Trees on Tundra!

[Older than Dirt]

Does no one else find it surprising that Civ 4 has trees on tundra? And, trees on tundra on mountains, to boot? Do the developers/designers/playtesters have any idea what tundra is? This is one more among several reasons why I have resorted to World Builder to correct the maps.

 

[BadHorsie]

Definition from www.geographic.org:

Tundra: A treeless plain characteristic of the arctic and subarctic regions.

 

[Ceritoglu]

If I remember correctly (has been a while since I did geography in school) the word Tundra is originated from Tundar, which means 'treeless plain.' Forested Tundra therefore is something of an oxymoron .

 

[Sovietof17]

I think they just wanted an arctic type area like alaska.

 

[salty]

The tundra should probably be renamed taiga, but people have such limited vocabularies today, why bother?

 

[Older than Dirt]

The taiga is the forest running across Russia/Siberia just south of the tundra. It is beautiful. However, mushrooms from the tundra are healthier than those of the taiga, unless they have been laced with radioactive fallout. Also, don't eat the red berries that grow near Vorkuta; they are radioactively enhanced too. Come to think of it, everything near Vorkuta has been radioactively enhanced probably, even the delicious reindeer.

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

And that's why I don't go to Russia for their fine cuisine.

 

[salty]

Come to think of it, everything near Vorkuta has been radioactively enhanced probably, even the delicious reindeer.

duh, you didn't think really used FedEx did you?

 

[Zhahz]

I'm pretty sure that the Civ designers shoot for complete realism and accuracy in everything they do, because Civ is a simulation of reality, not a game.

/sarcasm off

Why is something like this a big deal? You know what tundra is, I know what tundra is. In the game tundra is simply not very good land, and even when forested it's not very good land.

 

[cairo140]

The taiga is the forest running across Russia/Siberia just south of the tundra.

Hey... we have Taiga here in Canada as well.

 

[Xarlak]

So the forested tundra tiles are actually taiga, and when you chop down the trees onthe taiga you get tundra. But since it's much easier programming wise to have one name for both the forested and unforested icy plains, they just called them all tundra since it's the term that people know.

 

[drkodos]

What about the "FROZEN TUNDRA" at Lambeau field?

 

[BeefontheBone]

@Xarlak: Almost, except that you can't alter the base tile type, just the improvements (Civ 4's code treats forests and hills as a tile improvement). If they had a name for "tundra/forest" then it should probably be taiga.

 

[Older than Dirt]

If you chop down a boreal forest (taiga) you do not get tundra. You get some rather marginal farmland and some really unhappy bears.

 

[naterator]

there are no trees on lambeau field! there are no trees on tundra! the game doesn't put trees on ice, right? that said, i enjoy the hammer or chopload of hammers that i get from them when i am forced to build there.

 

[Gherald]

the game doesn't put trees on ice, right?

Fantasy_Realm does

 

[naterator]

Fantasy_Realm does

i almost went back and edited my post to say that, because i knew someone would... true true. i like the fantasy map and its resourse options.

 

[Older than Dirt]

I guess that the Lambeau Field reference is about the heated field so the blue grass turf can thrive. In northern Russian cities I have noticed that the heating pipes which run through the city enable plant life to thrive (well, do some better anyway). So why can't we have a tundra heating tech so we can grow bananas or at least apple orchards in this otherwise inhospitable terrain. Some nice red apples on leafy green trees would sure be more pleasing than the nasty looking tundra.