Global Warming...

[Gislef]

I'm a little unclear on how global warming works. I've got a fairly large population (about 71 mil) on a a mid-sized world. I've got Mass Transit kicking away in all my cities, and pretty minimal pollution triangles (if any) in all my cities.

And yet...global warming temperature kept rising steadily until it hit a drought level. I've only had one square of pollution at the time, and I've been keeping that under control pretty much as well.

So, why did the temperature rise? And how can you prevent it? The manual says to simply control pollution, which I did...but the temp went up anyway.

 

[stormerne]

We need to know a little more before we can help you. Meanwhile, some guesses...

You say you've got Mass Transits in abundance and so have reduced the warning traingles in the city screen. Nut triangles are only <u>potential</u> pollution, not actual, so have you got rid of all the skulls that have appeared on the landscape? And what about other civs - are they big too and can they produce pollution? It all counts to Gloabl Warming - not just yours. Do you need to trade techs or just give them tech gifts so that they can get their own Mass Transits?

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<IMG SRC="http://www.anglo-saxon.demon.co.uk/stormerne/stormerne.gif" border=0>

 

[goodbye_mr_bond]

THe pollution-meter in your civilization stats window is the best way to keep an eye on what's happening. If there's a little sun there, it means there's some pollution somewhere. The sun changes colour every turn. When it's white, you're about to get hit with global warming.

Even one skull square is enough to contribute, if you don't clean it up ASAP. Once you have no skulls anywhere on the map, the sun display will start going back to normal each turn until it disappears altogether. THat's when you're ok.

Another way to check is to go to the "world" menu and check your civilization score. Every -10 points penalty you have means one skull somewhere (so "Pollution: -50" means you have 5 skulls somewhere). Your civ score is updated immediately, so if you clean up the skull and pull down the menu again, you'll see right away that the penalty's decreased. You need one full turn with no skulls for things to start going back to normal.

Also under "World", you'll find the demographics menu, which should tell you how much pollution the other civs (you have contact with) are producing. 10 tonnes=1 hazard triangle in the city screen.

To clean up, you can use 2 engineers at once, and the skull will disappear right away. You should also build Solar Plants if you have a very large population, as they actually help reduce global warming. Good luck.

 

[Karlsen]

Don't forget that your pollution always appears within a city radius and is reported in the Goto list. Note that the Goto command for land units would need to be repeated once for each island/continent. (note to self try this with air units, maybe that will cover all Cities but probably restricted to those within range).

Thus if you suspect you have pollution do a Goto with one unit on each island/continent and scroll down the list (if two cities overlap the pollution will be recorded as being against both (as stated in the manual)).

For the other player's pollution - bad luck.

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Karlsen

 

[Gislef]

In answer to questions:

I haven't had more than one or two skulls on the map at a time, and have disposed of those readily (with two engineers, as mentioned). Even when there are no skulls on the map, though, the little sun Icon has gotten larger/hotter. I had no pollution on the map when the world went into a global-warming plateau and deserts and swamps started popping up. Then the temp went down/vanished. And it looks like it's going up again while I have no pollution on the board!

In other words, when I eliminate pollution not only does the global temp not go down, but it in fact gets <u>hotter</u>.

Other than one city, there are no other empires... No pollution there.

The go-to list doesn't show any pollution on turns when the temp is rising either.

I don't have Solar Plants yet, although I'm currently running on Hoover Dam.

You can see why I'm puzzled: I did all the stuff you folks are stating and the temp is still going up. Weird.

But thanks for the suggestions

 

[Gislef]

Okay, guys, I did a little more checking. According to my score, I have a pollution score of -90. So presumably I have 9 skulls/areas of pollution.

According to my demographics I have 320 tons.

But...I don't! I checked the Go command and it doesn't show any city that has pollution. This is a little odd, because I do currently have one square of pollution that should be gone by the next turn. However, it is not indicated next to on the Go option for the city (Moscow) it is next to.

So where the heck are these 9 squares of pollution coming from? I've visually checked every area of the map that's been explored, and I'm not seeing anything!

That's my problem - if the computer thinks I've got nine squares of pollution sure it's going to keep cranking up the global temp. But I can't find the squares to anti-pollute them.

I've got about 60 years to go, and enough Engineers working on the landscape that I suppose I'll survive to win the game. But it's kind of irritating, and seems to be some kind of flaw/bug with the game itself. I've never got this far before, so can't tell you if it's a recurring problem or not.

All help appreciated!

 

[CivGuru]

It may be the -90 you are seeing is because at the start of the turn there were 9 squares of pollution. Check it out by saving game and reloading autosave version and counting squares with pollution.
Additionally, pollution is cumulative. If you left one square alone with pollution, over a period of time it would lead to global warming. The clock is set back to zero so to speak, when you've cleared up all the pollution and no new pollution occurs as of the start of the following turn. Hope this helps.

 

[Gislef]

Nope, that's not it. For one thing, I haven't had nine squares of pollution at one time the entire game. So there's no way I should have ever had a -90. Maybe if it counts up every polluted square I've _ever_ had it might get 9 squares...

Besides, I'm being pretty thorough. I check on turn when I've got one square of pollution, it says -90. I clean it up, it's gone by the end of the turn, I check the <u>next</u> turn, and it still says -90.

Actually, I managed to just get it down to a -80 pollution score and only 280 tons (from 320 before). That was after about five turns with -90 pollution and nothing on the board. But I still have no pollution on the board.

 

[CivGuru]

It's not something crazy, like you nuked a city out of existence, or you nuked units not in any city limits, so pollution is on the map but not within one of your cities is it?

 

[Karlsen]

The Goto only works for Settlers/Engineers on the same Island/Continent and only for Pollution withinthe radius of your own cities.

As mentioned above if someone else has created pollution or dropped a Nuke. The sun will shine and get redder until that pollution is cleared up.

 

[goodbye_mr_bond]

Originally posted by Gislef:
I've visually checked every area of the map that's been explored, and I'm not seeing anything!

Wat a minute: you haven't explored the entire map? Then it's possible that there's a destroyed city site that still has skulls somewhere. If it was destroyed by an AI opponent or barbarians earlier in the game, then you wouldn't necessarily know it had ever existed.

 

[Gislef]

What I meant by "visually explored" is that while I have every square of the world mapped, I'm not doing continual flyovers. The map won't update if you don't have a city or units nearby, will it?

So it's remotely possible on a small island or something that I don't have cities set up, there <u>might</u> be pollution.

But...no, no Nukes have dropped. Manhattan Project hasn't been invented yet. There is only one city in the world that isn't mine, and it's surrounded. Every other city I destroyed or took over. There's no pollution. And in fact, I wiped out most cities early enough that I don't think they had time to produce anything that would <u>make</u> pollution.

Interestingly, I shut down and took a break for the weekend. When I reopened my saved game on Monday, it said there were only 50 tons of pollution - a substantial drop from 280 the last time! (It still says my pollution score is -80, though).

But considering I haven't removed any pollution in several turns (because there doesn't seem to be any), why it dropped so abruptly, I have no idea. And the thermometer/sun gauge or whatever is <u>still</u> going up.

 

[goodbye_mr_bond]

Originally posted by Gislef:
But considering I haven't removed any pollution in several turns (because there doesn't seem to be any), why it dropped so abruptly, I have no idea. And the thermometer/sun gauge or whatever is <u>still</u> going up.

Well, it's going to keep going up until the pol is down to 0. But I have to admit I'm totally baffled.

OK, how's this sound... You've obviously won the game, explored everything etc, and are just on the last phase, so why don't you save the game, then toggle cheat? Have a look around. I'm sure at this point, no one would think any worse of it. You've obviously tried everything. Besides, I'm really curious!

 

[Gislef]

Well, I went ahead into Cheat mode and...zip, nada. No pollution. Although over the course of a year, my pollution jumped <u>again</u>: up to 300 tons of pollution. But there's nothing generating it as far as I can tell. I absolutely can't tell where it's coming from.

I've run the patch and all, It could be an error - I've got another Lalande game running and I'm using the same strategy - I'll see if the biochaos starts piling up there in a hundred years or so.

Other then that, i don't know. Like I said, I'm running a mid-sized world with a current population of 81 mil and rising - is there a point where the sheer # of bodies just starts causing body heat and temperature rises?

I also don't have any courthouses - do illegal toxic dumpers maybe have something to do with it?

In any case, appreciate the suggestions. Thanks all.

 

[CivGuru]

Just a thought, but have you tried pressing "T" to see the terrain squares. Perhaps the pollution is on the city square itself making it harder to recognize the pollution.

 

[Gislef]

Haven't tried it, but I'll give it a chance next time I get to take a look. I thought the "T" command just showed the original, unmodified squares - will it show pollution if you clear everything else away?

I'd check with any pollution I _could_ see, but of course, I can't because I don't have any right now...