It was only a matter of time.

[Callonia]

I played on Frigid+Taigan world and got a emancipation victory done because I wanted to see the new fancy victory movies. It looked good, gj.

Anyways lets get down to the heart of why I made this thread.

I just knew if I played enough maps I would eventually see this happen.

Spoiler :

See that? I eventually made my way over there to see if the civilization is truly trapped by the ices.

Spoiler :

We've been asking for a Icebreaker ship from firaxis for many years now for stuff like that. I find it bit sad that civilizations in Civ:BERT has the technology to construct aquatic cities and colonize worlds in incredible distances but they cannot break itty bitty ices in their way.

Additionally, this thread is about units that Firaxis forgot about.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=557038 They need to be addressed.

Huatama, I just found that his distant blood ancestor is named.. Monty. After I created an alliance with him, he became very war happy. And guess who he just dow'd on. Yup, that poor ice locked civ is about to become lunch for Huatama.

 

[Miravlix]

I only play the Tau Ceti d map for this reason, it has no ice.

It is a bit short on land even with small ocean advanced setting.

Anyone noticed other maps, even mod maps, without ice?

 

[poom3619]

There are probably code that indicate the latitude (X axis) of polar region where ice can exist (ex. Earth's Arctic circle (+66.33) and Antarctic circle (-66.33)) and start point algorithm should make sure every civ start between both line

Seriously, the code to assign start position to civ is one of a largest lua file of the game. Hopefully it is patched/will get a patch soon to fix this.

@Miravlix, I usually tampering the map-making XML by myself, there should be few line of code that basically cover how ice are generated in map and change its value (ie. PROBABLITY_OF_ICE -50 to 100 or 0*) should drastically influence the map

*Not sure if it is real variable, I never see the "icy" code.

 

[Veras]

Seriously, the code to assign start position to civ is one of a largest lua file of the game. Hopefully it is patched/will get a patch soon to fix this.

I tend to land next or on polar regions in like half of my games. Very annoying

 

[ShaggyCan]

Wouldn't it be easier for Firaxis to just release the SDK and just let us fix it for them...then they could just go on vacation, come back, and integrate all the fan fixes. Half of what RT is anyway.

 

[NASAROG]

Icebreaker unit.. I like that.

 

[Olodune]

Nice.

This is very rare though - so not something I consider much of a problem.

 

[DutchJob]

Icebreaker unit.. I like that.

Yeah, or create a new function for the worker: remove adjacent ice.

 

[Callonia]

Nice.

This is very rare though - so not something I consider much of a problem.

But it is a problem for Al Fasah, how cruel of you to not allow her to enjoy the game like I do! She just spent 200+ turns idling in boredom.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Speaking of Ice, do you guys think that Ice should be passable? I meanw hy not do research from Ice like they do on Arctic in real life? Get science from it perhaps?

 

[Acken]

Wouldn't it be easier for Firaxis to just release the SDK and just let us fix it for them...then they could just go on vacation, come back, and integrate all the fan fixes. Half of what RT is anyway.

That particular bug can likely be fixed without the source code. Just need someone to bother editing AssignStartingPlots.lua

 

[Barathor]

Speaking of Ice, do you guys think that Ice should be passable? I meanw hy not do research from Ice like they do on Arctic in real life? Get science from it perhaps?

Personally, no. I prefer to favor gameplay in this situation and have ice as simply a barrier to keep most units away from the map edges. I hate it when I can get to the very edge of the map and stare out into the "void" with its forcefield stopping me from going further, it just feels awkward. I rather not be able to reach that far north or south and think of it as just unknown territory or uninhabitable (which was easier to do and more plausible in Civ than it is now with BE!).

If a planet is a really hot one with no arctic poles or something, then I would create thick mountains on the top and bottom edges.

I also only prefer world wrap horizontally, as toroidal maps with wrapping on all edges are too unrealistic and again... awkward to play on. If anything, traveling over the map edge in a northeast part of the map, for example, should bring you somewhere within the northwest of it. That would be confusing to play on, though -- I'm not even sure how that would be implemented with the current system.

If going that far, you may as well make the whole main map view on a large rotating globe that you move units around on and plop cities down on (that would be pretty cool! BE 2 maybe? haha...). Panning across the map will then automatically rotate the planet and "wrapped" movement would be totally natural. The minimap can remain the same and act as a key so you can easily view things overall and know what you're looking down on so you don't get lost.

Again, just my own opinions. A minimal amount of ice is nice to keep gameplay away from the top and bottom map edges. One solid row, one to two semisolid rows, and a light sprinkling to blend it is all that's needed.

 

[Barathor]

That particular bug can likely be fixed without the source code. Just need someone to bother editing AssignStartingPlots.lua

Yeah, I'll get around to doing it soon.

I'll just let Firaxis have another go at it first. I rather not spend all the time on fixing everything when they're (hopefully) going to be fixing some of it soon. (Oh noes, hopefully they didn't read this and are going to wait me out too! haha) Plus, I have some other fun projects I'm working on to address problems with the game.

- - - - - -

As I said in another thread about this, I'm pretty sure this is due to the fallback methods in place when the game can't find a suitable start location for a faction. I bet that tile is a grassland tile -- something you wouldn't find in that part of the map! Also, all these images are happening on the southern edge of the map and not the north.

The fallback forces a grassland tile in the southwest tile of the faction's rectangular region and plops them there just to get them on the map. If the faction's region is along the bottom of the map, they're out of luck.

I already know of two quick and dirty fixes:

1) With the new regional division method they created in Rising Tide, just make it similar to method #4 and define the rectangular boundaries -- don't do the whole map because of the useless ice areas. Push the north and south edges inward. So, an 80 x 52 rectangle becomes 80 x 44. Or utilize latitude so that the larger and smaller maps scale the chopped off region properly.

2) This one is even quicker and dirtier... haha. Just add a latitude check before forcing the plot. If you're on the southern half of the map, then force the plot in the northwest corner of the rectangular region instead. Simple.

- - - - - -

Though, the root of the problem should really be addressed because these factions are still going to get crappy starts when forced like this.

It probably has to with regional division, how it's measuring the fertility of plots, and how efficiently it's assigning the factions to each rectangular region. When you use regional methods which take up the whole map, you're usually playing on an archipelago-type of map with bits of land everywhere. Rising Tide places lots of islands between its landmasses, but there probably are still open ocean areas; especially if the regions are divided-up more and smaller to get a bunch of factions onto the map.

In Civ 5, the game uses a landmass method for the normal, larger landmass maps. That's why you would always start on a piece of the larger landmasses, not like now where you can start on a small sliver of land or island. But, I like the flexibility and diversity that we have now; it just needs to be more efficient.

 

[poom3619]

Yeah, or create a new function for the worker: remove adjacent ice.

Remove a terrain by action in-game is hard (or the Civ5/CivBE dev didn't bother making it easy), at least that why we don't see any global warming in Civ5 or literal rising tide in CivBE.

 

[Barathor]

Yeah, or create a new function for the worker: remove adjacent ice.

Remove a terrain by action in-game is hard (or the Civ5/CivBE dev didn't bother making it easy), at least that why we don't see any global warming in Civ5 or literal rising tide in CivBE.

Fortunately, ice is a feature. The tricky part for him would be to work on an adjacent tile, unless he wants his workers to travel over ice.

 

[poom3619]

No, it is a terrain. Prove : OP's screenshot

It make a world of difference. Order of magnitude of code that need to be written.

 

[kipwheeler]

Icebreaker unit.. I like that.

I'd like a space-mirror orbital satellite that temporarily melts ice. It acts like a miasmic repulsor, but smaller area of effect (1 tile radius out from central point). It reflects sunlight down, and after 2-3 turns, the ice in its area melts away, and stays melted as long as the orbital's life-span endures. Once the satellite expires (or is deleted or shot down), the ice reforms in that spot 2-3 turns later.

Maybe this belongs in the ideas section/thread?

 

[Barathor]

No, it is a terrain. Prove : OP's screenshot

It make a world of difference. Order of magnitude of code that need to be written.

It's ironic how you speak of the code and are still wrong.

 

[Halcyon 7]

Haven't seen this one yet but have seen tons of expeditions and resource pods behind ice. Makes me cry a lil seeing the affinty level that will never be.

Why is ice impassable anyways. Not saying you should be able to build on it but it's not as if you couldn't. At least let units travel on it, throw on some attrition damage if need be, but seriously these people have out-smarted/braved interstellar space I am sure they are up to the challenge of the arctic.

 

[klail]

You can pick up pods using submarines which can go under ice.