Climate, topography & disease improvements

[vanishpoint]

CLIMATE, TOPOGRAPHY & DISEASE


or what I learned from reading ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ by Jared Diamond


Just some thought’s I’ve had brewing. Most of these are the result of my Latin American studies in college and the fantastic book “Guns, Germs and Steel” -- an absolute must for anyone interested in viewing the evolution of human society since its inception.


Topography


Contrary to gameplay, topography and climate are tougher problems for primitive civilizations to overcome than are neighboring tribes or barbarians. If you’re a settler in a primitive tribe, there simply are going to be some mountains that are impassible. Why these spots should be rare, they should exist. And there should be a significant number of terrain types that, while not entirely impassible, are at least dangerous for primitive people to travel through.


Though terraforming does give some sense of this -- the more advanced a society becomes, the easier (or, rather, the more affordable) it is to manipulate the terrain to make living easy. But Civilization II and CTP both made expansion too easy.


Expansion isn’t easy. Particularly in the early stages of civilization. Perhaps gameplay should allow for settlers to perish in extreme terrain (jungles, desert and mountains) that is not like any terrain squares within the territorial boundary of the settler’s home city (this is presuming that settlers from a town in a mountain range would know their way around craggy peaks). Granted, not every gameplayers wants to spend so much time to build settlers only to see them die. But then again, neither did any king and they had to deal with it, too. Perhaps this could be included as a gameplay option. Suggestions:

[*]The tallest mountains, regardless of what village the settler hails from, would be impenetrable no matter what. Ideally these would appear infrequently among most mountain chains, but it would be nice to have one mountain range that simply can’t be bested by young civilizations.[*]Jungle terrain squares, for those unfamiliar with them, would be a wonderful opportunity to incorporate random diseases into the game. There could be different percentages of jungle disease resistance for settlers who hail from different terrains.[*]Desert travel, for settlers from non-arid regions, should be limited early in game. How many primitive people could survive for long out there?[/list]

It’s certainly one that I would enjoy. I feel the game makes expansion too easy a task. Some true topographical barriers would be welcome. Plus it would be interesting to see how to civilizations that have unwittingly shared the same continent react when they finally discover a way around impenetrable mountains.


East-West expansion vs. North-South expansion


East-west expansion is far easier than north-south expansion. Moving latitudinally means your tribe remains in the same climate and that the crops from your home city are easier to transfer to new cities. Towns that are founded by settlers who come from cities in roughly the same latitude should be given productivity bonuses -- particularly with food production.


Conversely, cities that are founded by settlers who come from other latitudes should be penalized. After all, if the wheat you brought from your home city doesn’t grow in the new location, you’re going to have a pretty tough time starting out, don’t you think?


Disease

As I touched on briefly when I brought up the issue of jungle terrain, disease should be given a bigger role in shaping civilizations. European cities of wood rather than stone learned all too well how dangerous disease carried by vermin could be during the plague years.


Primitive cities should have to deal with plague if public works isn’t at an acceptable level. Heck, even if public works is at an acceptable level, there should be a risk of plague.


Don’t forget, though, that plague had its benefits. It truly is a case of “that which does not kill me makes me stronger.” Those same Europeans (well, their surviving descendants, at least) reaped the benefits years later when European settlers with heightened immunity encountered the indigenous peoples of Latin and South American and wiped out a significant number of los indigenos with disease.


Conquest is determined as much (actually, more so, I’d say) by biological factors like disease resistance than military strength. Granted, this only applies when two cultures from vastly different climates meet for the first time. The game should reflect this -- first encounters between civilizations from different continents (and, to a lesser degree, climates and terrains) should include for the risk of disease transfer. After initial contact, surviving members of the non-immune civilization would pass along a newfound immunity to future generations.


Newfound immunity’s would gradually circulate through a civilization. But cities connected to immunized cities would develop immunities at a much higher rate. They also, I’d say, risk contracting the disease and suffering population loss.
[This message has been edited by vanishpoint (edited May 08, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by vanishpoint (edited May 09, 2000).]

[Par4]

I love this book it is one of my favorites.
I agree with everything you have said but I always wondered how my settlers could wander through the Sarengeti.

I wonder if this would imbalance the game for foreign societies without large dense urban cities brewing with nasty diseases. Maybe it could be just internal or something. I realize how important it was but still its a game that has to be playable and I don't think new comers want to die by not preparing. Maybe it could be an option for more advanced players to deal with because it could just slaughter you.

The n/s e/w thing is perfect as well as topography which could hinder large expansion. Maybe you could need explores or something I'm not sure.

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[raingoon]

Hail this thread! This is a fascinating book, one that I only just heard about last year here at Apolyton.

I think you're ideas are right on -- also I think the topography influencing migration is a fun idea. Disease -- extremely important. Disease is hands down the must underestimated influence on Civilization, and the most under-represented in the game. I hope everyon on the Firaxis design team reads "Guns, Germs and Steel."

[Psion]

This would be a great idea. But I think it should be limited by difficulty level. Civilization III needs to attract new gamers as well as old, and if the new gamer gets wiped out by disease or fails in production because of these restrictions, s/he won't be coming back. So at chieftan and warlord level, disease, etc should be limited, but prince and higher, I say go for it.

[Adm.Naismith]

Instead of simply lost a whole settler (or other unit) we can reduce its power bar as happen after a unit survive to an attack.

So, if you travel only few squares of desert (or iceland) you can survive, if you try to travel over a larger area you can death.
Same for mountains: highest must be unpassable, others can be hostile environment where you lose points every turn, just the mountain passes are secure enough (enemy ambush apart ).

It can also be a better solution to trireme actual disappearance. In deep sea you lose points until you finally reach land or break and sink.

I agree you can have some exception if you are inside your city radius (you know the zone dangers), but without the concept of to be a native of similar zone (too much to handle).
This can add a new meaning to build cities in extreme places, that we usually avoid because of poor resources available: as in real life they are needed to help for traveller of dangerous zone (caravans, military units).

Because the damage is added every turn you stay in hostile place, modern units suffer less (they travel faster and are stronger) and building roads is expensive but help a lot.
BTW, settler building the road will suffer damage too, so you can't avoid penalties with too much ease: if you try to build too deeply inside bad lands you died, until you shift from settler to engineer (better tools, faster and more secure works).

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Adm.Naismith]

Just bumping an interesting thread prematurely death

[tniem]

How far north or south do you have to go before crop growth hinders growth? And does this end at a certain time?

I am thinking about the westward expansion of pioneers in the U.S. Eventually people migrated across the entire continent finding new ways to grow food and such. Was there a problem of growth in north-south during this movement?

[Napoleon I]

This is an excellent batch of ideas that you proposed, vanishpoint, but full implementation of your ideas could make the game, well pretty much unplayable. With so many different factors to think about one would have to spend huge amounts of time contemplating each turn, especially in the case of big empires. However I would back up the idea if it was something that you could turn on and off. For example one of the options on the options menu, such as "Enable/Disable Disease". This way Civ3 could appeal to experienced as well as new gamers.

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Napoleon I

[Adm.Naismith]

Napoleon, I get your post as an opportunity to discuss the concept of "switch on/off game features".

You are right, new players shouldn't be overwhelmed by game features, but are you sure the answer (as usually we wrote here on forum) is always "let player switch it on/off"?

Not only implementing and debugging a so intricate set of choices will be a nightmare for Firaxis, it will intimidate every player to a point they will probably let most of switches as "default setted" by Firaxis.

To add some more trouble, think about: game balancing every features "combo", develop proper strategies for every available situation, look at other players success relating them at yours, if you must check every "switching" to properly compare.

I'm now starting to support the concept of adding more elements right to higher levels of game. Surely a King player can afford some more problems then a warlord, can't he?

If you don't like it, simply play a lower level of game. Of course some choices can be left, because they don't add real balancing problems (e.g. random map preferences), but the main concept (as in many old board games) should be: are you an advanced player, take advanced rules!

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant
[This message has been edited by Adm.Naismith (edited May 22, 2000).]

[MidKnight Lament]

Again, Admiral, I agree.

- MKL

[Par4]

Imagine this. Your civ spends its whole eternity in mexico, then some settlers move to colorado were the same crops don't grow well, the climate and terrain is really different, the animals are different. Now your settlers adapt and move a group moves to Missouri, the animals are like the ones at home, the climate is the same, the same crops grow it is much easier and they will be much more prosperous in the east west move than the north south. Read the book and understand more about it, I think for gameplays sake it should maybe just lower everything that city makes like shields energy food and would diminish with new techs. On high levels it would be harsh like real life in the begining but in chieftan could have little affect on your settlers and cities.

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I use this email
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Don't ask for golf tips
Your game will get worse

[Urban Ranger]

These ideas are interesting, but would greatly unbalance the game.

Depending on where you start, you can have a very easy expansion or would get stuck forever. Sure, it's like this in real life, but this is a game.

Also remember the time scale. Early turns represent multiple years, sometimes 20 years or more. A unit could probably find its way in 20 years even in the most difficult terrain.

Here are some suggestions:

Terrain survival skills. A civilization would start with one or more terrain survival skills, depending on the starting point. For example, a tribe that starts near a desert will have desert survival skills. Additional skills can be acquired.

Climatic zones. The world map can be divided into 4 climatic zones: tropical, temperate, cold, and polar. Settlers from one zone will have penalties settling in another zone until certain conditions are met. A more realistic model would probably have overlapping zones, given rise to a total of 7 zones. Subtropical is between tropical and temperate. Tundra between cold and polar. And something between temperate and cold. These in-between zones could accommodate crops from neighboring zones. Of course, no crops could be planted in either the tundra or the polar zone unless modified by local terrain features, such as the presence of hot springs.

Crop yield. While we are at it, should the effects of crop yield be included? For example, in the tropical zone farmers can plant crops two, or even three times a year (not to mention rice has a higher yield than wheat) while in cold climate farmers could only plant crops once a year. This is going to have drastic effects on population growth.
[This message has been edited by Urban Ranger (edited May 22, 2000).]

[Napoleon I]

Adm.Naismith:

Your point is well taken. However I disagree with you on several counts. First of all, I don't think that having the option switches will add too many problems in the development of the game because the setting chosen by the player will simply affect the value of the random variable that will determine whether a particular event will occur on a particular turn or not.

Secondly, I support the idea that more advanced players can and should handle the more advanced settings that are added to the game. However, I predict that this will cause a big problem in the multiplayer mode of the game. With a wealth of minute details and options to consider, players will either be forced take huge amounts of time for each turn or forfeit most of their decision-making process to the AI.

Those are the only reasons why I propose having the on/off switches for many of the game options, but I would agree for a special single-player only difficulty level that will feature a highly advanced AI and all of the options described above.

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Napoleon I

[Theben]

Just wanted to chime in that there's a disease model in the List http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000241.html . However, it was written before the author read the aforementioned book by J. Diamond.

[vanishpoint]

Wow, I go away for a week and return to find that a topic I thought was dead has sprung back to life.
I like the idea of terrain survival skills, but I think the effects could be tweaked a little. Cities settled in an unfriendly climate zone (meaning that the civilization hasn't acquired or developed the sufficient terrain survival skill) should have production and food penalties for, say, the time it takes three generations to come and go (or the TSS is acquired). Presumably, after three generations, the people should be faily well acclimated to their surroundings. Because the people are dealing with unfamiliar crops and unfamiliar local diseases, these reductions are justified, I think.
Also, when units from a city in one climate zone move into a different zone, they should face the possibilty of death. Harsh, yes. But hear me out -- I'm talking a small likelihood of that. Let's say there are seven climate zones. If tropical units move through a subtropical zone, they might face a 2 percent chance of dying from a disease or animal attack or -- who knows -- quicksand. Now if they pass through the subtropical zone to the next one (sorry, can't think of it's name off hand), that percentage of death might jump to a whopping 3 percent chance of death per turn and so on. Certainly terrain squares in specific climates might prove more dangerous than others, too. Veteran units, because of their proven ability to survive, might have this danger halved.
I think it would be an interesting addition to the game, but not one that would overwhelm first time users. After all, if your civilation's survival hinges on one unit's survival, then maybe they should start over anyway.

[Par4]

Terrain survival skills, good idea, 400 years of growing cactus in the desert will make you respect sun and yearly rainfalls won't it. Climate zones, another good idea, now I'm in the tundra, the polar, the tundra, the polar, the tundra, the polar, the tundra, the polar, the tundra, the polar,*punch* eskimo says "We don't take that crap in the polar". Crop yields, yet another good idea, I can grow a lot of bananas in the amazon and catch a lot of paranas(sp), don't forget the huge spiders that one bite will kill ya and those camouflaged snakes that crush your bones and swallow you whole then slither away with a big hump in their backs, hmmmm good livin'. Seriously good ideas, and not so many on off switches SMAC had too much and with screwy names. Disease I say should go with the levels and could be turned off, but imagine the gameplay on hardest with most of your people dying off like in real life back in the ancient times. You could make a black death scenario too. If we have real numbers in military a certain number of units could die every turn in a new climate zone depending on logicistics and medical levels, local diseases. So much gameplay added, good thread. Also I think terrain survival skills should be lost if that civ doesn't have contact with that terrain, ie civ starts in desert, moves into temperate, desert cities captured, never regained, after 500 years of living away from the desert are the people still going to have desert skills.

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I use this email
(stupid cant use hotmail)
gamma_par4@hotmail.com
Don't ask for golf tips
Your game will get worse

[Adm.Naismith]

Napoleon, as SMAC teached to us, there isn't easy debug of game options.

IMHO, proposed features (and I was speaking more in general than referring to this specific thread) can't be simple different value of variables.

About multiplayer: yes, lot of micromanagement will take more time to a game, but

1) some features only change rules, not necessary add micromanagement to expert player (OK, you must learn to manage new rules, but that's training in solo mode);

2) board games are multiplayer by itself nature, so the whole bunch of players must start chosing wich set of rules want to play with. Computer games usually change the "difficulty level" concept trying to mimic more rookie or expert AI player, but IMO that's silly.

A game company can barely make an AI engine for every game, just adding here and there some cheat to let us believe that at stronger level AI plays better.

I'll be more happy if they make an AI that can cope with different (increasing) set of rules. It won't happen, but I can hope for

In multiplayer mode there will be no problem because all players must agree to play at the same level. Now (SMAC) they must agree on a wider set of on/off switch, making things unnecessary difficult.

Look, I agree we can't make rules so different from level to level to force Firaxis to build five different games. I'll be more than happy with three level at all, if properly implemented.

MidKnight Lament, please stop to support me or someone will start to suspect we are brothers!

Urban ranger: I agree "survival skill" can be a Civ special (as in SMAC faction bonus), but should also be some minor tech (if they will be implemented on discovery tree) you start with, but you can also acquire (by trade, by research, etc.).

After all, when european people started voyage into far countries (polar cap, Africa, etc.), they usually learned how to adapt their survival equipment and dress to mostly match native ability.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant
[This message has been edited by Adm.Naismith (edited May 29, 2000).]