A meteor has never actually wiped out the world according to history books. Why would you want an event of a city being destroyed by an asteroid if it hasn't even occurred. Only the atomic bomb has been used to destroy a city.
Let's make Civ 5
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A meteor has never actually wiped out the world according to history books. Why would you want an event of a city being destroyed by an asteroid if it hasn't even occurred. Only the atomic bomb has been used to destroy a city.
Destroying entire cities instantly is crazy, but then again, isn't something that poisons a city or instantly freezes your city in unhappiness crazy too?
You can stop those, just like you should be able to stop the meteor(or really just weaken the damage) with an SDI-type thing.
You can stop those, just like you should be able to stop the meteor(or really just weaken the damage) with an SDI-type thing.
Onionsoilder
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Wrong. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not destroyed. They did take a huge amount of damage from the direct blast and fallout, but the damage done was not as devastating as people think. I'm not by any means advocating nuclear weapons, they are a horrible thing to use(especially modern ones, which are much more powerful). However, many people think the bombs left only a smoldering crater, which is not the case.
Stoklomolvi
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The thing with Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that both bombs were extremely primitive, being gun-type and having yield in the kilotons. Modern ICBMs have the capability to wipe entire countries off the planet (small ones, mind you), as one megaton has a very different effect than a few kilotons.
In game, it could be represented as follows.
Let's say I fire 4 ICBMs from my capital in Beijing. They fly across the Gobi, and hit, say, some generic city in Europe with population 14. Now, if each of these missiles hits, the city should have half of the population per hit removed from play. So, 4 missiles would leave the city with
14/2 = 7
7/2 = 3.5 (int) -> 3
3/2 = 1.5 (int) -> 1
1/2 = 0.5 (int) - > 0
Thus, after 4 nukes, the city should be considered "razed" in game terms for simplicity. Or, we could just lop off four fifths of the population.
14/5 = 2.8 (int) -> 2
2/5 = 0.4 (int) -> 0
Thus, levelling the city after two hits. This is assuming that the ICBMs have a yield of at least one megaton. Tactical nukes would do far less.
Bah, I'm rambling again.
In game, it could be represented as follows.
Let's say I fire 4 ICBMs from my capital in Beijing. They fly across the Gobi, and hit, say, some generic city in Europe with population 14. Now, if each of these missiles hits, the city should have half of the population per hit removed from play. So, 4 missiles would leave the city with
14/2 = 7
7/2 = 3.5 (int) -> 3
3/2 = 1.5 (int) -> 1
1/2 = 0.5 (int) - > 0
Thus, after 4 nukes, the city should be considered "razed" in game terms for simplicity. Or, we could just lop off four fifths of the population.
14/5 = 2.8 (int) -> 2
2/5 = 0.4 (int) -> 0
Thus, levelling the city after two hits. This is assuming that the ICBMs have a yield of at least one megaton. Tactical nukes would do far less.
Bah, I'm rambling again.
Öjevind Lång
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I agree with all of this. In Civ III, cities next to mountains could be destroyed by volcanic eruptions, and even that was very annoying.
I also wish they would be a little more sparing with mountains. Why not major mountains which function as in Civ IV and minor mountains that you can't settle on, but you can pass over them and they can be mined?
You can also take it one step further, and give everything an altitude. Right now in Civ4, the earth is flat. No big mountainous areas that are located 1 km higher than the rest of the world. Giving areas an altitude would allow for realistic mountain ranges. It would also allow fighting to have an extra dimension, which is fighting downhill or uphill. The reason the Inca cities were so difficult to take wasn't because they were on a small hill after all, it was because they were on mountains 3km above sea level.Öjevind Lång;7464556 said:
Ramesses
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As it stands now, a downloadable generator like Fractal Terrains Pro (which has a free 14-day trial with no locked features, bless them) is able to create more realistic and more detailed maps more quickly and more efficiently than Civ IV. If Sid were to implement something like that in Civ V, there should be no problems creating maps with altitude.
Simulating wind and sea currents remains a dream, however.
Justy
Warlord
Just because it hasn't, doesn't mean it couldn't happen. The blast that hit the Tonguska Forest in 1908 could have leveled a city.
Now I would agree that an event which wipes out a city should be a toggle in the game. Have the severity of events be a slider in the options. There have been floods, fires, tsunamis, volcanic blasts which have destroyed cities. It could be a challenge to an experienced gamer to survive such an event.
As for an asteroid hitting the Earth it could be a cool event in the modern age if the game tells you 'Your astronomers have detected an object approaching the Earth. They predict it will impact in X number of turns. Then there is a chance per turn that the knowledge leaks and causes world panic
. Governments can contribute beakers towards destroying the object. Then if you find of that the object is going to hit an enemy AI do you still contribute and send spies to destroy beaker factories 
. Perhaps taking the chance of a massive rep hit. It has many possibilities 
.
Ramesses
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Yes, but you can still settle on hills. There should be a mountain tile that you can't settle on, but can still move and work on.
I disagree; every tile should be workable, movable, and settleable - although maybe not until you;ve got the right tech in some cases.
Why would you want all that could happen in other versions of the history of human civilisation to be limited to only things that have happened in our history at that level ? When the game design is fine with, say. the Aztecs going to nuclear war with a Chinese-German alliance ?
It's not the fact that a meteor event has not happened in geologically recent times that I object to. It's the fact that every playtester hated a much less severe version of the same thing. You can have natural disasters that are slaps on the wrist, but when you wipe out a continent with a meteor impact, as well as decimating the unlucky Civs that inhabit it, you have taken any semblence of skill out of the game. When the events have small impacts, both positive and negative, you add the flavor without breaking the game into a matter of just getting one event to happen and then you are set to win.
That's the argument there. It's not a matter of history, it's a matter of playability.
That's the argument there. It's not a matter of history, it's a matter of playability.
What the meteor event should do, IMO:
It picks a random tile for it's impact
Within 5 tiles of the impact, everything is destroyed and turned into radioactive desert (because of a huge firestorm caused by the meteor)
If any of the tiles hit by the firestorm were water tiles, a tsunami occurs, causing: all units on coastal tiles die, all coastal cities lose 50% of their population and some buildings in these cities are destroyed (tsunamis caused by meteors would be pretty bad)
The 5 turns after the meteors impact, dust blocks the sunlight, meaning no tile in the world can produce food (thus causing massive starvation)
5 turns after the impact, sunlight can get through the clouds (thus enabling food production again), but the Sun's infrared rays still wouldn't be able to get through, thus causing massive cooling. This means ice and tundra move further south and north.
Two other global disasters ideas:
Alien Invasion: during 5 turns, everywhere on the planet huge amounts of überstrong (70+strenghth) barbarians spawn.
Ice Age: basically the end effect of the meteor, but without the tsunami and sh*t.
Of course, all these global catastrophes should be off standardly, but you could turn them on using the custom game menu.
It picks a random tile for it's impact
Within 5 tiles of the impact, everything is destroyed and turned into radioactive desert (because of a huge firestorm caused by the meteor)
If any of the tiles hit by the firestorm were water tiles, a tsunami occurs, causing: all units on coastal tiles die, all coastal cities lose 50% of their population and some buildings in these cities are destroyed (tsunamis caused by meteors would be pretty bad)
The 5 turns after the meteors impact, dust blocks the sunlight, meaning no tile in the world can produce food (thus causing massive starvation)
5 turns after the impact, sunlight can get through the clouds (thus enabling food production again), but the Sun's infrared rays still wouldn't be able to get through, thus causing massive cooling. This means ice and tundra move further south and north.
Two other global disasters ideas:
Alien Invasion: during 5 turns, everywhere on the planet huge amounts of überstrong (70+strenghth) barbarians spawn.
Ice Age: basically the end effect of the meteor, but without the tsunami and sh*t.
Of course, all these global catastrophes should be off standardly, but you could turn them on using the custom game menu.
A nuclear war has not happened but is a possibility in Civ. A cold war between India and the Zulu-Egyptian alliance is possible just like the soviet union and the united states.
I do prefer events such as an Apollo program or a Tsunami. Most of the game is based on these evernts. When an asteroid has not wiped out a city in recorded history, why include that event?
Onionsoilder
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As far as the elevation, any non-huge jump in elevation just wouldn't matter, and would be a PITA to program. However, there should be more types of elevation features:
Hill: Represents, well, rolling hills. Can pretty much remain as it is now.
Mountain: A new intermediary between hills and peaks. Can be traversed, worked, and settled.
Peak: Mount-Everest type mountains. Remains off-limits, but there are very, very limited amounts of them.
Cliff: Similar to a River, this is not an actual tile, but a border feature. Close-range units attacking up or down have severe penalties. Ranged units only receive a (minor) penalty when attacking up.
Hill: Represents, well, rolling hills. Can pretty much remain as it is now.
Mountain: A new intermediary between hills and peaks. Can be traversed, worked, and settled.
Peak: Mount-Everest type mountains. Remains off-limits, but there are very, very limited amounts of them.
Cliff: Similar to a River, this is not an actual tile, but a border feature. Close-range units attacking up or down have severe penalties. Ranged units only receive a (minor) penalty when attacking up.
I'm still not getting where you are drawing the line of plausibility here. We have ample evidence for major asteroid impacts on the planet every now and again, after all.
Ramesses
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I'm going to repeat what has already been said. It's not an issue of plausibility, it's an issue of avoiding anything that could cause a player to go "WHAAAAT!? OH MY F***ING G*D, WHAT THE F*** JUST HAPPENED!?!? F***ING F***, I WAS F***ING WINNING, AND THE F***ING ASTEROID RUINED EVERYTHING! HOW THE F*** WAS I SUPPOSED TO F***ING STOP THAT!?!? F***!!! THIS F***ING SUCKS A**!!! I HATE THIS F***ING GAME AND EVERYTHING IN LIFE!!!" *shoots self*
Or thereabouts.
Dude, I agree.
I am entirely opposed to this notion on gameplay grounds (unless we get a space layer and asteroid mining and it happens if you mess up bringing an asteroid into orbit); just trying to figure out where exhile's realism line is.
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