Ice tiles should provide science in late game!

[TheBlueKing]

Ice tiles should provide science, just take a look at how much today's scientists are learning about our planet from melting glaciers.

Maybe early in the game they should not provide any bonus, but at late game (e.g. atomic/modern/information era) they should provide +2, +4 and +6 (or +3, +6 and +9) science as it is very difficult to create cities next to ice.

This would make late game more interesting and encourage players to conquer those parts of map.

Scott-Rasmussen station is one way to make those parts more interesting, but if you fail to create it then you lost resources and got nothing. This way you would still get some science.

 

[kaspergm]

I agree, I was quite disappointed that the research station was not a governor improvement to add science yields to adjacent ice/tundra tiles.

 

[Phoenix1595]

Ice tiles should also disappear in late game, with the same logic.

That said, I wish polar and desert tiles were a little more useful, somehow, other than through Petra and Amundsen. I don’t necessarily mean they should be “workable” by cities, but rather have more of a strategic use, like mountains do as defensive barriers. Maybe units lose health if they end their turn on those tiles, much like in reality where no general would risk marching his army through the Sahara willy nilly. Oases would naturally be safe zones where a unit could rest. Just a thought.

 

[ezzlar]

Well, Civ already suffers from that every single tile is almost worth settling, so no. From a game play perspective.

 

[UWHabs]

Ice tiles should also disappear in late game, with the same logic.

That said, I wish polar and desert tiles were a little more useful, somehow, other than through Petra and Amundsen. I don’t necessarily mean they should be “workable” by cities, but rather have more of a strategic use, like mountains do as defensive barriers. Maybe units lose health if they end their turn on those tiles, much like in reality where no general would risk marching his army through the Sahara willy nilly. Oases would naturally be safe zones where a unit could rest. Just a thought.

If anything, they need to have deserts have a much larger negative to districts. Right now, it's just so obviously the best thing to throw your districts in the desert because those tiles are useless for everything else.

The biggest problem to giving science to snow tiles is that they're useless to work. So even if you gave them +3 science, better than a specialist, a snow city is rarely going to be large enough to even have that worth working. But that would at least be better than nothing, and would be a nice improvement to the research lab if you added that in as a secondary ability.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I think ice tiles should either generate more appeal or make it so that they can always be part of a national park regardless of appeal. (it just gets set to the min required for once.)

 

[Kataklysm]

Good idea, but very few real-world cities (other than small settlements or aboriginal peoples) are actually founded next to sea ice.
And like UWHabs said, snow/ice tiles are close to useless even if they should yield science.

Maybe there could be a mechanic like "Build Science Outpost" with a worker out of your territory, or a Conduct Polar Scientific Expedition kind of project.

 

[katanaD]

yes, I think the southern ICE areas should give a bonus to rocketry and such in late game. To keep in with the theme of the "secret" UFO bases we have in antarica here on earth

;>)

 

[megabearsfan]

I don't know that we necessarily want people founding cities on ice, but having something to do with those tiles late-game would be nice.
Maybe something more akin to a combination of Civ III's colonies and Beyond Earth's expeditions, where you send units/scouts/builders/scientists out to inhospitable and exotic parts of the world to do field research. You set up a temporary research station, maybe even a joint operation with one or more other civs. Perhaps this could be a special type of "Research agreement"?

 

[Morningcalm]

But Alaska isn't the center of science in the US...

(And frankly if ice tiles gave science the AI would settle them even more than they presently do. No thanks.)

 

[NukeAJS]

Ice and desert tiles already have a use -- plop districts on them. This way you don't wipe out the yields of a useful tile like grassland or grass/plains hill.

 

[UWHabs]

Ice and desert tiles already have a use -- plop districts on them. This way you don't wipe out the yields of a useful tile like grassland or grass/plains hill.

Just like real life, nowhere better to put a neighbourhood than in the arctic on snow.

 

[MAHRana]

Ice tiles should melt in late game

 

[Banazir864]

If anything, it would make sense for you to be able to build "scientist" units late-game who could be expended on ice, jungle, or reef tiles for a science bonus.

 

[gozpel]

have a building like an igloo, and put a scientist in it? Only on plain ice-tiles of course.

 

[Cedbird77]

If anything, they need to have deserts have a much larger negative to districts. Right now, it's just so obviously the best thing to throw your districts in the desert because those tiles are useless for everything else.

The biggest problem to giving science to snow tiles is that they're useless to work. So even if you gave them +3 science, better than a specialist, a snow city is rarely going to be large enough to even have that worth working. But that would at least be better than nothing, and would be a nice improvement to the research lab if you added that in as a secondary ability.

I think only random snow tiles should give science. Good idea but don't go overboard.

 

[Cedbird77]

Ice tiles should melt in late game

The science of that is debatable. An even if they did melt. Will they be grassland or Oasis? Will it be farmable or useful? No.

Adding science to a few random snow tiles is cool. But lets not go overboard. Snow tiles are snow tiles....

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

Probably the best way to implement this would be to add adjacency bonuses for Research Labs.

 

[lordofcivs]

People are very confused in this thread between Ice Tiles & Snow Tiles.
Some here are talking about Ice Tiles (like they should melt) and some are talking about Snow Tiles (which being discussed here by the OP mistakenly called as Ice Tiles for providing science).