I want a "greener" Civ game

[tomart]

Sigh, another tree-hugger....

Right off the bat, a belittling, condescending tone of contempt, combined with an avatar that suggests "Money is my bottom line; in fact my only line."

1) Chopping forests is good in real life.

Good short-term for the lumber company and its stockholders; bad for the forests, the animals, other plants, the whole ecosystem depending on that forest for life. Which happens to include human life: are you aware that we get our (absolutely essential) oxygen from trees, which take back the (poisonous) carbon dioxide we breathe out? It's an excellent arrangement worked out over millennia, which just happens to keep us alive; and which you should have learned about in school. But perhaps your lumber corporation "re-educated" you; it's a too-powerful, inhuman entity and doesn't care about our country or world long term, only immediate profits.

Trees don't strenghten industry when they sit in the ground their whole lives.

Yeah; so?
Oh! gee, how blind of me not to see that blatantly obvious, self-serving implication staring me in the face - that these trees were put there just for industry to destroy them for shareholders' short-term benefit!

2) If you chop a tree a thousand miles away from a city, will that city experience health problems? Definitely not.

Pardon me, but we're not talking about one tree, are we? Even one CivIV forest tile is an immense forest, which I and most climatologists would contend, has affects on humans.

3) Mines are productive in real life. Forests are not (unless you cut them down.).

Mines pollute in real life. Forests do not (unless you cut them down.)

4) They are indeed unhealthy. There are thousands of forms of cancer found in jungles..

???? Thanks for my best laugh all day. "Cancer??" If you'd said viruses, haemorrhagic fevers, or tropical diseases in general, I'd have to agree. But having no basis in fact, this statement appears to be another bogus, self-serving blurb to support complete rainforest destruction. As for cancer, I believe that the causes of most cancers will someday be found to be our industrial chemicals and pollutants, combined with modern food (over-)processing techniques eroding our health.

5) That would mean that civs could plant trees and chop them over and over, which would be lame.

No, it would be a "lumber industry," which you were encouraging above; what happened to "Chopping forests is good in real life."? Were you meaning that you'd only chop once, and leave the land deforested and devastated, like strip-mining? THAT would be lame, even for your short-sighted logging operation.

7) Global warming hasn't done any harm in real life either.

Now here I could go ballistic. Scientists (meaning: intelligent people who are much better informed about this than our poster) (not to be belittling and condescending, of course! :wink: ) and millions of people who live just above sea level, all over the world, are suddenly meeting, pooling resources, learning, discussing the facts and exploring their options, because, Mr. Silver, when world sea level starts to rise, it'll be too late.* They'll lose their homes and ever-growing parts of their countries; they'll be trying to relocate - maybe to your town? Are you ready for hordes of foreigners to descend on your homeland, because the global warming you intentionally disdained and ignored (and helped cause! despite your denials) has flooded theirs?
No, I didn't think so.

*Turns out it's already too late. Thanks to ArmorPierce for bringing this to our attention:
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2099971.ece

Then there are the climatic effects, which are already happening; disruptions of global weather patterns, increasing storm damage, drought, erratic and unpredictable storms? Perhaps you missed the stories about "El Nino" a few years ago, and how more and more frequently weather records are being broken?

Forgive me, but your post seems to have less to do with our game, than blatant corporate capitalist propaganda in favor of destroying our world, one ecosystem at a time. Seems to me, you hardly need to infiltrate a game site; you guys are winning already! Why rub it in?

 

[Yeekim]

Good short-term for the lumber company and its stockholders; bad for the forests, the animals, other plants, the whole ecosystem depending on that forest for life.

Well - mindless slash-chop-and-burn is one thing, responsible forestry another. Provided that you don't chop for thousands of square miles, and so clear way for erosion, that forest you just chopped will grow anew - and while growing, it will be natural habitat for a whole set of different species.

E.g. great conifer-forests in northern temperate zone, if left alone for centuries, actually tend to get too thick and dark for most other plants and thus for most birds/animals too - these places are pretty poor in terms of biodiversity.

Anyway, we share the same bottom line: - in game terms it must be possible to chop and replant. Heck - I should know - I live in Estonia - timber is one of our main national exports and every farmer is growing forest! About 50% of the country is forest actually (+ about 10% marshes and bushes)

 

[ZB2]

Right off the bat, a belittling, condescending tone of contempt, combined with an avatar that suggests "Money is my bottom line; in fact my only line."
Good short-term for the lumber company and its stockholders; bad for the forests, the animals, other plants, the whole ecosystem depending on that forest for life. Which happens to include human life: are you aware that we get our (absolutely essential) oxygen from trees, which take back the (poisonous) carbon dioxide we breathe out? It's an excellent arrangement worked out over millennia, which just happens to keep us alive; and which you should have learned about in school. But perhaps your lumber corporation "re-educated" you; it's a too-powerful, inhuman entity and doesn't care about our country or world long term, only immediate profits.
Yeah; so?
Oh! gee, how blind of me not to see that blatantly obvious, self-serving implication staring me in the face - that these trees were put there just for industry to destroy them for shareholders' short-term benefit!
Pardon me, but we're not talking about one tree, are we? Even one CivIV forest tile is an immense forest, which I and most climatologists would contend, has affects on humans.
Mines pollute in real life. Forests do not (unless you cut them down.)
???? Thanks for my best laugh all day. "Cancer??" If you'd said viruses, haemorrhagic fevers, or tropical diseases in general, I'd have to agree. But having no basis in fact, this statement appears to be another bogus, self-serving blurb to support complete rainforest destruction. As for cancer, I believe that the causes of most cancers will someday be found to be our industrial chemicals and pollutants, combined with modern food (over-)processing techniques eroding our health.
No, it would be a "lumber industry," which you were encouraging above; what happened to "Chopping forests is good in real life."? Were you meaning that you'd only chop once, and leave the land deforested and devastated, like strip-mining? THAT would be lame, even for your short-sighted logging operation.
Now here I could go ballistic. Scientists (meaning: intelligent people who are much better informed about this than our poster) (not to be belittling and condescending, of course! :wink: ) and millions of people who live just above sea level, all over the world, are suddenly meeting, pooling resources, learning, discussing the facts and exploring their options, because, Mr. Silver, when world sea level starts to rise, it'll be too late.* They'll lose their homes and ever-growing parts of their countries; they'll be trying to relocate - maybe to your town? Are you ready for hordes of foreigners to descend on your homeland, because the global warming you intentionally disdained and ignored (and helped cause! despite your denials) has flooded theirs?
No, I didn't think so.

*Turns out it's already too late. Thanks to ArmorPierce for bringing this to our attention:
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2099971.ece

Then there are the climatic effects, which are already happening; disruptions of global weather patterns, increasing storm damage, drought, erratic and unpredictable storms? Perhaps you missed the stories about "El Nino" a few years ago, and how more and more frequently weather records are being broken?

Forgive me, but your post seems to have less to do with our game, than blatant corporate capitalist propaganda in favor of destroying our world, one ecosystem at a time. Seems to me, you hardly need to infiltrate a game site; you guys are winning already! Why rub it in?

i think im in love haha. someone with intelect.

i like to keep atleast 2 forests for every city in CIVILIZATION, a barren nation is what AI has... phfft.

in regard to MAKING IT A GREENER GAME. Forests should be plantable. with a tech (or maybe a civic instead, so you cant abuse your 100% military production with mass planting and chopping/or state property abuse)

each forest tile should just add one WHOLE DIGIT of +1 health for city. forests outside the fat cross, but within your borders should add up to total the amount of forests and give all cities a health bonus (happy if under enviromentalism) accross your empire.

Jungles shouldnt be automaticcaly removed when building improvements, for example, my mod has it so any improvement can be built ontop of a jungle tile, but removing the jungle itsself has to be done seperatly. (fixes AI mass chopping)
--jungles give +1 food, put a farm ontop, you get +1 more food. and dont get global warming!
works for all other improvements, except Fort (too big a defensive bonus)

 

[Crighton]

my coment to the off topic portion:

Let's at least make an attempt to keep the thread on topic (yes I'm probably somewhat guilty on this point as well as others).

Anyway,

I think it's clear most agree with replanting forests, but here's a question:

Why can't we just simply turn a forest tile into a resource? Maybe have a Carpentry shop that can be built in the city sometime in say the Classical era?

Serously, if they had carpentry shops back in biblical times I don't think it unreasonable to include it in CIV. Obviously they didn't have lumbermills as CIV currently has them, though there would have been some kind of lumber camp type thing being set up which I guess if you were to take things out further should be an idea to consider. In that case I gues the forest would produce no hammers up front, some with lumber camp, then more with carpetner shop, then still more with an actual lumbermill (I guess the end result could also give a finished would product as a tradable resource).

A similar thought, why is Lumbermill connected to Replaceable Parts? why not a Forestry Tech which gives an additional health benefit?

just thoughts, random and medicated

 

[Jawsofwar]

My Climateology professor says most meteorologists say this global warming that is going on is part of the earth's cycle. In early Medievel times 800 A.D. to 1300 A.D. the earth experienced a global warming trend actually higher than it is now. The people experienced great plant growth and people in England could even grow grapes. After 1300 A.D. the climate switched abruptly and became much colder with devastating winters. They had a short harvest time and lost many of their wheat crops. The bubonic plague also spread like crazy during this time. I don't know about you but I fear an ice age a lot more than a global warming. That said this is no excuse to pollute the environment. We need to preserve wildlife the best we can. I think environmental civic is ok but should have the ability to raise science output somehow. Most "true" environmentalists (not the political lobbyists) are very knowledgeable people and the civic should put that into account.

 

[mintyfreshdeath]

Sigh, another tree-hugger...


7) Global warming hasn't done any harm in real life either.

You speak like a man who doesn't just believe, but believes he believes. That, sir, is 10,000% certainty and for that I applaud you. Congratulations.

 

[Elandal]

Currently, global warming is happening both due to natural causes and due to human activity. However, human activity has caused also global cooling, thus offsetting partially or wholly (I don't have figures here and not going to find them now) the warming effects we've caused.
Global warming is harmful for human population, taken as a whole. The global cooling we've caused is also harmful. We can reduce our own effects on the climate as whole, but it seems that it'll be easier to lower the global cooling that warming we've caused, which may lead to faster warming. This is probably bad, but NOT acting on the cooling is bad too. Tough.

Because climate is quite complex, any estimates given regarding what is changing and how will have large error margin. The only thing we can say is that the climate is changing, and there's strong indication that the change is not one humanity would love.

 

[Crighton]

Personally I think the best thing to do is ignore the whole warming / cooling thing and just concentrate on basic environmental things (providing clean drinking water, increase forestry conservation, develop aquaculture, etc etc and let the bigger ideas succumb to the weight of the little ones).

 

[motherboard1]

Should roads and railroads have an upkeep cost perhaps? if for no other reason, than just to prevent players from spamming every single tile on the continent with them?

 

[ZB2]

i think its only becuase tiles with roads and railroads all over all look kinda squiggily like pasta. and so spamming roads everywhere makes your empire look really repetitive when every second tile has a giant 'O' and the next is 'X'

and i dont like having alot of roads going to and from places, as at war units with Commando (use enemy roads) would really backfire. i have 1 road that acts as a highway going to each city, and one going out to a naighbour roads in the middle of nowhere or tiles filling in the gaps between cities, i try to avoid roading

 

[Dread_Pirate]

To return to the original post for a second:

There's no doubt that the game's design favours deforestation. The short-term gains of chopping far outweigh the long-term consequences of having less health in your cities. If you use your chopping to expand your civ (be it with Settlers or extreme violence....), you'll probably secure health-giving resources that off-set your losses.

But, play the game how you want to play it. Sure, the serious strategy type people may mock you for leaving your forests intact. Sure, you may struggle to keep up with the AI on higher levels. But if your empire is a delightful shade of green when viewed from orbit, you'll have a sense of achievement regardless.

As a side question: What about a no-chop challenge? What difficulty level could be beaten with the self-restrained condition of not chopping forests or jungles (only exception being clearing to use resources or found cities)?

It seems that so many strategies I see described here are chop-dependant, it'd be interesting to see how people would go without that to lean on.....

 

[BundtCake]

To return to the original post for a second:

There's no doubt that the game's design favours deforestation. The short-term gains of chopping far outweigh the long-term consequences of having less health in your cities. If you use your chopping to expand your civ (be it with Settlers or extreme violence....), you'll probably secure health-giving resources that off-set your losses.

But, play the game how you want to play it. Sure, the serious strategy type people may mock you for leaving your forests intact. Sure, you may struggle to keep up with the AI on higher levels. But if your empire is a delightful shade of green when viewed from orbit, you'll have a sense of achievement regardless.

As a side question: What about a no-chop challenge? What difficulty level could be beaten with the self-restrained condition of not chopping forests or jungles (only exception being clearing to use resources or found cities)?

It seems that so many strategies I see described here are chop-dependant, it'd be interesting to see how people would go without that to lean on.....

I try and avoid chopping tree tiles and hold out to plop a couple of lumbermills later on. Sadly, I chop jungles, of course with the hope that forest will encroach on the empty space.

But I do have some consideration as to the aesthetic quality of my empire.

 

[motherboard1]

maybe production points from chopping should only count towards buildings?

or maybe the bonus should have just been less to begin with. It does seem kind of high

 

[motherboard1]

It does seem though, that the fact that every forest tile produces 1 production, must have been intended as the counter against the benefits of clearcutting. Its not a bad idea actually, if you want to have a large city with alot of production, to leave alot of forests around it, except that the counter is countered by the fact that a large city needs to clearcut to build farms to reach a large pop

the +1 production a forest tile gives makes sence, though, you can imagine it as being production from some cutting, but sustainable, VS clear cutting (gimme it all Now !) style

-------------

Maybe if each deforested tile produced less food untill farmed? there would be more incentive not to clearcut everything? makes more sence, if you cut down the forest, the Hunting is gone.
it might not be enough to make the difference, and it might throw some other unforseen thing out of wack. But Im just a noob, feel free to scold me for the things Im totally wrong about.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

As environmentalist as I am, for the sake of gameplay, a good way to have a "greener" game is to have a modern-age start. That way you could take advantage of railroaded lumber mills. Although...

- a post-biology farm and a railroaded lumber mill
- still loses to grassland workshops under state property,
- which in turn loses to printing press, free speech and universal sufferage towns as long as the gold slider is turned to 100% (a fair comparison, as grassland workshops don't produce commerce, and under universal sufferage towns produce 1 hammer)
- which in turn loses to a state property watermill
- which in turn loses to workshops if there's the ironworks in that city.

The real use of environmentalism is actually small civilizations that don't cover so much land, as then they'll need the health and hapiness bonus as they don't have so many luxury and health resources around. And forests should really give a much larger hapiness boast than +1, even in real life. I can't believe how many Canadians are content with nothing but work and outdoor activities during weekends.

 

[motherboard1]

Iv got it! how about the chop bonus is less depending on how many tree tiles are adjacent to the one being cut?

So now, cutting down that last 1 or 2 tree tiles aint worth anything? but chopping into a big forest patch is.

I always hate needing to chop down that last couple of forests for the chop bonus when I know its gonna make that area look totally barren

And on another note, Lumber mills should be something you have to place in a forest that is X tiles from your City or outside culteral borders in order to route the chop bonus back to your city (by river connection or Road)

 

[Vertico]

My Climateology professor says most meteorologists say this global warming that is going on is part of the earth's cycle. In early Medievel times 800 A.D. to 1300 A.D. the earth experienced a global warming trend actually higher than it is now. The people experienced great plant growth and people in England could even grow grapes. After 1300 A.D. the climate switched abruptly and became much colder with devastating winters. They had a short harvest time and lost many of their wheat crops. The bubonic plague also spread like crazy during this time. I don't know about you but I fear an ice age a lot more than a global warming. That said this is no excuse to pollute the environment.

This is exactly my point. I also prefer to have global warming than ice age which should start soon (what ever if it means 100 years or 1000). I would say that there is no excuse to pollute the enviroment but to be honest - humankind is to weak to compete with Nature yet. All this so called pollution cause by industry since the begining of indutrial era is just nothing to hwta Nature can do in one moment. Just imagine that one vulcano eruption can do more harm to atmosphere that many years of using coal power plants.
One change in magnetic field of Earth and we would receive full spectrum of potentially deadly solar wind with UV and microwaves. Even not talking about something what can come from space.

Coming back to game, I agree with Gettingfat that game promotes urbanizing everything. I would also say that at least terraforming is forbiden and Himalayas are not changable to grasslands with farms as in Civ2
I you don't have to use any terrain of the map. I usually save forests, build lumbermills or keep them untouched. Just to make game look nicer

 

[Yeekim]

All hail a thread resurrected!

I came to think over a point probably mentioned above - railroads are about the last things your workers shall build. And potentially there is a big chunk of game time still ahead.

Why not make it possible to build "eco-farms" over your normal ones after environmentalism? Possible benefit: +1
And while we are at it, GMO-farms after genetics: +1 food, but 0.2 or smth?

I mean, improving countryside did not stop after steam engine was invented...

Also, why not differentiate workshops and lumbermills a bit? What about 1 lumbermill making buildings 5% cheaper and 1 workshop military units 5% cheaper? There probably should be a cap to this one somewhere, though. Or else you could run State Property and churn out units for free

EDIT: I'm having second thoughts about that idea on workshops... for there is already some pretty powerful synergy between Military Academy and Police State. Perhaps give that bonus under Democracy only, and put cap at 25%?
Another problem is, that this way mines will become less attractive. What about giving these a civic-related bonus too? +30 hammers upon completion when running Slavery? +1 hammer would, perhaps, be too powerful....

Hey, I've got another idea: Serfdom needs to be beefed up... ability to produce military units with food? But only when special building is present - Thrall Barracks or smth...
EDIT 2: And the troops produced this way would not get the exp. bonus from Barracks...

And downgrade Caste System: -10% to science should be appropriate. Right now, this is a civic that is overused for all sort of GP gambit purposes, but in reality, making a good part of your population pariahs for good has its downsides...

And no, I'm not doing dope right now Just being resourceful

 

[Clownfish]

Ok, sorry, I won't have time to read all posts, so I'll just comment 2 things:
1. Mr. Silver, you're a laugh! Watch out in the jungle, especially for the little cancers that might just attack you and give you a tumour!

2. As for replanting forest, it's already in the game! What do you think the lumbermill gets their wood from, during hundreds and hundreds of years? Of course, replantation of trees is implied in the whole concept of the lumbermills in the game.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

OK, I'm not a typical "tree-hugger". Still, I find it a bit uncomfortable seeing the game has been promoting an environmental-unfriendly playing style:

• Chopping forests are generally good
• Chop every forest outside the fat crosses does not lead to health problem
• Replace the forests on hills with mines will give you productivity and no harm.
• Jungles are unhealthy and unproductive. Cut them down ASAP.
• Tree planting is not a possibility
• Environmentalism is the most useless civic.
• You can industrialize every city and you know there is no consequence. The magical recycling plant will take care of all pollution.
• Global warming is basically a non-factor. As long as you don't start a major nuke war, at most only a couple of plains will turn into desert in the last few rounds. No big deal.

I miss how in Alpha Centauri you can play like a druid and still stand a chance

I agree. The benefit of exploiting your resources tends to improve short term productivity like in real life, but you are losing long term productivity in most cases. Having a forest on a tile is a non-pillageable +1 bonus to production of that tile. Destroy that for 30 hammers (or less) immediately?

Chopping wins when pulling ahead the building or unit is going to have a major impact (finishing Oracle for that popular slingshot that lets you wipe out an enemy... getting the unit that will save you from the barb archer... etc.)

I am not so sure in other cases, especially if you are working the tile. I guess it depends on whether it is a production city or a commerce city, whether health is an issue, and other factors that are taking too long to type... If it is where you need a cottage for your science/money city (where production is being used for generating science or money), it might be worth it. If it's a production city, only a mine on a plains hill or a special tile improvement will be worth the improvement, since commerce doesn't factor into the equation.

edit - you want a greener game? I just looked in the War Academy and it has tips for playing the OCC (One City Challenge). Basically one of the things you do is you improve only special tiles, and let the forest overrun the rest of your realm for the first half of the game. Is that green enough?

I just looked at that after posting here. Strange. Hope it helps.