[GS] Why should I care about Climate Change?

[Kaan Boztepe]

Latest finish for me is usually 60% of max turns in a game and by then i dont think i will be subject to anything that is detrimental from climate change mechanic. Msybe just to see how it plays out , after all "one more turn"

 

[Tech Osen]

What's missing imho is local polution. Reduced yields on farms, plantations and fishing boats when the city is using lots of dirty industry for instance. (Of course that only works when big cities are worthwhile.)
Lower the appeal of tiles in dirty cities, nobody wants to visit beaches full of garbage or national parks without wildlife.

 

[NukeAJS]

There are definitely some situations where you might use global warming as a kind of weapon against vulnerable civs.

As for why you might care. Well, if you're one of those vulnerable civs and 90% of your tiles go underwater ...

 

[Red_warning]

What's missing imho is local polution. Reduced yields on farms, plantations and fishing boats when the city is using lots of dirty industry for instance. (Of course that only works when big cities are worthwhile.)
Lower the appeal of tiles in dirty cities, nobody wants to visit beaches full of garbage or national parks without wildlife.

Smog cloud "natural" disaster should definitely be a thing!

Spoiler :

 

[Josephias]

Arioch is on point: as in RL, if you have a victory strategy on mind: ¿why should you care?.

I think is good for flavour, and indeed if you want to have a stable path to your victory, maybe is better not increase it much (as the major effect, besides reducing the land available, is the % chance increase on storms, floods and droughts). If you are already in a strong position (as, again, as in RL), this is not going to impact you much.

Main point: you decide if you want to rule a planet with full landmass and reasonable weather, or a scorched planet with submerged cities and catastrophic climate. Any of both options, you won nevertheless.

Maybe this could be reflected in the victory score (with stage of Climate Change being a -X points, representing what you won a less interesting prize.

Regarding victories: For science victory - as it was pointed out in other threads - you don't care nevertheless, as you look to start again in a new planet. Culture and Diplo victories should be the most affected, tough I see some retorted ways to make climate change result in a positive for Diplo victory. For Culture, as commented above, indeed consequences of climate change should reduce tile appeal and possibilities (i.e. coastal resorts might not be placed against submerged tiles, but only true coasts). However, these impacts Will be again global, so not much against your victory.

 

[Elhoim]

When it was first announced it sound good to me, but they implement it way too easy to handle. To be able to see which tiles will be effected with sea level rise in ancient era is really stupid and dumb down, also too little tiles are being effected ... for me any tile on coast should be submerged (maybe only those with cliffs not) with max sea level rise, maybe even two or three tiles deep into land. Hurricanes, floods, vulcanic eruptions should go crazy --- bassicly every turn one-or-two. And those civ most effected by this should start start to denounce you - or even start war against you if you dont lower down your CO2.

This would make thinks way to interesting and exciting, and it would be easy to implement (bassicly just numbers, maybe it would be possible through mods) --- but FX again went down with easy , dumb down version of one of the mecanics (like they did with loyalty, governors etc). Like bad AI wasnt enough, they dumb down game every time, spend year implementing cool mecanics just to have no effect at the end.

Yep, that's the gist of it. For example, here is level 6 disaster:

Even at max disaster level, climate change only added 6% more storms, nothing to river flooding, and 3% droughts. Tiles affected are around 60 in a map that has huge coast stretches (a thousand tiles at least). Basically, nothing. I kinda expected a more doomsday scenario with the hyperreal setting, especially when reaching level 6-7.

Jesus, it's like they don't want to frustrate anyone even at the hardest setting. I understand them, though. With our own games we got lots of complaints of hard being "too hard". When we suggested lowering to normal, which was the intended design balance, they got offended and "showed" us how good they were at playing hard in other games...

Thank god for modding.

 

[Red_warning]

It's possible to adjust the intensity of environmental effects though. Would be interesting to see the impact of maximised disaster intensity...

 

[Disgustipated]

I would like to see level 4 turned into an absolute nightmare. They already beefed it up once, but needs to be 10x stronger for us masochists.

 

[Pistol90]

It's possible to adjust the intensity of environmental effects though. Would be interesting to see the impact of maximised disaster intensity...

I dont think that is what we talk about ... that disaster slider only sets starting disaster frequency , no matter of climate change ...What we saying is that disaster intensity slider should be able to move dynamicly ingame with climate changes taking effect. So when there is no climate change it should be lets say 1 , and at max level climate change that disaster slider should be also at max. Right now it doesnt look so. Also I am not sure that disaster intesity affect sea level rise, I belive that is only for Storm, Floods and that kind of disasters.

 

[Haggbart]

When it was first announced it sound good to me, but they implement it way too easy to handle. To be able to see which tiles will be effected with sea level rise in ancient era is really stupid and dumb down, also too little tiles are being effected ... for me any tile on coast should be submerged (maybe only those with cliffs not) with max sea level rise, maybe even two or three tiles deep into land. Hurricanes, floods, vulcanic eruptions should go crazy --- bassicly every turn one-or-two. And those civ most effected by this should start start to denounce you - or even start war against you if you dont lower down your CO2.

This would make thinks way to interesting and exciting, and it would be easy to implement (bassicly just numbers, maybe it would be possible through mods) --- but FX again went down with easy , dumb down version of one of the mecanics (like they did with loyalty, gouvernors etc). Like bad AI wasnt enough, they dumb down game every time, spend year implementing cool mecanics just to have no effect at the end.

There are a few problems here. First of all that doesn't seem fun at all. It will just lead to a lot of micromanagment.
Also, if all coastal tiles are flooded, why would you ever settle on the coast? My first thought would be settle inland, build all coal plants and flood my competitors.
Third, the AI would struggle a lot more than the human player if the climate was starting to go all HAM.
IMHO that's the worst case scenario - adding a new feature that's just tedious as well as introducing a route 1 strategy that makes the game easier.
Fourth, it's not in any way realistic. Flatland tiles would represent a lot of different altitudes, and for all flatland near the sea to get submerged is totally unrealistic.

I agree that getting a warning in the ancient era for flooding is not realistic either, but it's to add a strategic layer to it. I think that's the balance act they need to get right - avoid a whole lot of micromanagment,
avoid exploits towards the AI, avoid certain strategies being either OP or totally worthless but still add a strategic and non-random element to it and also make it a fun part of the game without going too far and
make it way too important compared to other game elements. If they can do that within the predictions of the IPCC, that's even better. I'm not saying they struck the right balance now,
but it totally makes sense to ease it into the game, and turn it up a notch later if needed.

 

[Pistol90]

Yep, that's the gist of it. For example, here is level 6 disaster:

View attachment 517246

Even at max disaster level, climate change only added 6% more storms, nothing to river flooding, and 3% droughts. Tiles affected are around 60 in a map that has huge coast stretches (a thousand tiles at least). Basically, nothing. I kinda expected a more doomsday scenario with the hyperreal setting, especially when reaching level 6-7.

Jesus, it's like they don't want to frustrate anyone even at the hardest setting. I understand them, though. With our own games we got lots of complaints of hard being "too hard". When we suggested lowering to normal, which was the intended design balance, they got offended and "showed" us how good they were at playing hard in other games...

Thank god for modding.

Yes, and then multiply that "Why should I care" with fact that storms, floods and droughts are also something you really dont need to care very much , because in most cases it just few Builder repairs you need to do (not even need to spend Builder charge)

 

[Krajzen]

Mod idea. "Hardcore climate change" which turns it basically into late game apocalypse. Global drastic decrease in all kinds of yields and **** ton of disasters.

Evem better. Make it so very advanced level of climate change prevents anybody from victory unless they mitigate it somehow. Rationale is simple: nobody "wins" if the biosphere is ruined and your society is doomed to collapse.

Even better! Make certain level of climate change non-standard game over sorry guys, you ruined biosphere, now no civilization is sustainable. This would basically force you to fight climate chage using world congress and diplomacy.

 

[Vandlys]

I love the fact that in real life the civs that have already been through their heavy industrial stage want to limit and punish those that are embarking on it.

`

Well, yeah, they don't want to limit their progress though, they want to change the negative sides to it, and find solutions to come to the same results without the downsides that will affect everyone.
You know, the things they learnt from they want to teach others? That's only good, isn't it?

 

[Arent11]

I would like to see level 4 turned into an absolute nightmare. They already beefed it up once, but needs to be 10x stronger for us masochists.

I would like to see actual disasters. A flooded coastal tile is just micromanagement that simply bothers me & keeps me from playing the actual game. A meteor strike that dims the athmosphere & results in an ice age wiping out large parts of life is a serious challenge that a civilization might have to overcome:

(1) Meteor strike
(2) Large volcano (one speculated reason for the end of dinosaurs)
(3) Alien invasion
(4) Economic collapse
(5) Worldwide epidemy

 

[Elhoim]

It's possible to adjust the intensity of environmental effects though. Would be interesting to see the impact of maximised disaster intensity...

Just check my post above yours. Hyperrealistic is the highest setting.

 

[Josephias]

Evem better. Make it so very advanced level of climate change prevents anybody from victory unless they mitigate it somehow. Rationale is simple: nobody "wins" if the biosphere is ruined and your society is doomed to collapse.

Even better! Make certain level of climate change non-standard game over sorry guys, you ruined biosphere, now no civilization is sustainable. This would basically force you to fight climate chage using world congress and diplomacy.

I'm in for these two without need for altering that much the effect of disasters. I concur anyway the chances in SS shown by Elhoim seem a bit low, but maybe we are not Reading the screen correctly: e.g. I do not buy there is a 0% permanent chance of flood (maybe there was a flood in this turn, and so the chance for next turn is 0%, but it builds up as time passes) - same may happen for the other chances.

 

[Hatchie]

You have fairy tale like view of the world! Global climate change exists because majority of the damage we have done before we were awere of the consequnces. Ever since we are aware we do alot of profress in reducing our impact. And contribute to reducing it further is a good way to make money! However the reason we can’t cut it faster is that it would reduce our productivity (in turn reducing our ability to find solutions to the problem). I think it is translated to the game pretty well! One thing we can’t really translate to the game is the fact players can’t “unlearn” that climate change exists...

 

[Red_warning]

Just check my post above yours. Hyperrealistic is the highest setting.

I assumed you talked about phases, if max level only adds a few percentages then that is indeed too little.

 

[Victoria]

`

Well, yeah, they don't want to limit their progress though, they want to change the negative sides to it, and find solutions to come to the same results without the downsides that will affect everyone.
You know, the things they learnt from they want to teach others? That's only good, isn't it?

It’s good, but not ‘only’ good. How is the UK and America’s green credentials? This very minute DuPont is doing the same horrendous thing it has always done that has polluted the entire world with C8. They had to go back to blood samples from the Korean War from anywhere in the world to find blood without C8 in it. With every non stick pan you buy you are killing the world.

 

[Vandlys]

It’s good, but not ‘only’ good. How is the UK and America’s green credentials? This very minute DuPont is doing the same horrendous thing it has always done that has polluted the entire world with C8.

I agree. And that's why I shall play my Civ games like the green hippie I am, at least once : P I already feel bad for harvesting resources and cutting down trees. Can't wait to play a whole game without any earth destruction...

Still, if a criminal keeps going back to prison and tells me not to commit crime, and he goes ahead and does it again, I still think his words could be wise, eventhough his actions might speak the contrary.