GeoRealism Graphics Requests

[Hydromancerx]

- Salt Flats - again, doesn't look realistic at all. I thought these were snow terrains in the middle of a desert... didnt make much sense to me. Salt flats are not perfectly white. They are interspersed with desert sand. Salt flats are basically mud-cracked desert surfaces around nearby lakes that have white splotches.

The salt flats we have DO have the mud-cracked salt. See here.

- Scrub - graphic should be replaced with one I marked with scrub in picture in previous post

Please keep the Scrub we have since it transitions nicely between the Desert and Rocky terrains. You can use the "Chaparral" terrain for the terrain we have here in Southern California.

- Lush - doesn't really exist in the real world. Lush does not really occur except on volcanic islands (where I am putting the dark brown and green because it is very volcanic soil looking)

What do you mean? Lush exists in the real world. However with terraforming it makes ense to have this as the ultimate terrain.

I don't think I have made myself clear about this. The GeoRealism terrain generator will REPLACE all terrains with ones calculated to exist using the air mass movement simulator. The Air mass will start over the ocean and move inland. Terrains will be marked as area specific based on a set of rules defining how wide a "coast" and such are, how far the water is, when we pass over hills and mountains, etc... All terrain areas will be detected and marked as such. Then, based on humidity levels, precipitation totals, temperature, latitude, coast direction, etc... they will be assigned a climate/biome type. This will determine the type of terrain and vegetation that get assigned.

I live near the coast its much cooler than it is inland. Wouldn't it be just easier to make the terrain one step cooler or more wet than the terrain next to it? Such as if you had a desert terrain near the coast it would turn the terrain into a Scrub terrain since that's one cooler/wetter than desert.

- Tropical Rainforest - are NOT lush Tropical rainforests are the poorest soils in the world. All the nutrients are both locked up in the plants. Any nutrients remaining in the soil is quickly leached away by the constant rains that drain them.

No I am saying that that terrain texture is currently used for Lush. However Lush use to have a more mossy green that matched the muddy terrain back when we first added it.

Alpine Tundra - Renamed to BOREAL FLOOR

Depending on how you define "Boreal" we can already cover them. Such as ..

- Boreal = Pine Mountain Forest = Rocky + Pine Forest
- Boreal = Polar Pine Forest = Tundra/Permafrost + Snow Pine Forest

Note that polar terrains (ice/permaforst/tundra) can substitute for Montane type terrains.

In my Sagan 4 project I had them separated as ...

Peak = Snow/Ice Caps
Alpine = Treeline Area
Boreal = Mountain Woodland
Rocky = Mountain Scrub
High Grasslands = Mountain Plains
High Desert = Mountain Desert

Tundra = Polar Desert
Polar Scrub = Polar Scubland
Taiga = Polar Woodland

Useful information. But if you want to change names its ok by me. I will name it what I name it for now. Just as long as the underlying terrains exist.

Could you please used the suggested names since they are shorter tags? Thats one of the main reasons I wanted to use them.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@primem0ver

Ok I think I figured out the Terraforming pathing. Green are how they are currently and red is the new terrains and how they fit into the terraforming upgrades.

Not sure how the global warming will work with these though.

 

[primem0ver]

The salt flats we have DO have the mud-cracked salt. See here.

Ok, we will keep the salt flats. I did notice the cracking. But I still think we should splash a little sand color on it. At least give it a slightly brown tinge. Colorwise it looks too close to snow except the cracks.

Please keep the Scrub we have since it transitions nicely between the Desert and Rocky terrains. You can use the "Chaparral" terrain for the terrain we have here in Southern California.

I think the biggest problem we are having is the way we define a couple of these terms. You are right about the transition effect and I will probably keep the terrain. I will just call it something else and use it for specific areas.

What do you mean? Lush exists in the real world. However with terraforming it makes sense to have this as the ultimate terrain.

Again... a terminology problem. When you speak of lush, you speak of foliage. I am thinking in terms of soil (the terrain by itself). When I see the lush environment stuck in the middle of a tropical rainforest surrounded by green grass with lots of trees and bamboo... but without any trees on the lush plot itself with 3 food... I think Impossible! Any landscape that is tropical without the foliage will NOT have 3 food! Tropical soil by itself is way too poor to sustain crops without significant intervention. The only tropical climate soil with any significant nutrients other than humus is Savannah.

The only exception is volcanic islands. Because volcanism keeps the soil extremely rich with nutrients. Therefore, a Lush environment in terms of soil (that would be rich in food without foliage) will only occur on volcanic islands. The second richest soils in the world occur in the mid-west plains because they have enough vegetation to supply humus without too much rain to leach the soil of the other important nutrients. That's why plains are the worlds "bread baskets."

I live near the coast its much cooler than it is inland. Wouldn't it be just easier to make the terrain one step cooler or more wet than the terrain next to it? Such as if you had a desert terrain near the coast it would turn the terrain into a Scrub terrain since that's one cooler/wetter than desert.

That is to be expected. Moisture is a buffer that keeps moist air from both getting too hot and too cold. Moist climates have less variation in temperature than drier areas. But moisture isn't the only factor involved. Some simplification can and will be done. But other factors must be considered if we are going for accuracy.

Depending on how you define "Boreal" we can already cover them. Such as ...Could you please used the suggested names since they are shorter tags? Thats one of the main reasons I wanted to use them.

Again we come down to terminology. I think once you see the results it will all make sense. As for keeping names? Not while I am designing it. I will use terms I am familiar with; ones that I know accurately describe the nature of the concept because I honestly don't know what terms such as Chaparral mean. When I incorporate it into the C2C mod I will do a search and replace for you if you want to shorten names.

 

[primem0ver]

After thinking about it, I really think that salt flats should be turned into a feature. This would allow the breaking up the graphic into sections and make it look less like snow and more like a collection of flats. That way we could keep its color and give it a slight transparency to let the brown of the terrain beneath through.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Again... a terminology problem. When you speak of lush, you speak of foliage. I am thinking in terms of soil (the terrain by itself). When I see the lush environment stuck in the middle of a tropical rainforest surrounded by green grass with lots of trees and bamboo... but without any trees on the lush plot itself with 3 food... I think Impossible! Any landscape that is tropical without the foliage will NOT have 3 food! Tropical soil by itself is way too poor to sustain crops without significant intervention. The only tropical climate soil with any significant nutrients other than humus is Savannah.

The only exception is volcanic islands. Because volcanism keeps the soil extremely rich with nutrients. Therefore, a Lush environment in terms of soil (that would be rich in food without foliage) will only occur on volcanic islands. The second richest soils in the world occur in the mid-west plains because they have enough vegetation to supply humus without too much rain to leach the soil of the other important nutrients. That's why plains are the worlds "bread baskets."

I was actually going to bring up places like Hawaii which have both rich soil and lots of flora. Unlike say normal Volcanic that can be hard glass rocks (aka Lava Flows).

At any rate Lush should stay iof not for the purpose of terraforming to a super rich state. Thus on your map gens say a volcanic area could have a volcano, "Volcanic" terrain and then some "Lush" terrain beyond that. Over time i could see Volcanic turn into Lush then.

Again we come down to terminology. I think once you see the results it will all make sense. As for keeping names? Not while I am designing it. I will use terms I am familiar with; ones that I know accurately describe the nature of the concept because I honestly don't know what terms such as Chaparral mean. When I incorporate it into the C2C mod I will do a search and replace for you if you want to shorten names.

Chaparral
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral

Basically most of Southern California is/was Chaparral. Its a type of Scrubland or Mediterranean biome.

 

[Hydromancerx]

After thinking about it, I really think that salt flats should be turned into a feature. This would allow the breaking up the graphic into sections and make it look less like snow and more like a collection of flats. That way we could keep its color and give it a slight transparency to let the brown of the terrain beneath through.

Have you ever been to Salt Flats? they are SOOO bright. It looks even brighter than snow!

When I visited them it hurt my eyes it was so bright. I had wished I had brought sunglasses.

Also when making the maps we had it where the most hot and dry places generated the Salt Flats. So they should be nowhere near snow terrain.

 

[primem0ver]

Also when making the maps we had it where the most hot and dry places generated the Salt Flats. So they should be nowhere near snow terrain.

Unfortunately this isn't at all accurate. Salt flats are rather rare. They only occur near dry (ephemeral) lakes or salt lakes (lakes that were once large inland seas such as Salt Lake and the Dead Sea). Salt Lake is the remnant of a HUGE inland sea/lake that is called Lake Bonneville that covered most of Western Utah as well as parts of Nevada, Idaho and Wyoming. It shrank to its present size (Salt Lake) between 15,500 and 14,500 years ago.

The Ephemeral lakes must occur in arid land only. They will not occur in a true desert (at least not a hot, completely dry one) because there has to be a periodic filling of the lake and drainage leading to the lake. Highland deserts and deserts with high mountains nearby and/or a "Monsoon" season may have them because of the snow-pack drainage and/or seasonal rains but that's it.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I am so happy to have you two hammer this out. I love the idea of new terrains even beyond what we have though, especially if it will help with the development of the GeoRealism project. The only thing I think we need to make sure to consider is how it impacts the ai evaluations on terrain based promos - very difficult for us to take in and balance properly if more are added. But I'm so much for it that I'd be happy to help tweak things there as new terrains require some existing promos to take on more terrain definitions.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Unfortunately this isn't at all accurate. Salt flats are rather rare. ....The Ephemeral lakes must occur in arid land only. They will not occur in a true desert (at least not a hot, completely dry one) because there has to be a periodic filling of the lake and drainage leading to the lake.

South Australia (the state not the region) has 4 or 5 large ones and many small ones. The largest, Lake Eyre, is fed every 10yrs or so by floods in tropical Queensland. It is in the desert itself and is below sea level.

 

[primem0ver]

South Australia (the state not the region) has 4 or 5 large ones and many small ones. The largest, Lake Eyre, is fed every 10yrs or so by floods in tropical Queensland. It is in the desert itself and is below sea level.

It sounds like they are ephemeral lakes. Lake Eyre has a water source that feeds it new salt every now and then. These are very rare in areas where it never rains. Obviously it rains somewhere and that rain makes it into these hot-dry deserts, carrying salts from the surrounding landscape.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@primem0ver

Yeah from what I have researched there are salt flats in ...

- Argentina
- Australia
- Bolivia
- Botswana
- Chile
- Namibia
- United States

While not a major biome compared to the others it is something found all over the world.

When making your maps will you have it generate lakes and then possibly turn those lakes into salt flats before the game starts?

 

[primem0ver]

@primem0ver
When making your maps will you have it generate lakes and then possibly turn those lakes into salt flats before the game starts?

I haven't really thought about ephemeral lakes... I have only mentally addressed the existence of salt flats near salt lakes. But that is a reasonable approach

Lake generation will be based on (low) altitude and drainage patterns. Any lakes that "appear" in desert areas could be turned into salt flats if they are small (single tile). They could be turned into "salt lakes" surrounded by salt flats if they are larger (by making them smaller and replacing the parts that disappear into salt flats... which is how it occurs in reality anyway).

 

[Laskaris]

Very interesting thread. The stuff from the Terrain Mod is very cool - actually, the terrain types and names they have got is pretty much what I would have done.

I am not so sure about some of the names you two are proposing. What, for instance, is "northern grass"? The exact same climate zone that features "northern grass" could also exist on a southern hemisphere, so the term "northern" doesn't really make much sense to me in that context. I also never heard the term "duff" used for a biome - it may exist, but its use is probably not very widespread?

I'm all for integrating the terrains from the Terrain Mod, and I think that we can model all the climates and biomes we could possibly want with them. But I think some more discussion should go into proper names.

I'll think up some suggestions myself when I have some more time tomorrow (in haste today!).

 

[Astax]

Sorry to barge in gents! With so many different terrain types now supported, do you feel like we need more unique yield values for these terrains? Otherwise all these changes are purely cosmetic.

 

[Laskaris]

Sorry to barge in gents! With so many different terrain types now supported, do you feel like we need more unique yield values for these terrains? Otherwise all these changes are purely cosmetic.

Well, in basic CivIV, it always bothered me that there isn't more diversity in the food yield of most basic terrain types than +0, +1 and +2. If I were to make a mod from the grounds up, I would probably double all the food requirements across the board, and then give deserts +0 food and grasslands +4 food, with a bigger spectrum in between. Likewise for production and trade.

However, that is a major change, so probably not realistic to ask for.

 

[primem0ver]

Sorry to barge in gents! With so many different terrain types now supported, do you feel like we need more unique yield values for these terrains? Otherwise all these changes are purely cosmetic.

Yes, and yes. There will be changes to the yield values. Keep in mind that I am basically using terrain types as soil types now. The only biological factor that is part of the terrain is grass and fern-like organisms which do not work well as features. So a terrain is soil + grass/ground plantlife (such as ferns). The values that get used will be based on what the soil/plant life of a specific soil type can be used for.

There will also be some repeats... for purely cosmetic reasons. But in most (if not all) cases, these cosmetic differences will make the landscape look consistent with reality. In other words, we aren't going to use the "northern grass" terrain for plains even though they may end up having the same stats. (I haven't done a full analysis of all the stats yet.)

 

[primem0ver]

@Laskarsis

I agree with you. We need to discuss the final names used but I will worry about that later. Right now I am going with names that describe their environment (and yes... you are right about north vs south).

 

[Hydromancerx]

I also never heard the term "duff" used for a biome - it may exist, but its use is probably not very widespread?

Duff = Forest Floor

It was a lot shorter to say. It says its a Scottish term. I would also go with "Detritus", but not many people know that term either.

I am familiar with the term from Sagan 4 and all the "Detritivores" (aka decaying organic matter eaters).

 

[ls612]

Do we really need more terrains? I know that the Kloppen Climate model has 29 biomes, but using combinations of Features and Terrains I think we can reach that easily with little to no new graphics.

@Laskaris: All of C2C's new terrains do have unique yields already, which are additionally complemented by the new Features and their yield modifiers. No two terrains atm are the same.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Do we really need more terrains? I know that the Kloppen Climate model has 29 biomes, but using combinations of Features and Terrains I think we can reach that easily with little to no new graphics.

@Laskaris: All of C2C's new terrains do have unique yields already, which are additionally complemented by the new Features and their yield modifiers. No two terrains atm are the same.

ls612 has a point. The way I set it up should cover most things. I am pretty happy with them. Most of what he said seems like just variations on the same type of biome.

The only think might want changed still is making the black terrain "Volcanic" with rich yields and then re-color the Barren terrain.

Things like Northern Grassland or Savanna seem to be already possible. Likewise most of the issue seems to just be aesthetic.

@primem0ver

Can't you just use the terrain we already have?