I am trying to arrange a terrain system that could represent a little better the diversity of biomes while it also keeps gameplay signifcance and it is easy to be learned. So this led to the next picture as the base example of this abstraction:
Basically the climate is the main aspect and the biomes come from it, the three horizontal lines represent the range of temperature as
cold,
mild and
warm, while the five vertical columns cover the average humidity/precipitation but since this determine the resulting vegetation the names are related to this as
wasteland,
scrubland,
grassland,
woodland and
wetland. Technically each of the resulting 15 combinations represent a particular biome (as represented in the next table) BUT in game they do not need to have 15 names, the player just need to recognize the combination of
temperature X
vegetation (humidity).
About the gameplay and yields some (preliminar) ideas to differentiate them are:
X)
Temperature:
- COLD, +1 production. Represent the imperative necesity to build shelters to survive winter.
- MILD, +1 food and +1 production.
- WARM, +1 food. Histoircally even hot desert have been more densely populated than the taiga, that just recently is being urbanized.
Y)
Vegetation (soil humidity):
- WASTELAND, 0 yield from true deserts. It can not built there (with some exceptions), neither be traversed (also subject of changes). Visually have no plants.
- SCRUBLAND, +1 food and +1 production. Kind of replaces the "hills" variant of terrain. Visually have bushes, some sparse trees and exposed rocks.
- GRASSLAND, +2 food. Visually is covered in tall grasses and some tiles could have also isolated trees.
- WOODLAND, +2 production. Reduce mobility. Visually is densely forested.
- WETLAND, +2 food. Reduce mobility and have negative appeal. Visually is flooded.
Z)
Elevation (relief):
- HIGHLANDS, can have only cold biomes except bog.
- MIDLANDS, can have all biomes excluding wetlands.
- LOWLANDS, can have all biomes.
- SHALLOW WATERS, include coast and lakes, but each of these also have their own particularities.
- DEEP WATERS, in general all sea tiles also have differentiation of cold, mild and warm forms (visual, features and resources).
About elevations, the defensive value of CIV's traditional "
hills" is replaced by a bonus to the units/building on the highground tile while the ones on the lowground have a penalty when a movement/attack action is done in contiguous tiles with different height. Also impassable
cliffs are put in the border sides of those hexagons that have a difference of more than one height level between adjacent tiles.
Others features:
-
Mountains, are basically impassable (some exceptions) visually taller than highlands. Bonus by proximity to science and culture.
-
Rivers, this time are added to each tile instead of be borders, still have a defensive bonus with mobility penalty for land units, but are navigable and provide trade route bonus. Also add +2 food extra yield and housing but could suffer floods.
- Unique crops and domestic animals not only could be found in different combinations of these "terrains" but also new
varieties can be breeded and propagated in them.