Why do Forested Tundra Hills Only have 2 Base Yields?

[Deadstarre]

Hill produces 2p, and forest is a feature which adds a yield onto base tiles, often bringing them up to 3. Why is there a special exception to the forest rule being made here that forested tundra hills are only 1F 1P tiles? With a forest its a 2 yield tile, chop the forest and its a 2 yield tile. That makes no sense to me. People been looking to buff Tundra as I recall, I don't think it needs buffs but I dont see why it needs special rules to screw it either, it'd still suck even if the forested hills didn't. Anyone keen as to why this is the status quo?

 

[Ziad]

Because Forests/Jungles are features that ignore terrain "height" (Flat Land, Hill, Mountain).

It's why a Grassland Hill is 2 1 and not 3 .

So Tundra is base 1 . Tundra Hill is 2 . Add a Forest which provides 1 , and you end up with Tundra Forest providing 1 1

So it's a general rule not an exception.

 

[Deadstarre]

Makes perfect sense.

It also makes my next question why would that be the rule, rather than the rule simply being that forests add +1 yield to tiles? Regardless of how we get there, that is effectively how its working right now for anything but Tundra hills. So if forests added 1F or 1P to tundra hills, and forested grassland hills suddenly became 1F 2P tiles due to the new rule, is there some problem?

it is to say, the current situation is literally a general rule that only creates an exception for specifically screwing tundra hills. A forest anywhere else will add +1 yield to the tiles total output.


edit: to fix the situation it doesn't even require changing the current rules but just adding 1P to forested tundra hills. The move explains itself in that now they are no longer the only tile you could chop a forest off of and not see the total yield output decrease.

 

[hokath]

Afaik its because of how hills are coded in the base game.

Spoiler :

<Terrain_HillsYieldChanges>
<Row>
<TerrainType>TERRAIN_GRASS</TerrainType>
<YieldType>YIELD_FOOD</YieldType>
<Yield>-2</Yield>
</Row>
<Row>
<TerrainType>TERRAIN_GRASS</TerrainType>
<YieldType>YIELD_PRODUCTION</YieldType>
<Yield>2</Yield>
</Row>
<Row>
<TerrainType>TERRAIN_PLAINS</TerrainType>
<YieldType>YIELD_FOOD</YieldType>
<Yield>-1</Yield>
</Row>
<Row>
<TerrainType>TERRAIN_PLAINS</TerrainType>
<YieldType>YIELD_PRODUCTION</YieldType>
<Yield>1</Yield>
</Row>
<Row>
<TerrainType>TERRAIN_DESERT</TerrainType>
<YieldType>YIELD_PRODUCTION</YieldType>
<Yield>2</Yield>
</Row>
<Row>
<TerrainType>TERRAIN_TUNDRA</TerrainType>
<YieldType>YIELD_FOOD</YieldType>
<Yield>-1</Yield>
</Row>
<Row>
<TerrainType>TERRAIN_TUNDRA</TerrainType>
<YieldType>YIELD_PRODUCTION</YieldType>
<Yield>2</Yield>
</Row>
</Terrain_HillsYieldChanges>

And I guess it checks for Forest OR Hills or something like that.

 

[Deadstarre]

I think @Ziad nailed the reason, but its surprising to me that its been left in this situation for as long as it has regarding the tundra hills. I know im not the first person to bring this up because when youre actually playing the game the forested tundra hill situation is a "wait... what?" but then you get used to it and forget about, which really shows because we just had an entire tundra balance thread and not a single person even brought this up. Looks like itd be a quick and easy fix to me to add 1P to any tile which is a forested tundra hill, but I dont know how to code that.

 

[pza]

Makes perfect sense.

I know im not the first person to bring this up because when youre actually playing the game the forested tundra hill situation is a "wait... what?" but then you get used to it and forget about

Actually, it's because it makes perfect sense if you think about it. First you're like "that's annoying" but then you understand the rule and you accept it, because it makes perfect sense. no need to "fix" if it aint no bug. no need for exceptions of a rule, except if it had huge balance reasons, which we eliminated in the tundra discussions.

 

[Deadstarre]

First you're like "that's annoying" but then you understand the rule and you accept it, because it makes perfect sense. no need to "fix" if it aint no bug. no need for exceptions of a rule

I dont see any reason to dismiss that gut reaction players have of "that's annoying". And it does feel annoying because we intuitively know there is already an exception being made here. Tundra Hills are the only tile in the game which doesn't gain a net benefit from having a forest on it, anywhere else forest = a net bonus to the base yield. No huge balance implications either way obviously but you can't deny the exception already exists.

If tundra balance is now perfect owing to new caravansary buffs or whatever and it shouldnt be touched, thats just fine and its a great reason not to touch anything. In retrospect you might say hm that seems a little odd to design around an exception instead of "fixing" it and going from there, but if the end result works thats great. Plus maybe this couldn't ever be "fixed" to begin with, maybe G knows something here I dont, frankly i have no idea.

I happened to see someone elses game with a forested tundra hill on it, and I thought to myself " wow, that's annoying" and I'd actually forgotten the reason it is that way at all. Now Ziad explained the rule again and it does make sense cause I can see how the rule creates the exception. I doubt thats going to make it any less annoying for anyone this happens to again though, both for new and "old" players like myself.

 

[Ziad]

In Communitas I think Jungle can spawn on Grassland so you can end up with 2 Jungle/Hills and if you settle on them your city starts at 1 2

Yikes.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

If the map generates grassland jungle, they are 3 .

 

[pza]

And I guess it checks for Forest OR Hills or something like that.

that would also explain why there's no difference between jungle hill and jungle flat. so the rule is: if forest, ignore hill.

 

[Ziad]

If the map generates grassland jungle, they are 3 .

Not sure what it is but it's happened to me a lot. I can't explain it, other than that I have to cut the jungle on a hill down before settling or I end up with a city with 1 less food than it should.

 

[Deadstarre]

Well, i'd forgotten this, but in vanilla the rule was: if forest, ignore everything - forest has its own yields, and all forests are the same. CP changes that by making it an "additive" feature rather than a "replacing" feature. Im not sure when and why specifically that happened but what I see coming as the end result of it is 1) all tundra forests suffer compared to everywhere else and 2) there is a difference of yield between a grassland and a plains forest (otherwise 2F 1P and 1F 2P wouldn't be possible variants).

buffing tundra through caravansaries is ultimately a more nuanced approach, though im not sure there was anything really wrong with the vanilla system either. But I do see why nobody went out of their way to write special code like BALANCE_CORE_PRODUCTION_DESERT_IMPROVEMENT to improve the tundra hills, the biggest effect of the change seems to have been aiming to make tundra worse by comparison to begin with.