Hug a Tree

johncmcleod · July 7, 2002, 22:15

Hello

In every game I play, I have problems w/pollution and global warming. I never have any idea how to fix it. I'm not sure if this helps, but I never clear forests/jungles/etc. I figure this is the opposite of what humans have done to screw up the world, but it doesn't seem to help. Does anyone know any good strategies to keep down on pollution?

Also, I think it is very stupid how we have to relive the mistakes of the western world everytime we play the game. There isn't really a technological route that I know of that uses efficient ways of production/energy until the modern ages, and by then it is too late. This is unrealistic. I believe that if civilizations like Japan during the 1100s to the 1600s or ancient China wouldn't have ever come in contact with the western world, they would have developed into very advanced civilizations that would be able to coexist w/nature and would have never used ways of production/energy that would have been unclean for the environment.

Sean · July 8, 2002, 00:04

I believe that if civilizations like Japan during the 1100s to the 1600s or ancient China wouldn't have ever come in contact with the western world, they would have developed into very advanced civilizations that would be able to coexist w/nature and would have never used ways of production/energy that would have been unclean for the environment.

No. Incorrect. For a start the Chinese empire had been stagnating for 1000 years...what a crazy thing to say...

alva · July 8, 2002, 00:04

AFAIK tree's do not reduce pollution nor stop it/ slow it down.

Strange, i don't see why though

Theseus · July 8, 2002, 00:35

alva: Trees subsist partially on C02.

John: Hate to disillusion you, but CivIII is not Earth. Whatever your views on RL civilization development and tech-driven despoilment, they have no bearing in the game. Forests and jungles are generally counter-productive, and should be cleared. Pollution and global warming are generally unavoidable.

Re China and Japan: Do some research... they were both actually on a track toward industrial development, and then for cultural reasons (not environmental) totally pulled back. And again, that's irrelevant here.

johncmcleod · July 8, 2002, 13:04

hmm...

I never clear forests/jungles/etc. until I have discovered every tech that could reveal a resource there. I wouldn't want to destroy a resource before I'd discover it.

Sorry for saying crazy things Sean, I hope I didn't offend you. I don't know much about ancient history. I didn't know of China's pollution. But I won't change my mind about Japan. That was a civilization that could've become advanced (their civilzation changed over periods of time, unlike native Americans until they were influenced by westerners) and I doubt they wouldn't destroy nature like we did. Read a hakui (spelling?)! They were a big deal to Japan during that time. If a child wanted to master the art of the hakui (and a good amount wanted to, that wasn't extremely rare, correct me if/when I'm wrong) they would move in with an adult who had master the hakui and spend maybe the rest of their life doing it. I'm way off topic, but that doesn't sound to me like a civilization that would pollute much.

But as Theseus said, "That's irrelevant." I am much more interested in anti-pollution strategies than debated about Japan and China.

Catt · July 8, 2002, 13:34

Quote:

Originally posted by johncmcleod
I never clear forests/jungles/etc. until I have discovered every tech that could reveal a resource there. I wouldn't want to destroy a resource before I'd discover it.

Clearing forests or jungles will not render the tile unable to host certain resources -- if you clear forests or jungles, rubber can still appear on the tile.

Catt

delsolsi · July 8, 2002, 15:55

Quote:

Originally posted by johncmcleod
But as Theseus said, "That's irrelevant." I am much more interested in anti-pollution strategies than debated about Japan and China.

I've only been playing a short time but the best solution I've come up with is using workers. A stack of workers can take care of the polution pretty quickly. I usually build mass transit when I get the tech but I haven't noticed if it helps out much.

Geekinstein · July 8, 2002, 17:49

...humm. In my latest game, I'm getting a ton of pollution squares, which I clean up in a move or two (with massive amounts of workers) but I still get a bunch of pollution causing massive degrading of squares, i.e. grassland to desert, etc).

...then I found out that the French had nuked the krappeux outta the Germans in thier little tif; virtually every German city had eight splattered squares around it (I thought at first the their war was so intense that the Germans didn't have time to clean up their pollution - then the Egyptians Nuked ME and I got 8 splattered squares).

Q to the board: Anyway to get the AI to "clean up their act"?

...NO? OK, I'll now go blow Cleo off the map...

Theseus · July 8, 2002, 19:29

Can't help it:

John, prior to turtling, Japan had more iron works, muskets, and cannons... and probably as much if not more pollution... than any country in the world.

Carver · July 8, 2002, 19:33

Well see, we've just discovered a new civ trait: ecological.

Ecological civs build a geothermal energy plant instead of a coal plant. And a clean factory instead of factory. The improvements do the same thing but produce half the pollution.

Thoth · July 8, 2002, 21:18

Trees do actually help if you get global warming. If a forested tile is hit by pollution, the forest is knocked down rather than the base tile being degraded. The trick of course, it to get your forests hit by GW rather than your prime, developed land. (it seems to be random)

johncmcleod · July 9, 2002, 13:49

thanks catt

and Theseus: I probably should stop talking about Japan and China before I humiliate myself anymore but I had no idea that Japan had ironworks before Marco Polo came there in the 1200s. Ich bin sehr dumm!

DeepO · July 9, 2002, 14:24

Marco Polo went to Japan? I thought he stayed in what is now Mongolia and China... could be wrong, though.

DeepO

Velociryx · July 9, 2002, 15:43

::nods to DeepO:: Wasn't that the lil' side trip he made with his buddy Baskin Robbins?

-=Vel=-

DeepO · July 9, 2002, 17:15

DeepO is confused... decides he's going to look for Baskin Robbins on the net... finds this .... DeepO is even more confused

Vel, could you explain what an ice-cream store has to do with Marco Polo? If it would have been a clothing store (Marco Polo is a kind of clothing around here), I could have more or less understood it, even if it would remain weird

You're sure you didn't hang out with Soren too much at your local bar? First Brigitte Bardot firing at the Chinese, now this

DeepO

Velociryx · July 9, 2002, 17:35

Sorry for that....sometimes my own bizzare brand of humor is....well....yeah. 'bout like that.

As to Baskin Robbins...it has about as much in common with Marco Polo as Marco Polo has with....well...Japan....least as far as I've ever heard....

-=Vel=-
(just like to keep ya guessing!)

DeepO · July 9, 2002, 17:47

No need to apologize, I was just wondering whether I missed some very obvious American link that us Euro-guys couldn't know about. I never heared of Baskin Robbins before I looked it up... and I agree it has as much in common with good old Marco as he had with Japan.

keep it up, I'm still laughing (not too much, my heads hurts. Damn MT IV)

DeepO

Velociryx · July 9, 2002, 17:55

Nahh, I try pretty hard to be a decidedly un-obvious (inobvious?) American....

Just...makin' up stuff off the top of my head, you know....lol....Baskin Robbins was the first name that jumped into my head when I was contemplating what to reply, so I went with it!

-=Vel=-

DeepO · July 9, 2002, 18:09

(u)(i)nbvious Americans are the most appreciated on this side of the Atlantic, you can be sure about that. Our image of the typical American still is one of a cowboy, Marlboro in the mouth, burger in one hand, gun in the other. But I guess you have an image of dusty old communists who need constant monitoring when thinking about Europeans in general

Now if only half of the people visting the other side wouldn't enforce those images further, maybe we could see past the obvious

DeepO

Tim_Hobbit · July 9, 2002, 18:26

DeepO - I will have to think about what my image of Europeans is, but "dusty old communists" is not it!

DeepO · July 9, 2002, 18:49

hmmm. Maybe that was not very well depicted. What about dirty old socialists then

Okay, but at least you thought the second part of my description fitted: "who need constant monitoring"

If there is one opinion very common in American media (CNN on top) regarding Europe it has to be the image of that old world were everything still happens as when the Romans were still king. It might surprise those CNN guys that we are not centuries behind, and we consider ourselves in many cases at the front position in the world (okay, not in everything, but at least we know were we lack). The comments on certain political events is were this is most noticeable (like for instance the shooting of the Dutch Pim Fortuyn, you can't imagine the amount of BS I've seen on that topic)

I'm sure our media image of a degenerating American society is also far fetched, but the cowboy image is now stronger than when John Wayne was still doing movies. And pardon me for saying, but if there is one American cowboy, it has to be your president. Or at least his advisors. He is proud to be a cowboy, and as long as he wants to taunt the world with that image, our media is having a ball.

This is getting way off topic, my initial intention was just to say that obviousness is one of the character properties that we expect from Americans, so I'm always glad to meet someone who is not. No offence to anyone, please

DeepO

Theseus · July 9, 2002, 19:43

DeepO,

I'm from the US, and I was equally confused (I thought, ice cream from China maybe?).

Vel's mind works in mysterious ways... but look at the results!!

I did work for a group called SWIFT once, from Belgium. They blew me away!!

I do think that the French can be, well, French, though.

R

alva · July 9, 2002, 20:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Theseus

I do think that the French can be, well, French, though.

R

Someone is stealing a line here

philippe666 · July 9, 2002, 21:45

hmm so there are more Belgians then me....COOL!

Theseus · July 10, 2002, 00:18

Yes, I am.

Hilda!!!!

Edit: For those who don;t know, I am referring to Eddie Izzard, the most hilarious and intelligent comedian around today.

DeepO · July 10, 2002, 08:02

Theseus, I've heard of SWIFT, and even if I'm not in the same domain I heard they were pretty good. Just one of the examples, I guess, were US companies are not the sole market leaders.

Oh, and the French can be very French, but that makes living in Europe interesting. In Belgium, we have several very distinct groups living together, each with their own very peculiar habbits. If, going from Leuven (Flanders) where I live, I go 15 kilometers North I'm in Brussels, if I would go 10 kilometers South I'm in the Welsh part of Belgium (la Wallonie, in French), and those three regions are very different. That's one of the things that makes life in Belgium exiting, the cultures are packed so close to each other.

In Europe the same, of course: France is only 100 km away, the same for the Netherlands, Germany, and England. In one day of travelling you can visit 5 or 6 countries, all with their own language and culture. It can be hard to constantly adjust to each other's culture, but that's also the fun part of life here

DeepO

johncmcleod · July 11, 2002, 21:43

I know Polo didn't go to Japan-I just figured the Japanese would be in contact with other Asians so when westerners influenced Chinese and Mongols they'd influence the Japanese too. And Deepo-isn't Flemish pretty much the same as German? Because I'm learning to speak German and I look for every opportunity I can to practice it.

DeepO · July 11, 2002, 22:04

Flemish is close to German, yes. But French and English are closer... (no Vel, I'm not joking this time

) Flemish is actually a dialect of Dutch, we share the same vocabulary, but use some different intonations, some different words. There is one commision which decides which grammatical rules apply to both languages.

French and English have a lot more in common than people tend to think, due to the constant mideival wars between the two countries, a lot of the words got mixed. Practising French with an Englishman might be as good an idea as practicing German with me: I understand it completely, and do speak it a little, but if you want some real use out of it, you might want to find yourself a German to talk to

(as a benchmark, I consider my English twice as good as my German. If you think I'm fluent in English, maybe I can be of help with German. But I don't think so...)

DeepO

Theseus · July 11, 2002, 22:35

DeepO,

Kinda like NYC!

Seriously, I love Europe. I was just outside of Paris for 4 days, and had a great time.

BTW, you are very fluent in written English too... I speak French, but write abominably.

What was the topic again?

DeepO · July 12, 2002, 07:15

Theseus, thanks for the compliment, but no, I'm not very fluent in English. In many cases I just translate out of Dutch, and as those languages are also close to each other, it doesn't show that much. However, when rereading some of my own posts, especially in quotes from others, many times I think "OMG, did I wrote that?"

Dutch is the hardest of European languages, it is the most complex of them. That's why in automated translation systems it was used as an interlingua: when going from French to English, it is more easy to go from French to Dutch, and then from Dutch to English. This approach means you only have to write translaters for every language to and from the interlingua, and do not need specific translators for every combination of languages you might encounter. It worked relatively well, but lately they are using artificial interlinguas, as it is easier... Dutch is a pain for all non-native speakers, including computers. There is one advantage though, Dutch (and of course Flemish) people can learn foreign languages quite easily, most of the people I know speak 4 languages. Some of my collegaes speak over 10 (and that's for electronic engineers!)

Paris is a very fun city, although many French wouldn't call it French... they have their own mentality

I have to visit it soon, though, it's been years since I've been there. But, this evening I'm leaving for Berlin, as I fear this might be my last year I would enjoy myself at the Loveparade. I feel I'm getting old

As to the topic of this thread, well, let's see. First it was about trees and pollution, then Asian development, Marco Polo visiting Japan, ice cream stores, US-European images, Eddie Izzard, me tutoring German (hah, I still chuckle at that one

), and now languages. And all of this in 29 posts... pretty amazing for a strategic thread

DeepO