Option I'd kill for: Global Warming

[Kissamies]

Themost likely causes of GW which come to mind are:
Coal plants/factories
cars
deforestation
^agriculture (these 2 are linked)

Trying to put these on Civ4 terms:
Coal plants/factories
Count all caused by buildings.
cars
1/10th of the population , 1/5th after you discover steam power and 1/3rd after industrialism.
deforestation
^agriculture (these 2 are linked)
Any forest of jungle square lowers the global pollution score.

should have no effect when figuring pollution because it's mostly about people, not enviroment. Enviromentalism would halve the pollution of your cities or make it 2/3.

So you count all the pollution scores of the cities in the world together, substract any forest/jungle effect, add any fallout square effect(which should be relatively small). When the score is over a certain threshold, you get GW, or there could be a series of random chances and the more you go over the value, the more likely it is.

I have no doubt that the current model is something like this, but looks at the fallout squares too much. Stuck to the old whackamole pollution system where those polluted squares were important, perhaps.

 

[Ball Lightning]

Thanks for that.

 

[magicalsushi]

I have no doubt that the current model is something like this, but looks at the fallout squares too much. Stuck to the old whackamole pollution system where those polluted squares were important, perhaps.

Why are people still saying this?

The current model is *not* like that. Not even remotely. The current model is: has a nuclear plant melted down or an ICBM successfully hit a city yet? If yes: global warming occurs for the rest of the game. If no: global warming doesn't occur until one of the above events happens.

It's that simple. You should be able to find confirmation of this in the archives. That is why people complain about the feature. If it were more similar to what you describe, I don't think people would resent it as much - I really hope they have changed it in BtS. The Civ 2 system was somewhat close to what you've suggested, and would be a massive improvement on the Civ 4 version, although it wasn't perfect either.

 

[Kissamies]

So there is no model? That's very bad. I wouldn't have thinked they would leave that part of game so undetailed. If so, it really needs improving.

The biggest problem about the old pollution system was that it was too much about whacking those pollution squares down. Now the local aspects of pollution are covered by the health system and it just needs global aspects thought up without that fallout/pollution square relic.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

Global warming does not exist because the current US administration does not believe in it. Why would they lie to you?

Use your heads people, holy crap.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Global warming does not exist because the current US administration does not believe in it. Why would they lie to you?

Use your heads people, holy crap.

 

[ori]

No I'm not being sarcastic. The point is it all adds to it. It's not just about nuclear weapons in the game, also pollution. Isn't it?

Actually it is - GW is triggered once the first nuke has exploded (that includes nuclear meltdown at nuclear plants) and it is then proportional to the number of nukes exploded. Nothing else influences GW in the game mechanics...

 

[bonafide11]

PS: I don't personally believe in global warming either. The earth isn't a globe: it's flat. Liberals created that fake satellite image to erode respect for the Pope. It should be called flat warming.

 

[Saim]

So that's why I got hit by Global Warming: I chucked a nuke at the Arctic for no reason other than I wanted to nuke something (I had no one to fight with... I destroyed them all ).

 

[Duuk]

I liked the way CTP2 handled global warming. It was completely by pollution.

 

[winddbourne]

Yes, I fully agree that the global warming system needs to either be taken out completely or redone. They eliminated the pollution based system because it was not fun, but they failed to add in a system that WOULD be fun. Before we HAD to combat pollution all the time in the late game, now we get GW and can do NOTHING about it. Which I believe is much worse.

Perhaps national parks and preserves, plus the civic will help with this now? Plus new buildings such as mass transit systems? It does seem like they might have been at least considering the issue.

I can only hope it has been reworked and is simply not 'important' enough to be considered a selling feature by the marketing department. After all changing an algorithm in the late game and tying it to a number of buildings . . . isn't something you'd think would get a huge response from anyone except us fanatics.

Also it might be considered part of the 'Rework of the late game' that keeps being mentioned. Changing GW certainly would make for a better late game.

 

[magicalsushi]

I dunno, I imagine we'd have heard something by now, and even the slightest hint would be seized upon instantly and debated at length on this forum. I also think they must have some idea how much the issue irritates people who play the game a lot. I'm sure they'd have made it known to us if they planned to make a change to it, even if it's not important enough to mention on the back of the box.

 

[TheLastOne36]

If global warming is in, then so should Global Cooling!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Cooling

before people believed in Global Warming, They believed in Global Cooling!

I'm not going to believe in something that's just as fake as Global Cooling IMHO.

 

[dh_epic]

I feel like "climate change" is actually the most accurate. Most scientists agree that the earth is being impacted by various emissions. The disagreement usually centers on where the changes will be felt, what kinds of changes, how soon, and how serious.

Regardless, I don't think it's possible to make anybody care about climate change in Civ. If you're winning, it doesn't matter that everyone is getting hit with hurricanes and desertification equally. You just keep pressing on, in the face of a growing nuisance that can do nothing to alter the REAL point of civilization: to win. It just doesn't fit in the game. They should take it out completely.

Nobody said conquest victory has to give you control of a functioning planet.

 

[Bongo-Bongo]

If global warming is in, then so should Global Cooling!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Cooling

before people believed in Global Warming, They believed in Global Cooling!

I'm not going to believe in something that's just as fake as Global Cooling IMHO.

Lets not forget acid rain. That was going to be the end of us all about 10-15 years ago, but now that been completley forgotten about because now governments have this global warming fad to scare us with. A couple years down the line, they'll be bored with this and find something else to put the fear of death into us.

As for how this should be dealth with in civ, I feel no need to implement it. The option to turn it off would be good, especially for those of us who believe this is just a load of hot air.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Bob Barker reminding you: Help control the Liberal population! Have your Liberals spayed or neutered!

Back to global warming in Civilization:

I really don't care if global warming is real or not as far as the game's concerned. I'm a Civilization traditionalist, which means I'm for keeping features in the game so long as they aren't annoying or unbalanced. Global warming has been in since Civ 2 at least (don't know about 1) with varying ranges of effects.

In Civ 2, if you had a lot of polluted squares, it could trigger global warming (you got a warning first) which would change about half the squares on the map to something worse (jungle, etc.) While this was annoying it didn't necessarily ruin the game, and you had a chance to clean up the pollution first to stop it.

In Civ 3, GW was caused by pollution, and it would cause terrain to change/disappear ("global warming has turned forest into plains!") Again, this was a little annoying but not a game-breaker.

Now, in Civ 4, what do we have? Tiles get turned into desert. Yep, that's right, desert--no food, usually no production, and maybe one or two commerce. If it happens enough, your cities will begin to starve and there's nothing you can do about it.

The two problems I have are 1) it's not linked to pollution/unhealthiness, but only to nukes; and 2) there's not a bloody thing you can do to combat it. Whatever you want to say about real GW, most of the environmentalists like Al Gore say there's something you can do to slow it down. Even if there weren't, assuming humans can affect it at all, so what? The sun will eventually explode and kill all life on Earth in about 5 billion years, too (with other disasters coming long before then.) I'm not aware that there's anything we can do except leave before it happens. Should we put that in the game, too? No, because it's not fun to have your whole map disappear and for you to lose the game just because the RNG decided it's time to go nova.

So I'd say GW should be in, if for no other reason than I prefer to keep "traditional" mechanics in Civ as long as they're good. Trouble is, this is not the traditional way it's been done--you used to be able to combat it. Firaxis dropped the ball on this one.

 

[Kissamies]

Civ 1 GW and pollution worked like Civ 2's, IIRC. It turned coastal squares to swamp, I think. I agree that it should be implemented properly or not at all. It could be an interesting game mechanic giving reason to run enviromentalism civic in late game sometimes and force other civs to do so. I used to be afraid to build coal plants.

So if you choose to not to believe in GW, don't implement it at all. Otherwise give us something halfway decent. This half-cocked business just hurts the gameplay.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well here's my solution in terms of how to handle Global Warming

Tiles can suffer "Environmental Damage" a covering for a tile like Forest/Fallout/Jungle/Floodplains/Oasis (available for all tiles except Desert+Peaks including Water ones)

1. Caused by: Unhealth+Nukes
Power unhealth (strongest)
Building unhealth
Population unhealth (weakest)
Terrain unhealth (no effect)
Nukes

A key factor in the effect is that it builds up over time, and declines by a fixed amount, so when everything is just forges and <12 pop cities, then you aren't likely to have much.

Also "Environmental Damage" can Spread into other tiles (they are More likely, not less, to spread into tiles with an improvement/road on them)

2. Effects of: "Environmental Damage"
Forest/Jungle/Fallout destroyed if present [Improvements remain]
+1 Unhealth, -2 Food
Access to 'biological resources' eliminated (still 'there' but not available as resources.)
You CAN build improvements on top of it (it can NOT be eliminated first)


3. Dealing with "Environmental Damage"

Prevention-rework the Environmentalism Civic
High Maintenance
0 unhealth from population (maybe 1/2 instead)
+1 Happy/?3? Health.
+1 Unhappy for each Building/Power Unhealth.
include non-coal power and Recycling Centers and you have no non-Nuke sources of pollution

Removal-"Environmental Damage" is removed if it is Unworked long enough OR in the borders of a Civ with Ecology long enough. (similar to cottage say 60 turns of unwork or 30 turns of 'Ecology')


This way you combat it by
1. Discovering Ecology for yourself to get rid of it in your area
2. Getting as many civs as possible to adopt Environmentalism (good role for the UN)

No "whack-a-mole"

 

[MangleMeElmo]

I don't think "idiot" is an insult - it is used to denote a person who is unable to process facts and reach logical conclusions due to intellectual inefficiency. A definition that fits you quite well.

Have you noticed that no one has offered an actual argument to what I said? They all just resort to namecalling and nitpicking. Like I said before, I invite people to a debate via PM if they can keep it civil. I certainly have. If all you guys have to offer is sarcasm, how does that make me the idiot?

 

[dh_epic]

Some traditional mechanics are just traditionally bad or useless. I still maintain that the UN is pretty useless in a game where there can only be one winner. The same is true of global non-state threats like global warming, suicide bombers, or avian bird flu. Why bother fixing a problem that isn't making any difference to your victory?