Underwater!

[Takhisis]

Today a series of random posts in a Discord server for Civ3 modding resulted in an idea coalescing in Takhisis' mind…

So… has anybody created underwater resources and/or detailed underwater terrain tiles? Because I was thinking whether converting regular ‘land’ tiles into sea-bottom tiles, abyssal plains, underwater crags and volcanoes, as well as replacing forests and jungles with coral reefs and seagrass, etc. plus terrain improvements such as fishing traps, &c. was possible… edit: yes, I know that it's possible from the POV of feasibility, but more along the lines of what could be done afterwards.

Does anybody know of anything that has already been done along these lines? Terrain? Units? Maps?
Something might come out of this.

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

Pounder made some underwater resources. An underwater terrain set would be a major undertaking.

And...subbed.

 

[Vuldacon]

There is also the problem of several different water terrain sets are used and the water color must be used with any "under water" resource.
The Water Color is the reason I made two different water colors for the Coastal Reef and Coastal Reef Ship Wreck sets.

In general, almost all Game Graphics look much better if they are made specifically for the Game they are in. This holds true even for Units.

We get by using General Resources and Units on any Game Map but Under Water Resources would have to be made for the Water they are seen in.
The Resource Palette would have to include the water colors of the Game it is in.

 

[Takhisis]

Well, yes, it'd require recolouring all terrain types as well as overlays (rivers, pollution, terrain improvements, smoke, &c.).

And cities.

The trigger was a nearly-random discussion on Discord which saw me thinking what would happen if we swapped around land and sea tiles' graphics. It's something I'm still chewing on.

 

[Civinator]

...what would happen if we swapped around land and sea tiles' graphics.

Here is something more for you for chewing : https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/inverted-earth-clean-map.76038/

 

[Gelion]

Kind of like this?

 

[Takhisis]

Here is something more for you for chewing : https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/inverted-earth-clean-map.76038/

Inspiring, definitely, but

Kind of like this?

Nice find! Visually it'd look a bit like that, but what I actually mean is the bottom of the ocean. Everything would take place underwater.

Examples:
replace…
Terrain
Volcano with underwater volcano graphics.
Swamp with abyssal deeps/sea trench
forest with coral (can be mined for material)
plains with abyssal plains
grassland with seagrass/algæ
Resources
cattle with shoals of fish or crab banks (see Samborombón Bay, IRL, which is impressive)
wheat with e.g. seagrass

(of course, underwater ore deposits could be found, even oil!)

What that would do is change the terrain types marked as ‘land’ to have sea-bottom graphics. Hills, plains and mountains could be just recoloured and would work after a fashion, but swamps and forests would have to go, for obvious reasons, unless there was to be, specifically, a submerged forest, maybe as LM terrain. At this point I'm still fantasising around.

 

[Gelion]

Nice find! Visually it'd look a bit like that, but what I actually mean is the bottom of the ocean. Everything would take place underwater.

There was a SubWar scenario done for Civ II (MGE?) where you could take some ideas from. It was about the UN trying to fight off the corporations under water, I think. I cannot find it under the new downloads interface....

 

[Vuldacon]

Takhisis... This is a worthy endeavor. It will require time to accomplish and especially must me made for the Water Graphics the Resources are seen in.
I look foreword to seeing what you can do with it

 

[Takhisis]

There was a SubWar scenario done for Civ II (MGE?) where you could take some ideas from. It was about the UN trying to fight off the corporations under water, I think. I cannot find it under the new downloads interface....

I cannot find the SubWar scenario itself even after clicking on some links to our old enemies at Apolyton, but I have found a review page with screenshots which shows that visually this is a lot like what I propose in terms of terrain.

That terrain could be used for a civ for actual air-breathers with pressurised facilities as seen in SeaLab 2020/21 or UFO: Terror from the Deep (yes, I do have that game).
But, I was thinking of having water-breathers such as merfolk and/or the ‘sea elves’ from Dragonlance, naga, and barbarians maybe being giant underwater crabs or similar, for a start.

But for now I intend to sticking to a terrain/resource modpack rather than an actual scenario with civs and techs and resource balancing and so on, which would be a far larger-scale undertaking.
I'd like to make such a thing, but I'm not really sure about my capabilities regarding it. Best take things one step at a time.

Takhisis... This is a worthy endeavor. It will require time to accomplish and especially must me made for the Water Graphics the Resources are seen in.
I look foreword to seeing what you can do with it

Thanks for the support!

I think the best course of action at this point is to provisorily recolour some of the simpler terrain (hills, plains) blue and see what happens.

 

[Samez]

You could try to use some of the resources from CallToPower and CTP II both had underwater cities/terrain. IIRC CTP is abandonware
and can be found as Download in the net CTPII ist available in gog.

 

[Takhisis]

This sounds promising (from the wikipedia entry for CTP):

"Water tiles" are also divided into several types. After submarines are available, the type of tile in oceans can be seen (e.g. continental shelf, deep sea trench, rift, etc.). Once the technology for sea colonies is discovered, undersea tunnels can be built to link to other sea colonies and dry land. Fisheries and undersea mines can also be built to produce resources. ​

So I went to find some imagery and behold! I have already glimpsed some underwater volcanoes. This might help.

 

[Ozymandias]

Can the SMACX tile graphics be of any use?

 

[Takhisis]

Oz!

I don't have SMAC(X) so what are you talking about?

(sidenote: have you ever taken a look at this? It came up on Discord)

 

[Civinator]

Takhisis, I think SMACX is Sid Meier´s Alpha Centauri game. CTP 1 and 2 are still named in some posts above. Another one is the Underwater World in the Civ 2 TOT Fantasy game (there one of 4 worlds). If you want, I can do some screenshots.

The scenario you have posted above is the Civ 2 scenario SubWar by BeBro. As far as I know, he didn´t do this scenario for Civ 3, too - but he made some cool looking future style submarines, that you can find here.

 

[Ozymandias]

Civinator is (as usual) right, with the "X" added on being the usual shorthand for the expansion, "Alien Crossfire" -

 

[Ozymandias]

- Oh, & @Takhisis:

From Ozymandias to Takhisis, Senior Partners at Dewey, Cheetum, and Howe

 

[Takhisis]

I know what game SMAC *is*, but I don't have it. What I don't/didn't know is what Oz wanted me to look at, because I'm not very familiar with the game.

 

[Ozymandias]

I know what game SMAC *is*, but I don't have it. What I don't/didn't know is what Oz wanted me to look at, because I'm not very familiar with the game.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack Download - Free GoG PC Games

 

[Takhisis]

Mrs. Robinson Ozymandias, you are trying to seduce me!