Poll : Random acts of nature

Will civ3 come to life in this department. Remember how earthquakes could destroy a temple or colloseum in civ1 or how houses were washed away due to floods.... or population losses due to famine? Will ramdom acts of nature be in civ3 as well. I think these are good things to have. Perhaps not random but dependant on city size and/or location or perhaps like in civ1 depending on what improvements you have ? What does everyone else think?

I am all for acts of nature or later in the game human..... ie meltdown!

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Someone from your village just called. They said their idiot is missing !

[Bereta_Eder]

Yet another Civ 1 feature that I liked and didn't make it to Civ 2.

I hope we have it in Civ 3.

BTW, I really liked this... supernatural rule in Civ 1 that said: To eliminate the threat of an earthquake, build a... temple

If only it was that simple Greece would be quake free

[Lung]

Natural disasters, oh, yes please!!

I have made many posts on this, yet the enthusiasm for this has been lukewarm, at best . However, civilisation is littered with setbacks, and a game where you can grow exponentially without setbacks is a little too unreal. It was, for me, the one unreal aspect of Civ2. I say we litter the earth with corpses of the victims of natural disasters!

I care less whether it comes with snazzy graphics; only that it be included somehow. A few that come to mind are;

Earthquakes
Volcanoes
Floods
Cyclones/Hurricanes/Typhoons
Bush fires
Droughts
Avalanches
You name it! The more the merrier!!

If you want to add real stress to the game, introduce meteor showers! They would have to be rare or at least of varying magnitudes, but it could also add another end-game scenario. Perhaps there could be a 10% chance of a late game global-killer meteor where civilisation as a whole would have to destroy it before it reached earth. I haven't thought as far as how a winner could be decided yet, though

[Ralf]

Man-made disasters and catastrophes? YES. Random ones? NO

Instead (as in Civ-1) most of these disasters should appear regurlary UNTIL approprate city-improvements has been built. Example; added health-inprovements gradually prevents reoccuring plagues. Food-related improvements (like granary) gradually prevents reoccuring famines.
Check out the Catastrophes prevented by improvements thread.

True nature-caused disasters, like earthquakes, droughts, flooding and so on, can be random, but they should be preference-screen optional. Few likes them in real life, and many dont like them in games either.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 17, 2001).]

[Brad]

I think that natural disasters should be in, but it should depend on location, (eg you can only get a flood if you are near a river or ocean) and each one can be prevented from happening by build an improvement because it would be terrrible to have you size 22 capital nearly destroyed by an earthquake.

[rah]

I would like to see both. Problems that could be drastically reduced by building improvements, and those that happen randomly. The random ones should be infrequent but very serious. I do like reading about the "culture" that might cause a city to go back to the enemy. Many random elements will really improve MP.

If they do put in random diasaters, I would love to see them be determined by the program a few turns prior to them happening, so a simple reset to the beginning of the turn doesn't change the event.

And even though it will be impossible to eliminate ICS, maybe problems reduced by building improvements will further discourage it. (of course people will figure out a way around them too)

RAH

[Maniac]

Erm... Just a little question. Where are the poll options? A poll is something more specific then just asking people what they think.

M@ni@c
Starter of an unsuccessful poll...

[N35t0r]

I would like the idea of random disasters, but any civ which suffers them constantly gets each time less and less damage from it...

[uh Clem]

I like natural disasters, but I'm against them in a competitive game. If they aren't significant (ie, just a minor irritation), then why have them? And if they're serious enough that they could change the outcome, then they make the game more dependent on luck, rather than skill. In a non-competitive game like SimCity, it would be different.

[ancient]

i was thinking about making a post like this.. i think they should do it and if implemented right could ad a whole neew level of strategy to the game

[Lawrence of Arabia]

N random acts of nature. Not strategic enough.

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Nothing can stop the course of History.

[Captain]

As aggravating as I think it might be in a game for a painstakingly perfectly built civ to be suddenly thrashed by some random natural disaster, I think it should be in.

In real life, most people underestimate the role of chance in their lives. (admittedly this depends on one's particular views on fatalism and supernatural guidance), but let's say that you were to flip a coin 3 times and it came up heads every time. A lot of people might take that as a signal. But the truth is that it isn't as unlikely as you might think.

Not to get too in depth but, while the probability of 3 coin flips being heads is 0.5*0.5*0.5=.125, or a one in 8 chance, a coin flip is independent of its previous flip. Thus, each coin flip's percent chance remains 0.5, no matter what happened before. Thus the chance that the 3rd coin will be heads is still 50%, not 12.5%. Still, we are humans and we look for meaning in our lives, even when it just might be random.

But back to random natural disasters, there should be some way of mitigating the disasters. While not every disaster in real life can be avoided, there are usually ways of preparing to reduce human or property losses. A good civ ruler will take these into account. Besides we always need chance to spice it up.

[Lung]

Before i start, let me state that natural disasters should be able to be turned off at the start of a game.

There should be limits on where certain natural disasters occur, and differing levels of magnitude. There was a major thread some time ago about making Civ3 'epic', which was part of my reason for proposing natural disasters. Let me put it this way - i'd rather have to overcome the forces of nature rather than a cheating AI!!! When you win a game, there should be a sense of achievement, NOT a sense of anti-climax. This is also why a history-type replay is important, and apparently it is being included, which is fantastic news! Combined with natural disasters and all of the existing good things about Civ2 and 3, this could certainly be the game of the decade!

I won't do the full list here, but i will give a couple of examples in detail;

Volcanoes
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Their magnitude could be indicated by the are of damage, for any square flooded by lava can only be dead! e.g
*minor - volcano tile destroyed by lava, reducing production/gold/food to zero (if not already) for perhaps 5 turns? Also kills any units in affected tile.
*moderate - some tiles within 1 of volcano destroyed by lava - affected for 5/10 turns, some others affected by ash or mudslides - no/half production/gold/food for perhaps 2 turns.
*major - consecutive tiles within two tiles of volcano destroyed by lava - affected by 5/10 turns. Zero prod/gold/food applies. Others within 2 affected by ash/mudslides for 2 turns.

Ramifications for cities
Lava - destroyed. Perhaps percentage or single settler/s remain
Mudslides - 1/2 pop point loss
Ash - reduced prod/food/gold 1/2 turns

Furthermore, the effects of lava should be gradual e.g 5 turn zero everything, next 5 half-normal, next 20/50/100 turns bonus food (extra-fertile soil), unless of course another eruption occurs in the mean time Volcanoes should have greater chance of recurrence (thus balancing out the food bonus), with perhaps a chance of long dormancy as well. This means that while luck is involved, there is also the element of 'reward vs risk' which is the choice of each civ. Perhaps tectonic plates could be determined at the start of each game, and become known with the discovery of a particular advance e.g Seismology? This advance could also reduce the effects of volcanoes (except lava), which would allay Ralf's concern over having the ability to influence your civ. You want to avoid volcanoes? Build somewhere else. If you are prepared to take the risk, then benefit from the food bonuses. Maybe you would even enjoy hearing the screams of melting soldiers

I would prefer that all civs would know of volcanic eruptions, at least of magnitude of major and perhaps moderate. You would hear at the start of the turn a rumble, followed by an explosion, and perhaps even a screen shake! Cooool!! You would only see it if it was within your borders, though. Perhaps in fog-of-war you would just see which volcano erupted.

Cyclones/Hurricanes/Typhoons
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Or whatever you want to call them! They should appear at the start of the turn, appearing over ocean, before moving randomly across tiles, until they pass over land, with a maximum number of tiles affected. Once they pass beyond coastal tiles, they die. If they stay on coastal tiles, a maximum of 3 tiles affected.

*minor - random building improvement destroyed in affected city. Other tiles loss of food for 1 turn, except water tiles.
*moderate - loss of pop point and random building improvement destroyed
*major - 20 percent pop point loss and 2 building improvement destroyed. Certain ancient/sail ships sunk, or at least percentage chance of sinking.

This involves mostly luck, but there are still gameplay elements involved. They should only appear in tropical/sub-tropical lattitudes. It must also be said that ones of major magnitude be more rare than minor and moderate ones. Again a certain advance could reduce the effects of these.

Floods
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They should only affect rivers, of course! They should appear at a random tile along a river and affect all downstream tiles. Perhaps dams could be built, which would stop floods from continuing downstream. Tiles downstream of dams up to 2/3 tiles could not initiate floods.

*minor - zero food/prod/gold 1 turn for all affected squares
*moderate - same as minor plus pop point loss and 1 random building improvement detroyed.
*major - same as minor plus 10/20/30 percent pop point loss and multiple b/i's destroyed. Also, adjacent swamp/grassland/plains/desert/jungle tiles to rivers also affected.

Again, major floods must be rare, but in each case, the damage is far greater than minor, more frequent natural disasters. The important thing is that, when you first hear the impending natural disaster, you don't know how bad it might be, or where it will affect! You then suffer the anxiety of not knowing, which i think adds to "the complete civilisation experience" Then you see (depending on the type of natural disaster), where is affected, followed by how much damage is unfolding before your eyes.

For those of you who are interested, we can have fun toggling the various values which i have proposed here. It may be too late to have it implemented in Civ3, but if time permits, there's no reason why it couldn't be added onto the existing framework for Civ3!

[Lung]

Another important thing to note is that this limits exponential population growth, particularly before modern times when we learned how to limit the effects of nature.

Also, small cities are, in the event of minor or moderate disasters, going to be more adversely affected than large cities, as only major disasters will reduce population by percentage. It's also worth noting that percentage losses need to be rounded up to pop points. This is also another way of discouraging ICS'ing, as size one cities risk total destruction, unlike larger cities. The player who has size 1 cities everywhere is likely to lose cities to natural disasters.

I suggest that in any history-replay, major disasters be shown and dated, to add to your sense of achievement. After all, let's face it, civilisation is about overcoming or defying nature. The setbacks should make it all the more gratifying to survive until the end-game.

[Russian King]

If disasters are implemented into civ3, I hope you can turn them off...
I dont like to see my work being destroyed simply by chance.

[Lung]

Any other comments for this thread? I write a long post and it disappears off page one!

[Hasdrubal]

Yes! Random disasters should make a reappearance from CivI! I enjoy a mean game. I want my own Pompeii, fires razing my cities to the ground, devastating earthquakes ruining half a continent and all of the fine stuff that Lung proposed!

quote: Originally posted by Lung on 05-18-2001 08:11 PM Any other comments for this thread? I write a long post and it disappears off page one!

Happy?

[Grumbold]

I'm all in favour of "natural" events affecting the game provided they are factored into the game balance. Outbreaks of disease and bad healthcare was the primary cause for low population growth and small cities for centuries, not the existance or lack of a temple or aqueduct. Fire was a constant terror. Unfortunately I don't think we are going to see that sort of shift in gameplay with Civ 3. Civ has always been about the external threat of foreign empires, not the internal threats. Hence we are not going to see an armada or even a single ship destroyed by freak storms or an unstoppable army retreat home at the death of their monarch. One of these days someone will come up with an imperial model that has you worry about internal stability but this isn't going to be it. On that basis an occasional event that destroys a building or point of population just seems silly and intrusive. The Civ boardgame approach of halting or restricting harmful events through the construction of certain buildings is better but still not ideal. The boardgame centres around the concept that cities are easy to create and easy to lose. In Civ the computer game the loss of a developed city is almost irreplaceable.

[Lung]

Happy?

Happy

[ancient]

myy keeys stiicks

[Lawrence of Arabia]

I don't like natural disasters. Its not one a strategic enough level. You say that cities on the coast will be more likely to have baracks to ward off pirates? Please, everyone builds barracks in every one of their cities (unless there solo and going for a pre 1000 BC AC landing)

[Vrank Prins]

Here's just a vote.
Yes I'm in for that.
And they should be unavoidable by a saving/restarting manouevre when they occur.
What about a more structural natural hazard, erosion