Should unique tile improvements be buildable on Snow?

[pineappledan]

I'm looking through all the custom civs I have released and realized that I had made an (apparently false) assumption. The idea civs could build their unique infrastructure on top of an arctic glacier struck me as so patently stupid that I never made it a legal terrain for any civ except for Inuit.

I guess in light of this poll, I'm going to have to extend the Chola, Nubian, and Gothic UIs into snow, just for consistency.

Ya'll are baffling. I'm baffled.

 

[Hinin]

I think the base problem comes from the fact snow tiles, currently, are almost dead tiles, which reinforces the problems linked to map contingency (when you're dealt bad tiles in your starting area). They are very different from desert tiles, who have a lot of interesting spots (hills, oasis, along rivers).

As pineappledan said, snow tiles in Civ V are more akin to northern Greenland, totally unhabitable areas of the earth, with no yield at all from any tile (no even hills). Hence why a lot of people want to make unique improvements able to be built on snow tiles, despite how incoherent it ends up graphically : they are one of the rare means to counter this contingency problem.

To me, the solution is different, and in several steps :
- First, rename tiles so that they have the correct names : I don't know if you're aware, but the name tundra designates a biome where almost no tree grows, and is basically what snow tiles should be meant to represent ; their actual name should be Taiga, and Snow tiles should be renamed Tundra (see images below).
- After doing this, we should give the new Tundra tiles the means to be actually useful : through a pantheon, more mineral resources and the fact you can have yields on hills, I think we could transform these Tundra tiles into biomes where correct investments could reward you with science, production and resources.
- Finally, Ice tiles, which currently are once again dead tiles (with problematic impacts on City-States and players spawning just next to them), should also have some utility, but only in the endgame : give worker and special units the ability to walk on ice and build some scientific improvements (like a research station, whose 3d model already exists in the modding community).

Spoiler Taiga & Tundra (in order) :

Spoiler Research station improvement icon :

In the end, making things this way would alleviate the gameplay problem currently posed by Snow tiles by giving some precise means to compensate for the challenge they pose. This would allow us to remove almost all unique improvements from Snow tiles, and restore a bit of graphical logic.

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

Honestly, if you are in the snow, you should have the ability to build an improvement that gives +5 happiness because there are no other humans around. Just sayin.

 

[CppMaster]

I guess in light of this poll, I'm going to have to extend the Chola, Nubian, and Gothic UIs into snow, just for consistency.

How do you balance your custom made civs? Can you measure if they are OP, UP or balanced?

 

[pineappledan]

How do you balance your custom made civs? Can you measure if they are OP, UP or balanced?

unique improvements are balanced against what might have otherwise been on that tile. UIs take up space, and so they present an opportunity cost compared to a UB, which is only ever a direct upgrade to a base building.

That is violated by UIs being buildable on snow, where another improvement can't be built. That's not the normal use case of UIs; there's no marginal benefit to a UI if the alternative is no improvement on that tile at all.

The 1 to snow from universities and the 2 to snow from Rationalism was added to liven up the late game for these marginal tiles. It was added under the assumption that even with that bonus, the tiles wouldn't be that good. Maybe we should take the 3 back off snow, and make them no yields again, but that feels like taking a nice quality of life tool away from 36 civs because 7 others can take too much of an advantage from that bonus.

 

[chicorbeef]

Is it really that much of a problem if the science bonuses stay with the snow-buildable UI's? Unless you play on an Ice Age map, the amount of snow tiles is highly limited, and having no food/production from those tiles, no resources besides occasional strategic resources, likely having ice in the way of coastal tiles...I don't see snow being overpowered at all tbh, even late game.

I would be fine with UI's not being buildable on snow as well, I just don't think it would cause a major balance issue either way.

 

[pineappledan]

This isn't a serious balance issue either way. It's just dumb that you can build things where other people can't, unless that's specifically and purposefully part of the component's design. The idea that arctic snow turns into the single best terrain in the late game -- but only for certain civs, and all the civs in question have no thematic links to snow whatsoever -- is dumb.

It feels clumsy, overlooked, and the end result is that snow isn't marginal, barren terrain that serves as a soft border to the map before the hard border of ice like it is supposed to. Between forts, resources, and their UI, these civs will probably be able to fill every snow tile with infrastructure.

 

[Bruhmoment]

This isn't a serious balance issue either way. It's just dumb that you can build things where other people can't, unless that's specifically and purposefully part of the component's design. The idea that arctic snow turns into the single best terrain in the late game -- but only for certain civs, and all the civs in question have no thematic links to snow whatsoever -- is dumb.

It feels clumsy, overlooked, and the end result is that snow isn't marginal, barren terrain that serves as a soft border to the map before the hard border of ice. And the end result is that, between forts, resources, and their UI, these civs will probably be able to fill every snow tile with infrastructure.

Tough choice to make here -
remove buildable UI's on snow - makes the already crappy snow tiles even worse
make EVERYONE be able to build UI's on snow (this might already be the case but idk) - balance reasons
thought I forgot to mention, not all of the UI's that can be built yield food, so you can't really complain all that much

 

[pineappledan]

the only UIs that can't be built on snow already are the ones that require features that never appear on snow, like rivers or forests, and the Hunnic Eki. Everything else can be.

The whole point is that snow is SUPPOSED to be bad.

 

[ryanmusante]

I love the Inuit custom Civ, my all time favorite. It reminds me of playing Frostpunk.
Not to digress, but I've been gone for a while. Has there been any decision about which custom civs will be added to base VP?

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

I love the question. I don't add things without the blessing of VP, so having more civs that have that "blessing" would be great.

 

[LarryAR]

It's just dumb that you can build things where other people can't,

IRL it happens all the time. Not every country has the resources or desires to put a science station in the Antarctic or a habitat in the desert, a lab in space or build islands in the ocean. It not lack of ability that prevents a Disneyland in the arctic. Humans make the most of the resources they have. It’s a lemons to lemonade thing.

The whole point is that snow is SUPPOSED to be bad.

Why? Doesn’t ice serve that purpose. Most civs can not use mountains for anything but roads.

This isn't a serious balance issue either way.

A very important point!

As a recovering perfectionist, I have empathy with anyone who visualizes and then writes efficient, elegant code or builds a smooth running, low maintenance machine. I understand that having perfect pitch can drive you crazy. It is possible to smoothly sand furniture into dust.

 

[sSs1897]

Judging by these civs, no they probably should not be able to build ui in snow. Stuff like russia or sweden having ui able to be built on snow would be fine

As discussed since this does not really affect balance a lot we may as well do it flavor wise.

 

[CppMaster]

I love the Inuit custom Civ, my all time favorite. It reminds me of playing Frostpunk.
Not to digress, but I've been gone for a while. Has there been any decision about which custom civs will be added to base VP?

Not in a while. @Gazebo, @Recursive what do you think about that?

 

[JamesNinelives]

As discussed since this does not really affect balance a lot we may as well do it flavor wise.

Agreed. The question is what flavour *should* the game have?

I personally love being able to do little things in VP that you can't do in the real world, because I play games partly as an escape from that. I enjoy things that are imaginative and that push the boundaries of what alternate history might have looked like.
But that's just me!

I already lean towards playing civs with UIs because building them is fun for me. Having strategy and even land-use change between different games is something I find interesting. Whereas others might very reasonable prefer for a bit more consistency or more literal realism in how the game looks and feels. That's OK too!

It is possible to smoothly sand furniture into dust.

Elegantly said ^_^

 

[Ragic]

Realism was the justification used to pop my zeppelins. I say burn the snow cheese to the ground.

 

[LarryAR]

Seeing that the voting is almost evenly split, how feasible is it to make the ability to build on snow a choice in advanced setup?

 

[Rekk]

Seeing that the voting is almost evenly split, how feasible is it to make the ability to build on snow a choice in advanced setup?

Not.

Choosing between these two is better off as a mod-mod. Pretty sure everything is just a matter of SQL.

 

[CppMaster]

Pretty sure everything is just a matter of SQL.

Then it's totally feasible to make it an option in advanced setup. But it may be not worth additional clutter.

 

[Rekk]

But it may be not worth additional clutter.

Exactly.