New eco system

[Synergy67]

Okay, agreed. Like I was saying, a global tally of forests would affect global climate and oxygen or whatever. Local forestry and farming practices would affect local regions in the more immediate way you are suggesting...the greater and quicker motivation to keep your land use in balance.

That said, there are large areas in the world which have no forests, but productive farmland, and I'm not sure how much of those were forested originally..steppes of Russia, high plains in America, etc. Obviously forests or nearby forests alone don't necessarily have the direct impact on farmland, so I'm not sure how the model would best be created. People who know more about ecology could probably come up with it better.

 

[eddie_verdde]

well, as far as I know, the steppes of Russia and the high plains of America are still what they've been for a long time: plains...the absence of trees in those regions is not a result of human action...

the existence of plains all over the world is result of few rain, however the type of soil of such plains or prairies is excellent for some type of crops and provided that plains are irrigated they will be very productive...

 

[Taé Shala]

I'm not sure if I understand Tae's idea 100%...I think what he's suggesting is that preserving forests and jungle could be encouraged by granting score bonus for "ecological civs"

No thats not the idea.
I just want to encourage the player to keep ecology in mind by threatening them with eco-disasters.
You can go and cut down everything around you but you have to think about it first or suffer a little bit for your deeds. (Or your neighbors...)

 

[Kayak]

Actually there is some thought that the central plains in the US are the result of human action, specificaly native americans. Those plains were forested once a long time ago.

 

[Synergy67]

You could well be right, Kayak. Similarly, it's common knowledge that Egypt was once forested and wet not too many thousands of years ago, and has been radically transformed into desert since somehow. Someone commented already somewhere about how Sumeria in the fertile crescent suffered this fate. In fact, I get the impression that early civilizations, upon cutting down many forests early on, really altered a lot of formerly fertile and habitable terrain in many parts of the world, the results of which we still experience to this day without having been able to reverse the effect. We're really getting another wave of that effect with the recent rapid cutting of jungles which is of course sobering.

I like the model that the Civ world starts with vast regions of forest and jungle with only small areas of grasslands and plains open, and that the great majority of your farmland would have to be carved out of the land by your hard work and planning...and if overextended, would create terrible problems or (nearly?) irreversible consequences. We'd truly start with the hunting-gathering days and little ready farmable land. The only significant or consistent areas which would be ready-made for farming would be river plains, as along the Nile, etc. As we know, these are very fertile, very productive, and not forested due to yearly flooding. Agriculture would start around rivers and slowly spread out into forested lands as necessary. I think nearly all civs should start on rivers, because civilizations with real cities, pretty much began to flourish first around the food sources and transportation they provided.

 

[Kayak]

I like the model that the Civ world starts with vast regions of forest and jungle with only small areas of grasslands and plains open, and that the great majority of your farmland would have to be carved out of the land by your hard work and planning...and if overextended, would create terrible problems or (nearly?) irreversible consequences. We'd truly start with the hunting-gathering days and little ready farmable land. The only significant or consistent areas which would be ready-made for farming would be river plains, as along the Nile, etc. As we know, these are very fertile, very productive, and not forested due to yearly flooding. Agriculture would start around rivers and slowly spread out into forested lands as necessary. I think nearly all civs should start on rivers, because civilizations with real cities, pretty much began to flourish first around the food sources and transportation they provided.

Good idea! I've always thought that irrigation should be a researched tech, not a starting one. About the river starts, Most major ancient civ capitals were indeed on a river.

 

[sir_schwick]

If we really wanted to simulate climate, temperature, and soil types, think back to something like the SimEarth system. You woudl not control the GAIA like you did in SimEarth, but the model would be the same. With techs you could see wind direction, drift, and temperature zones. These would all converge to determine soil types, ecosystems that can be supported. Biomes would also interact in the cellular automation format suggested above.

 

[Synergy67]

Reasonably, in the context of everything else Civ is doing at once, I could expect some simple climate features. Zones of terrain which might host certain kinds of degradation and natural disasters based on random controls and land treatment.

Gradual climate shifts back and forth (overall warming and cooling) would be easy to implement (some tiles in grassland regions turn into plains (or maybe most down to a certain latitude would change and vice-versa). They would also revert at some point. Yearly (or turn-ly) crop yields per tile might vary to reflect different weather patterns over the years. None of this seems too complicated but makes the planet more of a living, dynamic thing. It's conceivable that a city built on grassland and doing nicely farming for a thousand years one day finds itself in wasteland or desert with only a few farming tiles if any left. Much of the population would emigrate elsewhere, then begin to return when the climate shifts back eventually, and your city begins to generate agriculture again. Ecologically ruining/losing the topsoil might create deserts like in Egypt which you would never be able to reclaim (don't let it happen).

 

[Camber]

Very cool ideas, I like the point system.
Erosion can already be modded into the game. You can make Mountains -> Hills -> Grassland/Plains. You can also set it up to include Volcanoes in the cycle, so that you have a very volcanically active planet where mountains (or jungle, for that matter) suddenly sprout volcanoes. In addition, volcanoes can erode (e.g., volcanoes -> mountains -> hills).

Some related ideas on the ecological plane of thinking:

Old Growth value:
Chopping a forest should give a value in shields related to how long the forest has been untouched. Old growth (virgin forest) should have the full value, with newly planted forest at maybe 1/5 the value, and growing over time. In addition, Forest/Jungle tiles should have tourist value that grows with each 1000 years it has been untouched.

Natural Wonders:
The idea of "landmark terrain" in Conquests is great, but should be taken a step further. Random natural wonders should be placed on maps that have tourism value, similar to a bonus resource.

More dynamic "global warming":
When global warming occurs, more should happen than just tiles losing forest or jungle. Ice caps should melt, and eventually the coastal tiles should rise. There should also be triggers for an ice age ecological disaster that causes ice caps to grow and tundra to encroach on other tiles (grassland would be the logical choice).

More events:
Similar to the very cool volcanic eruption and Black Death events, there could be other events generated in the game, such as drought, El Nino, hurricane/monsoon, tsunami, earthquake, flooded rivers, and positive ones such as overwhelmingly good crops. The evil side of me would also like to see Mad Cow disease, Potato Blight, and genetic disasters caused by too much tampering with the human genome after the discovery of Genetics or a major nuclear conflict. For that matter, a major nuclear war should trigger the appearance of Fallout II-style resources, like mutated cattle, salvageable military debris, and roving bands of refugees.

Splinter Civs:
This may not be the right thread, but we need splinter civs in the game. If your civ is doing really bad things (like pursuing a very ecologically-unfriendly strategy), you should have the risk of some of your cities seceeding and forming a rebel republic. Master of Orion III did a great job with this concept, where a colony in civil unrest would sometimes form an independent empire.

 

[ProfessorK]

I rather like the simplicity Tae's initial suggestion might introduce to keeping some percentage of forests around.

As interesting and scientifically sound as many of the suggestions have been in this thread, I have to say that as far as game mechanics go that if a change were made, it has to remain simple. Tae's original idea is a good basic one. There should be some penalties for over harvesting of forest and jungle, not only for the civs doing so, but global penalties that the other civs would start to suffer from oxygen depletion and global warming. This could be represented through the unhealthiness measure. Might I suggest that civs responsible for destroying a certain percentage of forests and rain forests receive more unhealthiness than those other civs who are more ecologically responsible. Another issue is how would one go about replanting forests? What techs would they need and how much would it cost and how long would it take? Perhaps a new tech called Conservation could be created to allow for this which would be connected to the Ecology tech. Another concern that I have is how this additional focus on preservation of forests and jungles, particularly jungles, would put civs who start in that environment at a distinct disadvantage, as they take penalities for health if they don't clear substancial portions of their jungle. Maybe with the medicine tech, they would no longer take such penalties, but they would be penalized for a long time until they could achieve this later tech. They would be in a sort of no-win situation, having to choose between not clearing the trees and suffering health penalties and clearing the trees and suffering health penalties. It is something to think about anyway.

 

[Pitboss]

There should be some penalties for over harvesting of forest and jungle, not only for the civs doing so, but global penalties that the other civs would start to suffer from oxygen depletion and global warming.

How about decreasing population, city improvements that get damaged or destroyed by nature, (huricanes, earthquakes, fires, killer birds or bees, ...)

They would be in a sort of no-win situation, having to choose between not clearing the trees and suffering health penalties and clearing the trees and suffering health penalties. It is something to think about anyway.

You could balance it out by leaving greater distances between your cities, and enabling the option, "leave the forrests unharmed" in the menu.

 

[Eskel]

I like Tae's original idea. If it has to be playable, it must be simple.
At the mechanics side, it could look something like this:
- all eco-simulation is independent from player - tile scoring should be solved in backgrond, invisibly to player. Player should only receive scientists warning when global enviroment is destabilized and gets worse, eventually statements that it get to the balance again.
- tile scoring system could be more complex: e.g. grasslands, plains, hills +1pt, forests +2pts, jungles +4pts, mines -2pts.
- city pollution should be subtracted from global eco-balance points sum
- health bonuses from aqueduct, grocery, harbor and hospital shouldnt be included into this calculation (as they improve living quality, but don't remove pollution)
- there should be more pollution penalty from population and buildings, but higher health bonus from woods and jungles - not only under enviromentalism
- there should be eco-limit dependant on map size, type, and difficulty level - after global sum of eco-points dropping below that limit, global warming should start. The bigger difference, the faster should temperature rise.
- after reaching successive temperature's milestones, some tiles should be degraded, but eco-limit lowered, so global warming can slow down over time as enviroment stabilizes in new circumstances. Note, that sometimes it might not work, as if too many tiles will turn into desert, the global eco-capacity will drop as well, thus negative balance will be kept.
- there should be UN resolutions added, which would allow decreasing pollution along with production
- there should be bilateral agreements about forests preservation (giving possibility to trade such liabilities for money)

Seems to be complex and difficult, but - note it carefully - all those calculations wouldnt engage player, being totally invisible. Player would only face effects and scientists warning each few turns, that global pollution reached dangerous level and temperatures may rise and so on.

BTW: i like also the idea of happiness caused by woods (or unhappiness caused by lack of them). Total absence of forests/jungles in the city area should cause bigger health penalty as it is now. Both of these ideas can be implemented in game alongside with Tae's concept.

 

[ProfessorK]

Any fairly-designed nuiance to the game, like environmentalism, should be welcomed as long as the players have a choice to include it or not in a custom game menu. Those who want a less-complex game can have it. Everyone is happy.