transforming terrain

[joecoin]

I'm attempting to get a handle on why you would want to transform terrain.
Can you make a moutain out of a mole hill, so to speak?
What, if any , advantages would this give you?

 

[Old n Slow]

Why transform? -- mountain offers zero food, but a farmed grassland feeds two citizens, plus other potential advantages.

Why use a mountain? better defense, but after a point in the game (where you have enough of the world that defense is not much of a concern) that value decreases.

Is a mountain available as an end to transformation? No, and neither is a glacier. Once you transform tundra to desert, I don't think that tundra is available any more either (not that amyone would want it when grassland is equal to or better than tundra in every way).
I think there is some info on transformations in the War Academy.

 

[Ace]

In the eary and midgame eras, you need a mix of resources, but, after you have reduced the AI to one "pet city" and built most of the improvements and have turned to maximizing your population, reaching for 254 cities, and reseaching Future Techs, the need for shields drops drastically. The optimum number of shields needed for freight production is 25 or 50. with one of these numbers, you can produce a freight every one or two turns, and, if you are rush buying freight, a smaller number will suffice. except for SS construction, anything over 50 shields is a waste. So, at this point in the game, chop those forests down and create farmland! A forest provides one food, but farmland provides four food. That is one and one half more citizens for your empire, its also going to provide 3 more trade, which means more taxes which means more coins, science, and luxuries. And, most importantly, a much higher civ score!!!

 

[Dark Ascendant]

I convert deserts to plains to feed the people and grassland to hills if that city has a whole bunch of grassland with no hills or forests for shields.

 

[funxus]

After you reach explosives, all your engineers has the possibility to turn any terrain (except ocean) to grassland, plains, hills or forest. Which one you want depend on your intentions and how much time you're willing to spend.
Grassland - more food
plains - 1 shield guaranteed
forest - 2 shields directly
hills - 3 shields with mining
The only reason to not transform other terrain is if it has a special you want.

 

[Marlos]

For the truly anal retentive (namely, me ), I transform all areas to grassland for maximum food and trade.

There are a few notable exceptions, though. I leave wheat, wine, and gold alone.

Wheat transforms to grassland, which provides less food. Mining (re-foresting) yields silk, which is good, too, but in late game "pet city" environments, the food to support extra citizens is better.

Wine transforms to wheat (I believe), but I love the combination of production and trade.

Gold transforms to coal, which provides terrific production, but the trade arrows from gold are just too hard to pass up.

When I get to the end of one of my games, the whole world is railroaded, farmlanded grassland!

The removal of engineers and terrain transformation is one of my big pet peeves about Civ3, :rant: but there are many other problems with that game as well.

 

[Dark Ascendant]

Transforming everything to hills, plains and glassland is the way to go.

 

[CaptBoulanger]

Agreed. Grasslands, plains, hills, and even the occasional mountain or forest (usually either for a special or for defense value) have their uses. Everything else (except oceans of course) I usually transform until it's one of those.

 

[mgeary]

I'm transforming all the time. I try different terrians around my city till I find one that is helping my city the best.

 

[Ren]

I agree, I use transform a lot too. I ONLY leave a plains square if (a) It has a wheat or buffalo, or (b) I don't have an Engineer available. I have changed my game so ocean can be transformed into glacier, I find that to be more realistic. I would have it as desert to be even more realistic, but the game only allows an engineer one turn doing stuff on a boat before it goes to sleep ie. I compensate with the extra turns needed to get from glacier to desert.

 

[AGRICOLA]

This is can be useful at the start of modern warfare scenarios when you are often hard pressed by the enemy onslaught on your cities.

Put a couple of engineers in the most threatened cities and have them transform grassland or plains to forest. The transformation takes only two or three turns and the 50% defense bonus can help your desperate defenders a lot.