Comments Please.

I've read thru your new model. It seems a whole lot better and a lot more detailed as well as more concise and to the point.

Distaster Linkage Chart
I think you did a good job with the linkage of disasters causing other disasters. Some things you need to change however. Huricanes should also only happen if there is a signifigant amount of oceanic tiles. Not that it will affect anything out there except ships and in the future perhaps some cities, but Hurricanes need this large body of water to form. These rules can be bent for scenerios. Also we're talking per turn in which it is a min. of 1 month? Hurricanes can affect entire coastlines which is deffinatly more than 1 square.

Also on earthquakes causing volcanoes will only happen in certain techtonic areas. (Subduction Zones). Also we need to really add another thing for volcanoes (as well as a disaster in and of itself). Landslides and Run-on-Landslides. These would happen with volcanic eruptions, earthquakes or rarely on their own. These only happen in moutanous regions. The reason these are needed?? I don't think the volcanoe and earthquake disasters could simulate the results of these on their own w/o focing it to happen everytime. You could prob forget regular landslides if u wanted and just worry about run-ons, but if were picking disasters that would affect a size of 1 square signifigantly then run-ons easily do since then can travel for many miles after they reach level land (or uphill even).

Floods
Floods do happen in deserts every year (unless there's a drought). Its the reason they aren't completely devoid of life. They occur during the anual rainy seaon.

Also this brings me to another point. You should also make certain now that you can't really have a flood and a drought in the same area (you prob could, but it would screw up things and the player would prob be scratching there head asking how that's possible).

Hurrianes and warning systems
Population decrease even with warning systems might still happen. Esp during early stages. I would say a min of .01% is the least that can happen because even today there isn't always enough time.

Tsunami
Would Tsunamis affect surface water cities and such?

Economic Disaster Chart
Reseach should be on there (and seperate from education).

Special Case Disasters
It might be interesting if Radiation caused new species. Just an idea, but not a ness. one. Although I personally like it.

Global Warming
If your going to use global warming and your basing this on history (even prehistoric) then after the climate reaches a certain temp range, prob 5 degrees celcius above the current level then a global cooling trend goes into effect at a much faster rate. If you wish to know why read the next paragraph, if not igonore it.

Global Warming icreases themp (duh!) which causes more rain-producing clouds to form (this is already known by a many of people). Most of rain falls on the ocean, not on land (this has been known for a while). Fresh water (rain) and salt water (oceans) don't like to mix. Almost like mixing oil and water. Anyway what I'm leading to is that the ocean currents, esp the large ones, coveye heat to otherwise cold climates (british isles and New Egnland FE). Because these currents are oceanic they are made of salt water. When it rains a lot (which is much more likely as the temp icreases) it forms a break in this very sensative "conveyor belt" or heat. Without this heat many places would begin to freeze over into an ice age. Now the proof that this has happened before: We have had atleast 5 ice ages in the past (perhaps more). But of those 5, 4 came right after (100-300 years) a global warming trend similar to ours. All the warming trends like ours if they continued to a point near ours ALWAYS resulted in an ice age.

1 last thing where is the stuff on the city destroyers you talked about on the wonders model?

I know what you mean about the # of ocean tiles, but the way I wrote hurricanes was for a world. In a scenario where there is only a part of a world shown, they should probably be turned off anyway. By per turn I meant per year, or 50, 25, or whatever number of years happens to be in that turn.

On the number of squares affected, you're right it can affect more than one. If we can do hurricanes as I envisioned them, a "unit" on the map with a move of 30 or so (that way it can reach the shore), it will hit and affect a number of tiles. The only problem with that approach is making the hurricane "unit" move in a way that is realistic for hurricanes (i.e. not in a straight line). But it will affect only one square at a time, although it may hit several squares during its movement.

That's why earthquakes triggering volcanoes is left up to the map model. That way it can only happen in those areas that it can realisticlly happen.

As for landslides, the reason I dropped them was because there are very few important ones in history. They are really only a major threat in areas of mountains that have been heavily deforested. Unless we model deforestation, I don't think we should model landslides as a disaster.

Floods in deserts? Not by rainfall, although there is always some rain in a desert, which is why they aren't devoid of life. And since we dropped the cyclical floods of rivers, there are no floods in deserts.

Floods and droughts of course shouldn't happen in the same area. I figured it was a fairly obvious thing, so I didn't mention it. I finally figured out how to use those things.

The warning system thing reduces deaths to negligible amounts, some people still die, but it's usually less than 20, which is such a small number of people (speaking Civ-wide), we might as well call it 0.

Tsunami
Would Tsunamis affect surface water cities and such?
---You mean cities built dirictly on the surface of the water (floating cities), right? If so the answer is yes.

About research, wouldn't the death caused by disasters have a big enough impact on research already? If RP's come from population and suddenly 20,000 people die, that's a big loss of RP's.

Radiation causing new species, that might be good for a Sci-Fi game, but I don't think it quite fits in with Clash.

Global Warming-
This is still a touchy subject to me. There are lots of theories and counter-theories. IMO, we need to decide which ones to use and accept as truth, then model that. The stuff I have written already fits in with all theories I've ever heard of. The Global cooling caused by global warming is a theory I've heard of, but like I said, we need to decide on which theories to accept, before we truly detail this.

I'd ask for your opinion but I think I know which way you'd vote, seeing as this is the 2nd or 3rd time you've mentioned this.

Like I said in the wonders model, I'll put the city-destroyers in when I get back to the model (i.e. When the social model is posted).

As for landslides, the reason I dropped them was because there are very few important ones in history. They are really only a major threat in areas of mountains that have been heavily deforested. Unless we model deforestation, I don't think we should model landslides as a disaster.
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We'll we'll see how it works w/o it though I still think they need to be put in, atleast run-on landslides.

Floods in deserts? Not by rainfall, although there is always some rain in a desert, which is why they aren't devoid of life. And since we dropped the cyclical floods of rivers, there are no floods in deserts.
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Actually yes, rainfall does cause floods in some areas of deserts, but since you turned of cyclical floods well then the point is mute.

The warning system thing reduces deaths to negligible amounts, some people still die, but it's usually less than 20, which is such a small number of people (speaking Civ-wide), we might as well call it 0.
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Well the thing is nothing is perfect so we could make the min 0, but have a minimum variance from 0%-1%

About research, wouldn't the death caused by disasters have a big enough impact on research already? If RP's come from population and suddenly 20,000 people die, that's a big loss of RP's.
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At the same time a civ might then invest in ways of preventing the loss of lives. Look at California. After every earthquake that destroys major sections of the city and usually has a small loss of life and lots of injurites, they put more resources, atleast temp into R&D.

Radiation causing new species, that might be good for a Sci-Fi game, but I don't think it quite fits in with Clash.
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Yea well it was just an idea. Maybe for an expansion pack or something.

Global Warming-
This is still a touchy subject to me. There are lots of theories and counter-theories. IMO, we need to decide which ones to use and accept as truth, then model that. The stuff I have written already fits in with all theories I've ever heard of. The Global cooling caused by global warming is a theory I've heard of, but like I said, we need to decide on which theories to accept, before we truly detail this.
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Yea, but there's more data now to back that up nowdays than the infinate spiraling theory of global warming.

Anyway I thought you were leaving it out.

The reason I'm bringing this up is that some world maps might have little/no oceanic waters so then hurricanes would then be impossible because they don't have a good source of water to draw from to form a tropical storm.
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So basically you're saying we should have a minimum % of water on the world? I can definately agree with that. I really don't know why I hadn't thought of it before.

Actually yes, rainfall does cause floods in some areas of deserts, but since you turned of cyclical floods well then the point is mute.
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The only desert floods I've ever heard of are the river floods, which are sometimes caused by rainfall, that's why I said no desert floods. But your point isn't mute. If you feel we should have them, show me why and we'll discuss it further.

Well the thing is nothing is perfect so we could make the min 0, but have a minimum variance from 0%-1%
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I can live with that.

At the same time a civ might then invest in ways of preventing the loss of lives. Look at California. After every earthquake that destroys major sections of the city and usually has a small loss of life and lots of injurites, they put more resources, atleast temp into R&D.
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So how do you propose we affect reasearch with disasters? Are you thinking that it would boost the reasearch RP's of disaster prevention?

Yea, but there's more data now to back that up nowdays than the infinate spiraling theory of global warming.

Landslides: These have been devastating disasters. A nasty landslide can kill thousands of people and wipe out towns. I think that we should include them. I thought that we were goung to model defoliation of terrain. IMO vegetation should change a lot over the game; I posted this on the map threads. Landslides would be a great way of punishing the player for allowing the environment to be plundered.

Tsunami: These would have very little effect on cities in the ocean. When the wave is propagating in the ocean, it is simply a short and wide bump in the water. It would have zero affect on a floating city or an underwater colony, and a city anchored to the ocean bottom would not be affected much if it was pretty far offshore. Tsunamis only get dangerous when they hit the shallows, when the ocean bottom compresses the wave into its destructive shape.

Global Warming: There are many competing theories about what happens, and we could argue them forever without getting anywhere. And the fact is that no one really knows. 30 years ago, everyone was convinced that pollution would cause global cooling. Now it is global warming. In another 30 or even 10 years, any theory that we put into the game will probably be obsolete, replaced with a new climate forecast that makes our system look stupid.

So I propose that 'global warming' simply causes random things to happen everywhere. It might get hot, it might get cold, there could be floods, there could be droughts, plains could turn into deserts, deserts could turn into forests, or all of the above could happen. (One theory states that global warming will improve agriculture in the US and Europe while harming it in other parts of the world.)

Well if few people respond, I was just going to go with the warming=cooling thing, since that's the theory I find most believable.

And you didn't give me an answer about the effects of disasters on research, how do you think it should be done? Just a general idea will do, I really don't need the specifics right now.

Richard,

Landslides: A landslide could kill thousands of people and could wipe out towns, sure, but they are rare until modern times (unless they simply went unrecorded in history), and unless we do the defoliation stuff, I don't think we should include them.

However, if we do the defoliation, they would be nasty to those who wreck havoc on the environment, and I'd definately put them in.

Tsunami's: You're right, I'll have to plead temporary insanity on that one.

Richard
Landslides: A landslide could kill thousands of people and could wipe out towns, sure, but they are rare until modern times (unless they simply went unrecorded in history), and unless we do the defoliation stuff, I don't think we should include them.
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Well I think we should do defoliation. It won't be too hard and it has been theorized to be the distruction of several great civilizations. Generally it shouldn't be too hard to model. Each area has a max number of certain resources to start with (for easiness everything should start out at its max, but a desert has less trees than a forest so we don't have to worry too much about that). Anyway there may be a few special areas that higher than normal max, but that's beside the point. Here's what happens: Each turn a civ uses some of those resources. The larger and more industrialized the civ, the more it uses (until things like recycling). Well as in real life there can be 2 types of resources renewable and non-renewable. Anyway lets take the renewable reource of trees or forest. Well lets say a forest regrows at say 5% each year and it has 1000 wood points. So long as the civ uses no more than 20 they're fine. However, other things can also affect this such as diseases and forest fires, sometimes floods, etc. Anyway lets say it gets to 400. The tile could then turn into a plains/grassland/savana, etc depending on the area. Anyway now its rate of regrowth is lowered to say 2% or at 400, 8 per turn. Note that in each climate zone a place has a max level it can achieve depending on its condition. FE a swamp can't become a forest too easy, but a grasslands could. Anyway now it becomes harder to regrow itself and could go even lower till eventually if it reaches 0 for say 2-3 rounds it becomes a wasteland (bottom of the barrel for anyplace. Even artic ice and desert is better). Wasteland would have 0 max and be that way for say 10-20 turns. Whatcha think?

The new model, especially the linkage between the disaster types, looks good! I have a question about the frequency of occurrence of floods. I get the feeling from your formula, although it's not explicitly stated, that floods will happen fairly often near major river systems. While this is true, I think floods at the level of what the player of Clash will be interested in, should only happen very rarely. Anything else IMO will just annoy the players, and stimulate a large amount of micromanagement.

I think this point is also true for some other things that are being discussed in this thread. For instance things like defoliation... I just don't think we can afford to clock cycles to make a really detailed model of the vegetation in each square. We certainly Could do it this way. But there is just not the "bang for the buck" for the player in it. So IMO anything the disaster model handles needs to be both important for the player, and also relatively easy to calculate. To do otherwise will seriously impair especially the multiplayer version of Clash. Everything we put in an individual square that can change from turn to turn is a potential killer for multiplayer since the new information needs to be transmitted every turn to all the other players. So when things change in an individual square it needs to happen only very infrequently, and in ways that are important to the player, or we are just wasting time...

On landslides... I am firmly with TK on this, a landslide has never to my knowledge seriously affected population or infrastructure on a civ-wide level. Although landslides are devastating right where they occur, it's hard seeing how this would ever been anything more than a yawn for the player.

It doesn't have to take a lot of clock cycles to change the vegetation. Natural changes only have to be checked for about once every 20 to 40 turns, and rather than checking every tile, we only have to test the borders of two different terrain types. So, all of the plains tiles that lie next to a desert would be lumped together and given one test, and if the test showed a change, they would be turned into desert.

Human induced changes only have to be checked for about every five to ten turns, and only in areas that were recently altered somehow. For example, it would do a quick deforestation check seven turns after people started using a forested area. If the check showed that so many trees had been used, the terrain would become plains. If the check showed that the forest was not being cut down too fast, it would stay the same.

Regardless of the result, it would not check again until another big change hit the tile. If the conditions stay the same, so would the terrain (barring any natural changes). It would only run the check after something major happened. So if it remained a forest and a lot more people moved in, it would check deforestation again. If it had turned into a plains and everyone suddenly moved out, it would do a check after this event to see if it changed back into a forest.

I really think that it would be good to make a dynamic landscape. Aside from the fact that vegetation changes have had big effects on human civilizations, a realistic modeling of the environment would make players feel like they were interacting with a real, living world, rather than a static gameboard.

Global Warming:
I could make one big chart of effects but still keep the "global pool" so that when each level is passed a random effect from the chart would be chosen and used, rather than having several different rigid charts. This would give that randomness Richard wanted. Then there could be a second chart that would be used when the Avg temp increased to let's say 90 degrees. This would then be used for the cooling cycle, which would bring the avg temp down.

Landslides:
Japan's landslides are associated with the huge amount of seismic activity there, and usually go with earthquakes. And I do believe earthquakes are the number one disaster there, not landslides.

Hawaii's landslides are due to the fact that the islands are very young (geologically speaking), and are still "settling". As a matter of fact, the only large landslide in history that I remember was on the Hawaian islands. It was major and ran into the sea for several miles (causing a massive tsunami). But it was because the porous rock that lava turns into had gotten so unstable that the mountain collapsed, and such things happen once every 20,000 years or so, i.e. not within the Clash timescale. And this particular one occured about 40-50,000 years ago.

Also although we are not trying to totally mimic history, I would like things to be as close as possible.

Mark,

It’s been a while since I’ve seen you in these parts. J

I don't know if you saw what I wrote in the old thread about floods and disasters in general, so here it is:

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Another point I'd like to bring up is that some of these disasters will hardly be seen by a player. For example let's look at floods. On Earth there is (using my equation) approximately a 9% chance per turn of a flash flood occurring. This isn't 9% per civ but 9% per turn that somewhere in the world there will be a flood. So if we average it out there will be something like 45 or so floods over a 500 turn game. Now with the number of civs/cultures in the game it is very unlikely that a player will have to deal with a flood more that twice in any one game (which falls very short of their real world equivilants). The same can be said for droughts. While hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanoes will happen in the same spots over and over, but that's just the way they work. Fire, famine and pollution, on the other hand, can be easily controlled if you manage your civ well, if not they then become a problem.
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But yes you are right that they will mostly occur around rivers, although this isn’t because of the formula. The formula simply gives you the percentage chance per turn.

Defoliation: This is something I would really love to see in a game like this, although you are right about the multiplayer.

Maybe we could have default settings for single player and a different set of default settings for multiplayer. The multiplayer settings would turn off anything that would slow the game down too much, like defoliation, and we could just warn players that turning things like that on will slow the game down tremendously.

And don't forget that average global temperature means very little as far as local weather patterns are concerned. The worst blizzards in recent history were blamed on global warming. Some theories predict that certain parts of the world will get colder while others will get hotter.

Also, some of these predicted changes are based on the geography of our planet, so a randomly generated planet with different mountains and climate zones would have different effects than the ones that they predict we will experience.

Any chart we make could be outdated in a few years. If we had made this game in the 70's and used a chart like you have, industrial pollution would result in global cooling, which would have certain effects on things based on the slowly falling global temperature.

I like Rich's approach except we shouldn't make a "pool" for the bordering regions because things don't ness change that quickly and in such a manner. FE a desert may increase in some areas, but not others. Also some things are harder to create than others. FE deserts are almost (but not quite) impossible to reclaim. While replanting forest can be done given enough time and little defoliation.

Global Warming:
Acturally we do know. Temp will eventually bounce around over time, that is a given, whether it is in clash's time scale may not happen.

Sure nothing we do will be perfect, as for being outdated, well maybe, it could. Anyway I believe we should go with the best data we have available which is theory I explained (its been gaining support much faster than any other theory perhaps because there was proof that something similar happened in our history, not prehisotic times.

I originally was leaning towards the warming=cooling theory but the comment made by LGJ "whether it is in clash's time scale may not happen.", makes me favor Richard's idea. After all most of the theories are long term. And that long term amount of time won't be covered in the game. One thing that all the theories agree on is that sporadic things will happen as globabl warming sets in. Some say it will take only 100 years to take full effect, while others say 1000 years or even longer. And since we really don't know exactly how things will occur, maybe sheer randomness is the best solution.

Another benefit of the randomness is ...well...randomness. Players will be taken by surprise and completely unprepared for some things, which is always good, keeps them on their toes.

While, in real life, I still support the warming=cooling theory, some people who are less informed on the subject may get that "What the ----" feeling when global warming causes an Ice age.

I don't object to discussing it further, and I definately would like more opinions (maybe we should do a poll?), but I'm just trying to reach a conclusion here.

Now then, just because a new theory later on may prove a theory wrong, doesn't mean we just blow conventional theory out the door though. We should use the most up-to-date realistic (as in possible to happen as apposed to just off the wall theories) that is available. Right now that is the warming leads to cooling and an ice age. If that changes b4 clash comes out and its not too hard to redo, then fine, change it. Remember though there has been a lot more study into the effects of pollution since the 1970s and newer theories are coming up less and less because the data available makes it hard to disprove those theories. That doesn't mean its impossible, but we shouldn't worry about that. Clash is made to perhaps simulate history [i]based on what we know of it.]/i] No ones (or virtually no one) is going to fault us if later something we have is disproven so long as it is based on the data available at the time. If someone were able to make clash in the early 1400's the Americas wouldn't exist!

That's what I was thinking about disease too, LGJ. But I was also thinking the disasters would go down too, because the climate would be returning to "normal" as the atmosphere cools (I mean we'd be decreasing from like 90 degrees). Also at first global warming may help the food production, but as too much radiation gets in, the tables would quickly turn. Then the food production would drop drastically (all that radiation is still getting in).

Here's basically what the warming would do in short run, then long run (around the turning point):

- Increase occurance of distasters, except volcanoes and earthquakes (those have to do with mantle and core which pollution and such don't affect).
- These disasters should on average get more severe and last longer (if it has a time period of more than 1 turn, FE droughts)
- In the short run, most temperate and artic climates will benifit with food production, however only for about 20-40 years.
- In the long run all places will have lower crop production, less water. Also disease (except perhaps water-borne diseases in inland areas) will increase drastically.
- Changes in terrain types (from temperate to tropical, etc)
- increase in rainfall

As the cooling effect takes place what will happen (this is beyond the just returning to normal):

- Disease will decrease in most areas, except around the equator maybe, perhaps temporary increase as sick people who could normally survive die (the only good thing)
- Crop production will decrease even more drastically than before (drastically)
- Reversed changes in tiles (from deciduos to pine forests)
- Long term leads to lowering of ocean's water table and increase in glacier sizes.
- decrease in rainfall and in most disasters. Blizzards (which were not mentioned would increase).

According to this, some climate predictions might not be reliable. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/01/000112075202.htm

This article shows that different parts of the planet are changing temperature at different rates, and some are even cooling. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/01/990118080320.htm

As well as discussing the effects of warming on weather, this shows that basic climatic conditions were different in 4000 BC, which is in the timeframe of Clash. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/01/990111180607.htm

This discusses desertification, and shows another big climate change in Clash's timeframe. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/07/990712080500.htm

These articles include evidence for mostly random climate changes, and they show how ocean currents have a big impact on climate. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/04/980420080212.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/10/991025080116.htm

Effects of solar activity and wind patterns on climate: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/04/990412075538.htm

This shows how warming can lead to more warming. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/11/971112065837.htm

Temperature effects on plains and forests: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/08/980814065032.htm

Effects of warming on disease: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/03/980310081157.htm

Effects of warming on plant growth: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/10/971031072234.htm

Natural climate and groundwater fluctuations: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/02/000211083523.htm

Clouds and climate changes: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/03/000306075941.htm

Climate predictions for northwest USA: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/01/990128123041.htm

This interesting article discusses the effects of climate on ancient cultures. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/01/990121163742.htm

According to this, some climate predictions might not be reliable. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/01/000112075202.htm
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I never said it was. It is a theory, the one however with the most evidence to back it up. The example of CO2, watervapor and plantlife forgets to mention that plants absorb CO2 returning it to the earth where it is once again locked up. I'm not saying the General Circulation Models are correct, but its among the better models to date. If they come up with better ones (or someone else does) by all means, i say use them.

This article shows that different parts of the planet are changing temperature at different rates, and some are even cooling. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/01/990118080320.htm
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They do meantion that the planets getting warmer mainly in industrialized areas. Now they do say that gasses such as CO2 spread out across the globe, which it does, but not all gasses do. Many never make it that far or are simply too heavy. Also even though CO2 does spread out across the globe it will be more concentrated where its major sources come from, active volcanic areas and industrail areas.

As well as discussing the effects of warming on weather, this shows that basic climatic conditions were different in 4000 BC, which is in the timeframe of Clash. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/01/990111180607.htm
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Interesting article, though i fail to see the reason for it since we prob won't be using El Nino/La Nina.

This discusses desertification, and shows another big climate change in Clash's timeframe. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/07/990712080500.htm
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Yep. That is compeletly likely. Quick changes in land and eniviroments have been proven beyond a doubt (ie they have happened within our lifetime). The best example is Califonia where every hundered or so years the 2 plates that slide along each other cause on to shift upward and forward causing a massive change in land, causing the coastline to push outward several miles. There are other less drastic changes. FE the Sahara desert is once again expanding at a rate of i think it is 10 feet per year.

These articles include evidence for mostly random climate changes, and they show how ocean currents have a big impact on climate. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/04/980420080212.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/10/991025080116.htm
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Yes these are a couple articles probably based off of (or were based off of) the article i read. Why I believe this one over the others is because it doesn't solely focus on the gasses, but also on currents and geographics.

Effects of solar activity and wind patterns on climate: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/04/990412075538.htm
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Yes I heard this stroy before, but like it said, increase in solar activity isn't major contendor in global warming, so then why would it be so in global cooling? Sure it would have impact, but its kinda hard to have it both ways.

This shows how warming can lead to more warming. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/11/971112065837.htm
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Yea well I'll agree to that. 1 moderate volcanic blast puts out as much greehouse gasses as we have throughout all of our history.

Temperature effects on plains and forests: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/08/980814065032.htm
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Again nothing here I find wrong and probably agree with. It may help with the tiles model, and maybe not.

Effects of warming on disease: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/03/980310081157.htm
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A good article on the effects of carrier-driven diseases from non-humans to humans, but it doesn't help with other diseases. Although I'm pretty sure since diseases thrive in warm and hot temp (up to a certain point when they start dying off) that they increase because they become more active.

Effects of warming on plant growth: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/10/971031072234.htm
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Interesting but it makes sence. Those areas have to recuperate from there offset parameters do to El Nino so that's the best way to handle it is to reverse the trend.

Natural climate and groundwater fluctuations: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/02/000211083523.htm
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Interesting, but we have something like this already incorperated, although not ness on global scale. I'm not sure we should either since there hasn't been yet a global drought or rainy time. Like several other articles mentioned climates vary for each region and having on place drier than usual will usually end up resulting in someplace wetter than usual if its on a global scale.

Clouds and climate changes: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/03/000306075941.htm
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One thing on clouds and climate. The warmer it gets, the more cumulus clouds there are which cool down the earth more, the cooling it gets, the reverse, ie sirus clouds.

Didn't get to finish the rest. Gotta go soon. Anyway we can have several possible paths if u want, but i that may make things too complex.

I've read all the articles and I have to say, I've heard 95% of them. But the large post of theories and minor theories only help stress my initial point that we need to pick a theory and go with it. LGJ is right, people won't lynch us if we get it wrong. Your point about more randomness was great, and I'll include it. But there needs to be some "goal" to global warming, or it's just senseless random occurances.

From what I have read of the map generator model, it will have wind and ocean currents that affect climate. Whenever there is a certain amount temperature change, those currents could be randomly regenerated. This would take a bit of time, but it would only happen a couple times at most (hopefully).

I am working on an ecology/agriculture model that should be simple enough to run in the background without slowing things down. It uses the wind and water currents created by the map generator. If a temperature change altered these currents and the ecology model was recalculated, we would get random but realistic terrain and agricultural yield changes.

You are right about the need for an overall pattern. However, I don't think that we should choose a certain theory. Climate change on a world other than Earth would not necessarily follow predictions that work for Earth. For example, a change in the number of forests and volcanoes might result in an atmosphere with a slightly different composition, which could react differently to pollutants. And then there is the fact that we really don't know what will happen on Earth.

So here is what I suggest for the effects of atmospheric pollution:

At the beginning of the game, a temperature change theory is chosen at random (warming->cooling, cooling->oscillating, ect.) The player does not know what the theory is until they get a high tech level and commision a climate study. Global mean temperature change due to pollution follows that theory throughout the game.

Aside from changing temperature based on this model, pollution always causes negative effects due to ozone depletion.

The current chart for disaster effects due to temperature change is followed, with the added effect of changing sea levels at extreme temperatures. Additionally, a change of a few degrees will recalculate the wind and ocean currents, changing the terrain and greatly oncreasing the frequency of disasters for the next few turns.

First of all, I didn't remember seeing anything about wind/ocean currents in the map generator model (I guess I should read it again), so I had never considered that amount of detail. But you're right about the change of patterns and change of landforms would alter everything.

As for your proposal, the random theory thing might be a bit of a problem. I'm not positive on this, but that seems like alot of extra code for a model that probably half of the players will turn off anyway. And I had lumped the change in sea level with terrain changes, just so you know.

Choose a number between 1 and 8, and choose X and Y randomly within a range of values.

Pollution Amount and Temperature Change:
1. 1 P equals +1 T
2. 1 P equals -1 T
3. 1 P equals +1 T, fall on
4. 1 P equals -1 T, fall on
5. 1 P equals +1 T, rise on
6. 1 P equals -1 T, rise on
7. 1 P equals +1 T, oscillator on
8. 1 P equals -1 T, oscillator on

Fall: If T is greater than X or less than Y, temperature decreases over time.

Rise: If T is greater than X or less than Y, temperature increases over time.

Oscillator: If T is greater than than X, temperature decreases over time. If T is less than Y, temperature increases over time.

There would always be one temperature effect chart, so the temperature is calculated and then the effect is calculated. As far as I can tell, we would only need to make one small chunk of code and run it at the beginning of the game. Are there any difficulties with this that I don't know about?

Any natural temperature changes that we include would not be enough to trigger the fall, rise, and oscillator functions, but they might make it easier for pollution to trigger them.

Here's how I envision it (assuming use of wind/ocean currents, with a good climate model):

-There is still the global pool for pollution
-There are still thresholds, but rather than follow a bunch of strict charts, passing a threshold now only triggers increases in temperature, disease and increases in radiation (from depleted O-zone).
-The climate model would take input from the disaster model when thresholds are passed. The climate model would then be "in charge" of what happens to terrain, disaster frequency, etc. This would all be based off of landmass, landform, wind/ocean current, etc., as you stated. And of course the model would be constantly trying to rebalance itself back to it's starting levels, which means eventually all the pollution would disappear (as long as people aren't still polluting) and temp. would return to normal.
-The climate model would update itself, then send output to the disaster model and any other affected by climate.

I don't see how the different theories need individual effects charts. We only need one chart that has temperature and effects. The different theories would change temperature in a different way based on a simple equation linking pollution to temperature.

But first LGJ, I have two questions for you, since you brought this up, did you want hurricane death to be a minimum variance of 0-.01% or 0-1%, after the discovery of meteorology (or a certain level of it)? The reason I'm asking is that you wrote both in two different places; either way is fine with me, I'll just make it whatever you suggest. And second, on disaster affecting research, isn't that the government's (i.e. the player's) choice whether or not to "beef up" R&D of techs that may help prevent disasters (or reduce their effects)? I know that some techs will come from the people, but again isn't it the people's choice whether or not to research this?

Now as for Global Warming, it definately needs to be discussed more, but keeping Richard's ecology model in mind while the discussions rage. I don't have anything to throw into the discussion yet, so I'll try to recap all agreements here:

1. random effects are a must
2. o-zone depletion must be tracked
3. as o-zone is depleted, the earth will warm...then what? do we use the random theories picked at the start of the game, as Richard suggested? This may be the best choice to keep everyone happy, and as a bonus would add to the replay value, as Global Warming will not always have the same predictable effect.
4. there should be some way to reverse the Warming, though slowly, whether natural (real slow) or man-induced, or even a combination of both

This is just what's been agreed upon so you don't have to go back and re-read everything.

Does anyone have a reliable source to get the average Earth temp. from? I pulled 84 off of a web page, but I've visited many others and nearly all have different numbers.

Yeah, it is written that way...but that's not what I meant.