Different Terrain Types...

[phunny_pharmer]

This is going to be long.

You know, I feel kind of disappointed by the lack of different biomes represented in Civ3. It seems as if certain zones have been set up (i.e. jungle/grassland/desert/tundra/ocean), but the total number of terrain types is incredibly limited. In fact, according to the editor, a simple count gives only 12 types of unique terrain (three being water-based- coast, land, sea), plus the 'bonus' grassland, the pine forest, and the snow-capped mountain, which are essentially copies of the other terrain. I have been inspired by those interesting screenshots to post my hopeful ideas for new terrain.

In order to add these new terrain types, however, I would redo the entire shield, trade, and food system by multiplying all values by 1.5. Thus, pop points, tanks, and advances all cost 1.5 times as much. Thus, more variability can be added to the system, allowing more variability in the bonus system. So, a re-done terrain system would look something like this:

(Original Food/Shield/Trade; +irrigation/+mine/+road)

1) Grassland- 4/0/1; +2/+1/+2

The base value of grassland should be quite high. Irrigating a grassland square should add more food then shields (support more than two pop; +7 food w/ rr), and a mine should be worthless w/o a railroad. A road in grassland, though, should give more trade, as a road in an open, fertile area should give more trade than one in a closed area. Thus, a city in the plains may grow quickly, but will not produce very much as far as raw goods. A trade off that would encourage building in a less- fertile area.

Make a Grassland shield be 4/1/0 with the same improvement stats. The shield bonus is instead of the trade bonus

2) Plains- 3/1-2/0; +2/+1/+2

The base value of plains should give enough food to support 1 pop, and with irrigation support almost 2, but still generate a shield. Add variability in the plains section (with perhaps a different name) that gives a 3/2/0 square. Roads, again through an open area, should give more trade than a usual road.

Perhaps the 3/2/0 square should be called Savannah?

3) Desert- 1/1/0; +1/+1/+1

A desert square, by itself, should not support a pop point until railroads hit (for +3 food total). Trade should be minimal, as should shields.

4) Tundra- 1/0/0; --/--/+1

Tundra, by itself, should not support a pop point. Necessary resources can be found here, but even so, towns located in extreme areas should be tiny, like 3 pop max (w/o other terrain)

5) Flood Plain- 6/0/1; --/--/--

MAKE IT FLOOD- cover it with water 10% of the time, until a dike (new improvement) can be constructed. When covered with water, make it produce like a ‘tidal’ square. When a dike is finally constructed, allow +2/--/+2 improvements to be built on the square, to represent the alluvial ground that was reclaimed.

6) Barren Hills- 1/1/0; --/+1/+1

Mining here would give a suitable benefit (+3 total with rr), but it would still be less productive than the current hills represented in Civ3.

7) Fertile Hills- 3/2/0; --/+1/+1-2

Ala Imperialism2, make the hills green! Let stuff grow. With rr and mine, it would be 2/4/1, which would be much better (food wise) than any of the current hills. Without a mine, the hill should produce +2 trade, (mines should reduce the amount of trade in an area), and would then be 3/2/2.

8) Rolling Hills- 2-1/1/0; --/+3/+1-2

Mines here should be really good, but the penalty should be a loss of food and trade. Thus, it can be either 2/1/2 with only a road, or 1/6/1 with a mine and rr.

9) Glacial moraine - 1-0/2/0; --/+4/+1-2

This is a bad name, I’m sure, but if anyone can think of anything better, use it. Mines here should be excellent (think bonus resource excellent- 0/8/0 with rr) but no food can be somewhat drastic, especially if the environment is all hilly and there is not much excess food. All that glacier rubble should give some resources.

10) Mountains- 0/1/0; --/+2/+0-5

Should a road through a mountain give any trade? Only if it is the only road, or an important mountain pass. It is probably too late to code this, but it would be an interesting feature. If you control the only pass through a mountain range, there should be a bonus. If the mountain is surrounded by hills, there would be little trade in the square; hence +0. This means that the terrain would vary from 0/5/0 to 0/5/5, depending on strategic importance.

Snow-capped mountains should be the same

11) Permafrost- 2/0/0; --/+1/+1

Add a transition between plains/grasslands and tundra. Is this the right name?

12) Deciduous Forest- 2/2/0; --/--/+1

Use the first forest template from Civ3. Really cannot be improved with mines irrigation, but add a bonus resource here called ‘clearing’ that gives +2/+0/+1 (and make game give +3/+0/+0) Stuff should grow here. Good for early shields.

13) Coniferous Forest- 1/2/0; --/--/+1

A little colder, so food should be harder to come by. Clearing should be the same bonus as in a coniferous forest.

Taiga should be a different graphic, if possible, but have same stats (should add a little variety).

14) Jungle- 1/0/0; --/--/+0-5

Same deal as the mountain- if you have the only road through the jungle, the cash will come.

15) Rain Forest- 2/0/0; --/--/+1-5

I could use some help on the stats, here. I think it would be best represented like the jungle, but with different bonus materials. Same deal with the road, again.

16) Wasteland- 1/0/0; +1/+1/+1

Those terminally polluted squares should be bad, shouldn’t they? Make this a punishment for extreme polluters (if a square becomes polluted more than 2 times) or for the use of nuclear missiles. Watching croplands deteriorate could be devastating…

17) Swap- 1/0/0; --/+1/+1-5

Bring this Civ2 thing back! Allow a mine (especially with rr) to give this place some production, but most will end up getting drained. Same road deal.

18) Glacier- 0/0/0; --/+1/+0-1

This should come back, and in more areas than just the top row of the map. How about all that high- mountain ice?

Now, the water world…

18) Ocean- 0/0/0; --/--/--

Probably not profitable! I don’t think it can really be accessed in a city screen, due to the nature of the coast-sea-ocean progression

17) Sea- 1/0/1; --/--/--

Allow a harbor/platform to give +2/1/0, for a total of 3/1/1

19) Coast- 2/0/2; --/--/--

Coastal cities should be large. They always seem to be, and they always seem to end up with lots of trade. Let the game reflect that. Harbor should give the final harbor/platform complex give a total of 4/1/2- it would make the square more profitable than an non-irrigated plains.

20) Estuary- 3/0/3; --/--/+1

Lots of trade, some food. This is more of a land square than a sea square, but very water-based. However, there should be very few of these in the game. These don’t tend to be enormous

Perhaps this should be called ‘delta’ or ‘tidal?

21) Lake- a one tile coast square, but with a different graphic.

You know, all this variation on the map would be nice. I think having a few (2-3) different squares of each tile would be nice, but I don’t like how large sections of the map tend to be all ‘forest’ or all ‘hills’. I think a little more variety would be nice, even if it means just adding another tile set containing new looks for all the tiles.

Again, I think the critical step is increasing the number of food consumed by citizens by 50% so that each citizen eats 3. Thus, more specialization can be accomplished. Changing the other values for shields and trade would allow more diversity in those areas as well. One of the reasons why the game seems strange- to me- is that the biodiversity of earth is not reflected in Civ3. Feel free to add more or disagree, but please consider the above text.

Or perhaps I've spent too much time reading the biodiversity section of my AP Biology book. I'd better get back to Civ3.

I know I’m relatively new on the boards, but I read more than I post.

Thanks for slogging through this.

[Grrr]

Nice

I think the 'clearing' is a little silly though. (I'd hack down all the forests, and have grass, with a forest with a clearing. Thats just silly ).

[Jethro83]

All of those are great ideas. I particularly like the idea of a wasteland bearing the consequences of overly polluting.

But as Grrr already said, we could do without the 'clearing' idea. I know that I wouldn't be making use of it. I'd rather hack down the forest for the grassland/plains beneath it (unless the underlying terrain is Tundra of course).

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by phunny_pharmer
You know, I feel kind of disappointed by the lack of different biomes represented in Civ3. It seems as if certain zones have been set up (i.e. jungle/grassland/desert/tundra/ocean), but the total number of terrain types is incredibly limited. In fact, according to the editor, a simple count gives only 12 types of unique terrain (three being water-based- coast, land, sea), plus the 'bonus' grassland, the pine forest, and the snow-capped mountain, which are essentially copies of the other terrain.

One of the reasons why the game seems strange- to me- is that the biodiversity of earth is not reflected in Civ3. Feel free to add more or disagree, but please consider the above text.

Farmer, I don't love the graphics Firaxis' artist painted for Civ III, and I understand you'll like to have more different biomes.

You did a detailed description about specific food/shield/trade values, and while I haven't checked everyone of them I'm sure they can be fine tuned and balanced as needed.

My doubt is about the need to keep the game easy to understand and beautiful to watch. Don't forget we are using the same screen for two purpose: the graphic modelling of real world landscape and the production map.

This limit designers options, because smooth terrain transitions and different tile picture for same production values are potential source for players confusion.

Questions like "Well, is this the tile for grassland or flood plain?" can become a pain when you must recon the difference by a glance.

On a game where so many production values are available, you also raise the effect of "random" placement of tile by map generator. If the sytem doesn't generate perfect map you'll end with more "puzzle" like effects, with special tiles scattered around and intermixed with traditionals (plain, desert, etc.) in a way not good for graphics effect, nor for strategic city placement.

I don't mean your enhanced terrain system bring trouble to the game, but as a more complex method in a game where Firaxis chose to keep things quite basic, I suppose you are introducing a risky element. My best wish for you to catch developers attention, of course.

[LaRusso]

what's that new tundra-like terrain in the new screenshots?

[Adm.Naismith]

It seems a "winter tile" set, made available for "scenario" purpose. IIRC Infogrames announced different tile sets for XP.

The screenshot show the usual "years xxxx AD" display, so I'm almost sure nothing is changed in standard game flow of time (no seasons or monthly based turns).

Sure a snowed desert tile seems a bit strange to me, but I'm european, so I can have a wrong idea about some asian landscape

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by phunny_pharmer
This is going to be long.

In order to add these new terrain types, however, I would redo the entire shield, trade, and food system by multiplying all values by 1.5. Thus, pop points, tanks, and advances all cost 1.5 times as much. Thus, more variability can be added to the system, allowing more variability in the bonus system. So, a re-done terrain system would look something like this:

................................................

Again, I think the critical step is increasing the number of food consumed by citizens by 50% so that each citizen eats 3. Thus, more specialization can be accomplished. Changing the other values for shields and trade would allow more diversity in those areas as well. One of the reasons why the game seems strange- to me- is that the biodiversity of earth is not reflected in Civ3. Feel free to add more or disagree, but please consider the above text.

Or perhaps I've spent too much time reading the biodiversity section of my AP Biology book. I'd better get back to Civ3.

I know I’m relatively new on the boards, but I read more than I post.

Thanks for slogging through this.

One thing I would do is seperate it out into "Terrain" and "Terrain Cover". So you could have flat-lands, hills, mountains, each with a "Cover" of Deciduous, Coniferous, Jungle, Grass, Nothing(desert), Ice, Scrub brush, etc. This would allow you to simplify down to fewer "basic ideas" which could be combined to make many more variations.

And I agree with the earlier poster who said that clearing trees should not necessarily yield productive land. There should be a percentage chance that you get desert, but this percentage should go down for the "Agricultural Civ" trait people have been talking about.

I love the mechanism of the flood plain, but I would make it flood every other turn, so that you could use it defensively like that castle in the NW of france whose name escapes me. It was build on an island in a flood-plain so that the enemy could only attack at low tide, and if they weren't able to finish the job would get swept away.

I think you're absolutely right that increasing costs by 50% will give more room to vary and balance the terrain types. But if the current road/RR mechanism isn't changed, the terrain's won't have their full strategic value because all tiles end up covered with RR anyways. There is a thread on this in the General Forum from about a week back, but the upshot is I suggested changing the road and RR commerce bonus from a per tile bonus to an overall percentage bonus based on the number of direct links a city has to its neighbors, up to a max of (arbitrarily) 4. This cuts down on the number of roads and RR's and makes each one more strategic.

On a side note, I think that the problem of not-enough-room to playbalance also shows up in the unit's attack defense ratings. If the warrior was left at 1/1 and the MA was upped to 99/66 and everything in-between was scaled to maintain the same ratio, there would be much more room to play with to balance the UU's to make them more effective and varied.

[wrylachlan]

sorry for the double-post...oops

[Hohenzollern]

I think your ideas for varied terrain is very detailed. you have some great ideas, but there are two immediate considerations to think about..

1. Too many diff types, unless you had a small little pop-up message to quickly tell you what the terrain is and its current stats are. Otherwise, you'll have at least 50% of players confused or ticked off that they are forced to think too much about terrain. Something like that though is a 50/50 thing.
I personally think the varied terrain adds to the games cultural feel. I would love to see a civ patch address MUSIC and GRAPHICS
to really put you there. Honestly I find myself about to flip out if I hear those four tracks over once more

2. Balance issues. If you were playing a world map kind of game, there would be some very distinct advantages/disadvantages to civs of the world. For example, given the varied landscape of N.America, the US or Iroquois would be invincible. Also, this again i think is a 50/50 thing, because it does add realism, as civs are forced to combat their historical terrain or benefit from it, also adds a 'predictable' aspect, but then its solved if you are playing a generated map, but not solved if you play a ww2 scenario.

I generally think your ideas have a place in the game, my personal beef is the music should be all mp3 if its not already and have at least 10-15 'tracks' per era. Combined with cultural graphics for units, ie. an egyptian phalanx doesnt look like a Roman one, or Persian one for that matter.

Anyhow, Great job

[phunny_pharmer]

OK, it's quite clear to me now that the clearing won't make sense once the forest has cleared!

Really, how long did it take you to become familiar with the tile set? Probably not that long, and the longest time was probably spent finding out whether the white tile was a flood plain or a desert. If MP exists, everyone will know what tiles are what, soon enough.

For new players, right-clicking on a square should bring up the square stats, and so graphics set will quickly be learned. A little manual addition would enhance that learning process...

As for forests being overlays, great idea. That sounds much better than a specific tile set.

[Panag]

Originally posted by phunny_pharmer
This is going to be long.

You know, I feel kind of disappointed by the lack of different biomes represented in Civ3. It seems as if certain zones have been set up (i.e. jungle/grassland/desert/tundra/ocean), but the total number of terrain types is incredibly limited. In fact, according to the editor, a simple count gives only 12 types of unique terrain (three being water-based- coast, land, sea), plus the 'bonus' grassland, the pine forest, and the snow-capped mountain, which are essentially copies of the other terrain. I have been inspired by those interesting screenshots to post my hopeful ideas for new terrain.

In order to add these new terrain types, however, I would redo the entire shield, trade, and food system by multiplying all values by 1.5. Thus, pop points, tanks, and advances all cost 1.5 times as much. Thus, more variability can be added to the system, allowing more variability in the bonus system. So, a re-done terrain system would look something like this:

(Original Food/Shield/Trade; +irrigation/+mine/+road)

1) Grassland- 4/0/1; +2/+1/+2

The base value of grassland should be quite high. Irrigating a grassland square should add more food then shields (support more than two pop; +7 food w/ rr), and a mine should be worthless w/o a railroad. A road in grassland, though, should give more trade, as a road in an open, fertile area should give more trade than one in a closed area. Thus, a city in the plains may grow quickly, but will not produce very much as far as raw goods. A trade off that would encourage building in a less- fertile area.

Make a Grassland shield be 4/1/0 with the same improvement stats. The shield bonus is instead of the trade bonus

2) Plains- 3/1-2/0; +2/+1/+2

The base value of plains should give enough food to support 1 pop, and with irrigation support almost 2, but still generate a shield. Add variability in the plains section (with perhaps a different name) that gives a 3/2/0 square. Roads, again through an open area, should give more trade than a usual road.

Perhaps the 3/2/0 square should be called Savannah?

3) Desert- 1/1/0; +1/+1/+1

A desert square, by itself, should not support a pop point until railroads hit (for +3 food total). Trade should be minimal, as should shields.

4) Tundra- 1/0/0; --/--/+1

Tundra, by itself, should not support a pop point. Necessary resources can be found here, but even so, towns located in extreme areas should be tiny, like 3 pop max (w/o other terrain)

5) Flood Plain- 6/0/1; --/--/--

MAKE IT FLOOD- cover it with water 10% of the time, until a dike (new improvement) can be constructed. When covered with water, make it produce like a ‘tidal’ square. When a dike is finally constructed, allow +2/--/+2 improvements to be built on the square, to represent the alluvial ground that was reclaimed.

6) Barren Hills- 1/1/0; --/+1/+1

Mining here would give a suitable benefit (+3 total with rr), but it would still be less productive than the current hills represented in Civ3.

7) Fertile Hills- 3/2/0; --/+1/+1-2

Ala Imperialism2, make the hills green! Let stuff grow. With rr and mine, it would be 2/4/1, which would be much better (food wise) than any of the current hills. Without a mine, the hill should produce +2 trade, (mines should reduce the amount of trade in an area), and would then be 3/2/2.

8) Rolling Hills- 2-1/1/0; --/+3/+1-2

Mines here should be really good, but the penalty should be a loss of food and trade. Thus, it can be either 2/1/2 with only a road, or 1/6/1 with a mine and rr.

9) Glacial moraine - 1-0/2/0; --/+4/+1-2

This is a bad name, I’m sure, but if anyone can think of anything better, use it. Mines here should be excellent (think bonus resource excellent- 0/8/0 with rr) but no food can be somewhat drastic, especially if the environment is all hilly and there is not much excess food. All that glacier rubble should give some resources.

10) Mountains- 0/1/0; --/+2/+0-5

Should a road through a mountain give any trade? Only if it is the only road, or an important mountain pass. It is probably too late to code this, but it would be an interesting feature. If you control the only pass through a mountain range, there should be a bonus. If the mountain is surrounded by hills, there would be little trade in the square; hence +0. This means that the terrain would vary from 0/5/0 to 0/5/5, depending on strategic importance.

Snow-capped mountains should be the same

11) Permafrost- 2/0/0; --/+1/+1

Add a transition between plains/grasslands and tundra. Is this the right name?

12) Deciduous Forest- 2/2/0; --/--/+1

Use the first forest template from Civ3. Really cannot be improved with mines irrigation, but add a bonus resource here called ‘clearing’ that gives +2/+0/+1 (and make game give +3/+0/+0) Stuff should grow here. Good for early shields.

13) Coniferous Forest- 1/2/0; --/--/+1

A little colder, so food should be harder to come by. Clearing should be the same bonus as in a coniferous forest.

Taiga should be a different graphic, if possible, but have same stats (should add a little variety).

14) Jungle- 1/0/0; --/--/+0-5

Same deal as the mountain- if you have the only road through the jungle, the cash will come.

15) Rain Forest- 2/0/0; --/--/+1-5

I could use some help on the stats, here. I think it would be best represented like the jungle, but with different bonus materials. Same deal with the road, again.

16) Wasteland- 1/0/0; +1/+1/+1

Those terminally polluted squares should be bad, shouldn’t they? Make this a punishment for extreme polluters (if a square becomes polluted more than 2 times) or for the use of nuclear missiles. Watching croplands deteriorate could be devastating…

17) Swap- 1/0/0; --/+1/+1-5

Bring this Civ2 thing back! Allow a mine (especially with rr) to give this place some production, but most will end up getting drained. Same road deal.

18) Glacier- 0/0/0; --/+1/+0-1

This should come back, and in more areas than just the top row of the map. How about all that high- mountain ice?

Now, the water world…

18) Ocean- 0/0/0; --/--/--

Probably not profitable! I don’t think it can really be accessed in a city screen, due to the nature of the coast-sea-ocean progression

17) Sea- 1/0/1; --/--/--

Allow a harbor/platform to give +2/1/0, for a total of 3/1/1

19) Coast- 2/0/2; --/--/--

Coastal cities should be large. They always seem to be, and they always seem to end up with lots of trade. Let the game reflect that. Harbor should give the final harbor/platform complex give a total of 4/1/2- it would make the square more profitable than an non-irrigated plains.

20) Estuary- 3/0/3; --/--/+1

Lots of trade, some food. This is more of a land square than a sea square, but very water-based. However, there should be very few of these in the game. These don’t tend to be enormous

Perhaps this should be called ‘delta’ or ‘tidal?

21) Lake- a one tile coast square, but with a different graphic.

You know, all this variation on the map would be nice. I think having a few (2-3) different squares of each tile would be nice, but I don’t like how large sections of the map tend to be all ‘forest’ or all ‘hills’. I think a little more variety would be nice, even if it means just adding another tile set containing new looks for all the tiles.

Again, I think the critical step is increasing the number of food consumed by citizens by 50% so that each citizen eats 3. Thus, more specialization can be accomplished. Changing the other values for shields and trade would allow more diversity in those areas as well. One of the reasons why the game seems strange- to me- is that the biodiversity of earth is not reflected in Civ3. Feel free to add more or disagree, but please consider the above text.

Or perhaps I've spent too much time reading the biodiversity section of my AP Biology book. I'd better get back to Civ3.

I know I’m relatively new on the boards, but I read more than I post.

Thanks for slogging through this.

hi ,

well , that has some thought's in it , .....there shall be at least two new types of terrain , maybe more , and in time when the editor has reached it's final stage , ....you shall sure create some mods , .....either for yourself or for others , ...

keep posting , .....

have a nice day

[Farmer Jimbo]

Excellent ideas. I hope the new editor allows some flexibilty to try some of these ideas out.

Panag, your quote to reply ratio is abyssmal. Please consider posting without quoting. I would appreciate it, as would others.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Farmer Jimbo
Panag, your quote to reply ratio is abyssmal. Please consider posting without quoting. I would appreciate it, as would others.

Well, me too suppose Panag's keyboard has the [ DEL ] key broken or missing

[Panag]

Originally posted by Adm.Naismith


Well, me too suppose Panag's keyboard has the [ DEL ] key broken or missing

hi ,

please keep to the topic , ..........

topic ; a winter and European set , .......where are the summer and the "America" set , ...........

have a nice day