New Pollution Model

[sir_schwick]

If history has shown us anything, its that pollution is never an isolated problem. I think they shoudl use a re-vamped version of the SMAC pollution model. For those who never played SMAC, here it is.

All terrain improvements added "Eco-damage". Over time this damage would accumulate and you city might be afflicted with various environmental woes. A good example was "Smog", which reduced commerce production per square for 10 squares.

My ammendments would be to include "Acid Rain" to local weather. I also think that water and river pollution should be observed. For example, river polution could easily damage cities that use the water downstream, even the irrigation that runs from it. Acid rain could be deposited in a rivers source and that pollution carried out to sea. polluted waters would reduce food production and trade in ocean squares. It could make citizens sick. Smog would greatly reduce commerce in later ages(tourism). It also increases maintenance costs, and could destroy ancient structures(like in Athens). It would also make you unpopular among "clean" countries.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I feel that I am to some degree in agreement with you. I feel that pollution producing improvements, and/or overexploitation of resources and tiles, should contribute to some kind of 'pollution scale' for that city. As the scale increases from negligable through to harmful---->dangerous---->lethal and so on, the effect it has on your people, and the surrounding environment, should get steadily worse. In addition, any a % of any city-based pollution levels will add to a similar 'national scale', with effects that can strike ANYWHERE within your nation. Finally, a % of national pollution contributes to a 'Global Pollution Scale' with similar effects, but on a GLOBAL scale.
Unlike previous pollution systems, though, effects on surrounding terrain would not come in the forms of 'pollution blotches' for workers to go and clean up. Instead, it would come as degraded tile outputs (fewer shields, fewer food) lost tile improvements, and even terrain changes (plains/grasslands to desert for example-or inland turning to coast!!). Other effects would be unhappiness, lost city/national income and even population die off. The only way to reverse these trends is mostly to reduce the pollution scale by converting to less polluting improvements, underexploting resources and tiles, and investing more money into the environment. Once your pollution scale falls below certain levels, then damage will naturally repair itself over a number of turns. Any terrain improvements or population losses will have to be replaced via player actions, though. Tile damage will repair fairly quickly, wheras terrain changes will probably take a long time to change back to 'normal'.
You can increase the rate of repair, though, by investing your public works budget into 'Repair Environmental Damage'. The more you invest, the quicker it changes back-though there should be some kind of minimum repair time that NO amount of further investment can reduce it below.
I feel that this would allow pollution to still have an impact on your success in the game, but without retaining the micromanagement tedium of the existing pollution model!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.