03-08-2005 22:03									#1
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It would be a rather simple and cool feature to have some storm blobs say 2x2 tiles that randomly move around the ocean each turn and sink ships. Ship after steam power could be imune or it could be linked to some kind of tec, imunity to these storms would then greatly improve your navel power. Along the same lines Hurricanes 3x3 could sweep around the equitorial waters of the world and if its eye hits a city it could cause some damage.

	03-08-2005 22:05									#2
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Random events that have a large effect .

You're preparing a naval invasion, 3 transport ships escorted by 3 warships... poor, hurricane, 4 out of 6 ships gone.

	03-08-2005 22:21									#3
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Won't someone please think of the poor Mongols' feelings?

	03-08-2005 22:54									#4
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quote: Originally posted by Solver Random events that have a large effect . You're preparing a naval invasion, 3 transport ships escorted by 3 warships... poor, hurricane, 4 out of 6 ships gone.

didn't that happen in some Japanese-Russian naval battle?

	03-08-2005 22:56									#5
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But realistic for sure, see Spanish Armada in the encyclopedia.

For the game, however? Maybe not. Random events are 'ok', but really need to be shut off for serious competition.

	03-08-2005 23:15									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Solver You're preparing a naval invasion, 3 transport ships escorted by 3 warships... poor, hurricane, 4 out of 6 ships gone.

Sounds good to me.

	03-08-2005 23:22									#7
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Nice idea

I would like to see a greater number of natural disasters that can strike. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, floods, etc. They shouldn't be overpowering, but enough to have an impact on the game and on where one chooses to place cities. Yeah, that coastal tile may look perfect, but if category 5 hurricanes are regular occurances, it may not be so great.

Now, there can be improvements that help mitigate the effects of such disasters, such as cateracts and dykes to control flooding, a national weather service to track hurricanes and storms, a geological center to help monitor earthquakes, etc.

	03-08-2005 23:51									#8
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Excellent idea!

And an "on/off" button, of course.

	03-08-2005 23:52									#9
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Sounds like a good idea. As far as the storms etc. aren't too devastating and common...

	04-08-2005 00:21									#10
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I kind of like the idea myself. However, I don't think that any ships should be immune from the storms effects. Typhoons wreaked havoc on American fleets a couple of times during WWII. Even today, if one of our fleets took a direct hit from a hurricane it would be a disaster. 150 mph winds and 80ft seas do some serious damage.

	04-08-2005 00:33									#11
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Player control is key in games like this (for the typical player anyway), so with no way to mitigate or otherwise reasonably avoid such things, they'd ruin more games than they help. This is particularly true if the game isn't hitting its core feature set well to begin with: mind numbing mircomanagement plus randomly losing your fleet that was about to finally put a nail in the AIs coffin is the stuff of game disks flying out the window (all the more so if the random event was generated serveral turns beyond your recent save, so you can't even start over and avoid it entirely).

Having said that, if the game's core competencies are all firing well, some random elements that can be reasonably handled would be nice.

	04-08-2005 01:17									#12
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quote: Originally posted by Solver Random events that have a large effect . You're preparing a naval invasion, 3 transport ships escorted by 3 warships... poor, hurricane, 4 out of 6 ships gone.

WWII D DAy almost never happened because of a storm

Battle of the Bulge could have been a masacre agaisnt the Allied troops because of cloud cover

Minor dust storms in Desert Shiled/Storm

quote: yin26 (all the more so if the random event was generated serveral turns beyond your recent save, so you can't even start over and avoid it entirely).

I could play this idea

	04-08-2005 01:32									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Anaximander I kind of like the idea myself. However, I don't think that any ships should be immune from the storms effects. Typhoons wreaked havoc on American fleets a couple of times during WWII. Even today, if one of our fleets took a direct hit from a hurricane it would be a disaster. 150 mph winds and 80ft seas do some serious damage.

However, thanks to weather satellites and mechanical propulsion (gas, oil, or nuclear), the fleets are never in a position to get hit by such a hurricane in the first place.

	04-08-2005 03:27									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Platypus Rex WWII D DAy almost never happened because of a storm Battle of the Bulge could have been a masacre agaisnt the Allied troops because of cloud cover Minor dust storms in Desert Shiled/Storm

So maybe we should have "Weather" or at least "Cloud Cover" as additional Terrain Info, which influences battles or at least determines if you can start bombing runs on a certain tile this turn.

	04-08-2005 03:46									#15
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quote: Originally posted by yin26 Player control is key in games like this (for the typical player anyway), so with no way to mitigate or otherwise reasonably avoid such things, they'd ruin more games than they help. Having said that, if the game's core competencies are all firing well, some random elements that can be reasonably handled would be nice.

My same opinion.

	04-08-2005 04:35									#16
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The combat in Civ has always been random representing, amongst other things, the uncertain effects of weather on a battle. Maybe on the odd occassion a freak downpour bogs a whole bunch of tanks and in the confusion the crew get skewerd by a bunch of half naked spearmen.....

These 2x2 storms that move around randomly would apparently last for centuries! This is Earth, not Jupiter!

The point is that Civ is a strategic rather than a tactical game. Weather and disasters are already represented in the different tiles. Plains have more frequent and worse droughts than grasslands, mountains suffer from earthquakes do produce less than hills etc etc.

	04-08-2005 05:11									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Bogdanovist The combat in Civ has always been random representing, amongst other things, the uncertain effects of weather on a battle. Maybe on the odd occassion a freak downpour bogs a whole bunch of tanks and in the confusion the crew get skewerd by a bunch of half naked spearmen.....

I have to say that this is one of the most original explanations for the "tanks vs. spearmen" nuisance...

	04-08-2005 05:21									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Bogdanovist The combat in Civ has always been random representing, amongst other things, the uncertain effects of weather on a battle. Maybe on the odd occassion a freak downpour bogs a whole bunch of tanks and in the confusion the crew get skewerd by a bunch of half naked spearmen.....

	04-08-2005 08:19									#19
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quote: Originally posted by Bogdanovist These 2x2 storms that move around randomly would apparently last for centuries! This is Earth, not Jupiter!

I agree. The only way the idea would make any sense is if it was a part of a scenario where turns represented days or weeks. Storms don't last for years and years here on Earth!

If there are any random events, they shouldn't be city-destroying kinds of events (although I do kinda like the volcanoes in C3C). And there should be technologies and city improvements which the player could build to reduce (or eliminate) the chances of a bad random event happening.

	04-08-2005 10:46									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Bogdanovist These 2x2 storms that move around randomly would apparently last for centuries! This is Earth, not Jupiter!

A point rendered moot by the fact that in Civ, it can take 5 years for a destroyer to circle the globe.

	04-08-2005 12:24									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Platypus Rex WWII D DAy almost never happened because of a storm Battle of the Bulge could have been a masacre agaisnt the Allied troops because of cloud cover Minor dust storms in Desert Shiled/Storm I could play this idea

I don't think it's a good idea because CivIV is a strategy game, not a tactic one. When you send your troops against a city during a turn, you don't fight just a battle. It embodies a war against a whole region, a war which can last 50 years (at the beginning of the game, turns last that long).

So hurricanes cannot be taken into account for battles. No storm lasts 50 years. You, as the chief of state, demand your generals to attack a city. And if that day there is a storm, your general can wait until the next day, or the day after. It doesn't matter: Civ is not a RTS; the rythm of time is years.

However hurricanes, even lasting one week, can damage a city, so can earthquakes, eruptions etc. To my mind it would be an interesting feature.

	04-08-2005 17:20									#22
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I like the idea of a storm at sea- or a sandstorm for that matter, or blizzard in the right latitudes.


Could be teeth grindingly fun- like the random events in SMAC/X, which I never turn off.

	04-08-2005 18:25									#23
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quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov A point rendered moot by the fact that in Civ, it can take 5 years for a destroyer to circle the globe.

pfff of course this has always been a mismatch in timescales, but troops have to have a slower movement that the passage of time in terms of research etc suggests in order to make Civ playable. If weird tacked on weather effects like persistant storms that wander around were added this mismatch would be amplified considerably without adding anything to gameplay. The timescale of weather effects happens much faster than the troop movement and battles in the scope of Civ. You seek to justify worsening an existing problem just because the problem is there in the first place

	04-08-2005 19:30									#24
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make them like random events in SMAC....that is always fun

	04-08-2005 19:40									#25
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quote: Originally posted by DeathByTheSword make them like random events in SMAC....that is always fun

Except when the volcano/meteor takes out your best base. Then is there wailing and gnashing of teeth in the land as the Human Genome and Hunter Seeker and Virtual World are made toast.

	04-08-2005 19:46									#26
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of course that would suck...but i also dont like games that i know from the beginning i will win because i can plan ahead for 59 turns

	04-08-2005 19:48									#27
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If the storms are not deadly but only scatter your fleet and damge it than it can work out.
If it takes away your fleet it will be too frustrating

	04-08-2005 20:14									#28
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quote: Originally posted by H Tower didn't that happen in some Japanese-Russian naval battle?

True, but that's the effect that Civ model simulate when you lose a trireme/vessel into "treacherous sea"...

A small damage on modern boat could be more acceptable (I know ships still sink here and there, but in Civ we are modeling a navy group of ships for every "unit", AFAIK).

	04-08-2005 20:21									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Bogdanovist pfff of course this has always been a mismatch in timescales, but troops have to have a slower movement that the passage of time in terms of research etc suggests in order to make Civ playable.

This is true of almost all strategy games.

quote: If weird tacked on weather effects like persistant storms that wander around were added this mismatch would be amplified considerably without adding anything to gameplay. The timescale of weather effects happens much faster than the troop movement and battles in the scope of Civ.

Now, saying it wouldn't add anything is not necessarily so. For me, it would add a great deal of atmosphere and "realism" in the sense of having to take into consideration realistic strategic (and I do mean strategic issues). Think of the huge impact weather has had on the history of the world, from enormous natural disasters that have reshaped it to Napoleon's ill-fated invasion of Russia. So I don't think including weather anomalies won't add anything, by default. It would have to be done right, of course. No, a storm shouldn't destroy a fleet. But causing damage to the ships, blowing it off course, damaging some transported units, etc. would be a good balance without making the game "unfun."

quote: You seek to justify worsening an existing problem just because the problem is there in the first place

No. I seek no such thing, as a) I don't find fudging the timescales to be a problem at all, and b) I don't seek to "worsen" anything, as I think such random events can add to the gameplay experience.

	04-08-2005 20:29									#30
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quote: Originally posted by sophist However, thanks to weather satellites and mechanical propulsion (gas, oil, or nuclear), the fleets are never in a position to get hit by such a hurricane in the first place.

Yes, and the player could move his or her ships out of the path of the advancing storm if they wished; however, if they didn't for what ever reason, they would then get wacked.