Who else here hates deserts?

[Sahkuhnder]

Vegas was founded (after an unsuccessful attempt by the Mormons) as a railway steam train water stop due to natural springs being located here. The civ equivalent would clearly be an oasis tile. Transporting in food wasn't a problem due to the railroad passing through and that all the original settlers were railroad employees.

Just for trivia the natural springs all dried up about 30 years ago. The town really grew as a place the Boulder(later re-named Hoover) Dam workers and WWII soldiers would go to party and blow their pay for the week. I'm still waiting for the bar/whorehouse/casino city improvement mod for the game...

 

[kobo1d]

I put fortresses on deserts.

For absolutely no reason.

I hate deserts.

 

[Mementh]

Vegas was founded (after an unsuccessful attempt by the Mormons) as a railway steam train water stop due to natural springs being located here. The civ equivalent would clearly be an oasis tile. Transporting in food wasn't a problem due to the railroad passing through and that all the original settlers were railroad employees.

Just for trivia the natural springs all dried up about 30 years ago. The town really grew as a place the Boulder(later re-named Hoover) Dam workers and WWII soldiers would go to party and blow their pay for the week. I'm still waiting for the bar/whorehouse/casino city improvement mod for the game...

where doe sit get its water now and how do they make sure the city does not collapse?

and to the ijit that commented about spelling.. do you always spell 100% correct or do you use a spell checker?

 

[Kieran]

I modded my games so Deserts produce 1 hammer and can have cottages and workshops built on them. I changed mountains to allow 3 hammers but apparently impassable terrain can't be worked even if it has a base production value.

Was that in Civ IV?
What xml lines do I need to change to do that?

 

[oagersnap]

where doe sit get its water now and how do they make sure the city does not collapse?

They don't need the water anymore, since no steam trains pass through anymore. What do you mean by "collapse"?

 

[calyth]

What do you mean by "collapse"?

I think he/she meant what would happen if you didn't drink water for a few days.
I think Las Vegas takes their water from the Colorado River...

 

[Uiler]

Well China just built a massive railroad through the mountains to Tibet. It's high enough that they need oxygen masks. The highest the railway runs is about 5000m above sea level which is about 16 500 feet with 960km at 4000m which is about 13 000 feet so the answer to your question is with modern technology you can definitely run railroads through 10 000 footers.

http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/dec/12china.htm

They're called peaks

So im sure they mean monstrous 10,000 footers, do you see any mining or railroads passing through Everest?

Unless there is... Tell me


Um... terrorforming?

 

[Ranos]

Was that in Civ IV?
What xml lines do I need to change to do that?

To give Deserts the 1 hammer, you have to go into TerrainInfos (IIRC, I'm at work right now), find Desert and put in a base value. I think the line is <Yields> but look at one of the other terrain types to see for sure. To allow improvements, you have to go into ImprovementInfos (again, IIRC) and under each improvement type you want to allw, you have to list the terrain type. There are existing types in there already so just copy and paste and change to Desert.

 

[Artanis]

There are multiple different types of terrain that can be called desert. Some are nothing but shifting sand almost completely devoid of life while others are filled with dozens of plant and animal species. Until they decide to make every type of terrain imaginable, it will have to be either/or, but not both.

I think this is the crux of it. To my mind, when you see Desert ingame, it represents Desert which is too dry and useless to do anything with. Deserts which have some redeeming quality that it's possible to make use of would show up as Plains.

...after all, Lewis and Clark called the Great Plains "the great American desert"

Let's also not forget that the Fertile Crescent and Ur, the birth of civilization, irrigation, and farming between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers is considered hardcore desert.

Mesopotamia - and the Nile valley, for that matter - would be Flood Plains

 

[Sahkuhnder]

where doe sit get its water now and how do they make sure the city does not collapse?

and to the ijit that commented about spelling.. do you always spell 100% correct or do you use a spell checker?

The city has huge deep water wells situated all around town and gets the shortage from the Colorado River. When the Colorado River water was divided up many years ago most of the water was given to California, so even though the huge Lake Mead sits right next to Vegas the city isn't allowed to take much water from it. The water shortage is a big future growth problem as Vegas has been the fastest growing large city in the US for 19 years in a row now.

I do use spell checker. It only takes a minute and makes for better reading for everyone else on the forums. Nobody is expected to know how to spell every word, but in the computer age with spell check so easy to do there's no reason for misspelled words any longer.

 

[Dogzilla]

Bring back colonies!
I hate building crappy cities in the desert(or tundra) to claim a resource.
Modders, is it possible?

 

[Pragmatic]

Could we build cities along the edge of desert, then rush in a Great Artist to expand the cultural border? With enough culture, you can expand the radius to 5 squares (though that's a Legendary city... more likely to get stuck with 2 or 3 squares).

 

[Ranos]

A Great Artist would immediately expand the borders to a 4 tile radius with only 1000 culture remaining to expand them to a 5 tile radius. You could also just build it on the edge with grasslands and plains and build the culture naturally. This is where allowing workshops on deserts comes in handy.

 

[leebloom]

How about one of the mod genii posting the code that would change a desert to +1food with irrigation or +1shields with mining? You could make deserts work however you felt they should.

 

[leebloom]

The water shortage is a big future growth problem as Vegas has been the fastest growing large city in the US for 19 years in a row now.

oops

http://www.citymayors.com/gratis/uscities_growth.html

 

[Sahkuhnder]

oops
http://www.citymayors.com/gratis/uscities_growth.html

I remembered that from somewhere and tried to recall where I got my data. It turns out to be Nevada, not Vegas that grew the fastest for the last 19 years.


Our local newspaper: http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Dec-22-Thu-2005/news/4953724.html


Remember also I was speaking of per capita growth. 125K to Los Angeles is much less than the 106K to Vegas/N. Las Vegas/Henderson as shown in your link as based on the respective sizes of the metropolitan areas.

All I know for certain is that man is this place growing fast, with all the problems that entails. Just like in civ, if you let your city grow too quickly...

 

[Mementh]

once underground aquifers are empty they have a tendency to collapse from the weight above

 

[Kilroy]

how do you do that? make one city a food production city and ship extras to other cities?

You can't, but you should be able to IMO. Sorry if I got your hopes up.

 

[Mementh]

You can't, but you should be able to IMO. Sorry if I got your hopes up.

np man i am waiting for galactiv civilizations 2.. its supposed to have this option and such

 

[Thormodr]

Mmmmm....Gal Civ. Good stuff.

Deserts are annoying I'll admit. I would like to try a huge desert map though. Could be fun as production, food and max population will be limited. It should play out much different than most normal games.