Spring Patch notes

[diggerjohn111]

Oh, the Romans chopped the entire Mediterranean for their ships and other stuff. Have you ever been to Italy?

Yes. Yes I have, being Italian and all.

 

[EirisMania]

Is this live? What is the version number?

 

[ezzlar]

Now this chopping. Great for building wooden stuff.

 

[darkace77450]

Updated Foreign Ministry (Government building): Unit combat bonus now applies to City-State units even when they are not levied.

I still don't see this competing with the Intelligence Agency or the Grand Master's Chapel. I'm still of the opinion that it should either boost influence per turn or alliance points per turn.

 

[Uberfrog]

De-forestation has been with humans after they stopped walking on four limbs.

Absolutely. Civ is actually not realistic in that it gives you this primordial landscape in the Neolithic that is predominantly plains and grassland everywhere with a few clumps of woodland in between. The rolling green hills of England, for example, are a manmade feature. Initially it would have been covered with much more deciduous woodland, but this was cleared on a massive scale during the Bronze Age to make room for pasture and arable land.

Chopping was absolutely a thing in the ancient world.

 

[arthur486]

I think this would be very interesting, starting the game with A LOT of woodland, and having it transformed through man-made chopping; this and desertification and climate change.

 

[shaglio]

Overshooting is a risk, so I get the tendency towards incremental nerfs/buffs. Play balancing is tough when you're also developing the game, so I also get why they look to the community to give them feedback on what's most egregiously in need of a fix. Perhaps the onus should be on us to form some type of consensus on which policies should be adjusted and why and publicize that loudly.

I smell a Policy Card Elimination Thread coming.

 

[Rosty K]

I smell a Policy Card Elimination Thread coming.

Triangular Trade wins I guess.

 

[Uberfrog]

I think this would be very interesting, starting the game with A LOT of woodland, and having it transformed through man-made chopping; this and desertification and climate change.

I think this might be quite frustrating actually, as the early game would take a lot of chopping before you were able to build anything at all. And think of how painfully slow units would move!

 

[Tech Osen]

At this point I suspect they can't fix this problem. Are there any mods that fix

It would be very tragic if mods could fix what devs can't.

 

[bonafide11]

Honestly I'm a bit disappointed that the patch didn't do more. I would've expected a better balancing of the governors (Victor), some more AI improvements, some more Civ and unit balancing, and just maybe some more exciting changes. I took a break from Civ while waiting for the patch to explore some other games, and the patch notes don't make me too excited to jump back in it. Might wait for a summer or fall patch before I return to Civ VI, or maybe wait for the next expansion.

 

[Ever Adrift]

At this point I suspect they can't fix this problem. Are there any mods that fix it?



Also check out the book Collapse by Jared Diamond to read about specific cases of deforestation, he mostly goes into the Mayans and Easter island.

Jared Diamond's 'Gun, Germs & Steel' is even better - and a significantly more engaging piece of work. Both are worth a read to anyone with an interest in world history. In fact, both are really essential if you have any interest in studying world history... and quite popular in other social sciences as well. Diamond has to be the only geographer to become an essential read in recent years (if I'm incorrect, please let me know what I should read!).

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Absolutely. Civ is actually not realistic in that it gives you this primordial landscape in the Neolithic that is predominantly plains and grassland everywhere with a few clumps of woodland in between. The rolling green hills of England, for example, are a manmade feature. Initially it would have been covered with much more deciduous woodland, but this was cleared on a massive scale during the Bronze Age to make room for pasture and arable land.

Chopping was absolutely a thing in the ancient world.

It was. The question is, was it done to create arable land, or to boost production?

To the best of my knowledge, ship building was the primary impetus to cutting forests for production. Other uses for wood (buildings, etc.) didn't particular de nude the landscape, but periods of heavy investing in ships did, both in the ancient era around the Mediterranean and then again during the Age of Sail.

Outside of those periods (and the modern era) the impetus to clear forests was to open up land for farming. And that certainly pushed back the forests over time. It was also a huge effort, if the experiences of European colonists in North America are representative. Yes, it provided building material for their houses and towns, but the effort of completely clearing the land exceeded those gains. Their incentive and objective was to be able to place a farm on the land, otherwise they would not have made the effort.

I think this might be quite frustrating actually, as the early game would take a lot of chopping before you were able to build anything at all. And think of how painfully slow units would move!

That's a very good reason for the game map to start as it does. Also, the land was managed by people prior to the agricultural revolution, so even plains and grasslands could be considered lightly wooded areas prior to a farm or other feature being placed on them.

 

[Sherlock]

And another week goes by. If this goes on too much longer we'll have to re-name this thread to the 'summer patch notes'.

 

[RealHuhn]

And another week goes by. If this goes on too much longer we'll have to re-name this thread to the 'summer patch notes'.

It will be released today.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

And another week goes by. If this goes on too much longer we'll have to re-name this thread to the 'summer patch notes'.

Firaxis already announced that the patch is coming out today.

 

[Tech Osen]

In 43 mins, right?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

In 43 mins, right?

If it follows the usual pattern.

 

[Ever Adrift]

It was. The question is, was it done to create arable land, or to boost production?

To the best of my knowledge, ship building was the primary impetus to cutting forests for production. Other uses for wood (buildings, etc.) didn't particular de nude the landscape, but periods of heavy investing in ships did, both in the ancient era around the Mediterranean and then again during the Age of Sail.

I think you're underestimating the capacity for growing cities, and civilizations, to impact the surrounding landscape - sometimes smaller communities could be particularly bad at ensuring forest sustainability. In the middle ages extensive deforestation took place in parts of Europe, including Great Britain, primarily for fuel. Firewood to get a single household through a cold winter is substantial; a small village could easily keep cutting 'rings' around it each year until the forests became to distant to easily extract timber from.

Fire was critical to every aspect of life and would be maintained non-stop. Now, this was indirectly productive as it enabled people to do things and produce things that they otherwise couldn't.

It was also used for building everything from furniture to homes themselves. This includes most buildings - often all - in the urban areas. Imagine the amount of timber required to build the cities of Europe (over and over again). Now expand that across the world.

Early European states were engaging in large-scale forestry management as early as the 17th century, following the Peace of Westphalia that brought the 30 Years' War (and a few others) to an end - and, almost accidentally, established the first widely held concept of sovereignty. Ship-building was important to many states, but construction within cities demanded enormous production well before the industrial revolution.

Many early modern states, and some larger pre-modern forms of governance, actively engaged in protection of forests for economic purposes. Forest protection was practiced, approaches were developed to ensure that entire areas weren't deforested, etc. all long before industrialization.

In parts of Southeast Asia, where my expertise lies, swidden agriculture would lead to some deforestation during periods of high internecine warfare, when the population of the mountains were beyond the reach of the mandala states such as Pagan to Sukhothai. However, the deforested areas would be used to build villages from the forest material - but the nature of swidden agriculture leads to semi-nomadism. Though in the industrial era, in Siam the Royal Forestry Department had been established as one of the most powerful institutions of the state by 1900 and remains one of the most powerful arms of the Thai state to this day - this is a direct result of the region's history of forest management.


TMI???

(Edit: fixed grammar, added some info - sorry, heavily medicated right now!)

 

[Karmah]

So I have around an hour ,time to test out pillar of eternity II .