Pollution causing loss of reputation

[mevlin]

Hi,

This may have been brought up before but I feel that civs that pollute the world without care should take a rep hit once recycling is discovered. So in effect it's like "hey, you can fix the problem but you're not bothering! I'm not happy with that"

Also, I was playing last night and the idea actually came to me when one of my heavily polluted cities dumped pollution on a rival civs city range lol. Now that should incur some sort of rep hit I think because that is taking liberties, causing pollution in another civs land!

 

[mevlin]

This may actually be the case in Civ3 and I'm just unaware of it though...

 

[warpstorm]

In principle I agree with this, but there are some kinks to work out. Should a country that hasn't discovered recycling care that you are polluting? Should an evil dictatorship care?

 

[mevlin]

This is what I'm thinking Warpstorm. Before the rivals discover Recycling then it's not a problem but when they become aware that it can be prevented and you are a serious polluter then they can get angry. And I guess an evil dictatorship would care less no lol.

Quality avatar btw

 

[sir_schwick]

The only problem I see is that players will start avoiding recycling just so they don't have to clean up pollution.

 

[dh_epic]

Maybe it should be a phenomenon for only those in the modern age, and for those who have embraced populist forms of government (Democracy, Communism).

 

[dexters]

A bad idea.

Another attempt to sneak in 'political' ideologies into the game. Granted Civilization franchise has tended to be pro-American, pro-Capitalist and pro-democracy, this has changed with Civ III and especially with Conquests.

There's no need to sneak in 'political correctness'. The point raised about people avoiding recycling to avoid cleaning up pollution is a good example of good ideas made without considering the potential side effects.

The straightforward food/production penalties caused by pollution in Civ III is sufficient and is a good motivator for people to clean it up.

 

[dh_epic]

Democratic and socialist societies do, however, get more up in arms about the environment. It's pretty factual.

We're not talking about tying pollution to death by deep frying.

Just modelling general opinion and social dynamics.

 

[dexters]

We don't need it. It's frivolous use of AI resources.

A nice 'variable' to include perhaps if Firaxis happen to have a formula on foreign relations where you can fit it in. But making code just so they can put on the box that there's a 'realistic' pollution attitude simulator is the biggest waste of time for them.

Besides 'realism' and 'facts' is not what Civilization is about. It's an approximation of human history, not a similation. Which is a point that's been repeated by many for many years now.

 

[dh_epic]

Resources? Here's the AI calculation:

Pollution Weariness = (Amount of Pollution) X (Government Factor) X (Era Factor)

Realism and facts are an important aspect of Civ. Not the only aspect, not even the most important aspect, but they are important. Still, when you can implement a "fact" that encourages interesting decisions without upsetting gameplay balance... there's no reason not to implement it. Especially something dead simple like this.

 

[dexters]

Still, when you can implement a "fact" that encourages interesting decisions without upsetting gameplay balance... there's no reason not to implement it. Especially something dead simple like this.

Someone already pointed out one potential gameplay side effect.

I still think the current system is simple, straightforward and has enough 'motivating' factor (mainly self interest) to encoruage pollution clean up.

There's about a million suggestions on attitude modifiers out there from everyone with a computer and half a brain. If we were to include all of them, your computer would explode. I would still say this isn't that important a feature to put in assuming I like the idea. Which I don't.

 

[dh_epic]

You don't like the idea, and you're entitled to your opinion. But I need to do more than "not like an idea" to argue for why it's bad.

There is no bad gameplay side effect in this thread, I couldn't find one. The closest I could find was "then people would dodge recycling" -- in which case, you make it era dependent, instead of tech dependent.

If there are half a million suggestions or attitude modifiers that belong before this one, I'd love to hear them. Because there's very little logic to the statement "if there are a million possible additions to public attitudes, then we should include none of them".

 

[dexters]

Everything from provinces, diplomacy, war crimes, unit trading (which you love)
among others require attitude modifiers. We already know they're not all going in and at the bottom of my list would be the pollution issue.

But of course, it seems like every idea you support are right and if people like me disagree, we'll be attacked with immediate rebuttals. If i'm entitled to my opinion, leave me alone then to disagree.

 

[dh_epic]

There *are* no provinces or war crimes. Diplomacy already has attitude modifiers.

Unit trading's modifiers are simple as well.

You're entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. You can't just blindly say "no it will never work" -- that's not an opinion.

 

[dexters]

I said no it's a bad idea.

Although I suspect it won't work because as a standalone 'feature' it seems hopelessly out of place.

It may be workable as 1 of many variables, IF Firaxis has some sort of attitude routine that keeps track of a bunch of variables. Even then, there are other more important variables to keep track of.

What I'm basically saying no to is its relative importance. If Soren is really aiming for a streamlined Civ 4, then I would agrue the designers should focus on the more important aspects.

As an idea, this is interesting. But I do think its a bad idea if its being suggested just for the sake of implementing it.

 

[Bluetooth]

Well “dexters” this is not about political ideologies this is about survival and I must say I like the idea. We can see today that the American administration takes a reputation hit world wide since they refuse to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. This is for the modern age of course, no nation or person cared about our environment before Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring was published in 1962.

 

[croxis]

I could see it happening, however recycling may actually be the wrong place in the game. Conservation/Evironmental efforst began to develop in the United states in the mid 1800s, so perhaps the state of 'civics' of the civs could depend on the reputation hit as well as technological progress.

 

[dh_epic]

I think pollution, at this point, is a nuisance rather than something that forces decisions. "More pollution? Oh well, I guess we need more workers." Anything that's a nuisance in the game is just that, a nuisance, and doesn't require any serious thought or discussion. Pollution and its minor effects are also an inevitability, and because of that, there is no incentive to avoid it.

Eliminating pollution altogether would accomplish the same thing, without the nuisance. I'm actually not particularly opposed to this idea. It would be one more step away from realism, but at least the game wouldn't force me into exercises in tedium.

But the alternative is to give pollution real effects and real detriments. If democratic governments experience more unhappiness from pollution, for example, that would force people into an interesting dilemma: do I pick an autocratic government, or do I pick a democratic government and minimize pollution?

As of now there is NO dilemma, because its effects are so drastically uniform, no matter what choices you make.

 

[croxis]

Oh I forgot to mention that Soren said that pollution will be changing in Civ IV, it will no longer be pop the moll feature than we have learned to love.

 

[dh_epic]

If it's going to have no real effect on your empire, they might as well make it something you can take care of with one click of a button, or no buttons at all, with virtually no processing time nor movement points involved.