Terrain Info

[Khaim]

This thread is about how flood plains are crazy broken. But in the interest of being more than just "X is OP", here's all the terrain info. Most of this is from MadDjinn's most recent LPs (i.e. the pre-release build); info from the press build or earlier is in italics.

The forum won't let me use more than 30 images, so:

F = | P = | E = | S = | C =

Base Terrain |

Yield​

|
Grassland | 2 F |
Plains | 1 F 1 P|
Desert | 1 E | Vivarium: +1 F
Tundra | 1 F | Mass Digester: +1 E
Snow | -- |
Coast| 1 F 1 E | Water Refinery: +1 F +1 P
Ocean | 1 F | Water Refinery: +1 F +1 P
Lake | 2 F 1 E | Water Refinery: +1 F +1 P

It's possible that the Water Refinery doesn't work with Lakes, but the wording suggests that it does.

Tundra and desert look like they're inverses, since they both end up at 1F/1E, but I think deserts are much better. The Vivarium is unlocked earlier and is much more useful generally, while the Mass Digester is in the 2nd tech ring and more of a niche building. Desert hills are better than other hills, including tundra hills. Finally, tundra is close to useless snow, while desert has the possibility of being near flood plains.

Terrain Modifiers |

Yield​

| |
Hills | 1 P | Replaces base F/P. |
Forest | 1 F 1 P | Grassland/plains/tundra only. Replaces base yield.|
Marsh | 1 F | Grassland only(?) | Cytonursery: +1 F
River | +1 E | Applies to adjacent tiles. |
Flood plains | +2 F | All desert/river tiles are flood plains. | No Vivarium bonus.

Desert/Hill tiles keep the base energy from desert. Flood plains keep the energy from both the desert and river, which means a "basic" flood plain tile is 2 F 2 E. Which is nuts.

Basic Resource | Yield | Improvement | Building
Algae | +1 F | Work Barge: +1 F | Biofuel Plant: +2 E
Basalt | +1 P | Quarry: +1 P |
Chitin | +1 F | Paddock: +1 P | Biofactory: +1 P
Copper | +1 E | Mine: +1 E +2 P | Network: +1 S
Coral | +1 C | Work Barge: +1 P +1 S |
Fiber | +1 P | Plantation: +1 P |
Fruit | +1 F | Plantation: +1 F |
Fungus | +1 F | Plantation: +1 F | Growlab: +1 F
Gold | +1 C | Mine: +1 C +2 P |
Reslin | +1 P | Paddock: +1 S | Bionics Lab: +1 P
Silica | +1 S | Mine: +1 S +2 P | Optical Surgery: +1 Health
Tubers | +1 F | Plantation: +2 F |

The icon tooltips do not show the culture for Reslin (edit: culture is from a tech) or the production from mines, but it's definitely there. Note that +2 P is the yield from normal mines, so you could think of the tooltip as giving the bonus yield on top of the mine itself. There may or may not be buildings for the other resources; if so, they're towards the edges of the tech tree. All these resources get +1 E from the tier-1 Industry virtue "Commoditization" and +1 P from the tier-3 Prosperity Virtue "Nature's Bounty".

Also, Chitin are not "chicken", they're space cows. Get it right, MD.

Strategic Resource | Yield | Improvement | Cost
Xenomass || Xenomass Well: +3 F | -2 E
Floatstone || Floatstone Quarry: +3 E | -2 E
Firaxite || Firaxite Mine: +3 S | -2 E
Titanium || Mine: +5 P |
Petroleum || Petroleum Well: +1 P +2 E | -2 E -1 Health
Geothermal | +2 E | Geothermal Well: +4 E (?) |

Like the basic resource mines, the Titanium tooltip does not show the full yield: it says +3, leaving out the base +2. Geothermal is the only strategic resource that increases yield before being improved. I'm not sure about the bonus from Geothermal Well. The one I spotted was 1P/7E on a desert hill, but I might have missed something.

As you can see, unimproved flood plains have better yields than any non-flood-plain basic resource. Even after improvements, they're only slightly behind basic resources on "good" tiles, and they're equal or better than basics on hills, tundra, or desert. We should be thankful that Civ:BE has no start biases, because space-Egypt would be very broken.

P.S. Yes, Arioch, you can copy this.

 

[Rakshasa72]

Flood Plains are OP in Civ5 and Civ4 too.

 

[gunnergoz]

Well, to be fair, flood plains regions on Earth have historically been the starting points of numerous civilizations...for good reason. Their fertility makes them attractive building sites for settlements and early farmers capitalized on them. Does that make them "OP" in the real world? Is there such a thing IRL?

 

[oakdragon]

Well, to be fair, flood plains regions on Earth have historically been the starting points of numerous civilizations...for good reason. Their fertility makes them attractive building sites for settlements and early farmers capitalized on them. Does that make them "OP" in the real world? Is there such a thing IRL?

Nuclear weapons are definitely OP.

 

[SupremacyKing]

Flood Plains are OP in Civ5 and Civ4 too.

Well, but flood plains were OP in actual history. After all, it was flood plains along the Nile that made Ancient Egypt into a super power. And it was flood plains along the Euphrates that allowed the first civilizations such as the Assyrians and Babylonians to prosper. Flood plains made it possible for agriculture to provide a much larger amount of food than normally possible in such an arid region. And the excess food allowed for bigger populations which in turn allowed for bigger cities, more culture, more science, the construction of great wonders and raising bigger armies. All this turned what once were mere tribes into great civilizations!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Just a clarification,
Resilin does not get +1 culture with Paddocks
Instead
Paddocks get +1 culture with Alien Life form tech.

 

[gunnergoz]

Nuclear weapons are definitely OP.

Yep, it is all about what one defines as "OP" because some use the phrase to imply that a game is "broken" but if we look at real life analogues, there is no such thing as "OP" only what works and achieves the intended ends, or not.

If you look at life as a multiplayer game, I guess much of history is full of OP events and technologies.

If we want to play perfectly balanced games, I suppose there is always chess and checkers.

But I do in the end understand the need to balance commercial games and the dialog that is helpful to get there, assuming developers are listening. So carry on, I have gotten in my two bits of snark.

 

[TLHeart]

there is NOTHING wrong with some elements of the game being stronger than other elements of the game.. adds to the challenge, and the uniqueness of each game..

Makes you as the human player have to overcome an AI that does not think as well as you do.

 

[Khaim]

I should clarify. I'm not saying flood plains are "omg nerf now" broken, but they are really really good. They're trade route good. And I think MD is silly for placing his cities to cover all the basics and not even looking at the river.

Just a clarification,
Resilin does not get +1 culture with Paddocks
Instead
Paddocks get +1 culture with Alien Life form tech.

That explains it! Thanks, fixed.

 

[Aeson]

Flood plains are very strong. In IV this came with a Health penalty to help keep it in check a bit. The Health penalty in BE doesn't look like it will make much difference.

It would probably be better if Flood Plains lost the +1 E from Deserts, or the +1 F from Vivariums. They'd still be the best base tiles.

Also, Hills should have 2 P. Internal Trade Routes already put Hill Mines to shame, so there's no danger in buffing Hills to have similar outputs to the other basic tiles.

I wouldn't put Flood Plains to the extent of say Trade Routes, since if you are placing a new city you wouldn't necessarily choose to go to a Flood Plains location over say ... a coastal location, one which cuts off expansion for a rival, or one with strategic resources. Of course there can be combinations of all of those which would be no-brainers. But it's because of a combination of factors, not a single one.)

The starting locations can be balanced through the map script, regardless of tile outputs. But if you aren't getting Trade Routes ASAP (+Ultrasonic Fence quest, +Autoplants quest, +cities to trade with) you're just shooting yourself in the foot (with a grenade launcher), no matter where the map puts you.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Flood plains are very strong. In IV this came with a Health penalty to help keep it in check a bit. The Health penalty in BE doesn't look like it will make much difference.

It would probably be better if Flood Plains lost the +1 E from Deserts, or the +1 F from Vivariums. They'd still be the best base tiles.

Also, Hills should have 2 P. Internal Trade Routes already put Hill Mines to shame, so there's no danger in buffing Hills to have similar outputs to the other basic tiles.

I wouldn't put Flood Plains to the extent of say Trade Routes, since if you are placing a new city you wouldn't necessarily choose to go to a Flood Plains location over say ... a coastal location, one which cuts off expansion for a rival, or one with strategic resources. Of course there can be combinations of all of those which would be no-brainers. But it's because of a combination of factors, not a single one.)

The starting locations can be balanced through the map script, regardless of tile outputs. But if you aren't getting Trade Routes ASAP (+Ultrasonic Fence quest, +Autoplants quest, +cities to trade with) you're just shooting yourself in the foot (with a grenade launcher), no matter where the map puts you.

They Do lose the +1 food from vivariums

They are essentially only 1 output better than other river tiles

Also Hill mines Do have similar output to other tiles (3... same as a farm) the only issue is there are more boosts for farms and generators in that second ring/leaf/3rd ring stem.
(farms go 3->5->7 +1 if wonder, generators go 4->5->8 +2 if wonder, mines go 3->3->4)

Balancing out trade routes would be important. (although we don't Really know what they are based on, so perhaps they increase the importance of city placement.. if their output depends on city base output)

 

[Aeson]

They Do lose the +1 food from vivariums

Ah, that's good. The one extra Energy is nice, but not really an issue then.

Also Hill mines Do have similar output to other tiles (3... same as a farm) the only issue is there are more boosts for farms and generators in that second ring/leaf/3rd ring stem.
(farms go 3->5->7 +1 if wonder, generators go 4->5->8 +2 if wonder, mines go 3->3->4)

I meant for founding cities on and mid to long-term output. Though if there's a decent defensive bonus then the founding cities issue is less important.

Also internal Trade Routes seem to undermine Mines a lot too. Probably better to build Generators, Biowells, or Terrascapes than Mines in most cases.

 

[Miravlix]

Another question is, do you found cities on flood plains?

 

[joncnunn]

Another question is, do you found cities on flood plains?

Hum, provided the flood plain tile has no resource (in BE resources get destroyed if a city planted there) then there looks to be a strong incentive to do so under the BE model of the city adding to base terrain yields instead of mostly flattening them. (Even if there isn't any BE buildings requiring the city to be next to a river)

 

[Greybane]

Flood Plain city start could have 4 food, 1 production, and 2 energy. Fantastic start really.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Looks like oil wells are useless. Trade one nut for one health? No thanks.

 

[Leo Tang]

Looks like oil wells are useless. Trade one nut for one health? No thanks.

You still need to hook up some petroleum for building and units, i presume?

 

[BrotherAriman]

Looks like oil wells are useless. Trade one nut for one health? No thanks.

Not planning on using any satellites then? Almost all of them need it to get into orbit.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Flood Plain city start could have 4 food, 1 production, and 2 energy. Fantastic start really.

Presumably the Flood plain is removed (like forests and marsh)

 

[Seek]

Looks like oil wells are useless. Trade one nut for one health? No thanks.

Oil Well grants 1 hammer and 2 energy. And as others have mentioned, Econ satellites require petroleum and they can be quite powerful.