Should terraforming been brought back?

[Harovan]

The poll about bringing back caravans made me think about another feature, that disappeared in Civ3, while it was in Civ2 and even in CtP1/2, the terraforming. Personally I am glad that we're rid of it. I'm sure, many people disagree. At least I think, that the terraforming should be reduced, not to change the relief. No mountains in hills, or hills in plains, and vice versa. What do you think?

[FrustratedPoet]

it was always useful in civ2 to terraform any inconvenient terrain into something that suited you better, but it did seem very unrealistic. i'm glad it's gone, but i wouldn't be all that upset if it ever came back either ... having it is an option you could toggle on/off would be good.

[Sinapus]

Well, I'm one of the people who's mentioned a desire to see terraforming back, so I'll agree. I think you should be able to reduce mountains to hills, then hills to plains, though not be able to go *back* to it. It should take quite a few turns to complete, even with Industrious, Democratic workers with Replaceable parts advance.

A twist to try might be to have a chance for terrain to revert back to the original terrain type (except for mountains and hills) so grasslands can be turned back into deserts and such.

With sufficient quantities of high explosives, even mountains have to yield.

[Immortal Wombat]

Yes, but put it later in the game. Its not too unrealistic, but it wouldn't be easy early on, and it should be expensive to do , in time or resources.

[Richelieu]

I agree. It should be an ability that comes later in the game : Replaceable parts sounds about right.

[SpencerH]

I agree. It should be an ability that comes later in the game : Replaceable parts sounds about right.

Sounds about right. We've never been able to make bridges, I'd like to have seen that.

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by SpencerH


Sounds about right. We've never been able to make bridges, I'd like to have seen that.

Again, i gree. Bridges and tunnels.

[dunk]

In Civ I & II, you built bridges. You weren't allowed to build roads in river squares until Bridge Building was discovered.

I think there should be terraforming. Hills should be able to be leveled. That's the only terrain I would think is ok, no way on mountains. I will point to Manhatten for an example of hill flattening in real life.

You shouldn't be able to convert the flat land types save by planting trees. I don't care how much dynamite you have, you can't blast a desert or tundra into plains. Deserts and tundras are climate conditions, not terrains.

[Sinapus]

Oh, the converting desert to plains, plains to grassland, etc can be handwaved away with some other method besides explosives.

The reducing of mountains and hills, etc can still use HE. I guess some sort of "tectonic manipulation" can be used to make hills.

[dunk]

Originally posted by Sinapus
Oh, the converting desert to plains, plains to grassland, etc can be handwaved away with some other method besides explosives.

What method?

[Highlander_two]

Just my 2 cents worth -

I'm all for bringing back terraforming as it was in Civ2. Realistically, it is the best way for the player to overcome the horrendous starting locations the Civ3 seems to so often give out. Also, it allows the player to modify and improve his or her civ's productivity. I'm also a firm believer that players should be able to irrigate hills (if they choose to).

I agree that it makes no sense to turn plains and/or grasslands into desert (that is best left to global warming). Also, it should not be possible to turn plains to hills or hills to mountains. And terraforming should NOT be easy, inexpensive or quick. I think a great way to implement this would be to bring back the Civ2 Engineer unit. Make him available in the early Industial Age and possibly reduce the number of turns for him to terraform once Internal Combustion has been researched (because this would then allow terraforming using heavy construction equipment).

For those who think that terraforming is a futuristic sci-fi concept with no basis in history, THINK AGAIN! Mankind has terraformed the earth's surface in one way or another for thousands of years. Irrigation and mining were just early forms of terraforming that allowed man to produce or acquire resources that would oherwise not have been available. Ancient civilizations terraced, irrigated and farmed hillsides to provide crops that otherwise could not have been grown. They also dug canals for irrigation, water power and transportation. Lets not forget the Suez and Panama Canals - massive terraforming projects! We have even taken mountains and turned them into monuments (of all things) such as Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monument which is not yet finished. We have taken old open-pit and strip mines and "reclaimed" the land for other uses. We have even taken mounds of trash and turned them into hills. We affectionately refer to these as "landfills".

All potential naysayers should stop for a moment and think what the land their homes sit on would look like if no one had "terraformed" the land during construction.

[SpencerH]

In Civ I & II, you built bridges. You weren't allowed to build roads in river squares until Bridge Building was discovered.

Sorry, I was unclear. I meant bridges between continents (especially those divided by one sea square). Ships were used in CIV and CIV2 (which led to the cheat where you could load and unload a land unit across an ocean on a bridge of ships). In SMAC/SMACX there weren't bridges but you could terraform a land bridge. I dont recall bridges in Ctp2 but I liked the underwater tunnels.

[simwiz2]

no, i am glad terraforming is gone. Other than clearing off forests or jungle, the terrain shouldnt be able to be changed because having every single tile at grassland isnt the point of the game. Also in civ2 terraforming made global warming a joke.

[Harovan]

Hmmm, at this point 7 against, 5 pro (w/o hills+mountains), 5 pro and 4 banana lovers. Just like I thought, opinions widely vary.

[Dis]

workers need so many improvements I cannot count.

most of them should not be available until modern times. all the current improvements are find for older times.

Canals would be real nice and realistic. Something that is sorely missed from civ games. Although you could lower terrain in smac if you liked- planet busters also worked .

I don't like levelling mountains. Not very realistic. We have built on mountains, but Mt. McKinley still exists. We aren't doing anything with it. So mountains should stay as is.

plains into grassland etc. No. you can't alter rainfall patterns. Although maybe you can make this an option in 2050.

hills should be able to be levelled. But along with a time requirement it should cost an enourmous amount of gold.

swamps. I don't like swamps being converted into grassland. The terrain squares represent too much land area. It is impractical for us to do that in modern times. But you should be able to build cities on swamps of course. Although there are no swamps in civ3 for some reason. They need to be there . What kind of earth is this? Who designed this game?

jungles: I have no complaints. They can be cut down in the current game. I'm fine with this.

Tundra: no complains.

glaciers: they are missing for some reason. Inhospitable terrain was a nice feature of civ2. There are islands above Canada that are nice to see on world maps, but I don't want the ai building on them. Same with polar caps. They just add flavour to the game. Maybe global warming can melt these. Put these in the game firaxis along with swamps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

forests: bring back shield bonus. there must be some reason not to cover the entire planet with plains and grassland. I like to see forests.

[Silvagem]

I would like to see just these two terraforming options come true:
They are missing in the game.

1. Hills to Plains
a) Only available after Replaceable Parts
b) 30 turns to complete (1 worker)
c) Cost 40 gold

2. Plains to Grasslands
a) Only available after Replaceable Parts
b) 15 turns to complete (1 worker)
d) Cost 20 gold

Mountains should be as they are. I don’t think the Alps or Himalayas will ever be grasslands.

It’s not that difficult to implement this, and with only these two options, I think it would be realistic.

[Captain]

Land improvements should be allowed, but not terraforming in the sense of knocking mountains flat.

Gameplay reasons:

Much like the idea of strategic resources, the different land we start out with and are able to expand to really adds to the game's strategy. If I could just change my existing land to whatever I wanted, that would be too easy.

If a Civ wants better land, it should go claim it. There is a clear IRL connection here, but I am aiming for gameplay reason.
If it has to fight or explore or send a settler halfway around the world, so be it. I am a builder myself, but you should be forced into warfare sometimes. The key is to balance the guns and butter so you can concentrate on what you want without neglecting the other. That's the challenge.


IRL reasons:

Depending on map size we choose, the tiles represent varying amounts of terrain.
While we have built huge engineering works that we as a species can be proud of, I am not sure these count as terraforming. We have definitely deforested a lot, but that is already well-represented.
Btw, I don't care how much explosive you throw at a mountain. Not even with nukes. You won't level it. Maybe a small hill. But drop a thousand nukes on scotland and you won't get plains. You'll get a nuclear wasteland, just as hilly as before and maybe even more so with the added craters. Don't forget that nature is more powerful than we think. A hurricane possesses more energy than a thousand H-bombs. An earthquake releases energy on a scale above almost anything else we can imagine. Volcanic destructive power is beyond our current abilities. Though we can trigger them, we can't really control it.

I think that for the scale the tiles represents, we should limit our "terraforming" to deforestation, irrigation, mining, canal-building, bridge-building, fortress-building, swamp-draining (oh, wait, they removed that land type! even though that's one of the most extensive terraforming activities humans have ever undertaken.)

(I also think farmland should be back in the game, I liked that even if the AI couldn't handle it.)

[ahenobarb]

My horse says "Neigh!"

The only thing that can change a mountain to hills and hills to plains is Time. People certainly don't do it. How much TNT would it take to do it anyway, even with all the bombing in the Mts of Afghanistan nothing like this is about to happen. And if you go with some concepts from the 1950's to use nuclear explosives to dig canals and tunnels and try to reduce a moutain to a valley (rubble more likely) you couldn't grow anything there you would want to eat anyway.

Workers have too many tasks to do already IMO. Control a few for the big tasks, Shift-A for the rest.

[godinex]

I love the terraforming... but only in the later, later game. What do you think of plantations? Is a very good idea.

[Skanky Burns]

The problem with allowing terraforming is that you are then expected to do that terraforming, if you want any chance to compete with the AI.

Civ 1 never had terraforming.

[Tuberski]

The only terraforming I could see being worthwhile is the irrigation of desert. Have a chance similar to say the resources disappearing, for it to change to plains, but ONLY if irrigated AND connected tograsslands or plains. This seems a little logical to me.

[Jethro83]

Personally, I like to see some terraforming, but not to the extent it got to in Alpha Centauri. It seems a bit stupid to be able to raise new earth out of the ocean or flood it over with the ocean. In Alpha Centauri, the possibilities were near-limitless, you could alter the terrain until you drowned out other factions (except the Pirates).

In Civ II, the terraforming options were good ones, and realistic. Of course, the exceptions are knocking down mountains into hills, making tundra into desert (for that one would need to completely alter the climate of the area, at least to reduce rainfall). So most options there belong.

These are the terraforming options that I believe should be implemented:

- Desert to Plains
- Plains to Grassland
- Drill to Aquifier (creates a river, like in Alpha Centauri. Good if you want to artificially turn nearby desert into floodplain or make a possible city site much better without the need for an aqueduct. But it should come in later in the game and can only be done if close to a lake, coast or other river)

And you should be able to build some sort of bridge/tunnel that goes across coastal regions and joins two islands (simply load a worker into a transport, send it to a coast square next to a roaded or railroaded land square, activate the worker and hit 'r'), No it can't be done. I'm only suggesting a possible option. Again, it should come late in the game (the discovery of Steel should allow it).

[I Am Jeff]

There is a way to "terraform" mountains,hills, and deserts, into either grassland or plains(you can't chose grassland or plains). You go into the editor and load of the civ3mod.bic . Goto terrain and pick a terrain such as Mountain. On the left side it says "worker job" In that pull-down menu pick forest. Now in game you can plant forests onto mountains. Since forests can not be on mountains the mountains disappear into a forest planted on grassland or plains. Then remove the trees and presto, you got grassland/plains. Just do similar things for hills or deserts.

NOTE: once u get rid of a mountain/hill/desert, it is gone forever. Also from what ive seen the computers do, they like planting forests on hills and mountains, thus removing them and good sources of production. I recomend you only allow the planting of forests on those areas specified when u need to do it that turn, then save and turn it off.

Someone also mentioned about wanting to irrigate desert, which u can do. Goto the Terrain menu and under terreform bonues, put in a value higher then 0 into irrigation(food). This will alow you to irrigate deserts. You can then do the same to tundra. You can also make other terrain minable. Like forests.

[Whoha]

the save file format, or atleast the portions of it regarding terrain have been posted here at apolyton, if you must, just edit the save file.