Weird Stuff: Green Hills, and Flood Plains

[Zouave]

Just wondering while playing the Egyptians in their correct starting position on an accurate world map. . .

1. Why the heck do flood plains and deserts look identical?? I even went into the Editor to check and they are exactly the same. So now I have to click on terrain constantly to see where I am - especially along the Nile River.

2. What the devil are nice verdant GREEN HILLS that produce food doing in the middle of the Sahara Desert?? The hills belong, but they don't produce food, unless you are lucky enough to capture a hyrax or two running around the rocks. A hill in the middle of the Sahara produces the same food as a hill in fertile France. Jeez. There should be another hill terrain tile for hills in barren terrain. This also means Marla's Map will have to be edited and the hills replaced by mountains, the best substitute.

Sid, Sid. Did you rush to get this baby out for Christmas??

 

[OneInTen]

Flood plains are just desert tiles that border a river. No river, no flood plains. Pretty simple.

 

[Akka]

Originally posted by Zouave
Just wondering while playing the Egyptians in their correct starting position on an accurate world map. . .

1. Why the heck do flood plains and deserts look identical?? I even went into the Editor to check and they are exactly the same. So now I have to click on terrain constantly to see where I am - especially along the Nile River.

It's normal. Flood plain IS a desert. Basically, if a desert tile is adjascent to a river, then it's a flood plain. Yes it sucks

 

[Sodak]

The Sahara hasn't always been as dry as it is now. There are no oasis specials in Civ3, so why not allow a little food production on the hills? There have been towns and even cities in the desert for thousands of years. Even with those verdant hills, the towns there in the game will never grow very large.

Oases are very fertile patches of green in a sea of sand. Literally thousands of people can live permanently on a good sized oasis.

 

[Optimizer]

In arid regions, elevated areas become more moist and fertile.

But, in the Ideal Civ Version of Our Dreams, there should be differences between hills.

 

[zebomba]

Turn on the "show food and shields on map" and then it's so easy to see the difference...
Besides, spend some time reading and then you're gonna find out that deserts can be very fertile, but they lack rainfall. Once you add water and stirs, it makes excelent crop land.
A hill w/o food in game terms is a mountain square. Adding another tile for it is not meaningful, and there are always mod makers.

 

[Magnus]

Ever notice how a desert tile gives a base of 1 shield and a flood plain (essentially wet desert) gives you 2 (EDIT: 3 food - I am SUCH the despot! ) food and 1 coin. Where the heck did the shield go? and you can't even mine flood plains like you can desert - so for related terrain, they really are quite far apart.

additional edit - the one coin is simply for the fact that all flood plains border rivers so the conversion form desert to flood plain is 1 shield to 3 food).

 

[Ohwell]

Originally posted by Magnus
Ever notice how a desert tile gives a base of 1 shield and a flood plain (essentially wet desert) gives you 2 food and 1 coin. Where the heck did the shield go? and you can't even mine flood plains like you can desert - so for related terrain, they really are quite far apart.

If you knew anything about geography and earth science you would know that the heavy floods wash away all mineral rescources, leaving behind a perfect farmland. The extra "coin" is the enormous profit made from the sale of the land to the customers. It is a big difference, but it should be.

And about not mining flood plains, who would want to?

 

[Zouave]

Why not just do what was done for enhanced grassland? Put a little dot (in this case a black one) in the middle of a desert tile to tell me in that case it is FLOOD PLAIN. Pretty simple, huh? I'll never have to wonder about being able to build a mine in the wrong tile again.

All hills in barren desert terrain have to be edited into mountains lest they produce food where there is no food.

Speaking of hills, there are no differences for hills in jungles (Borneo and New Guinea are loaded with them), or in forests.

A hill is a hill is a hill no matter where it is: desert, jungle, grassland, forest, et al.

This is absurd.

Some provision for overlays in the Editor on top of the basic hill tile should have been provided.

 

[Ohwell]

Actually the flood plains have 2 green dots, pay attention!

 

[Zachriel]

We've covered the fact that hills tend to be moist in deserts, that flood plains are just deserts squares that are covered with alluvial soil. This is correct and within the limitations of the game, realistic. Of course, a few more tile types would be nice, but . . .

But what about mountains?

Mountains should be impassable to most units. Even Alexander on his great conquests in Afghanistan and India had to find passes through the mountains. The Alps and the Himalayas act as barriers to both the military and to settlers. This would increase the "realism" of the game and lead to situations such as at Thermopylae, the Khyber Pass, or the Oregon Trail.

Maybe just some mountains could be unpassable. Just a suggestion for the next version.

 

[Melinder]

Part of the problem is the setting you seem to have on your game. If you go to "map" or whatever under the main menu, you can put a check in the box for (IIRC), "show food and shields on map tiles". When I did this it was suddenly bllindingly obvious which tiles were flood plain and which were desert. The flood plains have two green dots in them.

Voila, no need to rightclick every tile.

 

[Magnus]

Originally posted by Zachriel
We've covered the fact that hills tend to be moist in deserts, that flood plains are just deserts squares that are covered with alluvial soil. This is correct and within the limitations of the game, realistic. Of course, a few more tile types would be nice, but . . .

But what about mountains?

Mountains should be impassable to most units. Even Alexander on his great conquests in Afghanistan and India had to find passes through the mountains. The Alps and the Himalayas act as barriers to both the military and to settlers. This would increase the "realism" of the game and lead to situations such as at Thermopylae, the Khyber Pass, or the Oregon Trail.

Maybe just some mountains could be unpassable. Just a suggestion for the next version.

HEY! Good idea! - what about mountains being unscalable until 'construction' or perhaps 'engineering' is researched? Until then you can only use passes.

 

[Toni1]

Some mountains would be just too high and large to ever allow passing of any serious military unit (exept air ofcource).

Some could have passes that would allow foot units to move into them but would be unpassable for mounted/armour units at least before theres road/railroad build into it (passes are expanded enough and made safe enought for them to move thru them or tunnels are dug into them). Actually even with roads in them it would still be slow for armoured units (and even probably for mounted ones)to move in such terrains (well at least in RL), railroad would not have such penaly as long as both sides of the mountain are under friendly controll.

I do agree too that there should be more types of terrain (desert/archtic/barren/normal etc hills)