[Freeciv-Dev] Update to The Freeciv Game User's Guide - 2.1 Terrain

[Peter Cock <P.Cock@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello to who ever is interested/owns the manual.

There should be an updated copy of http://www.freeciv.org/manual/game-3.html
attached.

The main change is the replacement of the terrain table with
one based on that from http://www.freeciv.org/civintro/index.html

In particular I am using the more recent terrain images of
http://www.freeciv.org/civintro/groundtypes.png (which I beleive is the
trident set).

Note - The old game-3.html file has only one special per terrain, which
gives an idea about its age.

Points to clarify:

What is the name of the second swamp special (spices?)

Is there a more specific name for the Tundra "Game"

Is there a more specific name for the Forest "Game"

Can Tundra be irrigated, and how long does it take (old manual said no,
introduction says yes).

Has there been a significant change to rivers since the manual was written?
It treated rivers
as a separate terrain type and says that they cannot be mined or
transformed.

How long does it take to build a road.

----

Feel free to tweak things, for example you may feel that the
"Transformation" column is not needed and makes the table too big
for low res browsers.

All links are still relative - except the terrain image.  You may want to
move/copy that image, and delete the old terrain images.

You may want to turn the end of line characters back to unix style.

Thanks

Peter




Previous
Next
Contents

---

2.1 Terrain

The different terrain types are important to you, as they all have different characteristics regarding their use by nearby cities and by moving units. Each type of terrain is capable of producing various amounts of valuable commodities: food (grain, vegetables, game, fish), production resources (minerals, wood, fuel, horsepower), and trade (the generalized concepts of economic activity, communications, and travel). Some squares have special features provided by nature, which give additional benefits. Terrain types also have different impediments to movement and benefits for defenders in combat.

The following table describes each terrain type, giving for each the number of points of Food, Production, and Trade that a city may obtain from the square if it is worked (see Working the Land and the Ocean).

It also gives the Movement point cost for a unit (see Movement), and the Defense multiplier (see Combat).

Many terrain types may be improved by irrigation, mining, clearing (use irrigation command), or forestation (use mine command) by Settler and Engineer units, or transformed into other terrain by Engineers. This will be detailed later in The Works of Man. A square may be irrigated, or mined, or neither, but not both.

Note that the screen shots are using a common non-isometric set, known as the "trident" tileset. See Alternate Graphics Tilesets in the Client Manual for more information.

Tile F/P/T	Name	Irrigation Effect, Turns		Mining Effect, Turns		Road	Defense	Move	Transformation Effect, Turns
	Ocean, Fish, Whale	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-
	Grassland, Minerals	+1 F	5	Forest	10	+1 T	-	1	Hills	24
	Plains, Buffalo, Wheat	+1 F	5	Forest	15	+1 T	-	1	GrassLand	24
	Desert, Oasis, Oil	+1 F	5	+2 P	5	+1 T	-	1	Plains	24
	Tundra, Game, Furs	+1 F	?	-	-	-	-	1	-	-
	Forest, Game, Silks	Plains	5	-	-	-	+50%	2	Grassland	24
	Jungle, Gems, Fruits	Grassland	15	Forest	15	-	+50%	1	Plains	24
	Hills, Coal, Wine	+1 F	10	+3 P	10	-	+100%	2	Plains	24
	Mountains, Gold, Iron	-	-	+1 P	10	-	+200%	3	Hills	24
	Swamp, Peat, XXX	Grassland	15	Forest	15	-	+50%	2	Plains	24
	Arctic, Ivory, Oil	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	Desert	24

These are the food, production and trade yields of all squares under Monarchy. For the initial government type Despotism, reduce all F/P/T numbers above 2 by 1. For Republic, add 1 trade to each square with trade. See Government Types for more information.

Note that the terrain pictured in the second and third columns is rare and represents special resources. For example, the Arctic special resource of Ivory (introduced in Civ II) represents whalrus (or mammoths!).

Irrigation/Mine/Road shows the increases in food, production, and trade when those are improvements are performed by a settler.

Defense is the increase in defense power you get when attacked on such a field.

Rivers add 1 trade and 50% defense power; they also ease movement along them.

Squares with increased defense power are harder to walk over (e.g. horses and chariots get slowed down) except for explorers. You can identify any square (or unit) by middle-clicking it.

---

Previous
Next
Contents