Mountains=Useless?

[Zaimejs]

One little issue I have had with Civ IV (and all others) is that mountain ranges are generally useless. But as we know, they create tourism and happiness and all kinds of other things in real life not to mention mining and skiing etc. etc.

I noticed in a screen shot that there are mountains with peaks in Civ V and then smaller mountains. I wonder if the developers are "fixing" this misunderstanding about the uselessness of mountains.

I also hope we can terraform deserts. We know this is possible.

 

[Tylerryan79]

Ya in civ iv you'd either have the volcano random event or holy mountain quest. I think they should at the least have a positive random event for mountains, maybe adding health or happiness to the city it is in. I can see there being no hammers or anything (the hammers for a mountain would have to be huge compared to a dinky hill) just to give the game a little bit more of a challenge.

I dont have a view with the desert. I dont like them, but either way Id be fine.

 

[xenobiotic]

I mine mountains in civ3

 

[Alki]

We can terraform desert? Is that why the Sahara is expanding with global warming and we're powerless to stop it?

Tourism is a very late game benefit for mountains (valid I suppose) but mining and railroads etc should be possible early on, perhaps at increased time for the workers to carry out tasks.

 

[Chalks]

I don't think "happiness" caused by mountains is something that would be significant enough to model.

As far as tourist stuff goes, this would be much better represented by a building constructed in the city rather than some sort of tourism farm as a terrain improvement. It would need to be unrestricted too, since you don't have to have a mountain or any particular terrain feature to have a tourist industry so it doesn't really relate to mountains in particular.

 

[Shurdus]

In terms of tile-yield mountains are useless. If you place a city next to it however this city gets trade routes' and the commerce from that can very well account for the tourism that mountains may provide, although this is highly abstracted and not really related to the mountain pass per se.

Mountains however are not useless in civ in the sense that they provide no benefot whatsoever. mountains can be very much important for blocking purposes and for creating natural military chokepoints.

 

[Disgustipated]

I believe the decision made in civ4 was to ease the ai ability to found decent cities, and improve ai. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Restricting the choices an ai has to make, makes it easier to program that ai.

That said, I dislike mountains being entirely useless. I can understand not allowing settling on them, but to give no tile yield? Give us 1 hammer at least. I believe civ2 gave 2 hammers, that might be too much.

Because I have to ask why have mountains if they don't do anything other than block troops. Most random map scripts don't give enough mountains to effectively block troops. Only on earth maps do mountain ranges offer better strategic options. But then on earth maps you have problems with cities with lots of mountains in them that can't be worked in any way.

As for deserts, an above post summed it up. We had another thread with a big discussion on it. It's something dear to my heart as I live in a big city in the mojave desert. I won't get into it too much here, as it's off subject. See that thread for more details. I just wanted to agree that our terraforming is extremely limited. We can't transform deserts. We can pump water from the ground if there is an aquifer, and if there's a river flowing through, we can irrigate from that. But the amount of water is still limited.

 

[Chalks]

Because I have to ask why have mountains if they don't do anything other than block troops. Most random map scripts don't give enough mountains to effectively block troops. Only on earth maps do mountain ranges offer better strategic options. But then on earth maps you have problems with cities with lots of mountains in them that can't be worked in any way.

That sounds like a problem with the map script rather than with the concept of a mountain.

I disagree that mountains should provide a hammer just because you want it to be of some benefit. Not every tile has to be of benefit to a city.

 

[Shurdus]

I believe the decision made in civ4 was to ease the ai ability to found decent cities, and improve ai. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Restricting the choices an ai has to make, makes it easier to program that ai.

That said, I dislike mountains being entirely useless. I can understand not allowing settling on them, but to give no tile yield? Give us 1 hammer at least. I believe civ2 gave 2 hammers, that might be too much.

Because I have to ask why have mountains if they don't do anything other than block troops. Most random map scripts don't give enough mountains to effectively block troops. Only on earth maps do mountain ranges offer better strategic options. But then on earth maps you have problems with cities with lots of mountains in them that can't be worked in any way.

As for deserts, an above post summed it up. We had another thread with a big discussion on it. It's something dear to my heart as I live in a big city in the mojave desert. I won't get into it too much here, as it's off subject. See that thread for more details. I just wanted to agree that our terraforming is extremely limited. We can't transform deserts. We can pump water from the ground if there is an aquifer, and if there's a river flowing through, we can irrigate from that. But the amount of water is still limited.

On the subject of tile yield from mountains: if mountains grant two hammers, then this will result in a whopping maybe 4 hammer increase in the city output overall. The limiting factor is food, and having a 2-hammer yield is very very inefficient. If mountains would grant two hammers then you are better off running a specialist. It gets worse with one hammer of course. Considering this, mountains may as well have no yield. A one-hammer mountain tile has the same output as a peasant-specialist...

 

[Shurdus]

That sounds like a problem with the map script rather than with the concept of a mountain.

I disagree that mountains should provide a hammer just because you want it to be of some benefit. Not every tile has to be of benefit to a city.

And if you want one single hammer from the tile - that is you want to sacrifice two food for one single lousy hammer - then you can run the cheapest of all specialists. It grants one hammer for two food too!

 

[Chalks]

I can tell you are better at this game than I am

 

[De Begerac]

We can terraform desert? Is that why the Sahara is expanding with global warming and we're powerless to stop it?

Tourism is a very late game benefit for mountains (valid I suppose) but mining and railroads etc should be possible early on, perhaps at increased time for the workers to carry out tasks.

We're not powerless to stop it. But the scale of the budget and resources needed against the projected gains makes it not worthwhile. The worlds eyes are elsewhere. Most projects are possible. Give me a big enough budget and no ethical or moral constraints and I can turn Everest into a 3 storey car park.

Cyrano

 

[Shurdus]

We're not powerless to stop it. But the scale of the budget and resources needed against the projected gains makes it not worthwhile. The worlds eyes are elsewhere. Most projects are possible. Give me a big enough budget and no ethical or moral constraints and I can turn Everest into a 3 storey car park.

Cyrano

why stop at three storeys?

 

[Ahriman]

Mountains and deserts *are* pretty useless economically (in relative terms) IRL even in the present day, let alone throughout human history.

By definition, moutain tiles represent the really high peaks that are impassible and economically useless. Anything else counts as hills.

If you make mountains useable and passible then you're just making them boring weak versions of hills, rather than something that is actually strategically different.

 

[Pazyryk]

It would be pretty bland if all tiles were equally valuable or equally passable. I like having some economic and strategic diversity in land tiles, and mountains really were barriers to travel. Deserts should provide some form of barrier too. However, I do wish there were some other way to make these difficult to traverse without having the strict "impassible" mechanic.

I'm fine with tourism on mountains and massive irrigation of deserts, but both of these should be very modern developments.

 

[Zaimejs]

I don't know where you all live, but I'm in Nebraska. And many thousands of Nebraskans travel to Colorado and Wyoming. Do you know why? No, it isn't the people or the cities. It's the mountains. I flew to Portland, OR recently right over Mt. Hood, and there is a definite appeal to living near these mountain ranges. Let's not forget the Olympics...

And as far as terraforming... we have future techs!!! Space ships! Dubai is terraforming deserts already... it's a matter of money, not tech.

 

[Schuesseled]

moutains should be traversible in the late game, and deserts should be able to be irrigated at around the same time. Until then they can go on being ugly useless tiles.

 

[Chalks]

moutains should be traversible in the late game, and deserts should be able to be irrigated at around the same time. Until then they can go on being ugly useless tiles.

This is something I wouldn't object to. A big expensive modern era terrain improvement that allows the traversal of mountains. A tunnel improvement that has to be constructed on either side of the mountain to connect it.

Terrain improvements can be destroyed by troops so it doesn't undermine the defensive features of mountains, but it would make life easier in the modern era. More realistic too.

 

[moscaverde]

The OP said mountains are useless, but they're not; I saw in many maps mountains creating shockpoints (sp?) helping to shape some nations, slowing down units by having to move along the mountain ranges etc.

 

[hclass]

why stop at three storeys?

For easy naming in memory of the EVEREST.

First storey is called "valley" floor
Mid storey is called "mountainside"
and the top one is called "mountaintop"