. Long term lumberjacking is a *major* pain, and I've only tried it for one game. The biggest downside BY FAR is not knowing what is 'original' and what is a replant.
Solution: Split 'Forest' into 'Forest' and 'Renewed Forest'. These have identical charateristics, F/S/C, bonuses, movement, etc. The game map is generated with only the original kind, and plant forest only produces the latter. For graphics give one a reddish tinge or some other subtle change to see at a glance. This would be a HUGE help and would not change the existing rule of one-good-chop AT ALL. Solution1: to avoid lumberjacking: Take planting forests out of the game, would it really be that much of a loss? Solution2: Take chopping out of the game, and add allow them to be 'mined' for +1 shield. Call it 'tree farm' instead of mine, but same idea. You set it up once and forget it. So a forest would be +1/+3 with the farm in place. That's identical to the +1/+3 of a railroaded mined plains, which is what forests end up becoming anyway. (Actually, the RR-plains still wins by one commerce point, so most forests will still disappear by game end) The downside is that pre-RR that's really kinda powerful. It could be setup to take a huge number of worker turns though, e.g. 24 or 32, or like clearing a jungle.
So that's my two cents plus support of some ideas raised by others,
Charis
planetfall
Emperor
True, especially without tile coordinates visibility on terrain info. Crackers solution was to take screen shots and shots until have entire world captured in graphics files and then use something as simple as paint and make holes for each tile lumbered. I tried this for 3 games, but it really, really prolongs a game and is way too much tedium for the benefit. You do get benefit, about 1/3 to 1/2 of a difficulty level but add several days to play of one game.
I like solution #2. It doesn't require ongoing maintenance and is not overpowering since RR plains is better. Perhaps an easier method of controlling number of Tree Farms is to make them like colonies and require 1..2 lives to build a Tree Farm.
== PF
Mallek
Seraphym Vampire Hunter
Thankyou everyone for your replies you have been most helpful. only I installed patch 1.12 for c3c and i thought I might have done something wrong. I have been adding many units to balrogs EXCELLENT fantasy mod. I am also working on my own mod of mesoamerica. Its going to be factual and fictional coz I want to add myth units to reflect aztec, inca, maya, olmec, chavin, chono, tehuelche, tupian. I may even include the planes indians of north america but I might run out of room as i want to do quite a detailed map, and you cant turn the map on it's end so it's taller rather than wider ,,, or can you?
I think this whole tree harvesting issue has the potential to make the game extremely tedious and exploitative. I like the system as it is right now--the simulation of lumber production is essentially based on the 2 shields/turn rather than the 10-shield bonus on deforestation, thus it's not necessarily unrealistic that the bonus is a one-time deal. I may be "going out on a limb" here, so to speak, but it seems to me that the primary intended benefit of this 10-shield bonus is to make totally corrupt cities a bit productive (by helping with basic improvements such as Temples). Maybe they should just eliminate the bonus altogether. Seriously, how fun is it to keep track of every single forest tile that's been harvested? 
As for mined forests being too powerful... Wouldn't "mined" forests essentially be identical in production to mined hills? I personally don't find hills too powerful, and I like the idea of keeping at least some forest tiles around in the mid to late game.
Chopping down forests to mine grassland is just not right.
As for mined forests being too powerful... Wouldn't "mined" forests essentially be identical in production to mined hills? I personally don't find hills too powerful, and I like the idea of keeping at least some forest tiles around in the mid to late game.
Chopping down forests to mine grassland is just not right.
Gojira54
The folly of Man
This thread has seriously gone way off topic. 
Forests are fine the way they are. A minor adjustment to only allow one harvest per era would be fine I guess, but nothing too extensive.
And if implented properly, worker gangs could be a great addition, although I have nothing against advanced/grouped worker jobs either.
Forests are fine the way they are. A minor adjustment to only allow one harvest per era would be fine I guess, but nothing too extensive.
And if implented properly, worker gangs could be a great addition, although I have nothing against advanced/grouped worker jobs either.
socralynnek
Civ & Hattrick addict
Originally posted by Mallek
: I may even include the planes indians of north america but I might run out of room as i want to do quite a detailed map, and you cant turn the map on it's end so it's taller rather than wider ,,, or can you?
I think it is possible. IIRC the Sengoku conquest has a map which is taller than wide.
If this isn't correct, you could turn the directions by 90 degrees, i.e. make the north to the left, south on the right, east to the upper side, west to the lower side.
But this might be a bit confusing...
Ekmek
on steam: ekmek_e
Since my post got lost in the "forest" of wood chopping posts, I'm hoping someone has info on these:
But speaking of mines, I could only hope those can be era specific or terrain specific too (it would add the lumber camp instead of a mine, or even farming)
But speaking of mines, I could only hope those can be era specific or terrain specific too (it would add the lumber camp instead of a mine, or even farming)
I've posted this somewhere else but sinice we are talking about forest.
I dun quite like the way forest are decimated at the mid-late game, though it's quite close to real life
1) Have the no. of forest tile in the city radius reduce pollution
2) Allow or Increase this effect with the discovery of Ecology
3) Ecology also increase +1 shield and/or + 1 gold or something on forest tile to make them viable compared to a railroaded plain or grassland w/ irri or mine.
I dun quite like the way forest are decimated at the mid-late game, though it's quite close to real life
1) Have the no. of forest tile in the city radius reduce pollution
2) Allow or Increase this effect with the discovery of Ecology
3) Ecology also increase +1 shield and/or + 1 gold or something on forest tile to make them viable compared to a railroaded plain or grassland w/ irri or mine.
