Raising Land (or Lowering it)

[cbn]

We have all seen the messages about rapidly rising sea levels and begun the process of raising the land to preserve our continent(s). I have a few questions that I hope people can answer and a few comments.


1. Is there an easy method to check to see what land is endangered? Currently the only method I know is to scroll the cursor over each square individually and note those that are endangered (often I will also note any areas under 200m). I find this tedious. Also areas well inland that visually "look" very high are endangered so checking the coast only won't do it.

2. Does raising a square influence all or just some of the adjacent squares? In my current game I had raised squares north of my base to over 1500m but the base stayed endangered. I ended up rushing a Pressure dome to be safe (not needed as it turned out) as well as using multiple formers on three other squares adjacent to the base.

3. Is there any way to control how far the raising goes? In many cases I am just trying to keep land based improvements out of the water and instead end up destroying a tidal harness or two as my continent gets a little bigger (or worse cutting my planned naval centre off from the sea). I often like this effect as it gives me more coastal areas that can be boreholed but I just want a little control.


4. Often I cannot raise terrain near a pactmate. I understand that if it would adversely affect them then I can't do it. Has anyone tested this to see how close you can be to your pactmates territory without the prohibition.

5. I was raising terrain to keep it afloat and suddenly about 15 squares of the jungle disappeared. Is this an offshoot of the precipitation (raininess) effect of raising terrain. How the **** do you not destroy the jungle without letting parts of your continent fall into the sea?

6. Lastly I find that raising land is pretty cheap-- particularly if it is lower than surrounding terrain. I do it a lot. I once (as Sven) had the idea to sink my opponents to destroy improvements, cut their supply lines and let my navy have a free hand . The costs were outlandish. I don't recall exact figures but it seemed that every square was hundreds if not thousands of credits. I abandoned the plan. Is dropping someone into the ocean ever feasible? It seems like it would be much cheaper/easier to simply build a massive airforce with drop and amphibious units and kill them. Perhaps the game was designed to make this difficult ??


Any thoughts (including any old threads that you find on this) would be appreciated. I find that the battle with the water levels does more damage than anything the AI factions can do.


cbn

[WhiteElephants]

1) Don't know about checking the endangered land. You might want to consider whether running high eco damage is worth the cost and the pain in the butt of raising all that land.

2) I believe if you raise the land high enough it effects the surrounding terrain.

3) If you raise land next to the ocean it raises the squares adjacent to it. If you raise the inland too high it will also raise the ocean. You can't have one square 1000 meters above sea level and the next 0 or below sea level. I believe the game creates and grade of 0-1000, 1000-2000, and 2000-3000. Meaning if you raise a square above 2000 the surrounding squares will raise up to above 1000.

4) I've never been able to raise or lower a pactmates land.

5) The jungle goes under if the sea levels rise and is buried if you raise the land. I believe other landmarks work in the same way.

6) I think it is always expensive to raise or lower an enemies land. Your idea about the airforce attack would probably always be cheaper, but what would probably be cheaper than that would be to use a probe and gain control of the city that way.

Like I said in #1 you might want to curb your eco damage rather than fight an uphill battle against planet. Just a thought.

[Fitz]

quote: Originally posted by cbn on 11-14-2000 03:49 PM 3. Is there any way to control how far the raising goes? In many cases I am just trying to keep land based improvements out of the water and instead end up destroying a tidal harness or two as my continent gets a little bigger (or worse cutting my planned naval centre off from the sea). I often like this effect as it gives me more coastal areas that can be boreholed but I just want a little control. 5. I was raising terrain to keep it afloat and suddenly about 15 squares of the jungle disappeared. Is this an offshoot of the precipitation (raininess) effect of raising terrain. How the **** do you not destroy the jungle without letting parts of your continent fall into the sea?

3. Areas can only be one higher or lower than any adjacent area (see WE's catagories). If you raise a squre, and any adjacent areas are now two elevations different, that adjacent are will be raised by one. This effect continues out to the adjacent squares of that square, and so on.

5. This is known as washing. I believe the way it works is that square that are not in the endangered catagory, but still in the lowest elevation bracket, are lowered below sea level, then raised again. Items in that square (special terrain, units, possibly bases) are destored. I'll see if I can bump a relevant thread.

Edit: Here's a link to the Statagy forum thread.
[This message has been edited by Fitz (edited November 14, 2000).]

[cbn]

Fitz

Thanks for the bump of the previous thread . It seems to raise as many questions as it answers as the posters seemed to be in disagreement as to the exact effects. I may have to go back a few turns in that particular game to see exactly what I lost (I had conquered the jungle a few turns previous and I believe the Consciousness had done minimal terraforming). I know that approximately 15 jungle squares were no longer jungle but I don't recall now if I lost any units or other terraforming. I guess I'll have to do some testing of my own.

WE

You are probably right in that I might be better to run less ecodamage. I am currently experimenting with mineral intensive strategies in which mines and boreholes play a big part (fungus has been a pain as well). In all previous games land raising was not as big an issue. I didn't have any land submerged this time that I cared about since I have tons of formers (although I would prefer them to be expanding my crawlered industrial park). While I do begrudge the use of former time it will probably be the damage from this washing effect that will force me to reduce ecodamage.

If I understand what is being said about the washing effect, even squares that are at higher altitudes (such as my jungle squares) can lose their special status. Submersion is not necessary for this to happen?? Ouch. I definitely have to look at this closer. Tying up some formers I can live with-- Losing landmarks , perhaps units and some of my terraforming -- not acceptable.


I do see that the most efficient use of terraforming time would not be to raise the lowest land in the area but the highest (slightly higher energy cost but usually not significant) dragging up all the adjacent land . If I raise the 1001m square up it would go into the 2000+ level, its adjacent endangered squares would all be forced up to the 1000+ level and this would seemingly force up any sea square adjacent to the endangered square. It would appear that a single former could handle a wide area by raising select squares.


I'll have to test how all this works in practice. For example if an endangered 20m square is adjacent to a 900m square. If I raise the 900m square then in theory nothing would happen to the 20m one. But I am thinking about this situation

Existing situation 20 m 1050 m
Raise higher land 1020m 2050 m
then 49m sea rise 971 2001m

Uh-oh-- according to the adjacency rules stated in the other thread-- This last situation cannot exist. But what happens ?? is the lower land anchored and stays above 1000m or is the higher pulled down again??

Perhaps I'll have to think about making the solar shade tech more of a priority. Or perhaps I'll think about embracing my ecodamage, even melt the caps -- raise my land like crazy and see how the AI copes (I could even build a big navy for a change)


cbn

[cbn]

WE

One last point I forgot. I agree that mind control of bases can be most cost effective but I have imposed a self-handicap in my games (I only play SP to date). I recently started not permitting myself to mind control bases and plan next game to not allow myself to subvert enemy units (Don't know if I'll try this if Morgan comes up as my faction though). It really changes things since I need an adequate probe defense (and the AI loves to send them) but offense with probes is limited to tech steals, infiltration, energy drains etc.

I actually would be interested in the type of things others are doing in the way of self handicaps (perhaps I'll start another thread)to make the game more interesting in SP. I make so very many mistakes and there is so very much I don't know about this game but yet I find that simply achieving a "win" against the AI is routine (haven't had an alien neighbor do an Ogre rush on me yet). I play standard size random maps with all settings in the "middle" and all random factions (including mine) on transcend.


cbn

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

A little off track but as I am a big fan of Planetary transit SP (pre-Cloning Vats), I've been pondering a means to do an alternative second round expansion of bases that hit the ground running.

This ties into land raising in an round about way but I thought I would mention it.

My normal New base site for this second/third expansion phase (once restictions are lifted and PTS is in hand) is always pre -T-formed and has land with 2 boreholes and a condensor/farm.

I'm considering placing just off the coast new bases using foil colony pods that take adavantage of these three squares. My expansion paradigm would be then to raise the central condensor/farm and as a result the sea colony pod becomes land bound with a free pressure dome as a result. Land is raised again allowing next forward creep of sea colony pod supported by condensor/farm and 2 boreholes ultimately to be rasied out of the water and repeat the process. This allows new bases with an initial +1 nutrient over supported population/14 mins/14 energy (depending on Econ rating).

My thinking is that the sea colony pod is quicker to location site (prior to mag tubes) vs. a land collony pod and that the free pressure dome is a nice bonus.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Double Post
[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited November 15, 2000).]

[mark13]

The cost of raising/lowering land is determined by the position of the square in relation to your base. 1 square away is 4 credits, 2 is 8, 3 is 12 etc.

[Fitz]

quote: Originally posted by cbn on 11-15-2000 09:10 AM Existing situation 20 m 1050 m Raise higher land 1020m 2050 m then 49m sea rise 971 2001m Uh-oh-- according to the adjacency rules stated in the other thread-- This last situation cannot exist. But what happens ?? is the lower land anchored and stays above 1000m or is the higher pulled down again??

Ah, I knew I wasn't remembering washing correctly. This is what causes washing.

The higher land is anchored, and the lower land is pulled up to compensate for the one level difference only.

Washing example:

Existing situation 20 m 1050 m
then 49m sea rise -39m (ocean) 1001m

which cannot exist. Then the lower ocean land is pulled up to become costal (I don't know how the new elevation level in meters would be calculated). Any special land, troops, and now that I'm thinking about it, almost certainly bases, would be eliminated by the submerging, and not reappear when the square is pulled up to costal again.

So you don't have to worry about washing unless it is already an endagered square. Sorry to confuse.

[mark13]

BTW, I sent 8 formers over to Morgan's coast to begin lowering his base into the sea. It cost me nearly 500 credits, but it was well worth the submersion of his lovely size 11 base. Man, that was sweet....

[Aredhran]

I must admit that I never fully tested this (couldn't be bothered), but based on close observation, the raise/lower cost seems to be a function of:

- distance to closest base / proximity to enemy base
- elevation and/or previous raise/sink terraform
- rockiness

Based on my observations, Mark's 4/8... theory is true for the first raise of a non-rocky tile that has not been raised before.

Aredhran

[cbn]

Mark13

I know that proximity to a base is a factor in terraforming cost but I do not believe it is as simple as you set out. Raising land adjacent to a base was 9 and two squares away was 18 so there is a distance relationship as you stated. But I had another instance where the raising cost was 64 (not a doubling of the 9) and the square was only 2 squares away from the base. Note that all these costs were in a single turn. I think the calculation might involve the # of squares that you will raise (since adjacent squares may come up as well).


I tested this (only once) by raising a square with 2 formers (cost 18) and then raising it again (cost 64). It appears that raising up the "peaks" will cost more. Also your costs were 2-4-8 while mine we 9-18-27-- I think that that discrepancy will be related to Planet rating. I'm going to search the old threads on this to see what I can turn up

[Skanderbeg]

For the case of rising sea levels, I never build recling chamber, I build a pressure dome in every land base, even early in the came. So I have not to look wich of my often many bases in endangerd, when the announcment of rising sea leves comes.
Do you think this is stupid because it's a waste of resources.

[Aredhran]

In my opinion, the problem is the terraformed land tiles that disappear under the sea, not the actual base. It's easy to rush a pressure dome if necessary.

And yes it's a waste of resources to pay 2x the amount of minerals for a facility, especially early in the game.

Aredhran

[Skanderbeg]

quote: Originally posted by Aredhran on 11-24-2000 06:20 AM In my opinion, the problem is the terraformed land tiles that disappear under the sea, not the actual base. It's easy to rush a pressure dome if necessary. And yes it's a waste of resources to pay 2x the amount of minerals for a facility, especially early in the game. Aredhran

For me the problem is not the money for rushing the pressure dome. But I hate to look at each of my 50 or more bases if it is in need of a pressure dome.

[mark13]

Well, it's a question of how you play the game I guess. I would never, ever *ever* build Pressure Domes as a substitute for Recycling Tanks, for the simple reason that Pressure Domes have a 1/turn upkeep fee. When you think about it, this equates to 200 or more turns over the course of the game, which equals 200 credits. When you mulitply that by the 50 bases or so, it becomes 10,000 credits, which is a lot by anyone's standards....

[RedFred]

YIKES! I always though p-domes were free. Says so in the manual, guess I should know better than to trust it though. In any case I am with Aredhan on not building them, particularly in the early game.

On the issue of (non-washing) jungle raising, yes raising that or the uranium flats will cause the special bonus to disappear.

Tip for any newbies happening by: You retain your monoliths that have been submerged as long as they are -999 or higher. Handy for ship experience upgrades.

[Googlie]

I'll build them in blind research games if I have doc flex but not biogenetics, or if I have little else to build - I'll do the domes then cash in the tanks - one little added benefit is that domes can't be destroyed by probe action - tanks can (altho to my knowledge I've never benefitted from that)

[mark13]

quote: Tip for any newbies happening by: You retain your monoliths that have been submerged as long as they are -999 or higher. Handy for ship experience upgrades.

Wow, does it really? I didn't know that - I'm being serious, well, I guess you learn something ever day. That beggars another point - how tall are these monoliths? 1000m is quite a height, I'd certainly like to see one....

I think domes are free if they are automatically built on sea bases - otherwise they have an upkeep cost, AFAIK....I am by no means certain about this though....

[Chowlett]

As someone pointed out a while ago, this make it a viable strategy to lower a monolith into the sea for the specific purpose of ship upgrades.

------------------
The best way to avoid errors is not to do anything - Dr Beardon (Maths)

[cbn]

Bump

[DilithiumDad]

A fascinating thing about rising sea levels is that there is a major random element. We have had rising sea levels in several multiplayer games played on the Ultimate Builder map, and the submerged tile differ drastically, even in unoccupied areas, and even with identical rises in sea level. Some tiles that are NOT listed as endangered will be submerged.

------------------
Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet

[Lord Maxwell]

Actually any lowering/raising of terrain destroys landmarks. So you can't raise pholus ridge to get an uber-ridge, nor can you raise the jungle to keep it out of the water. (Well you can, but it stops being jungle.) The only landmark that doesn't really suffer is sunny mesa. (As it has no other intrinsic bonus than height.)

[Flubber]

bump for freshman

[freshman]

Thanks for the bump Flubber!
I think I understand washing now - but it seems like more than just my endangered squares got washed. I had 3 endangered squares, including my base - and about 10 squares got washed! Another question - I had a P-dome - would my base had survived the wash if it didn't?
Also, the link to the washing page is broken - does anyone know where I can find it? - the old link was http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum31/HTML/000230.html

Does all ecodamage of all factions count towards sea level rises?

I read that one way sea level rises are triggered by too many 's in a row - does anyone know more detail on this? I've heard that having a eco-damage of around 40 is good to start poping at a reasonable pace 1 every 2 turns - does anyone know more detail on how often a pop happens for a given eco-damage?

Hey - I read the eco-damage article and was confused on one thing in their formula. The formula is (pasting):

Eco-Damage = (DamageFactor * Perihelion * Techs * Life * Difficulty * Planet) / 300
Planet = PLANET Social Engineering -3, to a minimum of 1.
Difficulty = 3 on Librarian and lower, 5 on Thinker and Transcend
Life = 1, 2 or 3 for Rare, Normal or Abundant native life

From http://apolyton.net/misc/column/175_ecodamage.shtml

I'm confused about PlanetFactor = PLANET - 3
That implies that higher planet ratings have more eco-damage!
Shouldn't the negative sign go in front of the PLANET rating - ie shouldn't it be something like PlanetFactor = 3-PLANET?

Summary of questions:
1) why do non-endangered squares get washed
2) can bases survive washing?
3) where's the old washing link refered to in this thread?
4) do too many pops cause sea level rise?
5) do other factions count in calculating sea level rise?
6) are pops the only factor in causing sea level rise?
7) what is the statistical link between a pop and eco-damage?
8) what is the statistical link between pops and sea level rise?
9) Shouldn't the Planet Factor in eco-damage column be 3-PLANET

[Fitz]

Originally posted by freshman
Summary of questions:
1) why do non-endangered squares get washed
2) can bases survive washing?
3) where's the old washing link refered to in this thread?
4) do too many pops cause sea level rise?
5) do other factions count in calculating sea level rise?
6) are pops the only factor in causing sea level rise?
7) what is the statistical link between a pop and eco-damage?
8) what is the statistical link between pops and sea level rise?
9) Shouldn't the Planet Factor in eco-damage column be 3-PLANET

1) Because they are pulled below sea level by an adjacent square, I think. I'm not sure whether or not non-endagered squares can actually be washed.
2) Yes, with a preassure dome.
3) It did work. *scratches head* Try searching the archives for washing.
4) Pops actually mitigate eco-damage, they don't increase it. However, lots of pops are a sign of high eco-damage, and sea levels are more apt to rise with high eco-damage.
5) Good question. I would imagine yes.
6) Eco-damage causes sea rises, not pops. See point four above.
7) Each base has a chance = its eco-damage as a % to suffer from a pop each turn. Base ecodamage varies from base to base depending on terraforming and mineral production.
8) No way to tell. The formula for sea level rises is not published, or calculable. However, when I run over 50 eco-damage in many bases for more than a few turns, the sea usually starts to rise.
9) In the formula, a PLANET of 3+ counts as a 2.

[freshman]

Non endangered squares definitely get washed - and I haven't seen a good explaination of why yet.
An endangered square is like 10m so it is in level 1. When the sea rises like 60 m, it becomes -50 m or in level 0. So level 1 adjacent squares shouldn't get washed, and level 2 adjacent squares definitely shouldn't get washed. The level 2 adjacent square will pull the level 0 back out of the water - so by that theory which DOES make sence to me - only endangered squares should get washed.

There must be some sort of tidal wave explaination...

I've heard that Pressure Domes aren't necessary for large bases - that something happens whereby an automatic p-dome is created, and half the population is killed off.

The washing link http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum31/HTML/000230.html
is definitely broken

I do understand about pops mitigating future damage, but I have also heard that too many pops in a row cause sea level... It would be nice to know when to expect sea level changes, and how to avoid them. I definitely will give tree-farm and other environmental techs to all factions!

%=eco-damage - cool - good to know!
If your base has 100 eco damage then you're saying that there will be a pop with 100% certainty? What if your base has 200 eco-damage - will there be 2 pops with 100% certainty?

The Planet Factor doesn't make any sense to me. A high planet rating should (and does) REDUCE eco-damage.
3+Planet Factor - 3 does NOT equal 2. And suppose that it did, then does that mean if your faction gets 3+ Planet rating, then he is going to have 2ce as much eco-damage as someone with a -3 Planet Rating.

Acording to the collumn, the eco-damage has a Planet Factor = Planet - 3 (min 1)

So here's the table:
Planet Rating____Planet - 3___Factor
-3 (bad)________-6_________1
-2_____________-5_________1
-1_____________-4_________1
0______________-3_________1
1______________-2_________1
2______________-1_________1
3 (good)________0__________1 (2?? - according to Fritz)

The description of the planet factor in the collumn leads to the above table which doesn't even make sense -

We need Ned to explain...

[freshman]

There is a formula for eco-damage in the Unofficial SMAC guide from GameSpot which is :
Ecology percentage = (ValueFromStep10) • Difficulty •
Technologies • (3-Planet) * Life/300


Where ValueFromStep10 is the DamageFactor talked about in the collumn.

It uses 3-Planet which DOES make sense to me.

The collumn uses Planet-3 which makes NO sense to me.

If we use 3-Planet, and have a min factor of 1 then we'd have the following table which does make sense to me

Planet____Factor
-3_______6
-2_______5
-1_______4
0________3
1________2
2________1
3+_______1

A bad planet rating causes 6x more eco-damage than a good rating.

[Adalbertus]

5)
Freshman:

do other factions count in calculating sea level rise?

Sometimes I got a message like:
Global warming. Sea levels rise due to eco-damage mainly due to Gaians

Really, it have been the Gaians - once, and the other were University. Therefore I think the other factions do play a role in warming. But even if you share tech for Tree Farms and Centauri Preserves - will the AI build them?

[Fitz]

That's an error in the column that Ned published then. The correct factor is:

3-Planet

where Planet greater than or equal to 3 is equivelent to a 2 Planet rating for this formula. Therefore a 3+ Planet rating gives a (3-Planet) = 1. I thought I was being clear, but apparently not.

Your second table is correct.

Notice an important factor here. PLANET rating never prevents eco-damage (makes it 0 or increases the 0 threshold for minerals/terraforming). It only multiplies the value of positive eco-damage by some factor, that factor being the second table you presented.

You'll notice this PDQ if you have some eco-damage with green, then switch to free market. Assuming a standard faction, the eco-damage should go from 1x (PLANET 2) to 6x (PLANET -3). In other words, the damage should be six times the previous value.

You may notice an occasional base that has 0 eco-damage gain positive damage after reducing the PLANET rating. This is because of rounding (ie a 1/3 point of eco-damage going to 0). When you reduce the PLANET, the value is multiplied up (to 2 in the above example). I have frequently seen an increase from 0 to anywhere from 1-5 in the past.

On the link, you'll have to search the archives.

Edit: I just noticed that my post is basically a long winded reiteration of your points freshman. lol.

One last point on the eco-damage = % chance of pop thing. I have heard (I believe from Blake) that with exceptionally high eco-damage, pops no longer occur. I believe the threshold was 200 eco-damage. I think that if you exceed a certain point, it can't handle it anymore. I think the report included massive sea level rises though, so apparently that was still being affected.

As I said before, no one can say for sure how the sea-level rises works for sure because the numbers vs. effects can not be accurately analyzed. I personally have always thought that the sea level rising was due to high eco-damage, and pops were an indicator of high levels of eco-damage. However, it could be theoretically possible that sea-level rising is triggered by pops, with a threshold number of pops triggering a certain amount of level rising. Who knows?

You might be able to test it though. Keep your level of eco-damage really low, then destory reducing facilities and crank up damage to over 200. If you get no pops, but the sea levels start to rise, then you know it isn't pops.