Jungle: What is it good for?

[WarKirby]

I felt this needed it's own thread.

In Alpha Centaurii, Jungle didn't exist. Because forest IS jungle. Well, kind of. It fills the same role as jungle does in civ, and then some.

In planetfall, fungus does indeed have the same negative-ness that jungle does. But jungle itself is still around also, apparently stripped of all it's negative effects AND given extra positives.

To start with, it gives -1 food on the tile. Which is bad, sure. But once you get environmental economics (which is a lot earlier than it was in AC) it increases jungle food output by 1, suddenly making it neutral.

In addition, jungle gives +1 food when it's beside a river. So riverside jungle already balances out foodwise to start, and becomes actually profitable after Env.Ec


Now, as if giving extra food wasn't enough, jungle doesn't have a health penalty anymore, unlike in Civ. And it still gives a 50% defense bonus. But the strangest thing of all, you can build in it (ie, you can place improvements in jungle without removing it.)

Oh, and just in case you were still thinking it's not all that special. it also acts as a source of fresh water, so you can build farms next to it too.

You can't build in forest or fungus as far as I'm aware, aside from a few exceptions. Unless there's a later tech that allows it.

Functional concerns aside, how about flavour. What the hell is green earthly jungle doing on an alien planet in the first place ? plants on Alpha Centaurii are supposed to be pinkish, are they not? And moreover, they're poisonous to humans. So if it is some native jungle-like stuff, then it should still have a health penalty. Forest is only there because the colonists planted it, but jungle starts already-placed when the map generates, indicating that it's indigenous. Why would there be an indiginous terrain that's so beneficial to outsiders, while the rest of the world is trying to kill you ?

So what we have is a feature which:

1. Doesn't fit into the theme of the game, and looks out of place.
2. Is mechanically superior to both forest and xenofungus, sidelining them both (not sure about hybrid forest)
3. Can be built in without removing, which makes no sense. Especially not with windmills which don't work with trees destroying the wind currents.
4. Encourages counterintuitive gameplay. If you're not going for hybrid forest, it seems mechanically superior to want jungle everywhere, since you can build mines, farms, windmills etc inside it, with no penalty. With a bonus, in fact. BEcause it also gives +1 energy with photonics later on. Why should morgan want an empire filled with jungle while he's strip-mining the world? He shouldn't. But as implemented, it would be beneficial for him to, which seems silly.


Surely people can agree that there's a problem here. Jungle is stupidly powerful, when it's supposed tobe something negative, and out of place. I see two possible solutions.

1. remove jungle entirely. It's not needed when we have fungus.

2. Change it something like the following

• Can't be built in (removed when you build something)
• No free riverside food
• No free energy at photonics
• Gives +0.25 in nearby city
• Does not spread fresh water
• Change art to something more alien looking (even just tinting the textures pink would look better)
• Give native life a combat bonus in it, like fungus.

Then after env. economics, it would become food neutral, but still undesireable to be near.


Personally, I'd prefer option 1, though. Jungle just doesn't fit at all, I think.

 

[Pfeffersack]

There was at least the "Monsoon Jungle" landmark in SMAC, so it is not completely out of the story - but I have to admit that the current spread out implementation of jungle doesn't represent that landmark well.

I never viewed jungle in Planetfall as a problem (it is alone just to rare to get in my way all the time), but the concerns you raised are worth to be discussed.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

I tried saying some of this in order to get forests improved or jungles to be buildable.

 

[WarKirby]

Looking through the buildinfos, there are no featurestructs set for jungle. To make building something remove a feature, it has to be specifically told to, rather than, as I had assumed, being told specifically not to.

So it's quite possible that being able to build in jungles is an unintended oversight, as it wasn't specifically disallowed. Would like to see what maniac says.

I'm doing a little personal modding. I added a 0.25 health penalty to jungle, made it impossible to build in without removing, and took away the riverside food and extra energy from photonics.

I also made kelp not removed by tidal harnesses and such, since that was annoying too.

 

[Lord Tirian]

I have to say, I'm a bit confused, why jungles have to be bad for you. Why not have something useful there - the "bad stuff" is (at least initially) covered by fungus - it slows you down, gives you a health penalty etc.

As far as I can see, jungle is supposed to be good, which is clearly in line with the original inspiration, the Monsoon Jungle landmark. Having it spread out a bit makes it more interesting too, especially the early fresh water access models the positive effect nicely. It's more akin to the forests in vanilla Civ, but instead of giving you an early hammer boost, it's sort of a food booster.

On the other hand, I agree that building stuff in it should remove jungle (at least if that stuff would remove fungus and/or forest as well).

Cheers, LT.

 

[WarKirby]

But forests already give an extra hammer. Forests seem to be pretty much exactly as they are in vanilla civ.
And jungles don't give an early food boost, because they're actually detrimental early. they just become good after a while.

 

[Lord Tirian]

But forests already give an extra hammer. Forests seem to be pretty much exactly as they are in vanilla civ.

...and? They fill a different role, since they don't occur naturally and can be planted - they're sort of a health-raising terrain-improvement with some extra benefits.

And jungles don't give an early food boost, because they're actually detrimental early. they just become good after a while.

The fresh water bit, however, is usually very useful, it gives you a bit of a headstart with farms (if you don't have a river sufficiently close to you). I find that very useful, it allows me to delay the building of hydro plants for a bit, especially if I'd only build it for the fresh water.

On the other hand, I'd like to see an explanation for the exact way they're done, I just don't think they should be "bad" terrain you want to get rid of (which is very much the case with vanilla jungle).

Cheers, LT.

 

[WarKirby]

On the other hand, I'd like to see an explanation for the exact way they're done, I just don't think they should be "bad" terrain you want to get rid of (which is very much the case with vanilla jungle).

I don't think they should be bad terrain either. I think they just shouldn't be there at all, period.

It's a hostile planet. Generally isn't supposed to have nice helpful terrain, I reckon. But the presence of rivers and rainy land is nice enough for food and such.

Forest covers the Good Flora, but you have to plant it yourself because the planet hates you. Xenofungus has the Bad Flora aspect covered that jungle did. Jungle has no role to fill. Food bonuses are easily supplied from the various DNA's and nutrient bonuses around.

I'll certainly admit I dislike them for flavour just as much as mechanics. Aside from visually looking out of place, there's a tech quote by Dierdra for some early biology/centauri tech, which talks at length about how all the native plants are toxic to humans. And also a lovely visual image of a mouthful of amino nitrates.

Jungles in general, are known as breeding grounds for malaria and other diseases. And since these ones are a source of water, they're obviously similar in nature to earth jungles, except filled with completely alien life forms and poisonous plants. It doesn't make sense for them to give food

 

[GeoModder]

Jungles in general, are known as breeding grounds for malaria and other diseases. And since these ones are a source of water, they're obviously similar in nature to earth jungles, except filled with completely alien life forms and poisonous plants. It doesn't make sense for them to give food

I think of them as giving more food because jungles/monsoons plots have a larger concentration of native life, thus making it easier for the colonists to hunt/harvest it and proces it back at the base. So the extra nutrient doesn't come because jungle food is digestable by humans, but more abundant.

 

[WarKirby]

But if it's not digestible, then how does it being more abundant help?

Alpha centauri generally gave the impression that native life isn't nice to eat. With things like the hydroponics bay, one would assume the colonists initially live off food supplies they brought, and what they can grow in the bay, while they set up farming and such out on the planet surface. One particular tech quote from Dierdre talks of "paradise for earth plants. Rich nitrate content in the soil"

So I generally thought they fed themselves by growing, rather than hunting or gathering.

 

[Maniac]

Most stuff has already been said, but to summarize:

Planetfall Jungle is SMAC's Monsoon Jungle. I left out the Monsoon word to not mess up the interface with too long words.

As in SMAC, Jungle is supposed to be a good feature, not a bad one.

Regarding the graphics, long ago I suggested using the Blue Marble texture for the Monsoon Jungle (that colour seems to match SMAC Monsoon better), but Rubin said that fitted the Planetfall colour scheme even less than the vanilla texture. I don't really have an eye for such matters :-s so I just followed his opinion. He agreed with you the vanilla Jungle texture also kinda sucks though. I'm always open to ideas for graphical improvements in any area.

It gives a 50% defense bonus.
Fungus can't grow on it until a very high Flowering Counter level.
It provides fresh water, so you can immediately build farms everywhere.

It's a paradise for aspiring terraformers!

I once considered giving native life a combat penalty on Jungle, but I figured that would make Jungle TOO good.

The fact that you need to research a tech for Jungle to become useful, adds an interesting tech choice IMO. Once you have Environmental Economics, it's only tech more towards Terraforming, further encouraging a player in that direction.

Lorewise, fungus is the dominant flora on Planet. With one exception: the Monsoon Jungles. I add to the SMAC lore that jungle flora has developed some natural resistance against xenofungus. Hence why the Fungicide resource can occur on Jungle.

Regarding Dee saying that all native plants are toxic to humans, I think you're getting too tied up in realism here, which is getting in the way of creating good gameplay. However one can explain that, yes, Jungles and Grenade Fruits are useless and dangerous at first, but given sufficient xenobiological and genetic research (EnvEcon for jungles, RetroEng for Grenade Fruit) useful applications can be found for them, or their toxic aspect can be neutered.

 

[WarKirby]

If it's going to be monsoon Jungle, I'd say go ahead and name it that, then. It's not really that big. If FFH can manage with terran called "Hellish Fields of Perdition", I think planetfall can squeeze a monsoon jungle in there


And the perfect graphic already exists. The Fungicide resource. Find something new for fungicide, and use that graphic for monsoon jungle instead. As is, it doesn't look like a resource anyway. it looks like a turqoise jungle

 

[Maniac]

If FFH can manage with terran called "Hellish Fields of Perdition", I think planetfall can squeeze a monsoon jungle in there

I wouldn't exactly call FfH an example of good user interface design.

 

[WarKirby]

Well, Fall Further added an improved civic screen, because the firaxis one was a catastrophic failure of interface design. It has Narrow columns, a design which discourages adding new civic categories, and for any civic which is too long to fit in the provided space (which is small) you have to scroll down to read more. Except, you can't, because you can only scroll down on a civic that's currently selected. And you can't select civics you don't have the tech for.

but see the attached image. Monsoon Jungle isn't problematic at all. It's only marginally longer than "Hybrid Forest" anyway

The civic screen is the only place where the length of that is problematic, and monsoon jungles aren't affected by any civis so that point doesn't matter.

 

[deadliver]

The current Planetfall Civic screen works fine imho. Sure I miss the Monsoon Jungle, but Planetfall has jungle to replace it. Gain the right tech and jungles do the same thing. In SMAC the jungle was limited to a small area, luckily Planetfall is not a SMAC clone so jungles are spread out.