Iceage and Global Warming?

[BFD8656]

Would it be possible to create a map and then have over time "lower" lands fill with water during warmer eras and then have more land be created and ice caps at the poles grow during ice ages? I think it would be awsome to have these twists thrown in during game play. It could make some players have tougher years and others have boom years druing the different periods. It would also make you have to choose your city locations carefully!

One other question, is it possible to have civilizations join in the game after the game has started but with more techs? It would be cool to have America and some of the other civilizations join at their appropriate times.

 

[IVZanIV]

I know that Optimizer has made the IceBreaker mod, which allows random growth of ice, perhaps this could be tweaked a bit?

 

[Padmewan]

Unlike SMAC, vanilla Civ4 does not have the concept of height above sea level. There are some "terraforming" mods out there -- you should look at the Green Mod for an example of deliberately turning land into sea or v.v. by working the tile after building a particular improvement. What you describe is substantially but not completely different, but would require a lot more Python coding. You essentially need to assign each tile a sea level value, then whenever a "climate change" event occurs, look up that value and decide whether it has crossed a line and thereafter invoke the code that changes land to sea / v.v. You then need to find a way to convey that sea level data to the player, or else you won't get the gameplay you were looking for.

If the SMAC mods ever get off the ground, one goal is to model this.

(The icebreaker mod does not do this, as all it essentially does is make ice grow like forests and then give certain ships the ability to "chop" them)

I believe, from other discussions I've read, that the answer to the second question is "No," not at least until the SDK is out, but I've been thinking up workarounds. I'm going to post a new thread on that topic because it is seaprate from what you posted as your topic.

 

[matthewv]

this wont be that difficult to do and the python coding is required is actually fairly simple. I am currently busy with the song of the moon mod but you might be able to pursuade me to write the python code for this if you giive a little more details exactly how you want this to work. (eg. how highthe water will rise and if terrain types will be the same when the water lowers again during an ice age)

 

[GeoModder]

this wont be that difficult to do and the python coding is required is actually fairly simple. I am currently busy with the song of the moon mod but you might be able to pursuade me to write the python code for this if you giive a little more details exactly how you want this to work. (eg. how highthe water will rise and if terrain types will be the same when the water lowers again during an ice age)

Does this mean you could write a python code for climate-changing marsmap as well?

 

[matthewv]

Does this mean you could write a python code for climate-changing marsmap as well?

I could, but that doesn't mean I have the time to

 

[GeoModder]

Something tells me you don't have your priorities right!

 

[BFD8656]

To be honest I have not even the slightest clue about modding. I wish I did but alas I am simply a lover of Civ. I was just throwing ideas out there to keep the creative juices flowing.

What I was thinking was like this:

You start on a random map. Every so many years or turns there is a chance that the world will go into either global warming or an iceage. If that is reached then
A) the water starts to decline and ice starts to grow at the poles. There could also be a shift in terrain. Desert becomes plains, plains becomes grassland, grassland becomes tundra and tundra becomes ice. This would of course be more likely the closer you are to the poles. I would say that water goes down at a certain rate; say one tile per X number of years. Each duration of X there is a chance that change either levels off, continues or reverses.

B) the water starts to increase. Ice at the poles decreases. Land types shift in the other direction. Each turn there are the same chances.

Now there might be other things like more jungles being formed during global warming or turining to forest during an ice age.

Where ice is formed on land their might be a certain chance of rivers forming, mountains and hills being created or destroyed and maybe even islands being revealed under melting ice.


Again these are all just ideas, thrown out hoping for the shotgun theory (throw enough out there and something will hit). I am not asking anybody to do for me something; because I don't know how to do it myself. I simply want to provide ideas to those of you who Mod in the hopes of helping you all create even better mods. Thanks for listening. And thank you all for the entertaining mods you have created so far!

 

[BFD8656]

Is it possible to do something like this?

 

[BFD8656]

Thanks for the info. There talents are probably better spent on other mods. This would just be too much work for something that isn't that intergral to game play!