OK, so what are these terrain improvements?

Provost Harrison · September 18, 2001, 07:50

I have seen these on grassland tiles. They are not colonies because they are within the city radius, and don't look like them. They are not mines because I have seen these on mountains and they look different and they are not irrigated either. So what are they? The attachments show a load of these buildings around the city of Samarra, and I have highlighted one by circling it in red. It would seem strange if they are fortresses, especially so many of them around the city...

Sabre2th · September 18, 2001, 08:03

I know people complained for a long time that they wanted suburbs, but this doesn't look like that. In case you can't tell, I have no clue what's going on and this is useless spam

Sabre2th · September 18, 2001, 08:04

Seriously though, what screenshot did that come from? It's hard to see exactly what's going on in the piece you posted.

Provost Harrison · September 18, 2001, 08:09

It's from the www.civ3.com gallery. Look at any of the screenshots of the empire and you will notice these things are quite prominent around some of the cities.

Now what I reckoned it could possibly be is where there is construction work queued for a worker, which will eventually come along and complete the work.

Sabre2th · September 18, 2001, 08:10

Okay. I don't have much time to look right now, but I'll get to it later today so you can have my expert opinion

EDIT: I made a couple seconds of free time.... They might be some sort of trading post ala CtP (increases trade like irrigation increases food)

jsw363 · September 18, 2001, 08:18

I know that you don't think that they're mines, but could it be that the other things you've identified as mines are advanced mines (like CTP)?

Dan Magaha FIRAXIS · September 18, 2001, 08:21

They're mines.

Dan

korn469 · September 18, 2001, 08:35

thanks for the info Dan!

and btw Dan means like iron mines and coal mines, not landmines

Inverse Icarus · September 18, 2001, 09:11

you honestly couldnt tell those were mines?

would you prefer the civ2 "hut" mines?

next question: how come you can mine grasslands? (it used to be a "forest" command.

Gramphos · September 18, 2001, 09:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
They're mines.

Dan

What do you mine on grassland?

Inverse Icarus · September 18, 2001, 09:21

i guess it just gives you a normal shield increse like it used to do on hills/desert/mtns?

maybe its an industrial city?

Gramphos · September 18, 2001, 09:38

Quote:

Originally posted by UberKruX
i guess it just gives you a normal shield increse like it used to do on hills/desert/mtns?

maybe its an industrial city?

I was asking for what mineral that can be mined on grassland.
(I don't know if there is any, but as it is possible to build mines Firaxis must know something that I don't)

korn469 · September 18, 2001, 09:52

i've seen iron deposits on grassland squares, so i am guessing that those mines are on iron

saracen31 · September 18, 2001, 12:57

I doubt there's that much iron around one city...maybe the mines just represent using the square for manufacturing rather than farming.

korn469 · September 18, 2001, 13:20

for one thing the screenshot could just be a mockup but to prove to you that their could be that much iron around one city look at this screenshot, the city in it has alot of iron surrounding it

http://www.civfanatics.com/cgi-bin/a...iv3image17.jpg

same goes with elephants in this screenshot

http://www.civfanatics.com/cgi-bin/a...ges/revolt.jpg

Provost Harrison · September 18, 2001, 13:38

What I don't get is, why would someone mine grassland? It just doesn't seem a very sensible thing to do...

korn469 · September 18, 2001, 13:46

Quote:

why would someone mine grassland? It just doesn't seem a very sensible thing to do

maybe they left the AI in charge of the workers for a few turns too many

but seriously i think it because there is iron there

Dan, do you have to have a mine and a road on iron before you can use it or is a road all you need?

isaac brock · September 18, 2001, 13:55

What I don't get is, why wouldn't you mine grassland? I mine grassland all the time...

Provost Harrison · September 18, 2001, 13:59

Quote:

Originally posted by korn469
Dan, do you have to have a mine and a road on iron before you can use it or is a road all you need?

Go through the tutorial and you will see that all you need to extract iron is a road.

Either that or this is a new ability (you couldn't mine grassland before, it just produced forest) so you can extract a few minerals on a grassland tile if there are precious few minerals around, as appears to be the case in this Samarra.

Admiral PJ · September 18, 2001, 14:01

i actually tghought those were millitary bunkers/bases on the original pic they came from.. it would be better if there could be more varied graphics for mines etc.. they all look so weird all lined pointing east/south(sic.) still they'll do for a strat. game.

I DO hope they make more non city structures like Forts etc , maybe even just modern forts/ rennaisance forts .. the colonie type is an excellent start.

d_dudy · September 18, 2001, 14:46

look close and you'll see the mine shaft. but it would look more in place on the side of a hill. not that you can't mine on flat land, it just looks silly for the mine shaft to be above ground and then dive strait down.

if i had to guess i'd say this was an industrial city, not too worried about growing

red_jon · September 18, 2001, 14:53

I would like it if you could mine flat land, like in CTP.

aaglo · September 19, 2001, 00:07

Of course you can mine grassland! Somewhere beneath the earth there is somekind of bedrock. Dig there, man!

And as korn469 mentioned the picture in link http://www.civfanatics.com/cgi-bin/...civ3image17.jpg , it seems that some special resources (like coal, iron, other minerals) may be centered to certain places, just like in real world.