Earth scenario and civ2civ3 ruleset

[bard]

My point is, that if engineers are allowed to transform swamps to plains, and you play with those rules in an earth map, then all swamps are going to dissapear before you reach the end of the tech tree, because plains are much better terrains than swamps, and it is a must to transform them, and even the AI knows it.
However, in real world, there are still many regions that can be described as wetlands, marshes or swamps, with terrains that can not produce as much as other farmable terrains.
If you think about it, in real life we have already researched all the techs from freeciv tree, except the fusion power, and most of the deserts and tundras are still there. And many wetlands keep being wetlands, even when we have learnt to drain and cultivate them (represented in civ2civ3 by irrigations an farms, to produce up to 3 food).

If I want to recreate an scenario based on earth maps or real history, I think I need a ruleset where some regions are better than others, and can not be transformed them all to temperate terrains. Else, at the time of WW2, all the map will be full of grasslands and hills, with no one single swamp, or desert, or tundra.
If I'm playing an scenario based on industrial ages, and I see players using their engineers to convert the Himalayas to hills, or the Sahara to plains, or the Amazon to grassland, instead of buiding railroads and farms, then it breaks the immersion for me. I think such transformations are better linked to a sci-fi tech like fussion power.
In civ2civ3, the destruction of Jungles is represented by transformation to Swamps (cutting down), then Irrigation (drainage), then Farming (crop adapted to wetland soil), and I think that the resultant terrain should never be the same than a French field. It is not only soil, but also climate what I try to represent by freeciv terrains.

I understand it is a big change compared to classic rules, but it is much more similar to civ3 rules that this ruleset tries to use as reference.

Some players in other forum pointed the same issue as a problem, and I made a patch that has been included in current trunk version of freeciv (2.6) to try to increase a bit the terraforming capabilities, mainly the possibility to transform plains to grass early in game, and reduced time costs to irrigate swamps:

Code: Select all

TILE      F/P/T  IRRIG(t)   MINE(t)    ROAD   MAX1   MAX2   TRANSFORM
Deep      1/0/2  NO         NO         NO     2/0/2  2/1/2  No
Ocean     1/0/2  NO         NO         NO     2/0/2  2/1/2  Swamp
Lake     *2/0/2  NO         NO         NO     2/0/2  2/0/2  Swamp
Swamp     1/0/0 *+1(5)     *NO         +0(4)  2/0/0  3/0/0 *Grass
Glacier   0/0/0  NO         +1(10)     +0(4)  0/1/0  0/1/0  Tundra
Tundra    1/0/0 *NO        *+1(5)     *+1(2)  1/1/1  1/1/1 *Plains
Desert    0/1/0  +1(5)      +1(5)      +1(2)  0/2/1  0/3/1  Plains
Plains    1/1/0  +1(5)      Forest(10) +1(2)  2/1/1  3/1/1  Grass
Grassland 2/0/0  +1(5)      Forest(15) +1(2)  3/0/1  4/0/1 *Lake
Jungle   *1/1/0 *Swamp(10) *NO         +0(4)  1/1/0  1/1/0 *Forest
Forest    1/2/0  Plain(10) *Grass(15)  +0(4)  1/2/0  1/3/0 *Hills
Hills    *1/1/0  +1(10)    *+2(10)     +0(4)  1/3/0  1/4/0  Plains
Mountains 0/1/0  NO         +1(10)     +0(6)  0/2/0  0/3/0  Hills

- Readjusted terrain transformations. Designed so all useful alterations can be finished in 1 or 2 steps, and all effects from Global warming can be reversibly with terraforming.
- Allowed early transformation from Forest to Grassland, so it is possible to transform Grass->Forest->Plain, and also Plain->Forest->Grass, with same working time (25).
- Restored Food output of Deep oceans, so Global warming does not affect Oceans that much. Now oceans transformed to deep ocean would only lose their specials.
- Harbors and Offshore Platform can be built adjacent to any oceanic tile again (same as classic rules), so Global warming does not affect them.
- Reduced irrigation times in Swamps and Jungles. They represent the drainage of wetlands.
- Re-enabled terraforming from Mountains to Hills, and from Grassland to Lake.
It is still possible to transform any terrain to Hills by changing them to Forest first.
- Deep ocean tiles must be mined in order to take advantage of the shield bonus from Offshore Platforms (buoys are no longer needed).

[bard]

Updated the first post with the new version for v2.5 that includes ruleset, scenario, and tileset.
Divided the files because the max file size of the forum. Do you know some other site, related to freeciv, where I could upload a single pack and link it here?

Changes compared to the version included in official freeciv:
- Added Fort and Airstrip bases, as pre-requisite for Fortress and Airbase, in order to prevent the construction of full bases in one single turn. Airbases and Fortresses can not be built on river tiles.
- Introduced Maglev, available with Superconductors, that allows unlimited movement for Land units (except Big Land and Merchant classes).
- A little boost to Federation (+1 Luxury per city, so it is easier to celebrate), and Fundamentalism (-50% to science, instead of total science output halved).
- Construction requires Iron Working instead of Currency, so iron is required to build Frigates and Ironclads.
- Increased fuel of all Air units by one, in order to allow battles for air control. All Air unit lose 10% of HPs, like helicopters, when they end out of city or airbase. Increased range of Cruise Missile to 16, so it is greater than movement of Stealth Fighters.
- Deep ocean tiles must be mined in order to take advantage of the shield bonus from Offshore Platforms (buoys are no longer needed).
- Readjusted effects of global warming and nuclear winter. Ocean can no longer change to Deep ocean.
- Readjusted terrain transformations. Designed so all useful alterations can be finished in 1 or 2 steps, and all effects from Global warming can be reversibly with terraforming.
- Scenario: Added Natural Wonders, that grant +3 luxuries in the tile where they are placed. Marked with a text label, and a flag icon.

[bard]

Added help texts revised by jtn, so they will be the same than the version included in freeciv 2.5.
Some minor improvements to tileset. Note that this tileset is not required to play, the ruleset is compatible with default tilesets.
Savegame compatible with previous version (one month ago).

Changes compared to the version included in official freeciv:
- Added Fort and Airstrip bases, required before you can build Fortress or Airbase, respectively. Bases no longer protect full stacks from being killed when one unit is defeated.
- Introduced Maglev, available with Superconductors, that allows unlimited movement for Land units (except Big Land and Merchant classes).
- A little boost to Federation (+1 Luxury per city, so it is easier to celebrate), and Fundamentalism (-50% to science, instead of total science output halved).
- Construction requires Iron Working instead of Currency. This way, Iron Working is a prerequisite to build Frigates and Ironclads.
- Increased fuel of all Air units by one, in order to allow battles for air control. All Air units lose 10% of HPs, like helicopters, when they end out of city or airbase.
- Cruise Missile allowed to attack Air units, and increased range to 16 (greater than movement of Stealth Fighters).
- Mountains receive +2 Shields from mines, same than Hills. The discovery of Refining doubles the effect of mines placed on Deserts and Glaciers.
- Deep ocean tiles must be mined in order to take advantage of the shield bonus from Offshore Platforms (buoys are no longer needed).
- Readjusted effects of global warming and nuclear winter. Ocean can no longer change to Deep ocean.
- Readjusted terrain transformations. Designed so all useful alterations can be finished in 1 or 2 steps, and all effects from Global warming can be reversibly with terraforming.
- Doubled costs of all spaceship parts, so it is harder to achieve a space victory.
- Scenario: Added Natural Wonders, that grant +3 luxuries in the tile where they are placed. Marked with a text label, and a flag icon.

[vodot]

My point is, that if engineers are allowed to transform swamps to plains, and you play with those rules in an earth map, then all swamps are going to dissapear before you reach the end of the tech tree, because plains are much better terrains than swamps, and it is a must to transform them, and even the AI knows it.
However, in real world, there are still many regions that can be described as wetlands, marshes or swamps, with terrains that can not produce as much as other farmable terrains.
If you think about it, in real life we have already researched all the techs from freeciv tree, except the fusion power, and most of the deserts and tundras are still there. And many wetlands keep being wetlands, even when we have learnt to drain and cultivate them (represented in civ2civ3 by irrigations an farms, to produce up to 3 food).

I think this is awesome, btw. Even in fractal maps I would rather minimize major terrain transformations (until late technology) but allow minor ones to have a larger impact. Let the deserts be irrigated! But you didn't mention the one thing that locks this argument up, for me, in your ruleset: Canals! That's the real complaint with restricted terraforming, I think, and you've accounted for it. Well done.

[bard]

I'm glad we see it in a similar way. Thanks for the comment.

I have not updated the rules for v2.5 in a long time, but there are many new features in my latests version for v2.6, available in the modpack installer tool, as civ2civ3_earth. Also available in the link of my signature.

If you have other comments or suggestions, you are welcome to post them here.

[bard]

New features in v2.6:

- Disabled Tech Leakage: technologies cost the same even if already discovered by other nations, and Embassies no longer affect the research costs. Tech cost factor reduced from x3 to x2.
- When you get a new tech by treaty, conquest, or diplomatic mission, half of its cost is subtracted from your research pool.
- You do not lose a technology due to negative research pool unless the negative points are greater than half the cost of your current research.
- Enabled culture points, produced in each city by wonders, and by scientific or religious buildings. Enabled achievements, that may give extra culture.
- National culture increases the cost to bribe your units or incite your cities (up to +100%), and reduces the chances of civil war (up to -50%). The culture of each city increases its resistance against actions of enemy agents (up to +50%).
- Immunity against bribe actions (under Republic or Democracy) replaced by increased costs (+100%). Most governments (except Despotism and Monarchy) get these increased costs against bribe and incite actions too.
- Effect of Courthouse against incite actions fixed to +100%. Replaced the lower cost of empty cities, by an additional +100% when not empty.

- Tech Explosives allows new terrain improvements: Naval Mines that damage adjacent sea units, and Canals to join oceans separated by no more than 2 land tiles.
- Tech Medicine allows non wheeled land units to recover 2 HPs per turn, even without resting. Physics allow the same for wheeled and naval units.
- Tech Labor Union allows cities to build engineers with one extra veteran level.
- Added new building: Hospital (available with Medicine), that reduces -30% the chances of plague in the city (old effect of Medicine), and required by Barracks to recover damaged Land units.
- Added new government: Fascism (available with Tactics, which requires Leadership and Conscription).
- Halved the chances of civil war for every government. Switched empire size of Tribal (now 12) and Monarchy (now 14), Fundamentalism (now 18) and Fascism (now 20).
- Tribal gets +1 content per city, instead of martial law. Federation gets +2 Luxury per city.
- Appearance of Partisans in conquered cities requires the knowledge of Guerrilla Warfare by the owner.
- Readjusted effect of wonders "Statue of Zeus" (+2 gold/shield for upkeep of units), "King Richard's Crusade" (bonus to empire size and veteran chance, obsolete by Radio), "Mausoleum of Mausolos" (obsolete by Communism), "Copernicus' Observatory" (obsolete by Rocketry), "Great Library" (+1 Science per Library for the owner, obsolete by Computers), "Isaac Newton's College" (+2 Science per University for the owner), "Internet" (+3 Science per Research Lab for the owner, and tech parasite effect), "A.Smith's Trading Co" (+2 Gold per Stock Exchange for the owner, +1 trade route in the city), "Statue of Liberty" (+1 move for Merchants and Diplomats), "Marco Polo's Embassy" (free embassies, +1 trade route in the city, obsolete by The Corporation), "United Nations" (veteran Diplomats in the city, free embassies for every player), "Hoover Dam" (requires Hydro Plant, double bonus to production).
- The following wonders now affect only to cities located on the same continent: "Great Wall" (now obsolete by Flight), "Sun Tzu's War Academy", "Eiffel Tower" (now enables appearance of Partisans), and "J.S. Bach's Cathedral".

- Increased by one the number of veterancy levels, with effects: 100%, 125%, 150%, 175% and 200%. Engineers up to 150%.
- All military infantry units can build fortresses. All worker units can build airbases, and can remove any terrain improvement.
- Trireme replaced by Galley, that can no longer navigate rivers, and become obsolete by Caravels.
- Enabled ZOC for Sea units in Deep Ocean. Cargo boats and Submarines do not impose ZOC to enemy units. Air units can be used to ignore enemy ZOCs.
- Defense bonus +50% in Deep Ocean (or Ocean with a Naval Mine) against sea units (except against submarines). Reduced a bit the cost of several naval units. Submarine defense changed to 4 (was 5), and doubled against air attacks.
- Nuclear weapons have to start the turn in a city with an Airport in order to move (until the discovery of Rocketry).
- Buildings with bonus to defense are visible by others (middle click on the city).
- Reduced a bit some vision ranges. Most air and naval units see 2 tiles in horizontal/vertical, and 1 tile in diagonal (same as Explorers), except AEGIS cruiser and Stealth Fighter/Bomber that can see 2 tiles in diagonal too.

- Added new barbarian nation that controls hostile animal units, placed randomly at the start of the game.
- Enabled national trade routes again (without min distance), that spread the effects of bonus resources, though with halved revenues. It is not possible to create trade routes with foreign cities unless they are allies or on the same team. Each city can establish 1 trade route (2 after the discovery of The Corporation).
- Forest and Jungle can be mined to get Lumber (+1 production). Forests can no longer be transformed to Grassland directly (now Forest to Plains, and Plains to Grassland).
- Added new resources, up to 3 per terrain: Incense (+3 trade on desert), Deer (+2 food on forest, while Pheasant now +1 food and +1 trade), Marble (+1 production and +1 trade on hills), Ivory (now on jungle, with 1 less trade), Seals (same bonuses as Ivory, but on glacier), Shellfish (+1 food and +1 trade on oceans and lakes), Salt (+1 production and +1 trade on coastal ocean), Horses (+2 production on plains, while Buffalo now +1 food and +1 production), Sugar (+2 food and +2 trade on swamp).
- There are now 6 resources on Grassland, with 3 different effects: Cattle or Corn (+1 food), Wool or Cotton (+1 production), Tea or Tobacco (+2 trade).
- There are also 4 extra strategic resources that can be used when certain tech is researched by the player (+2 production with the required tech): Niter (on plains or desert with Gunpowder), Rubber (on jungle, swamp or forest with Chemistry), Aluminum (on hills or tundra with Industrialization), Uranium (on mountains or glacier with Nuclear Fission).
- Luxury resources (Incense, Silk, Tea, Tobacco, Wine, Gems, Gold, Shellfish, Spice, Furs): +1 Luxury in cities linked by trade route.
- Food resources (Seals, Oasis, Pheasant, Deer, Cattle, Corn, Fruit, Fish, Whales, Wheat, Buffalo, Sugar, Game): +1 unit free of upkeep in cities linked by trade route.
- Production resources (Oil, Wool, Cotton, Coal, Marble, Ivory, Iron, Salt, Horse, Peat; Niter, Rubber, Aluminum, Uranium): +1 Production in cities linked by trade route.
- Recover resources (Hospital, Wood, Coal/Peat, Oil): halved effect of HP recover buildings in a city without the resource required by the unit (land units require a Hospital, wooded units require Lumber).
- Strategic resources (Horses, Ivory; Niter, Rubber, Aluminum, Uranium): +1 veteran level for certain units built in the city.
- All resources affect a bit the chances of plague, so they can be seen in the city UI. Resources traded from other cities increase the risk of plague.
- Wonder Apollo Program requires Aluminum available in the city. Manhattan Project requires Uranium. The bonus to production of Nuclear Plants is doubled in cities with available Uranium.
- Deep ocean tiles require Supermarket (in addition to Harbour) to produce 1 extra Food. Naval units recover +25% HPs at cities with a Harbour and the resource required by the unit.
- Earth scenario: Added Natural Wonders, which give +3 luxuries in the tile where they are placed, and increase a bit the risk of natural disasters. Marked with a text label, and a flag icon.

I'm specially interested to know if there is one of these features that you would like to see included in the official civ2civ3 ruleset. Preferably one that do not require extra icons or graphical fx.

[vodot]

Can I vote for all of them?

[nef]

My understanding of Civ III is that there are three types of ocean (in addition to lake). These are

Coastal - strictly adjacent to land tiles
(Shallow) Ocean - essentially the continental shelf
Deep Ocean (aka floor) - the deep bits.

The primary differences in these are the tile produce both from the terrain itself and the available resource extras. Trireme safety is also implicated but that is problematic with fc the way it is, so I will limit this discussion to produce issues.

As an experiment I changed a civ2civ3 terrain.ruleset file to contain an additional ocean type [terrain_*] _("Coast"). I also played around with property_ocean_depth for all three types to see if I could get mapgen to create something useful. I came up with the following:

Code: Select all

_("Coast")      property_ocean_depth = 25  ; nef
_("Ocean")      property_ocean_depth = 60  ; nef
_("Deep Ocean") property_ocean_depth = 70


I changed the tile produce and resource extra list to match the Civ III values (as described in the wiki). And finally, in the section [parameters] I changed the field

Code: Select all

ocean_resources = TRUE  ;nef

The results were really quite good. Not exactly like Civ III but arguably better since the exceptions are more like IRL - a few tiles corner connected to extreme headlands (i.e. capes) were _("Ocean") while some sheltered 'sea' tiles were _("Coast") even though the latter were totally surrounded by other _("Coast") tiles.

If you try this at home remember that in addition to * in [terrain_*] the id needs to be unique (amongst [terrain_*]). I used for _("Coast"):

Code: Select all

identifier           = "c"


Also I used the lake graphic. A spare one would be better - perhaps deep ocean with white caps and shift them all up a bit. To preserve trireme behaviour use _("Ocean") as the prototype for _("Coast"). In the course of several games I found no occasions when the continuity of coastal tiles _("Coast") was actually broken, so it would be quite resonable to remove the trireme nativity from _("Ocean") making the trireme behaviour more coast like.

[bard]

It is an interesting modification. Thank you for posting it here, nef.
I'm still not sure if I will make another version of this modpack, but if so, I'll test what you say.

[Lachu]

I see you introduced features like in Civ IV (resources required to build Wonders - in Civ IV resource will speedup production) and from Civ VI (canals). That's good, but why the ruleset it's called civ2civ3?