Make mountains passable!!

[eagle0468]

I don't know why mountains are impassable in Civ4. This is not entirely accurate, as many mountain ranges throughout the world have been used as passages for centuries. I would understand making them passable only by certain units; for instance scouts and explorers could use them to increase their viewing distances, with a movement penalty of course. Workers should be able to pass through mountains to build roads, rail, and mines, etc.

It could also be possible to make the mountains impassable only until some kind of tech is discovered, such as map making or engineering. Then the workers could make roads or rail and allow units to pass only by that route.

Another suggestion that I read in a similar thread was to create two types of mountains. Passable and Impassable. This would add to the strategy of the game in that there would be mountain pass areas that could be used as ambush points, etc.

 

[SomethingWitty]

Oh, I disagree. Mountains have always been a major impediment, even to this day.

Now, there have always been a few key high mountain passes that various people have exploited. But those exist in the game, when ever two mountains are set diagonally from each other. Nobody ever crosses the high peaks themselves, except for recreational climbers. And I don't think such a unit would contribute much to Civ4.

 

[henrycccc]

How about this: they are passable, but there is a 95% chance for any unit on it to die, like the suicide gallley thing from civ 3

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

I like how mountains are now impassable. Provides a little more strategic value to different parts of your empire.

One fun game I had was when I had a 'Mordor-Style' mountain range as part of my nation. Though I never needed it, I intended to use it as an emergency fall-back point in case of a major invasion.

 

[Instant_Cereal]

I miss alpine troops... You know the US does have divisions specially trained to fight in mountainous areas. The Swiss are notorius / famous for their tactics in the Alps. One of the many reasons why Hitler didn't bother attacking the Swiss was due to the terrain; it would've been too costly.

Certainly I don't think we should have units battling on K2 or Mt. Evarest (spelling?), but mountains have played a role in human history and shouldn't be just a useless tile. What I was thinking the first time I played Civ4 and encountered peaks is the possibility of having variations in elevation. Instead of everything being a field, hill, or a useless mountain (not all mountains are useless; minerals, for example), show variations in elevation on the map. This could easily be acheived by representing the differences in elevation by different, but subtle, colors, or providing the player with a contour view (like the ability to activate the grid on the map). There can always still be peaks like K2, the Sierra Nevadas, Chilean Mountains, etc..

Just a thought. Perhaps this might be something we'll see in future Civ games.

 

[Puzzlinon]

Mountain movement could be an advanced promotion for foot units; that would leave mountains all but impassible, but with just a little room for some sudden surprise attacks.

 

[shahreevar]

i do agree that mountains should be passable, as they are in real life. however the civ 4 mountains are really the high peaks, that even in real life are extremely hard to pass. sure u can argue that they are tunnels, and mountains roads, even bridges, etc, that allow passage. how ever since this is a "game", the impassiblity can be used strategically, especially during war time. this is wher forts come handy, sort of safguarding those rare passages that run through the mountains.

so in conclusion, i like it in the game, even though its not entirely true (or false) in real life.

 

[dh_epic]

Mountains are more strategic the way they are. Taking advantage of a good mountain range makes for interesting defence.

You only have to look at the history of India to know that this is very realistic.

 

[Half Fast]

I like the OP's idea of both passible and impassible mountains. Its simple enough, while it adds a little more strategy to the game. I never liked how in civ3 tanks and cavalry could go over any mountain. I think we should look at Hannibals attempt to go over the Alps with elephants. The mountains weren't technically impassable to any unit, but it just couldn't be done by units that weren't trained for it. Correct me if Im wrong, but I vaguely recall that it was the cold that killed the elephants, not just the steep climb. Temperature is a hard and complicated aspect to include in the game, but I think we can just say a mountian thats too high is impassable exept to units that have the promotions for it. Instant_Cereal's idea of varying elevations is the most realistic idea but perhaps to complex for this game and two distguingishable evelations of mountain should do the job. Perhaps a snowcapped mountain is impassable except to alpine troops, and mountain without a snowcap is shorter and could be used like the civ3 mountains. As for catapults and cannons going over any mountain; I would have to wait for someone to reply with an historic example of this ever being done. The game can be simple and still have plenty of strategy.

 

[Half Fast]

Since Hannible did take his elephants up the Alps and they were killed by it, we should give some serious thought to Henryccc's suggestion that units do same thing galleys do when you take into ocean tiles. This I think could be applied to the high mountains (the snowcapped ones).

 

[dh_epic]

Suicide galleys were one of the biggest exploits in Civ 3. The player could take full advantage of them and the AI couldn't, for starters. For two, it meant that galleys were just too powerful, and three, that ocean became irrelevent. So yes, a galley would sink if it tried to brave the ocean, but Civ 4 improved on this without any of the mess by just making ocean impassable.

For the same reason, impassable mountains are better than suicide mountains. More strategic this way -- the terrain actually becomes an issue.

 

[Neomega]

Moutnains being impassible takes some "freedom" from the game. there should be a way to make them passable, since all mountains are in reality traversable. There are always passes.

Scouts, explorers and workers should be able to traverse them. Workers shoudl be able to build roads, but the roads should take and EXTREMELY long time.

 

[Stormfalcon1970]

Mountain movement could be an advanced promotion for foot units; that would leave mountains all but impassible, but with just a little room for some sudden surprise attacks.

Agreed. I love the realistic strategic element of impassable mountains, but they shouldn't be (IMHO) completely impassable AND useless for anything else. Certainly not in the industrial and modern age! I like the mountain movement promotion idea. Is it possible? I haven't messed around with the map editor yet and don't want to until I get a better feel for the game plain vanilla style. The mountain thing doesn't bother me nearly as much as the useless desert tiles! But that's for a different thread.



Hello....I'm not the newbe I appear to be....was posting under different names since 2002! Not a whole lot....just occasionally.

 

[Neomega]

It is illogical for a game about human ingenuity to make something which has been done for millenia, like crossing mountains, impossible.

(EDIT: I also miss putting the hardcore partisans hiding out in the mountains fighting the communist invaders, a la red dawn... )

 

[Instant_Cereal]

It just annoys me the way mountains are so god damn useless. They're worse than desert tiles; at least you can cross them and build roads on them.

Whatever, eventually I'll make a thread one day where I'll share all of my ideas and elaborate on my elevation idea.

 

[calyth]

I'd think that building some kind of transportation improvement (at a high build cost, like 9-10 turns) should make mountains passible. There are plenty of people who live on mountains and have to get around that completely not allowing units to move through mountains, even in the 21th century, is illogical. I came from Hong Kong, and it's basically hills that yield little flat land (at least until you go into New Territory). I remember as a kid that we built tunnels for transportation, and sometimes carve down a side of the mountain to use as landfill AFAIK. There should be a mid/late game tech that makes moutains much more useful.
I also like the idea of making an upgrade that would give certain units the ability to pass a mountain.

 

[Stormfalcon1970]

It just annoys me the way mountains are so god damn useless. They're worse than desert tiles; at least you can cross them and build roads on them.

Whatever, eventually I'll make a thread one day where I'll share all of my ideas and elaborate on my elevation idea.

I was thinking they'd have different land elevation levels in this game ala SMAC when I heard it was going '3D'. Even though it was a bit of a pain at first, I actually liked that part of SMAC. (That and the more interesting A.I personalitys....different subject.) Guess I'm in the minority tho, cause instead we got the 'same ole, same ole' terrain on meth and roids. Not that it ain't purty an all....when you zoom in.

 

[dh_epic]

I feel like elevation would have been a better solution. But as it stands now, keeping mountains impassable just makes for better strategy and has wars and defensive positions unfold more realistically.

 

[eagle0468]

I like the OP's idea of both passible and impassible mountains. Its simple enough, while it adds a little more strategy to the game. I never liked how in civ3 tanks and cavalry could go over any mountain. I think we should look at Hannibals attempt to go over the Alps with elephants. The mountains weren't technically impassable to any unit, but it just couldn't be done by units that weren't trained for it. Correct me if Im wrong, but I vaguely recall that it was the cold that killed the elephants, not just the steep climb. Temperature is a hard and complicated aspect to include in the game, but I think we can just say a mountian thats too high is impassable exept to units that have the promotions for it. Instant_Cereal's idea of varying elevations is the most realistic idea but perhaps to complex for this game and two distguingishable evelations of mountain should do the job. Perhaps a snowcapped mountain is impassable except to alpine troops, and mountain without a snowcap is shorter and could be used like the civ3 mountains. As for catapults and cannons going over any mountain; I would have to wait for someone to reply with an historic example of this ever being done. The game can be simple and still have plenty of strategy.

I recently watched a History Channel program about Hannibal and the crossing of the Alps. Believe it or not, most of his elephants did make the crossing and were used in the first attacks in Italy. But the crossing took a huge toll on the health of the elephants and they all eventually sucumbed later on. As for Hannibal, he spent seven years in Italy driving the Romans crazy.

 

[eagle0468]

Since Hannible did take his elephants up the Alps and they were killed by it, we should give some serious thought to Henryccc's suggestion that units do same thing galleys do when you take into ocean tiles. This I think could be applied to the high mountains (the snowcapped ones).

This may apply if you are passing several tiles worth of mountains, but if it is just one tile of mountains, I don't really see the "reality" of it.