Terrascapes

[Dactyl]

I've noticed that, in MadJinn's games, he often complains about how useless terrascapes are. I can see his point, given that their maintenance is something like 6. My question is, when are terrascapes of value, and when should one build them?

 

[bhavv]

Well, they cost 6 maintanence, but also give +2 each to food, production and culture, plus you can get a virtue that adds +1 to each yield from it.

Its not an improvement that you can spam basically, but maybe put one down if a city needs a boost to food and production, plus you get some culture too.

 

[GeoModder]

If you have energy to burn, they're a nice overall improvement for otherwise less useful terrain (like snow).

 

[s0nny80y]

Snow tiles which yield nothing, yield something with terrascapes. This might work especially well with that particular exoplanet with half ice and half desert.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Terrascapes:
-> Excel at low-yield locations (e.g. arctic, tundra, desert).
-> Seem pretty efficient per pop yield when you have picked the "+1 yield" Prosperity virtue.
-> Somewhat synergize with the "30% gold from culture" Knowledge virtue.

 

[jokii]

Terrascapes are good if you have city surrounded with low yield tiles, like snow.....and you have extra energy so you can support them...

 

[Inhalaattori]

He in fact spammed them in his game as Elodie. He had that prosperity bonus. In general I would say they are worth it if you have that Prosperity bonus +1 for all yields. If you dont have the bonus, they probably are not worth building.

 

[Tomice]

They might make sense if you have a very tall capital that is already boosted by a ton of trade routes (though there are few % modifiers, making the focus on a single supercity less desireable.). Peripheral cities would produce the gold necessary to make the capital awesome (and provide the TR's)

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

They might make sense if you have a very tall capital that is already boosted by a ton of trade routes (though there are few % modifiers, making the focus on a single supercity less desireable.). Peripheral cities would produce the gold necessary to make the capital awesome (and provide the TR's)

I don't think they get anything from the tile meaning terrascaped tiles allways have the same yield, rather poor for 6 gold per turn, their use is to make something useless to something usefull, in good land however use other improvements.

 

[bhavv]

Oh, thats right it overwrites the base tiles yields:

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Terrascape_(CivBE)

So really only going to be useful on low yield tiles.

 

[Alkyon]

Considering the only "low yield" base tiles are snow thanks to the Mass Digester and Vivarium boosting tundra and desert respectively, that energy cost makes a lot of sense. You're heating up hundreds of square miles of frozen wastes to have an open air tropical forest in the arctic circle after all!

But yeah, Terrascapes are something you build rarely and judiciously honestly, even with the +1/+1/+1 virtue for them. I just wish the AI was less spam-happy with them.

 

[GeoModder]

I just wish the AI was less spam-happy with them.

Anti-human player strategy for the AI: build a swath of terrascapes as a deterrent against said human player agression.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Oh, thats right it overwrites the base tiles yields:

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Terrascape_(CivBE)

So really only going to be useful on low yield tiles.

The link is broken - the ")" is outside the URL code.

I guess its okay that they fit a specific role. Otherwise the Dome would be pretty useless (not that it seems particulary strong right now anyway...). And the +1 yield from Prosperity might turn these into really good stuff even for decent yield tiles. A 4-3-3 Terrascape on desert sounds quite nice (and maybe it even keeps the energy from floodplains?). Saving 1 energy on tundra does also sound neat.

 

[OldEarthRelic]

Considering the only "low yield" base tiles are snow thanks to the Mass Digester and Vivarium boosting tundra and desert respectively, that energy cost makes a lot of sense. You're heating up hundreds of square miles of frozen wastes to have an open air tropical forest in the arctic circle after all!

But yeah, Terrascapes are something you build rarely and judiciously honestly, even with the +1/+1/+1 virtue for them. I just wish the AI was less spam-happy with them.

I think the Virarium still gives the extra food, so you get 4 food with the prosperity virtue.

 

[Gort]

If the AI gets a bonus to tile improvement maintenance, terrascapes might be worth spamming for them. They got cheaper roads in Civ 5 after all.

I wonder if Terrascapes are worth the maintenance for a human player (except for the corner case of snow tiles which you should really only be grabbing if you have nothing else to grab, and when's THAT going to happen?) - you might be better off just using farms and generators and using the saved energy to get whatever you wanted from Terrascapes.

 

[MadDjinn]

I don't 'hate' terrascapes, I just dislike the AI spamming them. Tanking my econ due to AI spamming them on their terrain is annoying.

Yes, snow/tundra/desert are the 3 locations where they should be used. The Vivarium and Mass Digester work on those hexes, but otherwise all base terrain bonuses are wiped out.

Keeping in mind that floodplain are a 'feature' on top of the desert, I'd have to double check to see if they are otherwise wiped out. (settling on a floodplain yields a city of 2f1p2e -- so the floodplain food yield is actually removed).

 

[IncessantMace]

Couldn't you just torch them as you invade to mitigate the blow to your income until you can replace them with another improvement?

 

[MadDjinn]

Of course you can get rid of them.

 

[IncessantMace]

Well yes, I meant to say would pillaging them while invading get rid of the maintenance costs while you wait to send in the workers or is that incurred on you even if you left them a smoking ruin.

 

[BrotherAriman]

Of course you can get rid of them.

MadDjinn I was wondering, its been said that you can't build terrascapes on miasma. But can you have miasma on terrascapes? I'm just wondering if harmony players could use miasma condensers offensively buy launching it over a terrascaped location adding miasma to the tiles and destroying the terrascapes in the process.