Where's the Jungle?

[Human Being]

I'm sorry if there's a thread on this already but I couldn't find one (sort of new to the forums but have been reading for a long time):

I started up a Huge Fractal game of Civ 4 today and as I was enjoying playing the game for the first time in months, one thing immediately jumped out at me in contrast to Civ 5 - the Equatorial belt with deserts and jungles in the middle of the map. I forgot how much I loved having huge expanses of jungle to explore, settle crappy cities in, and then eventually clear out and turn them into productive settlements. It's not just the jungle I miss though it's the feeling that the map conformed to some sense of latitudinal, climatic logic. It's seeing the jungles turn to deciduous woods that in turn became coniferous and then tundra. (granted the tree skins were just a flavor thing but I appreciated them nonetheless)

After about 20 or 30 games of Civ 5 I can only ever think of a handful of times I found more than a couple jungle tiles grouped together. I wonder if their frequency was turned down because in Civ 5 jungles are can actually be useful tiles, especially if you can settle a city with 5 or 6 (I was lucky enough once to find this), then build a university, trading post spam and have gone Free Thought from the Rationalism Tree. (if I have the name correct - the one where you get science from trading posts) This in contrast to Civ 4 where jungles were essentially just obstacles.

I'd like to hear: (1) what people think about the function and frequency of jungles in Civ 5 as they compare to Civ 4, and (2) is there way to increase the spawn rate of jungles by either mod or menu option? I know that certain climate toggles in the advanced menu should affect forestation rate, but I admittedly have not toyed with them much and, while I wouldn't mind some extra trees, I'd really like to see the big, scary, impassable jungle that my warrior would have to trek through in 3000 B.C. with nothing but a loin cloth and a club

 

[Hesha]

Nice topic, because I have a similar feeling about this. It was nice to have half-forgotten, always disease-ridden cities turning out to be the most productive places once the jungle had turned to cottages
But - beside the fact, that single tiles of jungle are just bs, looking at our planet - I don't like what they did with jungles in CiV. Yes, Firaxis. We know, the rainforest is our friend and we will only by organic coffee from now on! But that shouldn't have such an impact on the gameplay. Jungle doesn't and never has been as plentyful in food as prime agricultural lands. And the fact that universities produce to bulbs in jungles is neat, but since the universities are available from late medieval times, that is complete and utter bs as well. This bonus - and I still think it is just too much, 1 bulb would already be ridiculous - should only be available once pharmacology is researched.

EDIT: Almost forgot my second point: Why can't Workers "build" Forests anymore? In Civ 1 they could, Civ 2 I dunno, Civ 3 they could do it after a certain Tech (Engineering?) in Civ4 they couldn't, but forest expanded and now there is NO way to grow forests or jungles.

 

[Mystere]

If you start as the Aztecs if there is a large patch of jungle tiles on the map you are at least likely to start in it due to start bias. I do miss the big jungles too tho. If I recall correctly the warm climate option in advanced settings ups the total jungle tiles on the map as well. You cannot select that when playing fractal but you can when playing continents or pangea for instance. Give it a try I would say.

 

[JohnnyW]

I miss them too actually. I enjoyed them for the same reasons you describe. I find there is too much desert for my taste as well. I thought desertification had some human causes?

 

[Tokira]

I've noticed the same. In the first games that I played I had plenty of jungle tiles and now I've seen only max 5 tiles per game (of course its possible that the AI has got rid of them..). I usually have no jungle on my starting continent. Not even on a huge continents map.

 

[tomplum68]

I've also noticed this. Sometimes on a map there may on be 5-6 isolated jungle patches.

Its probably due to the increased usefulness of these tiles

 

[Don Julio Anejo]

I think it's because of start bias. For example, on a pangea map everyone is squished together like sardines in a can. However, only Monty usually starts off in a jungle, everyone else has other kinds of terrain. Which means that you simply can't place a lot of jungle tiles without screwing over at least a few civs. And from some point of view it makes sense. I mean, it makes about as much sense to start Russia in the jungle as Gandhi in an arctic tundra...

I've noticed a lot more jungle tiles on bigger maps with less players.

 

[Human Being]

Yeah after I posted last night I did some testing this morning on Huge maps and found that changing Rainfall to Wet definitely makes a large difference. On one map I started (all of these starting in Future Era for satellites - where's the worldbuilder???) there was a jungle patch easily over 100 consecutive tiles. This was also with Temperature set to Hot, which seemed to make intuitive sense to me that Hot would spawn more jungles instead of forests but I haven't done enough tests (~10) to have a solid feel for whether this is the case or not. If someone who is adept at reading through the code and can get a definitive answer on what exactly Temperature affects, I'd be glad to hear

Even after seeing this and knowing there is a way to push out more jungles, I guess I'm still a little dissapointed it takes this extra step because by increasing Rainfall you do get more jungle but also end up with basically a Boreal map. I wish on the default setting the system could just do a better job of generating a balanced map with a few large jungles, forests, deserts, etc. There just doesn't seem to be much of a balance right now between the standard settings of getting 5 jungle tiles on a map or tweaking the rainfall and temperature and ending up with Central America

 

[JohnnyW]

Yeah after I posted last night I did some testing this morning on Huge maps and found that changing Rainfall to Wet definitely makes a large difference. On one map I started (all of these starting in Future Era for satellites - where's the worldbuilder???) there was a jungle patch easily over 100 consecutive tiles.

Thanks for the tip. I never mess with these settings, but now I might!

(I forgot that they can actually have an impact on the game, lol)

 

[Guardian_PL]

I guess that jungles are less in Civ5 because:

1. They initially suck, need to be removed and so reduce the oomph that reviewers and kids who want gold mines everywhere are looking for.
2. They look reeeeally crappy, on par or worse than rivers.

 

[joyous_gard]

2. They look reeeeally crappy

They actually look like bird ka-ka too.

I liked jungles in Civ IV and map generation because the maps were drawn based on climes of planet Earth. Now the map is drawn based on starting location.

Jungles in IV were cool because many times they were like dividers which made sense to me. Early on, the land had physical dividers keeping civs from coming into regular contact. Then, over time, some civs got organized and planned and started developing and settling and building.

In V, it feels more like hills and plains with splotches of forest (sometimes there is a huge forest) and tiles of jungle.

 

[Kyroshill]

I love jungles.... plop a TP in them.... then build a Uni in the city.... and you have a bangin tile....

I do wish there were more and in heavier concentrations.... esp when the Aztecs are in the game.... they never seem to get enough jungle to help them... of course I remember the Fall Further/RifE lizards having massive jungle empires!

 

[JamesCivFan]

I was wondering that too. Is it moddable in any way so that more jungle tiles come up? I actually miss the ol' days of civ3 when sometimes there were vast jungles to explore with your starting warrior.

 

[Drawmeus]

I was wondering that too. Is it moddable in any way so that more jungle tiles come up? I actually miss the ol' days of civ3 when sometimes there were vast jungles to explore with your starting warrior.

Yes. Map scripts can do this.

If you set rainfall levels to "Wet", that will also get you wide areas of jungle.

 

[Akatsuki]

I think to get as much jungle as possible you need to set the world age to 5 billion, turn the heat and the rain up.

 

[Thormodr]

I agree.

The jungles in Civilization 5 are nothing like cIV.

I loved the huge rain forests and settling a city in the middle of one was challenging as the city was a disease ridden mess for the longest time.

Jungles seem pretty tame in the latest iteration unfortunately. They don't even look that good either.

 

[Ddude97]

The earth maps have pretty large jungles in africa+SA

 

[Disgustipated]

Just did a start at 5 million years old (the oldest setting) wet and hot as France. I started in a good patch of jungle. Although most of it was south of my capitol.

 

[Bob_]

I can understand u all but acually (altho i really appreciate realism) im happy jungle is mostly gone. In Civ 4 i never could settle in the jungle, because the maintainance would just kill me (first 50-100 turns) or it was already settled by the ai (later turns). So basically starting near the jungle i had a massive disadvantage, because i didnt have enof space to settle and i had to conquer all the then fertalized jungle-cities from the ai.

So in the end the net effect is quite positive for me. I find science from jungle quite neat too! but it shouldnt give 2 food from the beginning of the game... thats too much

 

[comatosedragon]

I think to get as much jungle as possible you need to set the world age to 5 billion, turn the heat and the rain up.

You will actually get more with a younger world (3 Billion years). You will end up with many more hills and mountains this way as well, so it may be OP for some civs (Inca?). Right on about the climate and temperature though.