Random Mountains

[Seek]

100 % the highlighted part. I hate how mountains (and jungle) have become the make it or break it between a good and bad start. We saw in some of the preview videos how players who started with no mountains or jungles (take Quill18 videos for example) were seriously hampered because they were completely stunted on science in early game. The fact that flat district yields are based entirely on adjacency bonuses seems to put a rather unhealthy emphasis on starting conditions which again makes some poor balancing acts necessary.

Well Quill didn't exactly play optimally - he could have settled his first two cities farther west to take advantage of the mountain range there and boosted his science considerably. (Though, to be fair, playing optimally was hardly his or any other previewer's goal - it's not like he was playing to win when he only had a limited number of turns and couldn't show advanced techs anyway.)

Certain terrain like mountains, jungle, natural wonders, etc should be more valuable than other types and potentially cause conflict imo. Otherwise we get boring gameplay like BERT, where every tile on the map is approximately as useful as any other.

I'm much more concerned that most bonus resources look quite weak.

 

[Abraxis]

I also think this is silly. The maps should try to represent proper geography as much as possible and mechanics should as best as possible conform to that. How would it feel I wonder if there were random river tiles that didn't go anywhere? The absence of mountain ranges is barely any better. If it's a question of balance, find a way to implement diminishing returns for the same civ abusing a long mountain range. Or don't, and we can live with those regions being enherently stronger and thus a source of contention.
If the map scripts really just turn out to be single mountains dispersed around the map I'd perfer they tied science adjacency to some other feature more appropriate to be dispersed like this, and give us regular impassable and pretty mountain ranges with otherwise no bonuses.

 

[kaspergm]

Certain terrain like mountains, jungle, natural wonders, etc should be more valuable than other types and potentially cause conflict imo. Otherwise we get boring gameplay like BERT, where every tile on the map is approximately as useful as any other.

Well I do agree that certain terrain types should be more valuable. Specifically, I think that freshwater grassland and floodplains should be very valuable because that (for me) makes sense in terms of what you'd look for when settling a city. In contrast, mountains and jungles should be bad tiles because you can't really get much of anything from mountains, and jungles are notoriously hard to travel through and live in.

I don't mind a minor science adjacency bonus from mountains and jungles, that both makes sense and adds flavor to these tiles (as a compensation for their otherwise poor nature). However, I do object to the fact that mountain adjacency bonus seems to be the major source of early science, which is both nonsense and bad for gameplay (because we know how important early science is for the snowball effect on the game in general). Also, the fact that jungle tiles not only give science adjacency bonus but also have godly yields themselves even when unimproved is just plain absurd.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I'd agree that terrain diversity should be important in the sense that civs should benefit from having more than one type of terrain and that different terrain types should have different advantages and disadvantages. I don't think, however, that it should be important for every civ to have every type of terrain. In my view, that just promotes unnecessary homogenization.

It's ok to have all terrains for a single civ, as long as it's not for each city. This promotes city specialization and deep city placement planning.

 

[Acken]

Ryika said it first but ill reiterate.

This is a good and necessary thing because of 1upt.
Pretty and realistic mountain range have to be sacrificed to decrease the amount of chokepoints.
In the same idea I hope they have decreased the likelihood of narrow land between waters.

Chokepoints are a huge issue to 1upt balance and it needs to die. Nqmap proved that and I also took its algorithm for my own map generator.

Chokepoints decrease ai effectiveness and make 1upt combat very annoying. This is a problem of scale basically where a single unit takes as much space as a mountain. The realism broke here to begin with.

 

[kaspergm]

Chokepoints are a huge issue to 1upt balance and it needs to die. Nqmap proved that and I also took its algorithm for my own map generator.

I just plain disagree. 1UPT is mostly pointless if not for chokepoints.

 

[LDiCesare]

The devs have explicitly said that they tweaked the map scripts because their players wouldrestart for lack of good starting surrounding terrain (such as peaks).
So, yes, the map scripts will be fantasy, as the gameplay of more realistic map scripts was deemed bad by the developpers.

 

[Acken]

I just plain disagree. 1UPT is mostly pointless if not for chokepoints.

Not at all. You still have position, terrain and unit types which work well with 1upt. On the other hand id argue defending a chokepoint requires little strategy, is way too easy and kills the tactical aspect involved in 1upt.

Feel free to disagree with the removal of chokepoints but know that the competitive multiplayer community switched to a mod removing it, that the AI simply cannot deal with it and finally that Firaxis apparently are removing them for whatever reason.

 

[LDiCesare]

Ryika said it first but ill reiterate.

This is a good and necessary thing because of 1upt.
Pretty and realistic mountain range have to be sacrificed to decrease the amount of chokepoints.
In the same idea I hope they have decreased the likelihood of narrow land between waters.

Chokepoints are a huge issue to 1upt balance and it needs to die. Nqmap proved that and I also took its algorithm for my own map generator.

Chokepoints decrease ai effectiveness and make 1upt combat very annoying. This is a problem of scale basically where a single unit takes as much space as a mountain. The realism broke here to begin with.

I woudl say all these arguments tend to show 1upt is bad. Why not just play chess if you want a flat board with one unit per tile? At least in chess some units can go atop of others (knights).

 

[ehecatzin]

To be honest this is the kind of thing that would be less annoying if we had diferent graphics for mountains, as of now all of them are snowcapped. A single mountain in the middle of the desert or a tropical area should look a bit diferent than mountain range formed out of multiple mountain tiles.

 

[Acken]

I woudl say all these arguments tend to show 1upt is bad. Why not just play chess if you want a flat board with one unit per tile? At least in chess some units can go atop of others (knights).

Maybe but that is not the question nor the argument. 1upt is simply not a choice for now.

Might as well have the best experience with it.

 

[LDiCesare]

Maybe but that is not the question nor the argument. 1upt is simply not a choice for now.

Might as well have the best experience with it.

I think I'd rather not play it actually. They touted Civ VI terrain would be significant, but it will only be so in terms of city management, not of (land) warfare? There are reasons why so many actual empires and countries have borders based on terrain features.

 

[Acken]

Forests rivers still affect movement and defence. And mountains didnt disappear. 1 or 2 tiles mountains still block units. So no... terrain still matter for warfare.

 

[Ebrim]

It's an interesting discussion. I tend to think though that scattering mountains about here and there for balance purposes may be defeating the idea of playing to the map. Not having mountains around your starting location may just mean that you should concentrate in other areas or look for where the mountains/jungle are and then found a city near them later to start trying to develop a specialized science city. That should be perfectly doable with scripts that try to mimic authentic feeling geology. I doubt a single mountain tile is going to make or break your science game anyway.

 

[kaspergm]

Feel free to disagree with the removal of chokepoints but know that the competitive multiplayer community switched to a mod removing it, that the AI simply cannot deal with it and finally that Firaxis apparently are removing them for whatever reason.

I'll acknowledge that competitive multiplayer is something completely different from what I consider "normal" gaming. For my play styles, choke points are fun because they make the actual layout of the map something you have to take into consideration.

 

[LDiCesare]

Forests rivers still affect movement and defence. And mountains didnt disappear. 1 or 2 tiles mountains still block units. So no... terrain still matter for warfare.

They are imo insignificant strategically. They will have some tactical impact, but civ is not a tactical game, it operates on strategic level.

It's an interesting discussion. I tend to think though that scattering mountains about here and there for balance purposes may be defeating the idea of playing to the map. Not having mountains around your starting location may just mean that you should concentrate in other areas or look for where the mountains/jungle are and then found a city near them later to start trying to develop a specialized science city. That should be perfectly doable with scripts that try to mimic authentic feeling geology. I doubt a single mountain tile is going to make or break your science game anyway.

Yes, but the game is not balanced that way. If the devs say they restarted when not near peaks, it means that starting peaks are unbalaned. By the time you get a second city and expand it enough to be able to take advantage of the peak, it appears that you have lost a lot in terms of tech.
Different terrains should provide for different gameplay options, each equally valid. What's being offered is just micromanagement of terrain instead of strategic choices like going for a naval or a land empire (think coastal like Portugal vs continental like Russia or a bit of both like Great Britain).

 

[Alphons Rodulfo]

So.... if mountains would be nerfed a bit there would be less need to restart without them, and less need for random isolated mountain tiles. I think the importance of mountains was too great in Civ V.

 

[Acken]

They are imo insignificant strategically. They will have some tactical impact, but civ is not a tactical game, it operates on strategic

That thick jungle next to a city has insignificant effect on your strategy when it comes to warfare.

Noted.

Sadly civ warfare is mostly tactical now. So yeah... terrain is important to warfare mountains or not.

 

[chazzycat]

Random mountains are fine, as long as there are also ranges. I live in California...we've got the Sierras, sure, but also Mt. Shasta which just stands out alone in the middle of flat land. It's volcanic...hot spots can occur anywhere.

 

[Ebrim]

Random mountains are fine, as long as there are also ranges. I live in California...we've got the Sierras, sure, but also Mt. Shasta which just stands out alone in the middle of flat land. It's volcanic...hot spots can occur anywhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade_Range#/media/File:Cascaderangemap.jpg

But yes, absolutely, there are examples of mountains which don't conform to generalities. They are also relatively rare.