[GS] Global Warming is too powerful

[Tech Osen]

The AI does build hydroplants, solar farms and windmills when available so that does make me wonder why the climate is going down the drain so hard.

 

[Myomoto]

The AI does build hydroplants, solar farms and windmills when available so that does make me wonder why the climate is going down the drain so hard.

Units contribute to emissions. Having a large standing military or fleet is likely causing more emissions than your power plants. It's honestly a bit silly.

 

[Elhoim]

Yeah, I think the balance should be slower rate of increase, but bigger consequences.

Number of tiles that will be flooded is determined at generation, it's currently 30%, but can be easily increased. Didn't check where the other effects are stored.

 

[Tech Osen]

Units contribute to emissions. Having a large standing military or fleet is likely causing more emissions than your power plants. It's honestly a bit silly.

AI certainly doesn't need another incentive to downgrade their armies.

 

[L4Psha]

Yeah, I think the balance should be slower rate of increase, but bigger consequences.

Number of tiles that will be flooded is determined at generation, it's currently 30%, but can be easily increased. Didn't check where the other effects are stored.

30%? I think it's 10% at best.

 

[ltccone]

I actually wouldn't mind seeing the actual effects of Global Warming to be stronger. More tiles flloded, so that it really is something you have to work against.

But I will definitely agree that the rate at which it occurs is way too fast. Once it starts it really feels "wait, we just hit the previous level and already we're on to the next one?!".

So yeah, I would love for it to be slowed down but have it feel much more catastrophic once you finally do hit the final levels.

My beef isn't with the effects, but that it happens too fast. One stage also progresses too fast to the next level.

You can also 'weaponize' climate change if you are playing an inland civ. Get a lot of emmissions and you can trash island and seafaring civs.

 

[AriochIV]

In my second game (Mali, King, Disaster Level 2, Shuffle (Fractal, I think)), I tried to be more conservative with carbon emissions; I only built 1 Coal Plant which was replaced after only a few turns by a cleaner Oil Plant, and all the rest of my emissions are from Railroads and units (which are not really optional). And I hardly ever chop forests. But it didn't matter, because Hungary went wild with emissions, and sea level rise happened even faster than in the previous game (in which I did not hold back), with no hope of building flood barriers in time (the world is still in the Modern era).

So you have coastal flooding in 1874 when only two countries in the world are using fossil fuels, and one of them was deliberately holding back. On disaster level 2.



Fortunately it doesn't really matter, because the number of tiles lost is trivial. I would have been better off polluting as hard as I could.

The system would be more compelling if it offered a real tradeoff, and the player could do something about it. As it is, it's just an annoying feeling of lack of control. Which is not really a good thing in a strategy game, in my opinion.

 

[L4Psha]

Same thing. Maybe it's all because of the units. It's maybe logical that they may contribute in emissions, but they should not do it at that scale as powerplants.

 

[ltccone]

In my second game (Mali, King, Disaster Level 2, Shuffle (Fractal, I think)), I tried to be more conservative with carbon emissions; I only built 1 Coal Plant which was replaced after only a few turns by a cleaner Oil Plant, and all the rest of my emissions are from Railroads and units (which are not really optional). And I hardly ever chop forests. But it didn't matter, because Hungary went wild with emissions, and sea level rise happened even faster than in the previous game (in which I did not hold back), with no hope of building flood barriers in time (the world is still in the Modern era).

So you have coastal flooding in 1874 when only two countries in the world are using fossil fuels, and one of them was deliberately holding back. On disaster level 2.

View attachment 518326

Fortunately it doesn't really matter, because the number of tiles lost is trivial. I would have been better off polluting as hard as I could.

The system would be more compelling if it offered a real tradeoff, and the player could do something about it. As it is, it's just an annoying feeling of lack of control. Which is not really a good thing in a strategy game, in my opinion.

When I made my OP I didn't realize that RRs or units caused enough emissions to matter more than power plants.

Looks liked climate change is inevitable, no matter what you do, or don't do. So just make sure you don't improve, or build anything on, any of the tiles you will lose when it happens.

 

[Sostratus]

So that means you can keep the insane production bonus of coal plants, even if not burning coal? That seems kinda stupid.

Another thing I really dislike, is how I can build powerplants before discovering electricity???
Before electricity the plant is making steam power? I feel like generally steam power's role in industrialization has been kind of ignored

I understand why they put coal power with factories - otherwise they wold be wholly useless - but the balance of GW means that the only real use of Electricity is to get hydro plants. Using oil for power is extremely wasteful because literally every modern military unit needs it. I guess if you don't like robots I could see an argument for nuke plants.

The coal plant is very strong but that's more because we are used to the IZ being weak; harbor shipyards have done the same thing since release and they come earlier. IMO because of how unique power is, they should do this:
Factory gains the adj. effect as local production
Factory aura becomes 0 base, 5 powered but now requires 3 power (this is so that having all 4 buildings will cost a round 12 power instead of 11)
Coal plant no longer grants any sort of production, and it can only power its own city. This is to force players to convert their power plants or be prepared to build more IZs.

The problem is that coal plants simultaneously give the most production (which you need to handle late game costs since victories take longer in GS) and the only reason to care about power plant auras is if you don't build IZs everywhere. But if you prioritize only good locations for IZs, then you're going to want to spam coal plants everywhere because they will return so much production. If you have IZs everywhere, they you won't really care because you can build power plants in every city anyways so the auras don't matter. The GW balance is so off that using cleaner power doesn't matter at all.

The AI does build hydroplants, solar farms and windmills when available so that does make me wonder why the climate is going down the drain so hard.

They really embrace it. Like they rip up everything they have to get more solar. Which is nice but only there's only 4 buildings that create a combined 11 power load per city, and the AI seems to love technocracy, so they don't really need more than 4 solar plants per city. They don't seem to know that.
I worry that they'll remove their farms and begins starving their citizens!

 

[L4Psha]

I read in civilopedia that burning resources for power emits CO2, and not a word about units or railroads. Can it be trusted? Or maybe it is really how it's should be? Or it's even a bug?

 

[Aurelesk]

Maybe we should add a Pollution mechanic to be more sensitive with that. For example, each cities have a Pollution count that increase higly with Coal power, moderately with Oil power, none by Nuclear power, from each units that consume Coal and Oil in the city territory, even if they are foreign, and from pillage. Pollution will decrease with time*. But a high pollution city will face consequences:

• A city with a lot of Pollution have his growth rate reduced. Highly polluted cities will suffer negative Growth (basicly: slowly decreasing Population)
• Pollution reduces Tourism from the city. Hard to appreciate a wonder if the smog is so thick that you can't look at it.
• Pollution will reduce Amenity from the city. Hard to enjoy life while facing lung cancer.

Maybe we should add a new Casus Belli: Eco-war, that allow you to engage war against civilization that have high CO2 and responsible for global warming.

* : We can deeper this mechanic by making each Population yield Pollution, and have each tiles have a Pollution clearance from each adjacent tiles (like the Appeal system). A tiles surrounded by Coast and wet feature will decrease Pollution fast, but a city in the middle of mountain and hills will get polluted extremly quick.

 

[kaspergm]

In my second game (Mali, King, Disaster Level 2, Shuffle (Fractal, I think)), I tried to be more conservative with carbon emissions; I only built 1 Coal Plant which was replaced after only a few turns by a cleaner Oil Plant, and all the rest of my emissions are from Railroads and units (which are not really optional). And I hardly ever chop forests. But it didn't matter, because Hungary went wild with emissions, and sea level rise happened even faster than in the previous game (in which I did not hold back), with no hope of building flood barriers in time (the world is still in the Modern era).

So you have coastal flooding in 1874 when only two countries in the world are using fossil fuels, and one of them was deliberately holding back. On disaster level 2.

View attachment 518326

Fortunately it doesn't really matter, because the number of tiles lost is trivial. I would have been better off polluting as hard as I could.

The system would be more compelling if it offered a real tradeoff, and the player could do something about it. As it is, it's just an annoying feeling of lack of control. Which is not really a good thing in a strategy game, in my opinion.

This is very accurate based on my experience. The numbers urgently need to be tweaked, as it is now, it's not a lot of fun. Higher stages should only happen if you use lots of coal power for prolonged time. Emission from units should be negligable or completely removed, as this is a completely different aspect of the game. I wouldn't mind something related to traffic in cities, however, similar to how there was a public transport option going on back on one of the early games, I can't recall what number that was. So you could build public transport in your cities with a moderate to high upkeep (possibly even adjustable), and it would influence your populations influence on CO2 levels.

Something they should have brought back in the highest stage of global warming was desert spreading, i.e. plains turning into desert, grassland turning into plains, tundra turning into grassland, ice turning into tundra, as planet warmed. This would be really cool and add a really strong incentive for civs in min latitudes to fight warming.

 

[Bechhold]

Renewable Energy needs to be buffed. That is what is needed. Climate Accords should just be ignored as it makes no sense to even try finish.

 

[Avenger237]

I read in civilopedia that burning resources for power emits CO2, and not a word about units or railroads. Can it be trusted? Or maybe it is really how it's should be? Or it's even a bug?

In my 3 games so far I found railroads to be a massive contributor of CO2.... in one game I connected all 10 of my cities with rail and despite not having a single factory, I was the 2nd largest polluter globally! (also had scant modern military units)

 

[kaltorak]

Agree, except on the topic name. As you are explaining yurself, it is too weak, not too powerful. The problem is, we have very little control over it. It owuld be cooler if it were more powerful, but we could really do more things about it.

 

[L4Psha]

Agree, except on the topic name. As you are explaining yurself, it is too weak, not too powerful. The problem is, we have very little control over it. It owuld be cooler if it were more powerful, but we could really do more things about it.

And it's a pity that on paper game has all the toools for it. It just need tweaks here and there. I hope that something will be done with this in patches.

 

[Pietato]

So it needs to:

- Have a much greater impact
- Accelerate slower
- More accurately reflect reality (troops versus population and power)
- To be able to realistically be addressed by a player going full green

Hopefully they fix it.

tundra turning into grassland

This brings up major missing climate change contributor: methane. Tundra melting can actually doom the world due to releasing the stored methane, and a very large part of climate change comes from cattle and sheep.

 

[Kibikus]

I agree with most you guys have written. Climate change happened really fast in my last game (reaching the next climate change level was taking around 5-6 turns once it got going), but because most of my cities were inland, I only lost 4-5 tiles, which wasn't too damaging.

One thing I was wondering, do railroads contribute CO2 only once when they are built (from the 1 coal), or do they have emissions every turn? I would assume the former, so they shouldn't be that impactful, one Ironclad sitting around for 30 turns would pollute more than 25 tiles with railroads, which I think is enough to cover a mid-size empire.
As someone posted above, I would like to see a tech (maybe early Atomic era) which upgrades the rail to electric with no pollution. (You can have it require some power, like 1 power for 5 rail tiles, but that would be too clunky imo).

Edit: I guess you could also change the rail to use oil in between, since a lot of locomotives have been (and still are) diesel/petrol powered, but so many units require oil now it's probabty not a good idea.

We definitely need more transparency on how the whole system works, probably someone will figure it out eventually:

How much CO2 does using 1 resource (coal, oil, uranium) generate per turn?

How much CO2 emissions causes the global temperature to rise by 0.1 degree?

How does chopping affect the global temperature?

 

[acluewithout]

I understand why they put coal power with factories - otherwise they wold be wholly useless - but the balance of GW means that the only real use of Electricity is to get hydro plants. Using oil for power is extremely wasteful because literally every modern military unit needs it. I guess if you don't like robots I could see an argument for nuke plants.

The coal plant is very strong but that's more because we are used to the IZ being weak; harbor shipyards have done the same thing since release and they come earlier. IMO because of how unique power is, they should do this:
Factory gains the adj. effect as local production
Factory aura becomes 0 base, 5 powered but now requires 3 power (this is so that having all 4 buildings will cost a round 12 power instead of 11)
Coal plant no longer grants any sort of production, and it can only power its own city. This is to force players to convert their power plants or be prepared to build more IZs.

The problem is that coal plants simultaneously give the most production (which you need to handle late game costs since victories take longer in GS) and the only reason to care about power plant auras is if you don't build IZs everywhere. But if you prioritize only good locations for IZs, then you're going to want to spam coal plants everywhere because they will return so much production. If you have IZs everywhere, they you won't really care because you can build power plants in every city anyways so the auras don't matter. The GW balance is so off that using cleaner power doesn't matter at all.


They really embrace it. Like they rip up everything they have to get more solar. Which is nice but only there's only 4 buildings that create a combined 11 power load per city, and the AI seems to love technocracy, so they don't really need more than 4 solar plants per city. They don't seem to know that.
I worry that they'll remove their farms and begins starving their citizens!

Completely agree Factories should get the adjacency bonus.