So it's a bit like in SMAC where the civs specilised in specific social enginnering areas, but instead we would have a desert civ, a civ adapted to living in mountains, civs that live in tundra/arctic. All these would get food/production bonuses in using their specialist terrain. This is very similar the Pirates faction in SMACrossfire, who were the only with the ability to build in deep sea areas.

I do realise that a normal map encompasses a wide range of terrain, but this touch would add a nice flavour to the game. Besides, it would allow the construction of scenarios based on a local region, like in the desert.

Terrain specific/specialist civs, together with civs that specialise in an area (eg research, war) would result in a huge variations in the game!

However, there is one concern that I would like to express. Civ series is supposed to let the player live out his or her own vision of the future that will not necessarily follow the historical model. If we implement many function such as this one some nations can gain a permament disadvantage and not be able to do anything about it. For example a nation starting out and developing in a dessert will eventually be unable to expand into the grasslands and will have to live out their destiny in the dessert with the associated disadvantages in the areas of food and energy production.

Good idea about using it for minor civs though. That could work...

Ex: A civ is in the middle of the desert and near flatland. There are some spotty areas of grasslands and hills as well as the coastline in the distance. That civ's first good terrain is the desert, and it's second is the flatland since those are the closest and most abundant terrains. It's two bad terrains are forest and mountains since there are none of those arround.

Some of the bonuses associated with the desert are +1 move, +1 range (to ranged attacks) and +25% trade. That civ gains all three of these bonuses on desert. The bonuses for flatland are +1 move, +1 range, and +25% food. Since only the move and range bonuses apply to both terrains, those are the only two bonuses they gain on flatland.

Our ability to adapt makes this kind of a moot point though. The early native americans who crossed over from Siberia adapted to North America just fine, as did the Europeans when they later came to the new world. Previously underdeveloped countries have been taught to irrigate and farm and human kind has gone just about everywhere there is to go on this planet, save the deepest trenches of the ocean or deep beneath the earth's crust (neither of these are likely places for your tribe of Visigoths to set up their next village. )

somewhere i started a thread about specific boni depending on the starting location
*digs, finds nothing*
[bruno kreisky rhetorics on]i don't find it but it's here, anywhere [bruno kreisky rhetorics off]
sorry, that was an "autolaugher", only austrians can understand this one...

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I think UltraSonix idea is great.

If you look at difficult terrains- jungle, desert, tundra- the most advanced and adaptable peoples in the world still cannot compete against indigenouse ones, despite huge advantages in technology. We have to "terraform" their land.

Certainly, airdrik and wernazuma are correct that this is more pronounced at earlier ages. But for "bad" terrain, it really never goes away.

For human players who start as such, they would recognize the limitations and make the difficult transition to plains/grasslands. After a transition period, the terrain bonus/penalties would disappear. This mirrors what happened in history.