Skorpios
Chieftain
In all the playthroughs and Well of Souls info so far I haven't seen any buildings, improvements, techs or quests that interact with forests. As far as I can tell, forests are simply impediments to improvements/expeditions and unit travel and are effectively just packets of production waiting to be harvested around your cities. Even if you follow Harmony, the planet still ends up being clear-cut in all developed areas. I find this a bit sad actually and clearly goes against Harmony sensibilities.
Workers start off with the ability to build mines, farms and generators - why not lumber mills? The colonists eventually learn how to exploit totally alien resources such as Floatstone but can't explore the potential of the alien forests growing around their cities?
There are tech and quest (I think?) choices that boost output for mines, farms and generators, so why are forests ignored? It seems very strange in a game that offers so many choices on how to interact with the environment the classic 'forest' choice of fell now for a quick production boost, or preserve and gain long-term production potential seems to have been removed completely.
Technologies such as Pioneering, Ecology, Alien Sciences, Biology, Transgenics, Bio Engineering and their leaf techs all seem prime candidates to provide abilities, improvements or buildings that enhance the output of forest tiles.
An alternative to the Lumber Mill could be a Forestry Base - an improvement which manages controlled felling to initially provide additional production on forest tiles. Interaction with techs and buildings (such as the Pharmalab, Alien Preserve, Biofuel Plant, etc) could add science from studying the forest ecosystem, or gain culture and health by using them as recreational parks, or exploit alternative food and energy sources and so forth.
I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to eventually (after jumping through several tech/quest hoops) turn forest tiles into the equivalent of Terrascapes without the negative health effect and lower maintenance. They could only be planted on tiles that would naturally support forests but would be unaffected by (and maybe even boosted by) miasma.
Does anyone else find it strange that forests seem to have been ignored in Beyond Earth?
Workers start off with the ability to build mines, farms and generators - why not lumber mills? The colonists eventually learn how to exploit totally alien resources such as Floatstone but can't explore the potential of the alien forests growing around their cities?
There are tech and quest (I think?) choices that boost output for mines, farms and generators, so why are forests ignored? It seems very strange in a game that offers so many choices on how to interact with the environment the classic 'forest' choice of fell now for a quick production boost, or preserve and gain long-term production potential seems to have been removed completely.
Technologies such as Pioneering, Ecology, Alien Sciences, Biology, Transgenics, Bio Engineering and their leaf techs all seem prime candidates to provide abilities, improvements or buildings that enhance the output of forest tiles.
An alternative to the Lumber Mill could be a Forestry Base - an improvement which manages controlled felling to initially provide additional production on forest tiles. Interaction with techs and buildings (such as the Pharmalab, Alien Preserve, Biofuel Plant, etc) could add science from studying the forest ecosystem, or gain culture and health by using them as recreational parks, or exploit alternative food and energy sources and so forth.
I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to eventually (after jumping through several tech/quest hoops) turn forest tiles into the equivalent of Terrascapes without the negative health effect and lower maintenance. They could only be planted on tiles that would naturally support forests but would be unaffected by (and maybe even boosted by) miasma.
Does anyone else find it strange that forests seem to have been ignored in Beyond Earth?