[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Glaciars

[Jason Todd <idjason@xxxxxxxx>]

Mike Jing wrote:
> 
> At the risk of being pedantic, I would say that the time scale is probably
> wrong.  In the past million years or two, glacial advance and retreat
> happened about every 100,000 years, which is ten times longer than the
> maximum length of Freeciv time (4000BC--5000AD==9,000 years).  In real life,
> glaciers move at an extremely slow pace, hardly perceptible on a human time
> scale.  Therefore, I think a glaciers/ice age senerio is not very realistic.
> 
> Of course, we can throw the above argument out of the window if glaciers do
> offer interesting possibilities in terms of gameplay.  After all, global
> warming hasn't really happened and yet it is in the game.  The interesting
> thing about global warming is that it is a direct result of industrial
> pollution, and the players more or less have some control over the situation
> (complaints about "dirty" AI notwithstanding).  On the other hand, a
> spontaneous global glacial advance would just be a nuisance, at least to me.
> 
> However, I think a "nuclear winter" senerio would a perfect place for
> glaciers.  For this we have to treat pulltion from nuclear weapons
> differently from ordinary industrial pollution, and when too many nukes are
> being deployed, a new ice age will begin.  The resulting glacial advance
> would be much faster than during the natural cycle because of the much
> reduced sunlight.  Alas!  The game rarely advances to the nuclear stage.  So
> this is also kind of pointless, at least at the moment.

Well, it could be a cool thing anyways. And once the kickstart
function is implemented(it's going to be implemented right?)
than games could start at the nuclear stage. Also with a scenario
editor you could make cold war scenarios. Than it would also be
usefull. There are probably some other times in which it would be
realistic, but I can't think of any right now...

> On a much smaller scale, we can have icebergs instead of glaciers as part of
> the natural disaster collection, floating around arctic waters, waiting for
> the Titanic.  I am pretty sure, once implemented, all the earthquakes,
> volcanos, floods, hurricanes, etc. will keep the player busy even without
> the threat of another ice age.

<Grin>yeah but an ice age would be <I>cool</I></Grin>
 
> Just my $0.02.
> 
> Mike
> 
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