When Do Forests Expand?

[Helium Pond]

Does anyone know how the probability of forest expansion is calculated, specifically expansion into fungus? If I want to get rid of a patch of fungus, but also need to build forests, what's the best way to place them so that the fungus gets ovegrown?

[Adam_Smith]

Forest grows fastest on dry or moist flat land. It grows slower on on rainy and rolling land. I think it will only take over fungus if there is more forest in the area than fungus.

[Theben]

Personal experience dictates otherwise. IMO forest grows faster over moist and rainy than over arid- in fact it hardly ever enters arid terrain, unless the arid is covered by fungus. I can't comment on the rest, other than to say that forest will never enter "rocky" terrain (but you knew that).

[MidKnight Lament]

I was wondering the same thing in regard to kelp. I tend to plant it in a bit of a patchwork rather than side-by-side, in the hope that it'll grow faster. Do diagonals count?

- MKL

[Velociryx]

Stuff I've noticed about forests:

* Tends to expand downhill more easily than up.

* Tends to expand eastwardly more readily than westward.

* Rivers present a significant barrier to natural expansion

*I've historically had much better luck with forest expanding into arid squares than rainy...invariably, when I go to colonize the Dunes or the area around the Unity crash site, I only have to plant about 3-4 forest squares, and the rest grows on its own.

-=Vel=-

[Helium Pond]

Vel, have you observed anything about fungus? It sounds like downward, eastward fungus would get overgrown first? Does the type of square the fungus is on matter?
[This message has been edited by Helium Pond (edited July 10, 2000).]

Interestingly enough, I've had the exact opposite experience from you Vel, with regard to raininess. A friend and I were both just playing a LAN game on an arid, flat world with few rivers in our territories. He got the WP first, and soon began throwing up Condensors and drilling to aquifers. His forests were expanding like mad through the moist and rainy terrains created, and especially along (not across) the rivers he had drilled. Meanwhile, my forests were having to be individually planted, especially in the Unity wreckage. The few moist areas I had were soon overgrown though. That expansion pattern certainly makes more sense to me than the one you say you've observed.

No clue about the fungus thing, but if I'm remembering correctly, it seems to expand into non-fungus squares first.

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Yours Truly

[Googlie]

I almost always plant forest in checkerboard pattern, and let nature fill the blanks.

Except for river valleys - I've found that forests will always proliferate along the rivers after just one seeded tile, so I never bother with more than one river plantings.

Forests on the rampage will overgrow monoliths, mirrors, sensors and I've even had a condensor overgrown by a forest, (but never a borehole), but I never have had an extra 2 minerals from the resulting forest (mever tried to get the five from harvesting - don't knbow if one would be able to harvest a monolith square - I now wish I'd tried)

Googlie

[DilithiumDad]

Forest spreading is a positive function of the number of adjacent tiles with forest, and a negative function of the adjacent tiles with fungus. A moist flat tile with forest on all 8 sides (4 sides and 4 diagonals) will fill in fast. To take over fungus, it's best to plant a wall of forest and let it slowly spread. A strand of fungus fills in faster than a solid patch or bloom. Sea fungus counts against you on coastal squares. Kelp follows identical rules except that moisture doesn't seem to matter.

I forest all along rivers because I don't have to waste a turn moving in between plantings. Forest spreads from the river tile to the surrounding area nicely.

[Theben]

quote: Originally posted by Googlie on 07-10-2000 08:18 PM Forests on the rampage will overgrow monoliths, mirrors, sensors and I've even had a condensor overgrown by a forest, (but never a borehole), but I never have had an extra 2 minerals from the resulting forest (mever tried to get the five from harvesting - don't knbow if one would be able to harvest a monolith square - I now wish I'd tried)

I doubt you could harvest a monolith square- most I could do in that square was clear fungus and flatten terrain.

I did have an interesting experience with forests and condensers. The forest had overgrown into the condenser square. The square still had 1-2-1 production. But when I built a tree farm production jumped to 3-2-1.

Vel,

For me forests never moved into dunes squares. I always had to build the forests in each square.