Gripe: Pollution too pervasive

[justjake73]

I entered the Industrial Age. A few of my cities had 2 or 3 yellow skull signs in the polllution box. In the past, this meant that they had a 2 to 3% chance per turn of gen pollution. Much to my surprise, they began generating pollution squares every 3 to 4 turns!!!! WTF? With only THREE polltion markers??!? I have no factory yet!!

[N. Machiavelli]

I've tweaked pollution a bit in my game. I haven't discovered a way to reduce pollution in a general way, but I have done things like halve the pollution generated by factories, etc, and I've also made Aqueducts reduce pollution from shields like a recycling plant as well as 'eliminate' population pollution. While real-life Aquaducts don't take out all of pollution generated by pop., it's justified in the game since at least 1 pollution point remains even after it has been 'eliminated'.

[eyes]

I think pollution due to population is rediculous too - I could stand the fact it creates 'pollution tiles' but the fact that grassland is already turning to plains just because I've got a few large cities is so frustrating as THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO short of killing my citizens - I'm still a long way off mass transit and recycling centers.

[Dadeo]

I find pollution to be - well kind of silly. It doesn't really impact the game except you have the odd square here and there that becomes a desert or whatever. Really, what else are you going to use that army of workers for anyway. By this stage of the game most everything is railroaded over so they can be used on pollution patrol. Lots of times I don't even build mass transit or recycling centers.
The effects of pollution (desertification of plains) appears to be a function of the pollution in the cities- number of triangles - rather than the amount of time the polluted squares are left unattended. I have religiously cleaned up pollution and still get the plains conversion to deserts.

[CharlotteCivver]

Well, just remember, you may be diligently cleaning up polution but that doesn't mean all of your opponents are - especially the ones that are at war. Their polution screws up the environment just as much as yours does.

[Dis]

hmm, I'm all for challenging aspects of the game. I like corruption being as high as it is. But corruption is not something that takes precious game time away from you. Pollution kicks your workers of the squares they are working on. So when you clean up the pollution you have to reassign them. I haven't found a easy way to do this yet. Any ideas?

Can populution pollution be reduced? I may have sewer systems reduce pollution by half (aquaducts doesn't make as much sense- plus size 7 cities don't have populations pollution). mass transit comes soooo late in the game. But still- sewer systems reducing pollution would be too easy. There must be a better solution.

[Code Monkey]

My issue with pollution is that it comes as a natural result of simply playing the game by any successful style. It, and the secondary global warming, cannot be avoided or even significantly ameliorated unless you turn off domination and conquest victory and kill everyone by 1000 A.D.; then never build hospitals or factories while trying for a cultural victory against yourself. Further, by tying global warming to the number of warning shields rather than actual pollution, a bad problem is exacerbated with literally nothing for the player to do about the problem beyond watching cities starve to death as plains turn to desert.

This isn't like corruption which presents a challenge to be worked around strategically, this is largely just busy work dumped in front of us because otherwise our late industrial/early modern age workers wouldn't have anything to do. It does reflect reality in that much of industrial Europe and the United States were heavily polluted during the peak of the industrial boom, but with nothing to do about it beyond mindlessly clicking SHIFT-P every few turns for an army of workers until you research Ecology, it's not adding anything at all to the game.

Some pollution is a good thing as it largely is the only thing stopping you from turning every existing city into Detroit at its peak which would indeed be devastating to the environment. But, at current levels it's just a huge annoyance regardless of your playing style until you can build Mass Transit and Recycling Centers, at which point it magically goes poof but for an occasional orange crud erruption.

[Xentropy]

I don't find global warming effects all THAT annoying, mostly because it's a vast improvement from Civ2's "whole world converts at once" phenomenon.

However, I'd like to see the change to individual squares being affected taken one step further--only applying the chance of a terrain shift to squares in the same city radius as a currently poluted tile. So the faster you clean up that pollution, the less likely you'll be affected. And an enemy not bothering to clean up will only affect him, not you.

This wouldn't be *completely* realistic, but I think it would be *more* realistic than it is now. At the very least, the current chance should be applied only as stated above with a *much smaller* chance of squares elsewhere being affected if there is a high pollution rate worldwide in general. I think the realism would be highest in such an arrangement.

[doktorblood]

I don't mind the pollution or it's effests so much, but I really really hate the all the clicking to fix it. It's way horrible compared to Civ2 in which 2 engineers could clean a polluted square. This sytem just suqs...no city list for the go command and then usually having to click at least 6 workers and up to 36 (captured workers to a mountain) to fix each one.

[Darth_Invader]

Wouldn't it be cool to just build a landfill on one tile that all the garbage can be dumped in, then after so many turns or whatever, a worker has to "convert" it to a nice grassland again, and another square gets used? Or maybe you could trade with an AI civ to take your garbage for a fee? I can see colonies in the desert built purely to take the waste and make a quid in doing so!

I kind of like anything that adds to historical realism, so pollution is a nice one - as Code Monkey said, it stops you making a heap of "Detroits" all over the map. Also stops you growing lots of mega-cities that really are a more modern phenomenon.

Unfortunately it also stops you building those cities up when you get the hospital advance. I'm more likely not to let cities build the hospital and grow until there's a way to deal with the pollution more effectively, just to save the hassle of cleaning the c*** up!

[Hurry]

I´d say the main problem is that the time between Factories and Mass Transit/Recycling centers is too long. It´s almost as riduclous as the long wait for Hospitals at the beginning of the game.

[Ferdi]

You are right, but pollution is essentialy caused by population as soon as you can build hospitals and there is no way to reduce it before modern times. If you really want no pollution then don't build hospitals.

[Dis]

I don't build hospitals and just let my citizens die from disease


In civ2 you know you wouldn't get any pollution before industrialization. I tried that to delay industrialization in civ3 and it hasn't worked.

[rid102]

In civ2 you know you wouldn't get any pollution before industrialization. I tried that to delay industrialization in civ3 and it hasn't worked.

IIRC I did get pollution from large cities pre-industrialisation in Civ2 mainly from population size (as until factories, no city can really chuck out a significant enough number of shields). E.g. go all out for growth early on and aim for Sanitation...

But, I digress...

I think it would be nice if there were some kind of "pollution spending" slider. You could increase spending to combat pollution prior to getting mass transit/recycling but it would cost more. At least then there is some way of actually tackling pollution.

If you really want no pollution then don't build hospitals.

This is a good point actually. Cities in high corruption zones are going to output pretty much the same amount of shields/commerce regardless of whether they're size 1 or size 30. The only thing which isn't corrupted is food which just compounds the problem as the city then grows bigger (a lot) quicker than you can build improvements in it. Solution: allow a handful of the lowest corrupted cities to grow and tackling their pollution and inhibit the growth of less productive cities (i.e. don't build Hospitals).

[Be Quicker]

my 2 cents on pollution.

It is not a major problem. In all my games played so far, even when going for a win deep into the industrial/modern age (space ship, cultural/UN), pollution has not been a game breaker. Yes I needed to build/not build certain city improvements, yes my workers had to clean pollution, and yes something like 5 (!) squares converted to plains/desert. But nothing that really bugged me.

The only slight problems I have, are (A) that when a tile changes into plain/desert its irrigation (or also its mine?) disappear, WTF? (B) only 2 workers will go to a tile when I shift-p them. But I want more of them to automatically work there!, so that the pollution will be cleaned the very same turn. So I still end up manually moving 4 more to the tile (C) After the pollution has been cleaned on a tile, the city in which radius this tile resides, does NOT automatically start working the tile again... WTF! So after I notice that a pollution square has been cleaned, I have to open the city display and reassign that tile to be worked. In conclusion it does add a bit more tedium than IMHO strictly necessary.

Maybe the above gripes can be countered (by the city Gov?, the Editor?), but Don't know how, so I am sorry if it turns out that it is really easy.

[Zealot]

Hey, you must give your swarm of workers something to do, right?

[Freiherr]

The rampant pollution in the Industrial Era in Civ III is due in part to the incomprehensible decision by the game designers to make Mass Transit available with Ecology, rather than with Mass Production. My recollection is that in Civ I and Civ II, Mass Transit became available with Mass Production and even then it came none too soon.
Historically, mass transit systems were begun in the late 19th century in order to get workers to their jobs cheaply, with reduced pollution as a side benefit. Apparently the designers at Firaxis have some gaps in their knowledge of history!
My recommendation to at least partially alleviate the high pollution levels in Civ III is to use the editor to put Mass Transit availability where it belongs, with Mass Production.

[Arrian]

It seems to me that population pollution is harsher than industrial pollution, at least from a factory alone (I've never built a coal plant). So I don't build hospitals until I have mass transit. Now, it could be argued that mass transit comes a bit late - personally I wouldn't mind moving it back to motorized transport.

My main issue right now is the "only 2 workers to a polluted square" thing when you automate them. It takes many more than that. Cleaning up pollution is tedious, as it was in Civ II (though it might be worse now, I'm not sure). Then again, I do want there to be a negative impact if you choose to build coal plants everywhere and no recycling centers or hydro plants, etc.

The AI obviously doesn't care about pollution, so I usually end up selling them ecology (which is quite lucrative) so their size-25+ cities don't turn my country into desert.

-Arrian

[Dadeo]

More thoughts:
Pollution is a very important part of industrialized society and should be a part of the game. Having said that the way pollution is portrayed in the game is not effective. Late game pollution is easily taken care of by the hordes of workers that are virtually unemployed. Automating the process (CNTRL / P ??) does away with most of the tedium. To improve th current systtem:
1)Pollution effects (ie desertification) should be tied to the the time it takes to clean up the polluted squares and the number of those squares. Each turn the total number of polluted squares should be tallied and summed. As this total passes through various thresholds deserification begins.
2)More than two automated workers should be able to be assigned per square.
3)When workers are automated on 'Pollution Patrol' they should continue until the polluted squares are eliminated.
4) OR...do away with the current system and have the effects of pollution tied directly to the offending city by having a muliplier effect much like corruption. Build that coal plant and see your city lose shields and commerce by X%. In a highly producing city the polluting effect of the coal plant could/would wipe out the production increase. Wait until you have some pollution controls before building the coal plant or the hospital. If you want the large cities live with reduced output until you get Mass Transit.

[barefootbadass]

Originally posted by Arrian

My main issue right now is the "only 2 workers to a polluted square" thing when you automate them. It takes many more than that.

The AI obviously doesn't care about pollution, so I usually end up selling them ecology (which is quite lucrative) so their size-25+ cities don't turn my country into desert.

I think the 'automating code' for your workers is the same as what the ai uses for its own workers, and the reasons it only puts two on a square is to avoid losing a stack of like 10 workers, and possibly to avoid 'wasting' too many workers on cleanup while other more important terrain improvements are available. Obviously, only the first reason really makes sense getting a job done in one turn reaps immediate benefits, rather than waiting 5 turns for the job to be done in 4 places at once.

I think its good that you have to spread something like ecology to protect the environment, and fairly realistic, but I do think that some of the ai's should do their part to protect it as a part of their personality, kind of like that 'green' civ in SMAC. I also think, that for dealing with civs that wouldn't have that trait there should be a diplomacy option for an agreement to avoid increasing levels of pollution(no more building of coal plants or hospitals, or increased growth for cities with hospitals until mass transit systems are built.)

You pretty much have to build 5 hospitals anyway when you get sanitation, so you can build battlefield medicine, but it may be wise to wait on the other cities(choose your lowest corruption cities or a frontline city that needs the defense bonus for your 5) can probably wait, maybe make a few extra temporary cities to work the extra land for those.