Transforming terrain undersea in Midgard?

[ChaffReaper]

In Civilization II: Test of Time, when I choose the Midgard Scenario or play a Fantasy Game, I'm unable to transform anything in the Undersea World.

When I go into the Civilopedia, and look up "Sea Bed", it says: "Effect of Transformation: Coral Reef". But when I put an M Settler or even a Dwarf on a Sea Bed tile, I'm not given the option to transform the tile into a Coral Reef tile. Am I doing something wrong?

The same thing happens for all the other tiles that the Civilopedia says should be transformable, including Sargasso Sea, Coral Reef, Mountains, Sea Floor, Smoker, and Trench tiles (all on the Undersea World map).

 

[CharlieChuck]

I haven't got test of time, but I'm wondering if this is something to do with engineers? In normal civ2 only engineers can transform the terrain, settlers can only mine/irrigate. Is there an engineer type unit in these scenarios? if so can these transform?

 

[ChaffReaper]

As far as I can tell, Dwarves are the equivalent of Engineers. On the Surface World, my M Settlers can't transform any terrain, but my Dwarves can. But on the Undersea World, neither my M Settlers nor my Dwarves can transform the terrain.

 

[CharlieChuck]

Sorry I can't help any further, I thought it may have been an engineer/settler problem. Good luck.

 

[Catfish]

Have you tried using the O-key to issue the transform order? I suspect that the transform option may not be appearing in the Orders menu even when your unit possesses the ability.

 

[ChaffReaper]

Wow, you're right. It doesn't show up in the Orders menu, but when I hit "o" for a Dwarf, he does start terraforming the tile. Thanks!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Dwarves can terraform any non-water terrain in Test of Time - including Clouds. You should try that sometime - it's wild!

But it takes a long time, so you'll need to be patient.

 

[jonel1111]

In ToT, if I'm the Goblins I always try to build Sacred Menhir, Stonehinge, and Tome of Inspiration in the same city. Pick an underground city with at least six (prefer ten) squares that are bedrock. Set a Dwarf to transpose each piece of bedrock. Try to have the center be Blue Room and Fire Chamber. Two or three ocean squares doesn't hurt either. Takes a while, but when they change, add a road and go to the next bedrock. Do NOT irrigate these transposed squares. They become "Diamonds, Alimentary Canal". They produce lots of trade arrows. It's easy to produce several hundred magic beakers per round with out any trade caravans in Fanatism.

 

[Catfish]

The ability to transform non-transformable terrain is an exploit (explanation here). IMO, it's cheating, but people can do as they please with their own games.

From the link:

You could eliminate this bug by making non-transformable terrain types transformable (rules.txt) - but into the same terrain type, ie, no effect. It might look a bit odd in the Civilopedia, but it would remove a possible exploit.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Considering how long it takes in game time to gain the ability to transport a Dwarf to the Clouds or the Sea, or a Shield Boat, Dragon, or Wizard to the Underground world, I don't consider it cheating. It takes so godawful long for even one square of terraforming done this way, it's really not worth it in terms of strategy or wanting additional resources.

It's just a fun thing I accidentally discovered one time, and I think it's neat.

 

[jonel1111]

CHEATING??? Not a chance. The AI does it all the time, particularly when underground. I captured a Stygian city that had five Diamond, Alimentary Canals in the last game I played.
The AI almost always has one or two cities with unlisted special lands.
jonel1111

 

[Valka D'Ur]

BTW, there's a quicker way to get Buteo units into the Undersea world: Bribe a Kraken and either move it to a Buteo unit (Settler, Hawkman, Eagleman, Great Eagle, etc.) or the unit onto the Kraken. Then move the Kraken to a space where it can dive below the surface. It will take the Buteo units with it, and they can then move freely all over the Undersea world as easily as on the Surface or Cloud worlds. They just can't transport themselves back to the other worlds without riding on a Kraken or being teleported. It's a great way to increase the number of Settler units underwater when you're not playing the Merfolk or the Stygians.

It's very handy to have Great Eagles to explore the Undersea - they're fast, and they can fight if necessary.

 

[Catfish]

It takes so godawful long for even one square of terraforming done this way, it's really not worth it in terms of strategy or wanting additional resources.

It's easy to produce several hundred magic beakers per round with out any trade caravans in Fanatism.

That sounds like it might be worth it. It takes one Dwarf 30 turns to transform a Bedrock or Fire Chamber tile, but only 10 for an Ice Chamber or Blue Room.

CHEATING??? Not a chance. The AI does it all the time, particularly when underground.

I don't think taking advantage of a bug that allows you to artificially create resources (+1 trade arrow for the river) is exactly in the spirit of the game – whether the AI does it or not. You could put a stop to it by altering rules.txt. It isn't restricted to Bedrock; it can be performed on all Underworld terrain types, except Tunnels and Vaulted Sea, and most terrain on the Cloud and Undersea maps.

The Ctrl+N bug exploit allows you to prevent ranged units from running out of fuel. It is banned in multi-player games. Because something is possible within the parameters of an unmodified game, doesn't mean it can't be classed as a cheat. But you can do what you like in your own single-player games. Reminds me of this thread.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The Ctrl+N bug exploit allows you to prevent ranged units from running out of fuel.

Interesting. I didn't know about this. However, I doubt I'll use it, because even though it's frustrating to lose a Sorceror because of a miscalculation in the number of squares, an unexpected number of units occupying a city, or hitting the wrong key, they do make a most satisfying "THUD!" sound when they crash...

 

[Catfish]

If you miscalculate, that bug won't help you, because to take advantage of it, you need to ensure that you never move the unit its maximum movement in one turn (Edit: or, more correctly, you should move the unit one tile less than the maximum range). The bug will allow you to traverse the entire map with a ranged air unit, without the need for cities, airbases or carriers.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Okay, I admit it - I tried it. It was cool to see the Sorceror hovering in midair outside the Goblin city for a couple of turns, freaking them out.

But I went back to my normal way of playing, because it seemed too easy... (and yes, I did discover that you can't let the unit move its maximum and my first Sorceror went THUD! to the bottom of the sea...).

 

[jonel1111]

Mea culpa. I admit that I generally save before opening a hut. I don't like new cities in spots that I feel are horrible. Barbs, techs, gold. Fine, I'll take what I get. But cities that I don't want in places that I don't like. No!!! Particularly on underwater or clouds. They can be shrunk down, but it's hard to get them to vanish. I've tried homing up to 8 settlers on a size one city underwater. The settlers "poof", but the city generally stays. On the primary plane or the underground plane, I can kill a city very easily. But underwater or in the sky it's almost impossible. If you know a way to kill a city easily, please tell me.
Never heard of or tried the Ctrl N trick. Does it work for boats that have to be near the shore? Or is it just for fliers?
jonel1111

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I share your frustration. I got what I thought would be a good Undersea location for a city, but it turned out to be surrounded by mountains and trenches - there's no access to water!

Dunno about the boats - if I get Bearing Plate before my Brian's Expedition and Sacred Rune of Alteration are finished, I can try it out.

 

[Catfish]

Mea culpa.

Same here, but I would never do it in any competitive game. They removed it to some extent in Civ4 (perhaps in Civ3 – never played it), by creating a random seed that is stored for 1 turn; so you'd have to reload the previous turn before popping your hut in order to generate different results. The stored seed is only loaded when you load a saved game, so you actually get two bites at the cherry, but it would stomp out this kind of practice in PBEM games. It can be disabled in options.

If you know a way to kill a city easily, please tell me.

The only way I know is to starve it down to size 1 and then build a Settler-type unit. I don't know if that counts as 'easily'.

Never heard of or tried the Ctrl N trick. Does it work for boats that have to be near the shore?

Yes.

BTW, I've attached rules files for the Fantasy, Midgard and SciFi games which avoid the non-transformable terrain bug by making such terrain types transformable, but into the same terrain type. If you decide to use them, back up your original rules files before extracting the archive into your Test of Time folder. I haven't tested them, so I don't know how the AI handles it, ie, whether the AI wastes Engineer-types making pointless transformations. I think the AI is ******** enough.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Well, I've got both Brian's Expedition and Sacred Rune of Alteration, but no Bearing Plate yet, so all Longboats are now Dragon Boats. I'll try out the CTRL+N thing next game...