[GS] Some thoughts on global warming.

[Tech Osen]

Don't want to discuss the RL situation but the in game mechanic is clearly represented as it being a very, very bad thing that should be avoided at all cost. Except that it's not. Because unlike RL where there is no planet B there is an infinite amount of fresh planets in game.
So there is no sense of urgency, and you can't lose a game because of it. In fact it's beneficial to push for it because the AI handles it quite poorly and stands to lose more than you.
At first I felt the changes that came with the summer (or was it spring?) patch looked promising but I haven't really noticed the mechanic being more of a concern. With it going slower it just means I don't have to beeline computers as much as before and can go for oil first without much trouble.
I'm not sure how to fix this lack of urgency. And I can imagine that some players don't want to be bothered by it anyway. As it is it feels to me like a pointless addition that only forces you to build floodgates and that's about it.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Global Warming is a conspiracy perpetuated by the Dutch to get more polder spots

 

[blackcatatonic]

Don't want to discuss the RL situation but the in game mechanic is clearly represented as it being a very, very bad thing that should be avoided at all cost. Except that it's not. Because unlike RL where there is no planet B there is an infinite amount of fresh planets in game.
So there is no sense of urgency, and you can't lose a game because of it. In fact it's beneficial to push for it because the AI handles it quite poorly and stands to lose more than you.

I... don't think I follow. So you're saying that in-game, it isn't a problem for you, because you can just load another map? But surely that applies to anything that can throw up problems for a game/map...?

That said, I do think they could make it more urgent. I don't think the game should tell us which tiles will flood (and certainly not in what order). And there should, eventually, come a point where even flood barriers can only do so much. Severe droughts late game should actually change terrain (grassland/plains into desert, for example). Food yields could start to decrease as well. Just a few ideas.

 

[Tech Osen]

I... don't think I follow. So you're saying that in-game, it isn't a problem for you, because you can just load another map? But surely that applies to anything that can throw up problems for a game/map...?

No, I mean that it doesn't stop you from winning the game and it's therefor inconsequential. In RL there is no winning so we are stuck with one planet. The game will be won (or lost) at some point and the state of the climat doesn't matter because you can start the next game with a clean sheet. There is no next generation to worry about.

 

[Ownsya]

I just posted an idea to address this issue and I have the same feelings as you. Climate change mechanics in the game should be more consequential, right now they're not much more than a gimmick. Anyway here's my idea, and I think it indirectly does address your issue of "there's not next generation" by making decisions more consequential in the game.

I mentioned this idea even before GS was announced. Now it is even more realistic and appealing to me. The climate system that came out with GS is a bit too inconsequential imo, albeit interesting. Most disasters feel simply like sprinkled seasoning to the game play rather than something that truly alters your game. The only things that really make you reconsider your actions is placing cities near tiles that will drown early, or near volcanoes. The occasional serendipitous flood or storm can make you have to reroute your armies as well and can make for interesting surprises, but mostly just delay your plans. Also, people who play efficiently will often finish the game before sea levels even rising significantly at all.

My idea is to have climate and your carbon footprint directly linked with the loyalty system. If your city is highly polluting due to co2 emissions, has low appeal tiles, and not many natural resources (trees, luxury resources) this should have a negative impact on loyalty. However, this type of loyalty effect should happen relative to the carbon footprint of neighboring cities and civs. Also the overall climate impact of your empire should affect the loyalty of all cities to a lesser degree regardless of the conditions of the particular city. Similarly for neighboring cities. If you have a city with all chopped trees, an industrial zone with a coal powerplant, and it's right next to a city from your neighboring civ with beautiful appeal and clean air then loyalty impact is increased due to proximity of a much more attractive city. This way, climate effects require some consideration from the start of the game and aren't just something to keep the late-game more interesting.

I don't think civ 6 right now is lacking anything major. I like the idea of an economic victory that was proposed above, but whatever a new expansion might introduce it should also focus on making all the various concepts of the game more synergized and improving certain mechanics to really round up the game.

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

As a game mechanic I think it was a waste of time and resources.

 

[leandrombraz]

I usually win long before the first stage, so it's quite irrelevant for me. The only effect the system have on my games is losing favors because of CO2. In my last few games I didn't even bother to build Flood Barriers.

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

^This. And any attempt to make it more urgent or demanding earlier would most likely ruin the playability of the game.

 

[PurpleHaze34]

The game mechanic is a little broken when I can see what tiles will flood / when from the start of the game. I can plan around it in 4000 BC. I think it would be interesting (maybe a mod) to not see the flood tiles until you are closer to stage 1 of the threat.

 

[Tech Osen]

^This. And any attempt to make it more urgent or demanding earlier would most likely ruin the playability of the game.

I agree on that, that's one of the dilemma's. It's still a game and not a simulator.
There is also the issue that the diplomacy is way too limited at the moment to even think about climate summits and stuff. There is no way to nudge or force other civs to act "responsible" and nobody wants their game to drown because of actions of other civs that can't be controlled.
But that still leaves us with an expansion which main feature is inconsequential even for "empire builders" like me who don't aim to win before T300.

 

[pokiehl]

^This. And any attempt to make it more urgent or demanding earlier would most likely ruin the playability of the game.

I completely disagree. Changes to this game system to make the effects more disasterous, ramp up the speed, or give the player more choices to deal with, interact with, or mitigate the effects would all be great.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

maybe if global warning happens, the game fries your hard drive? that should add some urgency.

just brainstorming here.

 

[fantsu]

I am glad as long as it isnt as devastating than in civ 4. It shouldnt be a big part of the game that is about civilizations.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Seriously I am not sure what I'd do with it. I don't know if it would seem very "fun" if the results were harsher. Maybe if they were different? I don't know.

 

[KayAU]

I agree with the original poster here. As far as end game crises go, this one is pretty inconsequential. I suppose part of the problem is that it happens very late in a game which is usually decided fairly early. It could probably be improved, though. I think one option would be to create more severe reprecussions even before the actual environmental destruction, in the form of diplomatic penalties, unrest, economic damage, and so on. They could also consider reducing the final score based on how damaged the planet you "won" is.

 

[NukeAJS]

I think an extreme climate change mod could be interesting. Even though it's impossible IRL, I want to see an entirely flooded planet that undergoes complete desertification with all biological resources (basically anything that's not a mineral of some sort) quickly going extinct. I want to see pop points vanishing off the map as droughts become so wild-spread and frequent that entire civs deal with massive food shortages. I want heat waves that literally cook pop points and units off the map. I want massive population migrations as the sick and starving desperately attempt to get wherever there is still food/water or commerce. I basically want the world 600 years from now plus some physically impossible scenarios (Earth becoming an ocean planet, complete desertification).

It's not something I would play often, but it would be interesting to play Civ6 as a kind of preapocalyptic doomdays sci-fi.

Anyways, I've always said two things about climate change in Civ6 and they're still relevant to the current build -- climate change stages should happen slower and different stages should be more severe. Stages happening slower would pace the game better. I've had games where climate change happen every 8 turns -- that's way too fast from any kind of perspective. Pacing it out would probably be more fun and would make it seem like the looming, lumbering juggernaut that it is.

The OP and I agree on part 2 of my criticism -- climate change (usually) isn't severe enough to really matter. The exception to this is having a bunch of cities that are on the lowland coasts and not getting seawalls up in time. If I remember correctly, from stage 0 to max stage, it double the natural disasters? The problem is that on normal disaster settings, disasters are almost always a minor setback because I've usually successfully dealt with it for many, many turns before the next one hits. Doubling that rate means I'll just have many turns inbetween diasters, especially because the game tries to give everyone their fair share of trouble. Simply tripling or even quadrupling their rate would mean getting hit with a disaster every 5 turns or so -- basically so frequently that there's not enough time to recover before the next one hits.

 

[aguliondew]

The effect of climate change should be doubled at each tier minor, major and catastrophic. Doubling the effect of land lose to water and desertification. Desertification should be implemented to killing of population turn nearby plains to deserts grassland to plains. Increase droughts, flood, and hurricanes, with teh most severe one having a change to change the terrain permanently at a high climate change tier. The speed that it happen should increase as well by 2100(assuming that all civ are at the same tech level as countries in RL) the world should be completed devoid of ice/snow tiles. Tundra would become plains/grasslands and the middle of the planet should be mostly desert. Hopefully a mod like this gets made.

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

Any need to see disaster porn in the game can very easily be aleviated by...turning up disasters...it's in the game already. Just saying.

 

[MrRadar]

So there is no sense of urgency, and you can't lose a game because of it.

Do you always play the same settings, including difficulty, map type? My current deity continents+islands game very well created a lot of urgency for me, when I was overrun by that bastard Genghis twice and he wrecked up my teching, and most of my coastland, sadly, sank completely, including some campus districts, some useful resource tiles and even some archaeological museums with invaluable excavated artifacts, which, regrettably, were lost again, and this time, it seems, for good (why sunken museums do not become maritime archaeological sites, allowing you to recover at least one artifact of potential three ones lost?).

Global Warming is a conspiracy perpetuated by the Dutch to get more polder spots

I learned, to my great disappointment, that building a polder on a sunken land tile - literally reclaiming land from the sea - does not gib you no Steam achievement. I'd be posting a 'Storm FXS HQ' event on Facebook right now, if I had a FB account. Such a missed opportunity.

 

[AsH2]

Red coats should become Red shorts.