Volcanoes!

[[to_xp]Gekko]

so, does the "volcano" random event actually have any effect? every time I've had it in my games it seemed to be just cosmetic. here are some suggestions to make volcanoes kinda realistic and hopefully fun in game

1) Volcanoes are no longer regular peaks that get a makeover after a random event. instead, they are volcanoes right from the start of the game, and remain impassable

2) each volcano on the map has a chance to be active or not, and there's no way to tell if it is. if it is, it has a random ( small ) chance per turn to go ka-boom! which destroyes improvements in the surrounding 8 tiles and sets forests on fire.

3) the 8 tiles surrounding a volcano are very fertile ( just like IRL ) and get a bonus to food output. this means that settling near a volcano is dangerous but can be rewarding ( again just like IRL - that's the reason why ancient people settled near volcanoes AFAIK )

4) for additional flavour, you could make it so that if there's a river running right NEXT to the volcano and it erupts , the tiles on the otherside of the river are spared ( lava falls in the river ) ( optional : the river gets deleted from the tiles it "saved" from the eruption - think it got filled with cooled-down magma ) .

5) water tiles would be unaffected by eruptions ( obviously ) , and it could be cool to have eruptions temporarily melt ice ( both the impassable one and the Illian-ish one )


so, these changes would add something fun to the game imho. volcanoes mean high food yields, but a chance to see some improvements destroyed

 

[hbar]

These changes sound great! A few more possibilities:
1) Nearby units get damaged/killed by eruption (unless they are immune to fire)
2) Cities adjacent to a volcano lose XX population on eruption. If city size is less than XX, the city is destroyed (historically, this happened a lot).
3) Volcanoes in Hell terrain have a chance of spawning barbarian Fire elementals and/or Balors.
4) Give erupting volcanoes a chance to cause a mini-deepening.
5) Add an event where if you have no state religion and a pagan temple, the people clamor for a virgin sacrifice. Choices of sacrificing for a one-time bonus to food, hammers, or cullture, with a 10-turn unhappyface. Falamar would get a unique respone ("Why waste a perfectly good virgin? Send her to the palace!", starts Golden Age)
6) Cold-blooded units would get hasted when passing within 1 tile of the volcano.

 

[deadliver]

I think it would be cool if the volcano had a chance of providing either chaos or fire mana a la Master of Magic.

 

[RogueThunder]

I like this idea... to add to it.

For the warming of surrounding tiles, make it happen fairly frequently. Turn ice into grassland and tundra into plains. In a 3 square radius. Make this have an event popup for whoevers territory its in, if it is. And if theyre illian, give them a "ritual" (Aka have ice mana, pay X) to kill the volcano.
As another option to the event, have a pay X(Say, 25 goldish), to prevent it from lighting fires. Prehaps removing the would-be-burning forests/jungles. So as to not rape the elves/lizards. Not that the mazatl would flinch(Spring on their workers XD) But the cauli/ljo/sylv would be furious.

And yeah, there should so then be a general event, that can trigger on volcanos, that adds a route and fire mana node to a volcano.

Oh yes, and hbar noting that ajacent units need to be injured by the eruption. Quite so.

 

[Jean Elcard]

I like the idea to give volcanos a "function" too, and I like most of the suggestion, but am I the only one here, who thinks that the current volcano model looks downright ugly? I went as far as to open the world builder to remove them in the past. The volcano event has a habbit of triggering quite often. Too often, for my taste.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'll agree it doesn't look great but I don't care much about that. what IS bothering is that the graphics often "flood" into nearby tiles, which looks like a glitch :\

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The Graphics that FfH uses are horrid, but the FF volcanoes graphics are rather nice.

I'm thinking that my version of the volcano eruption event will deal serious damage to units nearby but increase the food yield of the adjacent tiles.

 

[Jean Elcard]

Right, I was speaking of the FfH volcanos, not the FF ones (didn't remember there was another model). I should play the game more often, instead of hanging out in the forums and modding stuff all the time.

 

[JeffSteel]

I should think cities build next to one which erupts would at least lose some population and/or have buildings destroyed (Pompeii comes to mind).

 

[Vrenir]

The current version of the Thomas' War mod uses natural disasters like Volcanoes, Earthquakes, and storms rather effectively and unobtrusively. Perhaps it would be worth checking out for some inspiration. He also has an astrology system (coupled with his Copernicus' Observatory wonder modcomp) that might be transferable.

 

[Quetz]

Of course, if you get erupting volcanoes to work, that could make a very fun ritual indeed..

FFh + Populous = ?

 

[Willgar]

Another really good idea, would add flavour and a nice risk vs reward mechanic

 

[Polobo]

Add some form of volcanologist technology that gives you more options and increases the chance that you recognize the volcano is going to erupt and evacuate your people in time (decrease the percentage lost).

Hell Terrain causes any volcano touching it to immediately become active and periodically erupt. In addition, nearby volcanoes increase their likelihood of becoming active.

I think having some mountains become volcanoes still makes sense; since it is possible an eruption had never occurred at that point since creation. Once it goes active it can possibly become dormant or stay active, with either state being indeterminable without technology - and with both providing the additional food benefit.

 

[deadliver]

Could the blizzard mechanic be used to represent lava from big eruptions? Have the volcano spawn lava which starts fires right?

 

[FireBlaze]

You could also have a magnatude randomizer, which makes it to that there is a random chance that the eruption from the volcano could be worse or it could even be like a dud, or have less of an impact.
You could also have a very small chance that a volcano could be a "Super Volcano" (Ex. Yellowstone) That could basicly destroy everything in a 10 tile radius, and change from whatever temperature climate the world was at, and bump it down one cooler (Tropical-Temperate-the cold one- Ice Age ish, new thing, unique to super volcanoes, were only the equator has non icey ground. Dunno what to do about arid, make it temperate?). But I doubt that would be implimented, just because its too destructive. Oh well, a boy can always dream

 

[Arctic Circle]

.. and randomly put fire on forests and jungle nearby?

 

[zup]

It wiped out everything in 10 tile radius and you are worried about a few forests and jungles? There goes a perfectly nice 50 pop city...and another, and another ...

 

[Caradoc]

This being a fantasy world, it should be evident that events such as volcanoes could not possibly be 'natural' disasters. They must be an act of the gods. And as such, if the appropriate god is suitable supplicated, mortals may be spared. And if such a god were to be angered, well, that could be catastrophic. Point is -- eruptions should not be treated as random events.

 

[Polobo]

Even a fantasy world can have effects that are not direct manifestations of a God; I think they'd get a little bored having to control everything single event manually, and instead would setup systems that would do the work for them. Heck, a God of chaos (aka RNG God) would definitely employ such "random events".

 

[zup]

Well iirc Erebus is flat, so what goes under one's feet must be very different from what we have. Not that it is mutually incompatible with volcanism.