The sad demise of Tsunami

[Mortenart]

What happened to the Tsunami spell?! I was building an army of arch-mages in preparation for a spot of terraforming, built my first one, cast the spell.. one big blue flash and two of my towns got flattened! As I play mostly on the Fantasy map (with virtually zero ocean), I need to create some seas, and some islands for colonies, but that`s not possible now.

Terraforming is one of the most fun aspects of Civ, I think (like in Alpha Centauri), it would be good if you could raise hills/mountains also.

 

[Sureshot]

AI can't handle it. I like the change to tsunami if only because hopefully it can't be used to completely destroy a city in a single turn now.

For terraforming, ive made modifications in the past where you can raise or lower ground, and other things like turn grasslands to plains, i'll prolly remake them at a later date.

 

[Mortenart]

It`s true that it was too powerful when it came to attacking cities (although it took more than one spell to obliterate it). One simple way to negate that would be a flood defence improvement, but I know that new improvements can`t be added lightly. It was kind of fun though to turn your worst enemy into a cluster of little islands and watch them eat clams.

Would be good to see your mods back in the game, in one way or another.

 

[Sureshot]

it had a chance to destroy a coastal city in one spell.. or it could do nothing, it was a 15% chance of it.. was such a broken spell heh

 

[Mortenart]

Oh, I didn`t know that.. Knew it was totally hit and miss, like using a dodgy plumber. There was a mod I used that had 100% success, but that just became Waterworld. (terrible film)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Flood defense sounds like a nice effect for the levee/dike building in BtS, if it were to be added (a Dike equivalent would be quite useful for the Lanun)

It seems to me like tsunami should do what it does now, plus be the equivalant of spring on all the tile it hits (although I would prefer it is spring were changed to sometimes create rivers instead of chaning the terrain itself)


I'm hoping that some spells being miscast will lead to terraforming. It would be rather funny if an adept cast spring in a city and sank it.

 

[Mortenart]

I don`t think Tsunami should be used as an extended Spring spell, as, by its very nature, it should be a destructive spell. Perhaps further levels of Spell Extension could be applied to Spring to deal with Hell terrain more easily.

I wouldn`t have minded if the ability to attack cities had been removed from Tsunami (too unbalancing, and Crush does virtually the same thing), but I do miss its terraforming powers. In one game, I was being seiged by a stack of about 50 Dwarven units. My Capital could only have held out for one more turn, but a water-walking Arch-Mage came to my aid in the nick of time and drowned the lot of them. A memorable moment that turned the tide in my favour (sorry for the pun!). Was then able to safeguard my capital with a moat. Tsunami rocked.

Do agree with you on the mis-cast though, that would be great.

 

[vorshlumpf]

Though I love terraforming, I'm glad the Tsunami no longer does it. I guess I'm just too nitpicky about a spell's name matching the spell effect (tsunami's don't destroy land, they wash them clean).

 

[Mortenart]

Tsunamis can flood land and leave it under water, effectively `destroying` the land.

 

[jprc]

Tsunamis can flood land and leave it under water, effectively `destroying` the land.

In the "real" word, a tsunami can flood for a few days/weeks before water is drained away, absorbed or dried, EXCEPT if it destroys a protection/pier, and/or climb up a river, hence authorize sea water / lake / river to submerge a low zone and it can be permanent: there is a new coastal line.

However the main and most frequent effect is to destroy the fertility of a land by, when drying out, having the land saturated with salt, hence reducing/halting any (future) production.

In FFH, it should then have a terraforming effect (land to permanent water) about 5% to 10%, and reduce the land to a quasi-desert the rest of the time.

 

[Farmer Bobathan]

fallout would work well for the "quasi-desert" don't you think

 

[vorshlumpf]

EXCEPT if it destroys a protection/pier, and/or climb up a river, hence authorize sea water / lake / river to submerge a low zone and it can be permanent: there is a new coastal line.

I can't see this being even an uncommon occurrence. Man-made protections could get washed away, yes - but their presence would suggest that man "borrowed" land from the sea anyway. Climbing up a river can't be any different than climbing up land itself; the water would eventually get washed back down again.

 

[Mortenart]

I agree with JPRC. There needs to be a small percentage chance that the spell will permanently flood the tile, leaving coastal ocean. I have no use for the spell as it is. I don`t want to damage the tiles of the city I`m attacking, as I want them to remain intact when I take the city, and it doesn`t do enough damage to enemy unit to be worthwhile that way.

 

[Vortex79]

fallout would work well for the "quasi-desert" don't you think

How about straight desert for desert? Then if you get hit by it you can fix it