The Effects of War on the landscape

[FrantzX]

War ALWAYS has a severe effect on the land. You know, burnt crops, poisoned wells and the like. In all previous Civ games. all you had to protect was your cities and improvements. I think that should change.

Battles should ruin the land, just like pollution does. The larger the battle, the greater the devestation. Also armies should be able to purpousely ruin the land: Instead of taking on that fortifies city, just lay waste to the land; city starves.

With this in, you have to protect your borders as much as your cities. If a large army comes in and ruins your lands, it could that many, many turns to fix the damage.

[Diablo, Bro. of Mephisto]

Good thought. I totally agree.

also, not just armies and battles should ruin the landscape, but nuclear blasts, and well as nuclear testing and the like. For example, when you build the manhattan project, the message says that "Nuclear Tests Near Washington DC" or wherever your city that built the project takes place. It says that, yet nothing happens from it. When a nuke obliterates a curtain city, the entire city circumferance and perhaps even a few tiles out from that should also be blown away. I'm not talking just placing pollution there, I'm talking the whole works. for one thing, all the tiles should be completely destroyed, the agriculture, roads, railroads, everything blown away, and burnt fields take their places. there should also be a radiation field, to further damage the population in the surrounding cities.

well, enough said. this should be put under one line. MAKE IT REALISTIC.

[SerapisIV]

The Manhattan Project never destroyed a city, the bombs produced as a result of Trinity, did, but the project itself only blew up the desert.

I agree, though the damage should not destroy roads, as they really can't be destroyed, at least not until the automobile (damn finicky cars). It should be a random improvement lost on the defending tile. That would also force players to engage enemies outside of the towns and borders, not fortify in the corner of their city production.

[Gammaray fan]

I agree but will take a different take on the issue.
SIEGE warfare should be a viable alternative to OFFENSIVE warfare.
there are a few steps to make this possible.
1. certain units should have a SIEGE value. The higher the siege value the more effective the siege. Additionally, the more units in a square the more effective the siege.
2. If a civ surrounds another civs cities with siege capable units, that city should be unable to receive food, or resources from anywhere by the square it is on. In Civ2, to do a siege, you had to put units on ALL tiles of the city radius (thus it was impractical to siege). The more effective the siege value of the sieging units and the number of them on each tile should determine how much food and resources 'trickle' through.
3. If the civ has a airfield, the siege would not be possible. (therefore, a prospective sieger would have to 'bombard' and destroy the airfield!)

[Diablo, Bro. of Mephisto]

quote: Originally posted by SerapisIV on 05-15-2001 09:42 PM The Manhattan Project never destroyed a city, the bombs produced as a result of Trinity, did, but the project itself only blew up the desert. I agree, though the damage should not destroy roads, as they really can't be destroyed, at least not until the automobile (damn finicky cars). It should be a random improvement lost on the defending tile. That would also force players to engage enemies outside of the towns and borders, not fortify in the corner of their city production.

Sorry, I never finished my thought on the manhattan project. I was saying that when you built it, it did nothing. in civ3, it should at least show a nuclear testing site outside the city, perhaps a lot farther away, but enough so we can see it.

[FrantzX]

Also, fighting in a city should near waste it. That will force people to defend all that they own.

I would like military units to have the ability to just take land. An invading army could, instead of attacking cites, just take huge tracts of land.

IDEA! In diplomancy, what about an ability to buy or sell land? You could recreate the Loiusiana Purchase!

[SerapisIV]

quote: Originally posted by Diablo, Bro. of Mephisto on 05-15-2001 10:22 PM Sorry, I never finished my thought on the manhattan project. I was saying that when you built it, it did nothing. in civ3, it should at least show a nuclear testing site outside the city, perhaps a lot farther away, but enough so we can see it.

I like that idea, it would be a real nice touch to the game, and probably not hard to implement either.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Guys

I agree that some sort of damage to the landscape should play a part in battles.
Firstly, all tile and city improvements should have hit points and, in some cases, armour ratings. The way these improvements could be damaged/destroyed would be as follows:
1) Bombardment: Aerial and Ground based.
2) Battles occuring within and around a city square.
3) Capturing a city (and razing a city!)
4) Missile attacks.
5) Pillaging
Basically, all of these factors would cause damage according to the firepower of attacking units and the size of the attacking force. These should also be the factors which determine the level of population loss during a city battle. Basically a damaged improvement would need to be repaired before it could operate at full effectiveness.
Tiles themselves should also be subject to damage-especially when terrain features exist. For example, forest tiles should be significantly damaged/destroyed by combat occuring within them (the same would go for jungles, swamps, rivers and coastline). Essentially, damage to a tile would work the same as for tile improvements, and this damage could be fixed by workers, or will naturally heal over time.
I also feel that units (stacks) should be able to occupy tiles (not just cities). This could be done by giving units the option to “Annex” a tile. They would lay claim to the tile they are on, as well as a number of surrounding tiles based on the number of units in a stack! This land could then be utilized by the occupying power by the construction of a colony on any resources in the area.
The concept of tile occupation makes it important for a Civ to defend ALL it’s territory, not just it’s cities, and could also be combined with the concept that land (and its resources) should be a potential trade and diplomacy item, for some very interesting results!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Vrank Prins]

What about this ?!.

Now you can only abandone a city in non-belligerent conditions. you have to sell all the city-improvements one after one per turn. And it is not yet possible to abandone a city under siege.

I think it ought to be possible, that when your fighting a lost cause, it should be possible to abandon a city under siege. And also with the use of "scorched earth" tactics.
That means that it should be possible to sabotage allyour city-improvements at once when abandoning a city. Preparations for that would take two turns to finish, or one turn with !!! a 50% chance of success. You're not selling things, your actually blasting them away, so you won't get any refund, war has always been a costly thing.

It would make things harder for your opponent who captures the city to control the city. She would have to rebuild all the cityimprovements and send troops in to control the civil unrest. It would also mean that capturing yourself a city will have to be a swift and strong action. Otherwise you propably will run into the same trouble when your opponent will succesfully sabotage things.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

It is a great idea, and i wish Firaxis could implement it.

that would give anouther touch of realism to the game.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Vrank Prins
What about this ?!.

Now you can only abandone a city in non-belligerent conditions. you have to sell all the city-improvements one after one per turn. And it is not yet possible to abandone a city under siege.

I think it ought to be possible, that when your fighting a lost cause, it should be possible to abandon a city under siege. And also with the use of "scorched earth" tactics.
That means that it should be possible to sabotage allyour city-improvements at once when abandoning a city. Preparations for that would take two turns to finish, or one turn with !!! a 50% chance of success. You're not selling things, your actually blasting them away, so you won't get any refund, war has always been a costly thing.

It would make things harder for your opponent who captures the city to control the city. She would have to rebuild all the cityimprovements and send troops in to control the civil unrest. It would also mean that capturing yourself a city will have to be a swift and strong action. Otherwise you propably will run into the same trouble when your opponent will succesfully sabotage things.

I like this idea alot.

However, as to the effect of battles on terrain - if it's not nuclear, it can't do anything.

Remember, this is not Red Alert or AoK. THis is not of their scale. What battle did something to the alps? What battle destroyed a forest? Nothing like this ever hapenned.

As to nuclear testing sites, I'm all for it.

EDIT: I read some more.

I think battles destroying improvement is nice, but should happen randomly, with a higher probability the larger and deadlier the army that fights over it.

[jadlakha]

Mass landscape destruction and city damage cause by battles would make the game much more realistic. In fact it would help deter many wars from occuring. Think about it, human players always just stomp all over the AI through war like someone smashing a ant with there finger. War is taking way too for granted. Maybe if the devestation was accurately shown then diplomacy would actually become somewhat useful. This could add a whole new dimension to the game and actually make diplomacy and all the new diplomatic features good for something.

[tniem]

I am all for changing the landscape. War should not be the only thing to change the map but also wonders and improvements. They should be seen on the map if they are big enough like the Great Wall of China, The Lighthouse, and others.

Also if you over use a resource in your borders like deer or coal, I believe it should disapper from the map. Not actually changing the landscape but a feature dealing with the map.

[DarkCloud]

The war should have an erosive effect.
One war on tile x does nothing
Two wars on tile x gives it 10% less yield
Three wars on tile x gives it 20% less yield
This increases with 15% less yield per year.
But it receeds 5% for every 10 years with no war on the tile.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Guys,

First of all I'd like to say that I agree with DarkClouds suggestion of an erosive effect of combat on tiles (p.s.: Obviously some tiles, like mountains and hills would be uneffected by warfare!)
As for the scorched earth tactic-I'd like to take it further and say that it should be possible to abandon a city COMPLETELY of it's civilian population. Unlike Civ II, however, this would not result in the destruction of the city, you'd simply have captured a city with a population No. of 0! The reason I suggest this is because it has been done: by Russia when Napolean invaded Moscow. This tactic would be used when it becomes clear that defending a city is hopeless, and all population would be immediately shunted to adjacent cities. The scorched earth policy mentioned above should also apply to a limited number of Resources (oil comes to mind), to prevent the enemy from using it (as Hussein tried to do!)
Lastly, although I mention this point ad-nauseam. This talk of scorched earth brings me back to the topic of Supply Lines. For those of you not familiar with my previous posts, I felt that ground units should have a set Range that they can travel into enemy territory. To go further they need to capture a city or build a "Supply Depot" (an Abstract tile improvement that acts like a reverse colony. Connecting it to a friendly city by road or rail allows units to extend their range-it is also similar to the Outpost/Starbase in BOTF!)
The reason I mention it again, however, is because I feel that a captured city should not automatically become a replacement for a supply depot, but that it should first have certain Basic Features-such as a minimum Popultion of 2 and a functional granary (at the least!). This would make the scorched earth policy an important strategic maneuver. To once again draw on history-Napolean needed to capture Moscow because his supply lines had been destroyed by Cossacks (and he needed the city to see it out to spring)! When he found Moscow empty, however, he was forced to retreat back to France during a Russian Winter!
To reflect the importance of Supply Depots, Units cut off from their line of supply should begin to suffer a loss of both morale and hit-points (to reflect hunger, desertion, disease and a lack of spare parts) for every turn the units lay outisde their maximum range!
Anyway, I apologise for the lengthy post, but I hope to hear peoples thoughts on these ideas in future posts!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker

[Urban Ranger]

I don't think battles have any real effects on landscape per se. Improvements maybe, but not on the terrain.

Now don't land units have the ability to destroy improvements already? Maybe Firaxis can extend the number of nasty things they can do, like salting the fields or something.

No need for hit points and complicated stuff.

[Vrank Prins]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
The war should have an erosive effect.
One war on tile x does nothing
Two wars on tile x gives it 10% less yield
Three wars on tile x gives it 20% less yield
This increases with 15% less yield per year.
But it receeds 5% for every 10 years with no war on the tile.

About half a year ago I suggested something like this. Though in a different context. My idea is that infrastructure on a tile which has been left "undone" , which it is not being worked on for some time, will start to deteriorate and in the end will vanish completely. That's what happened to a lot of places during wartime in the past and even now.
f.i. During the 30-year war (1618 - 1648) in Germany there were parts of Saxony and Frankenland which were completely depopulated due to the war and everything that came with it (plundering, disease). That made some parts of the cultivated landscape over the years completely turn "wild" again. And even now there are still parts which have remained in that condition (and are given the status of nature resort).


In principle I like your idea I would apply it like this.

one turn ündone > no effect
two turns > 25% less yield and loss of infrastructure (whatever there is to be found on a tile); one turn repair
four turns > 50% less yield and loss of infrastructure; two turn repairs
eight turns > complete loss of yield and infrastructure; full repair time

[DarkCloud]

I think it should repair over time- and you have an option of repairing it yourself.

Roads should have to be repaired and Rails should as well as any man-made improvements, but the land itself should 'heal' itself and its forests or plains from a charred wasteland over time.

[Vrank Prins]

I think you're right.
Having to do all the repairs would mean extra micromanagement.

[bagdar]

Since we now have exhausting resources, War does effect the landscape by consuming too much iron, etc. and destroying that mine. In the past, huge forests have been choped away to build warships, so if we have 'wood' as a resource, we'll sure be having expiring forests.