The all forest starts are rape.

[Monkeyfinger]

They're bad enough on normal BtS, where bronze working is a tier 2 tech, but here with the lower research pace and BW on tier 3? It takes forever to get a city surrounded by forests up and running. Sure, you could move out, but you can only go so far before running into crappy land, then you find yourself having to expand back into the forest before you're ready... *sigh.*

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=252429&highlight=resource

The cause of this is explained here. Anyone have any idea how this might be implemented as a fix for FfH?

 

[Cuteunit]

Just let me clear forest before bronze working.

 

[cephalo]

Perhaps mining could be the tech for forest clearing. So you're using copper tools instead of bronze.

 

[Mithrus]

I like the idea where all workers can clear forests from the start, but BW halves the time etc. Even the most backwater civs could beat on a tree with stones and EVENTUALLY knock it down.

 

[Cuteunit]

why does BW have to influence forrest clearing time at all. From a purely gameplay perspective that STILL encourages pushing for that tech asap no matter who you play or what style you wish to play to.

it could increase the hammers ( like Mathematics does in normal BTS) but basic clearing should be available from the get go. Hell, Elven workers can clear jungle right from turn zero and forested tiles are the same as normal to them.

 

[Tarquelne]

I like sometimes having to deal with a forest start, or crappy land. For me the fast, long-sighted Settler is good enough. Making forest clearing easier might be an improvement, but I think it's far from a necessity.

On felling trees: Keep in mind you need to not just knock down the occasional tree, but "clear" the land and keep it cleared. If you can't fell individual trees quickly enough you starve before the ecosystem shifts. Should that require bronze tools? Well, that _is_ quite a simplification... But a lot of Africa wasn't cleared until the introduction of iron tools. Requiring two different techs for effective forest and jungle clearing may actually be one of the more realistic aspects of the game.

 

[Nefelia]

Your initial Settle starts with 4 movement points. Surely you can reposition your starting location without wasting more than 1 turn.

 

[oyzar]

you don't get double moves in forest unless you are elf. I have often had to move more than 5 turns as non-elf. This is crippling to say the least. The way forests work in ffh for most races is just silly... Ofc there are numerous other things wrong with the early game tech three but the complete inability to play about 50% of the normally good starts(in normal civ coastal and forestcovered starts are quite decent) combined with the fact that any river start is completely overpowered makes the early game into ffh much of a joke that leads to loads of restarts.

 

[rusty217]

Your initial Settle starts with 4 movement points. Surely you can reposition your starting location without wasting more than 1 turn.

Not really, forests take 2 movement so you would probably only get 2 or 3 moves...

 

[Humakty]

Many players complain they are forced to play on emperor + to have a challenge, so it wouldn't be nice to them to get rid of this feature, wich maybe renders their games amusing (a little).
It has never been a problem to me, I play a game even crippled by a bad startpos, trying to cope with my bad luck, but I'm only a loser playing on monarch.

 

[jenks]

Easily implementable suggestions on improving technology flavor / slight balance opportunity for early game locations:

*Increase worker rate for chopping forests and jungles by 50%,
*Forest and Jungle chopping tech requirement back to Crafting tech,
*Bronze Working to allow 'production from chopping' (no bonus production before then)
*Bronze working +25% jungle/forest chopping rate,
*Iron Working +25% jungle/forest chopping rate

 

[xienwolf]

It would be kinda nice if that initial settler promotion also gave "Ignores Terrain type," or maybe remove the extra movement points and put in "Treats all tiles as roads"

 

[EverNoob]

They're bad enough on normal BtS, where bronze working is a tier 2 tech, but here with the lower research pace and BW on tier 3? It takes forever to get a city surrounded by forests up and running. Sure, you could move out, but you can only go so far before running into crappy land, then you find yourself having to expand back into the forest before you're ready... *sigh.*

Which civ were you playing?

Some civs are more sensitive than others to that situation. Usually what I do in that situation is go for Elder Councils and Marketplaces, run a SE until I can get bronze working. This doesn't work as well with the Calabim though, who don't get Elder councils. I guess people in Calabim society get eaten before they become elders.

 

[oyzar]

Of course the starting positions in forests make the game way harder but the starting position function shouldn't be that awfull. There is a reason you don't start in ice half the time in normal civ. It isn't very fun... If the starting position generator would just remove forests for non-elves it would be fine... No forests at all is better than all forests, though this is obviously not the best solution as having some forests is nice for obvious reason. With the reduced yield from forest chopping it isn't much of a problem to place it earlier on the tech three. The best solution imo is to make mining have no prereq and crafting lead to masonry alone then make crafting a prereq for iron working. Obviously the starting techs for alot of civs should be reworked to mining instead of crafting as crafting will then be largely useless... Reducing the overall cost of the early game techs and increasing the later ones is another solution or both can be combined...

What civ you play really doesn't matter... not having access to farming your land or even worse compared to farmed floodplains a forest start is totally awful...

 

[Mesix]

I don't think that it is a tech tree problem. I think itis a map script problem. The BTS map scripts that FfH inherrated place EXTRA forest tiles in the starting cross of a city to give the added bonus of forest chops. Will all of the added resources in FfH, the map scripts should ensure that you have a few resource tiles and a river adjecent to your starting settler rather than adding forests to stuff the starting cross.

 

[Alzara]

Real life primitive civilisations (like those which still live in jungles etc today), can cut down trees using stone weapons.

Al

 

[EverNoob]

Maybe the script could be changed so that there's always a river, and that it won't be covered in forest. Unless you're the elves.

 

[Falc]

Or how about fixing whatever it is that's breaking the 'Regenerate Map' feature?

 

[Monkeyfinger]

*facepalm* at only one person actually following my link.

bigger facepalm at people essentially saying "just deal with it" when it's clearly a bug based on that link I gave, and one that hurts FfH more than normal civ4.

We have info on how to FIX it, it looks like. Wouldn't moving the forestation step to after the 4-resource step and the 3 hills step be the answer?

 

[Arwon]

Where is the starting locations code? Is it easily accessible?