Pollution Issues

[TX-Zen]

Pardon me if this has already been discussed, but I am new to the forum.

Is there any way to reduce or eliminate the pollution settings Civ 3 uses?

I find that while the game is incredibly fun, the constant pollution in the industrial age is extremely annoying to constantly deal with.

I would like to find a way to eliminate pollution completely if possible so that I can get on with enjoying the games finer points without having to constantly waste time moving workers all over the place.


Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.


Gort Niktu Klatu Barada

 

[ivory]

Activate a worker and press Shift-P. This tells him to do nothing but clear pollution. Do this with a lot of workers and they will work together, speeding things up.
If you want to edit the game using the editor, I don't know of any setting that you can adjust for this. Try moving the Mass Transit System to Satination and Recycling Center to Industrialization or so. That way you build them sooner.
And welcome to CFC!

 

[Yeti]

I was wondering about pollution as well, so I'll share my own techniques in the process and hopefully help out while being helped

What I know:

Certain things produce more pollution - like factories and some of the power plants (coal).

Certain things increase production without directly increasing pollution - like some of the power plants (hydro / solar), offshore platforms, and of course mines on the map.

Some things decrease pollution - like the recycling center and mass transit.

How I handle pollution:

One is that I build recycling centers and mass transit in every city that is producting pollution (look left of center on the bottom of the city screen). For another, I don't "crank up" all my cities - cities with high corruption or off my main continent I just let go - I don't build factories or power plants in them, and aim to keep them from ever producing pollution in the first place. And finally, I keep stacks of workers on the map that I move all together and use to wipe out any pollution that pops up immediately (followed by opening the city in question and putting a worker back on that square).

Things I THINK I know, but would love clarification on:

Pollution is also based on the city's production, so if your production is high enough, you can create pollution even with no factory or power plant. Also, even with the 2 pollution reducers, you may not be low enough to eliminate pollution, so if you want to get rid of it all, you'll need to irrigate some mines.

Some other city improvements create smaller amounts of pollution even though they don't mention it in the civilopedia - like the airport and research center.

Are those two items correct?

Is there anything else that increases or decreases pollution?

 

[ivory]

Every population point above 12 will cause one triangle in the pollution box. I think the Mass Transit thing eliminates this. Pollution from production can only be reduced. In the later stages, you can have the warning triangles in size 6 cities without any dirty buildings.
I didn't know the airport and research lab also cause pollution, although it makes sense. How did you find out?

 

[Catt]

A number of buildings produce pollution triangles (they appear in the lower left of the city view screen). For example, each of a factory, coal plant, airport, Iron Works, and research lab produces pollution -- I think the manufacturing plant and commercial dock also do so -- you can look in the editor to see which improvements produce pollution and how much. Each citizen above population 12 produces a pollution triangle -- a city size 15 would have 3 triangles from its population. Raw production (shields) doesn't affect pollution. The number of pollution triangles represents the chance, each turn, that a city tile will be hit by pollution -- more pollution triangles means agreater chance that pollution will strike each turn.

The Mass Transit improvement eliminates all but one pollution triangle caused by population. A city size 40 with a Mass Transit will have only one pollution triangle caused by population. The Recycling Center eliminates all but one pollution triangle produced by improvements. A city with a factory, Iron Works, coal plant, airport, and research lab will produce only one pollution triangle from improvements. A size 40 city with all the listed improvements but without the Mass Transit and Recycling Center would have a lot of pollution triangles -- the same city with both pollution reducers would have 2 pollution triangles.

 

[Renata]

I've seen people discussing this before, and what I think you can do is to go into the editor and give some very early building (like a marketplace, maybe, which you're extremely likely to have in any city that's going to have a factory, etc) the flag for 'reduces pollution from buildings'. [What I'd be tempted to do myself is to give each pollution-causing building itself this flag, but that may not be possible, since I've never seen it suggested.] You can give the hospital the flag for 'eliminates pollution from population.'

Doing those two things should eliminate nearly all of the pollution you'd otherwise get.

Just be aware that there may be some unforseen effects on the AI in the late game due to the changes. Will they or won't they waste shields and research on mass transit/recycling, for instance?

Renata

 

[Grille]

So what kills the triangle caused by an airport (research lab)?
For example, can I "safely" build airports when I've got a mass transit in that metro, do I need just a recycling center or both of them?

 

[Catt]

Originally posted by Renata
I've seen people discussing this before, and what I think you can do is to go into the editor and give some very early building (like a marketplace, maybe, which you're extremely likely to have in any city that's going to have a factory, etc) the flag for 'reduces pollution from buildings'. [What I'd be tempted to do myself is to give each pollution-causing building itself this flag, but that may not be possible, since I've never seen it suggested.] You can give the hospital the flag for 'eliminates pollution from population.'

Doing those two things should eliminate nearly all of the pollution you'd otherwise get.

Renata's right. You could also just modify the pollution-causing improvements so they don't produce pollution. I don't think there is an editor variable to eliminate population-caused pollution, but, as Renata suggests you could give the "eliminates polution caused by population" flag to hospitals.

Originally posted by Grille
So what kills the triangle caused by an airport (research lab)?

The Recycling Center; it eliminates all pollution but one from any and all city improvements. The Mass Transit does the same for population. A metro with a MT but without a RC would still produce pollution triangles (and thus increased chances for pollution) from city improvements like airports.

 

[Beanzy]

Normally, pollution is not that big of a problem for me, mainly because I have a ridiculous amount of workers by that time, so, when pollution pops up, the worker catch a train to that place and clean it up in the same turn. Also, as everyone else stated, Recycling Center and Mass Transit are very important. Usually, in my outer cities and recent conquests, I build the two before factories, that way, when I do get one built, the increase in pollution is not significant. Oh, and of course, you'll want to build the Hoover Dam, that way, you'll have the pollution free Hydro Plants as opposed to Coal Plants.

 

[Yeti]

Ivory - I found out about the other pollution causers by looking at a list someone had created from info seen in the editor. I saw it quite a while ago though, so I wasn't sure if I was remembering correctly or not.

Everyone - Thank you for the info! It looks like just building both of those will make things fine then since a size 25+ city with factory, power plant, etc... producing only 2 triangles of pollution is pretty good.

 

[TX-Zen]

Thank you all very much for your responses, its a nice way to welcome new members like me.

I didn't find exactly what I was looking for, but the suggestions gave me some ideas on how to minimize the impact of the dreaded pollution, especially the Shift-P command for the workers...thats very usefull when you have accumulated alot of polluted squares. Thanks!

I was hoping to find something in Civ3Edit to eliminate it altogether (rather like you can do for corruption) but using the editor to make temples and graneries eliminate population and building pollution is probably going to be my prefered method since every city is going to have them both. I anticipate by the time I reach the industrial age, my glorious civilization will be free from the endless race to clean up the (excessive!) mess caused by factories.


Thanks again to all of you who responded, your ideas have made a nice difference and has helped me tackle what I consider to be my most annoying pet peeve about the game.

Salute!