Global Warming...

[Kevinator]

OK, I'm not looking to start any debates about the validity Global Warming since it will not do any good. I'm simply asking, because Global Warming is so controversial, that for the people who don't believe in Global Warming as portrayed by the certain individuals (Al Gore for example)... can you please, 2K, have Global Warming as an option rather than forcing it upon people who think it's been greatly distorted and is inaccurate as portrayed by a certain group of people?

It's not just for the sake of prinicple, it's for the, in my opinion, unrealistic effects that Global Warming had in Civ IV. It really chapped me to see a perfectly good tile go to waste land just because of the beliefs of a certain group of people. I'm not calling for it to be thrown out completely (although it would be just fine by me), I'm just asking for it to be an option that you can select. That way both sides would be happy.

What do you guys think?

[paradigmx]

I don't mind global warming in the game for the most part, but I think there should be a way to either adapt to climate change better, or "fix" the climate

[Kevinator]

I don't mind global warming in the game for the most part, but I think there should be a way to either adapt to climate change better, or "fix" the climate

Mmm... I see your point, but if they go that route, it would make it harder to make GW an option because if your suggestion(s) were implimented it would be more part of the core game and thus harder to be an option. But who knows, maybe it wouldn't be as hard to accomodate this as I suspect.

[Twile]

Global warming in the game has always bothered me. Not because some people don't believe in it (which has always struck me as silly), but because there's nothing I can do about it in the game. I can have a totally healthy civilization which is super green and my rivals pollute and stuff, and my tiles start getting irreparably damaged. It punishes me for playing long games, which is lame. And it also ignores the possibility of Future Tech being able to counteract global warming. In older Civ versions, I think that solar plants let you lessen the effect, but I'm not totally sure to what extent.

In any case, I agree--it'd be nice to either have it as an option (you know, like the late game version of "no barbarians") or have Future Tech counteract it, or something.

[Kevinator]

Not because some people don't believe in it (which has always struck me as silly)

Heheh... that's why I was careful to say "as portrayed by the certain individuals."

In any case, I agree--it'd be nice to either have it as an option (you know, like the late game version of "no barbarians")...

Yup, that's exactly what I had in mind.

[Forrestfire]

To me, I always thought that it was a somewhat unrealistic system. I had no idea that tundra could turn into arid desert, whereas near the equator, nothing was occurring at all. I also found it quite annoying that the game had no helpful tips on how to keep global warming from happening.

Another problem that I had was that I had absolutely no coal plants, because I was a "green" environmentalist at the time, but had no ability to destroy coal plants in cities that had been given to me. The whole "no dismantling of buildings" thing in Civ always struck me as a weak point, since you could do so with units.

I do, however wish to see it return, as I believe that it is pretty realistic in the fact that it DOES happen, rather than a nice easy to live in world that never goes wrong. Other than that, I am always for more options, and would love to see this be one.

Also, core gameplay features can be disabled. You cannot build the U.N. if you have Diplomatic Victories disabled. Same with space ship parts for Space Race Victory. Civ is nothing if not modular and easy to personalize.

[goofproofacorn]

just take it out of the game. Its a dumb mechanic in the first and it can ruffle alot of feathers.

[Harle]

It's a game mechanic. Just because you don't 'believe' in global warming doesn't make it any less of a game mechanic. It's a late game feature, a different kind of challenge to face, and I'd like to see them do more with it, not less.

If they make it an option it'd preclude them from doing anything interesting with it in terms of long-term planning and solving the problem with technology and stuff like that. Which is a legitimate concern today, in the real world, whether you 'believe' in it or not. Islands are quite literally sinking slowly into the ocean in the Pacific. Cities are flooding. Etcetera.

That is happening. And it might as well be represented in Civ 5, since it has been a feature of the series for a while now. I don't see a reason for them to take it out or dumb it down enough that they could make it an 'option.'

Honestly, if they make it an option, it'll probably mean actually playing with global warming would be such a shallow and featureless experience that nobody would use it anyway. I'd rather see a full featured global warming mechanic as an interesting late-game challenge to overcome, that integrates with other game mechanics in a meaningful way.

[vusak]

It offers the possibility of geo-engineering world wonders/projects, things like weather control systems amd space mirrors to deflect sunlight. It also might lead to things like underwater cities, late game resource wars, trade embargoes linked to environmental damage etc.

and to really spice it up, the actual "rate" of global warming could be seeded at the start of the game, so some worlds are more or less likely to suffer the effects, in a way modelling the difference in opinion of how likely/damaging it is - leading to trade offs in investing in the above mentioned environmental wonders/projects.

who knows, maybe in a particularly low global warming world, you might build the space mirrors and suddenly the world tends toward global cooling

[garyda]

By the time Global warming kicks in I'd already won the space race victory on Noble level on Gargantuan size setting.

Frankly in my view it is a nuisance call it what ever you want. And now that the nut case in charge of the IPCC report just stated publically that there has been no significant warming the past 15 years why bother?

[RideASpaceCowboy]

I don't mind global warming in the game for the most part, but I think there should be a way to either adapt to climate change better, or "fix" the climate

They should fully remove it from the game, but if they do have it (as is likely), no player actions should result in or rectify climate change, as such would be a blatant endorsement of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming.

[BadBeans]

I don't mind Global Warming (GW) too much, but it does irrate me at times. Mostly because there is not way to repaire the damage. I believe that there should be future tech that can reverse or repairs tiles damaged by GW if a civilizations commits itself to being "green".

However, in some regards its true other civilizations can ruin it for everyone if they aren't onboard with the whole GW idea. So, in that aspect GW is a value.

I don't believe GW should be removed or left from the game though.

[Harle]

They should fully remove it from the game, but if they do have it (as is likely), no player actions should result in or rectify climate change, as such would be a blatant endorsement of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming.

And this would be bad... why?

Since when were game developers disallowed from taking a side in an issue that is opposed to what you believe?

I mean, believe what you want to believe, it doesn't matter to me, and one way or another - whoever is right or wrong - isn't going to change the reality of the situation, and neither is a game. I for one side with the overwhelming body of scientific research and decades of weather and climate data from multiple independant sources.

But that you think that a game developer shouldn't 'support' something like this is silly. I suppose we ought to remove all reference to evolution in games too, because a bunch of tinfoil hat people can't wrap their heads around it. God forbid people are confronted with these things some people don't agree with, it might turn them into liberals, or people who actually care about their environment. Can't have that. =P

Boggles my mind that people think this way. It's a game. It doesn't have to conform to anybody's ideology. There's a million things about the civ games that aren't accurate to real life. But you have a bug up your butt about global warming, so that's gotta come out.

Silly.

[SPART1AT]

global warming always sucked in civ4 i agree on that one. totaly random selected tiles over the world are transfering into desert tiles - yeeeha that is awesome especially if your only food is transfered.

i dont know how to counter it, maybe like they do in dubai? they use massive watersuply and get the desert to grow plants again - i know for massive money and so..... probably allow workers to fixe the tile within 20 worker turns? .....
that would be awesome.

edit: is there any petition of the united nations to stop coal plants? .... i think it would be fun if you could force the whole world to stop poluting the air. not that this would ever happen in real, but i think it would be awesome to have the posibility to do so in civ5.

[Goobleglop]

I thought the word was "Climate Change" now and that the ones that say GW use it as a joke because the climate is in-fact getting colder? I've always liked the Civ-games because they just leave out "touchy" subjects like positive/negative effects of religions. Don't get me wrong, I'm very anti-religious and climate-sceptic/anti-climate-alarmist (hint: It's about man-made climate change, not temperatures changing...) and love to debate where it is appropriate. It would just feel so rotten if religions had effects because it would be like the Civ-team taking sides. Civ have always been so wonderfully neutral, like that Civ 2 description of Communism. I think it's the same thing with the environment, believe what you will it's a "touchy" subject now, on the other hand, removing GW now might just be interpreted as taking sides

[JefA]

It offers the possibility of geo-engineering world wonders/projects, things like weather control systems amd space mirrors to deflect sunlight. It also might lead to things like underwater cities, late game resource wars, trade embargoes linked to environmental damage etc.

and to really spice it up, the actual "rate" of global warming could be seeded at the start of the game, so some worlds are more or less likely to suffer the effects, in a way modelling the difference in opinion of how likely/damaging it is - leading to trade offs in investing in the above mentioned environmental wonders/projects.

who knows, maybe in a particularly low global warming world, you might build the space mirrors and suddenly the world tends toward global cooling

Climate change has happened many times in history as has global warming. Glaciers in southern Britain anyone? The thg thats questioned by some is whether we are affecting it as much as most scientists believe the evidence suggests. But Thats not the game
If the Game posits that its happening then they do need the techs (mass transit solar power.. and future techs.. Solettas to deflect solar radiation (hopefully to orbital power plants that use it to smelt asteroids for really big "Thor" projectiles to drop to earth.. either as resource... or maker of big holes wher lil cities used to be

[lukeskymac]

Yes for attempting to fix the climate.

No for making this optional.

I am aware that I will start a debate here, but Global Warming IS real. I don't care what some corporate-funded research says, the majority of the scientific community says it IS happening and that's not without proof.

Funny how people think Global Warming isn't happening just because this year's winter was colder than usual. Not only has the average temperature increased in the past years, but here on the Southern hemisphere things are really ugly. I live under the Capricorn cancer and temperatures have been of around 100 F or 40 celsius. Going slightly above Capricorn in Rio de Janeiro, you can easily find temperatures of around 110F. I saw a report last week stating that 43 old ladies died in that region in the last 2 weeks due to the extreme heat.

But what everyone should know is that Global Warming isn't a question of how uncomfortable your summers are. If average world temperatures keep rising, we'll choke. Simple as that.

Let's analyze the possibilities:

If Global Warming is true and we invest time and resources to fight it, in the end we'll have a minor deceleration in economic growth, but we will all be alive and well to do it.
If Global Warming turns out to be false and we invest time and resources to fight something that exists, all that will happen is a minor deceleration in economic growth.
____________________________________________

If Global Warming turns out to be false and we do nothing about it, life goes on. Nothing changes. For good or bad.

BUT, if Global Warming turns out to be true and we ignore it, a catastrophe will ensue and billions will die, possibly most of life on Earth for that matter.

So PLEASE tell me, which is the preferable scenario?

[astatine211]

This is my personal (probably massively overcomplex) climate change model proposal

First of all:
Yes for GW's implementation;
Yes for fixing the climate;
GW as default, BUT there should be a possibility of turning it off with a tickmark on the "custom game" screen;
Yes for colder planets warming harder
Yes for futuristic resolutions

Global warming is implemented very poorly in terms of realism in Civ4 (sure, there should be a negative effect after blowing a nuke, but in real life what ensues is global cooling, due to the amount of dust created blocking out the sunlight!)

In terms of actual global warming (due to gases), the consequences should be incremental, with a warming indicator somewhere, showing the change in °C or °F. My proposal is that:
-When global warming starts, there should be a warning;
-At ~2°C change, some coastal terrains would get flooded; spreading of the deserts (desertification) would start, that would firstly arise near the equator, then it would spread out
-At ~4°C change, all plots produce 1 less food point, cities near the coast might get flooded and are evacuated-people die but the city and buildings stay (so when the temperature and water drops, one could repopulate them);
-At ~8°C change, snow at high latitudes might thaw enough to start changing into tundra and grassland

The warming should start only when there is too much people living with electrical power from coal or oil, and depend on the amount of forests, i. e. one forest tile compensating for 5 million people, a jungle tile-maybe 10 or 15 million (finally the jungle would be useful for something other then making your citizens unhealthy!). Another thing is to be able to plant forests/jungles by workers late in the game.

[astatine211]

Oh, and all of this is to make yet another new challenge in the game.

[astatine211]

I forgot to say that it would be good to have a "carbon credit" trade, which would be a great way to get money for being a "green" empire.

[iamakka]

While global warming may be debatable, global climate change is not.

I would like to see the sort of large scale changes that have changed history - The drying out of North Africa and Sicily over the 3-5th century AD that put so much pressure on that part of the Roman Empire, the 'mini ice age' that amongst other things killed the Greenland colony by reducing the growing season and stopping ships being able to get there, the spread of the Gobi, and so on.

And possibly shorter term high impact climate effects like the Great Famine of 1315–1317.

[Goobleglop]

That would be fun, I think it would also be cool for future techs to be able to drain seas almost closed-in with land. I remember reading a somewhat-joke article that we could in the future drain the Mediterranean Sea to create more land. Though you might shift from feeling like Caesar when you play to Lexx Luthor

[RideASpaceCowboy]

And this would be bad... why?

Since when were game developers disallowed from taking a side in an issue that is opposed to what you believe?

I mean, believe what you want to believe, it doesn't matter to me, and one way or another - whoever is right or wrong - isn't going to change the reality of the situation, and neither is a game. I for one side with the overwhelming body of scientific research and decades of weather and climate data from multiple independant sources.

But that you think that a game developer shouldn't 'support' something like this is silly. I suppose we ought to remove all reference to evolution in games too, because a bunch of tinfoil hat people can't wrap their heads around it. God forbid people are confronted with these things some people don't agree with, it might turn them into liberals, or people who actually care about their environment. Can't have that. =P

Boggles my mind that people think this way. It's a game. It doesn't have to conform to anybody's ideology. There's a million things about the civ games that aren't accurate to real life. But you have a bug up your butt about global warming, so that's gotta come out.

Silly.

I was by no means suggesting that the developers censor themselves for the sake of appeasement. It's their prerogative to make any kind of statement that they want. If they wanted to use the gameplay of the German Empire to deny the historicity of the Holocaust, that is certainly within their rights.

I was imploring them not to include human-caused Global Warming not because it is offensive to some, but rather because it is an erroneous hypothesis, not unlike denial of the Holocaust.

[lukeskymac]

This is my personal (probably massively overcomplex) climate change model proposal

First of all:
Yes for GW's implementation;
Yes for fixing the climate;
GW as default, BUT there should be a possibility of turning it off with a tickmark on the "custom game" screen;
Yes for colder planets warming harder
Yes for futuristic resolutions

Global warming is implemented very poorly in terms of realism in Civ4 (sure, there should be a negative effect after blowing a nuke, but in real life what ensues is global cooling, due to the amount of dust created blocking out the sunlight!)

In terms of actual global warming (due to gases), the consequences should be incremental, with a warming indicator somewhere, showing the change in °C or °F. My proposal is that:
-When global warming starts, there should be a warning;
-At ~2°C change, some coastal terrains would get flooded; spreading of the deserts (desertification) would start, that would firstly arise near the equator, then it would spread out
-At ~4°C change, all plots produce 1 less food point, cities near the coast might get flooded and are evacuated-people die but the city and buildings stay (so when the temperature and water drops, one could repopulate them);
-At ~8°C change, snow at high latitudes might thaw enough to start changing into tundra and grassland

The warming should start only when there is too much people living with electrical power from coal or oil, and depend on the amount of forests, i. e. one forest tile compensating for 5 million people, a jungle tile-maybe 10 or 15 million (finally the jungle would be useful for something other then making your citizens unhealthy!). Another thing is to be able to plant forests/jungles by workers late in the game.

The real problem of global warming is that the plankton in the oceans that is responsible for the production of most oxygen on Earth (trees produce very little) can easily die if the water get too warm. Then, as I said, we'd choke in a few years.

[satsui]

I think there should be global cooling too.

[Sherlock]

The IPCC has imploded under the weight of it's lies and propaganda. If CIV5 features 'global warming' I'll be very disappointed.

[astatine211]

The real problem of global warming is that the plankton in the oceans that is responsible for the production of most oxygen on Earth (trees produce very little) can easily die if the water get too warm. Then, as I said, we'd choke in a few years.

Yes, but its the amount of trees that we have an effect on, as the plankton is incontrollable.

[Kevinator]

Um, wow it looks like the debate started. Sigh. I'm not sure if anybody here, including myself, is questioning whether or not the global temperature changes. If they are, I stand corrected. I just don't believe the fearmongering that is spouted by people like Al Gore. I don't buy the man-made impact that he spouts. I'm believe that man-made stuff does have some degree of impact, but not to the degree that Al Gore and others say. That's why I was careful to say that I didn't believe in GW as defined by certain individuals. There's a difference.

As for the people who don't understand where people like myself are coming from, I have just one word: Climategate. Google it.

Anyway, there is no need to call for GW's removal from the game. That's why I proposed it being optional, so both sides will be happy. And again, it's not just because of principle that I want it optional... it had, in my opinion, unrealistic effects on tiles in Civ 4. That's my main reason for wanting it optional.

[Harle]

I was imploring them not to include human-caused Global Warming not because it is offensive to some, but rather because it is an erroneous hypothesis, not unlike denial of the Holocaust.

Being a part of the science community myself, and having actually read numerous peer reviewed scientific journal articles on the subject of global climate change, I cannot emphasize enough how completely uninterested in what you have heard on conservative talk radio and uninformed websites.

Sound bites and cherry picking information out of a huge volume of scientific evidence and claiming that virtually the entire scientific community 'got it wrong' after decades of meticulous research, but somehow you have 'gotten it right' from your comfortable chair at your computer, is silly. It is just silly. You can't argue science with ideology and politics. Science doesn't care about politics, it searches for observable, measurable data, and draws objective conclusions about the data it finds. Can you claim the same objectivity? I am going to hazard a guess; no, you can't. You've bought into a political ideology that is trying to protect business and industry at all costs.

There is nothing erroneous about the hypothesis of man-caused global warming. There is, however, a rather large gap in your own knowledge of the subject. Which isn't a problem, except that you have apparently chosen to believe a bunch of lobbyists, corporate-backing politicians, and sketchy 'research' funded by oil companies, rather than the decades of work and peer-reviewed research performed by international, independent scientific communities and groups. But hey, I'm sure that a few talking points can pretty much render all of that incorrect. =P

That out of the way, I have heard some really great ideas on how to make global warming a really interesting and legitimately fun late-game challenge. The problem with the feature in earlier games was the randomness of it, and that there wasn't a lot you could do to fix it. It was mostly about damage control and minimizing losses. Carbon trading would be a good secondary benefit for working on green technologies and things.

Having climate issues be more transparent could be nice too. And having climate change be based on things like starting temperature and landmass percentage, could allow people to fine tune how much of an effect climate change will have later in the game.

[Harle]

As for the people who don't understand where people like myself are coming from, I have just one word: Climategate. Google it.

Like I said in the previous post, actually having a knowledge of the research done, I am uninterested in hearing about what you heard on conservative talk radio. I cannot understand why people, such as yourself, think that there was anything(at all) released from those emails that did any discredit to the research being done.

It has been reviewed by many independent sources, and there is not a single thing that was released that contradicted what scientists have been saying for ages.

If you are willing to let a lot of political pundits define your reality for you, that is your prerogative. Not everyone is versed in scientific process. But I will recommend that you start being more skeptical about what people -say- and less skeptical about data and research. See, the difference with data and research, is that people have already spent a huge amount of effort being 'skeptical' about it - it is called the peer review process - where your average political website has about as much background in the subject as, well, you do. Ie, they aren't reliable and are immune to skepticism, because their ideas are ideological, not scientific.

I don't think there's a valid reason to set man-made climate change aside in Civ 5 simply because some ideologues are making a concerted effort to undo the good done by efforts to enact effective measures to slow climate change.

[dar25]

Harle,

Despite the repeated requests from the OP not to turn this into another GW debate, you insist on spreading your misinformed and baseless propaganda. I understand that GW is like a religion to some people, facts be damned, but can we please stick to the Game aspect of the feature/challenge.

Personally, i like the optional aspect of the GW in the game, although it's implementation in Civ4 never bothered me enough to be a real issue. It would be nice to have a late game tech allowing converting desert tiles into arid as long as they are not surrounded by other desert tiles.

[Kevinator]

Harle,

I could definitely challenge your post, but you know, it's not worth it. Just an FYI though, all people are prone to being ideologues, including scientists.

Getting back to topic, I never hinted that GW should be "set aside." In fact if you really read my post that you replied to, you would see that I said "there is no need to call for GW's removal from the game." I'm simply asking it to be optional.

[Imp. Caesar Leo Augustus]

Lol never, if they want global warning, a global humbug, they should include Man Bear Pig and Ufonauts too . We have fantasy in Civilization II: Test of Time and that's enought.

[birrhan]

Harle,

I could definitely challenge your post, but you know, it's not worth it. Just an FYI though, all people are prone to being ideologues, including scientists.

Getting back to topic, I never hinted that GW should be "set aside." In fact if you really read my post that you replied to, you would see that I said "there is no need to call for GW's removal from the game." I'm simply asking it to be optional.

I'm with Harle on this one, Kevinator. You missed his point: science doesn't care what you believe, there are objective truths that are true whether you want to believe them or not. The vast majority of science supports global warming. You can choose to accept that or not, but Harle's point was that whether you believe that or not does not make it true or not, and Pascal's wager can be applied to climate change as well--the benefits of addressing it outweigh the detriment of ignoring, regardless of its veracity.

The game should reflect (i) the veracity of the human impact on global warming (seriously, you think all that carbon has NO effect?), and (ii) the ability to do something about it (carbon trading, a bonus for the environmentalism civic, wonders, or research). In all honesty, a "carbon sink" tech/wonder could easily replace a lame tech like "military science".

[CivHyperFreak]

I don't personally believe in Global Warming. When I was in school in the 70s--not that long ago--we were taught that Global Cooling would kill us all. As far as all that goes, a fellow Mensa Canada member published an expose of how research scientists chase demons they know are never going to destroy Earth, but must scare the populace into accepting higher taxes and donating so they can keep driving Ferraris and eating fish eggs.

Still, Global Warming as, well, whatever it is, is known and feared worldwide, so using it as a game dynamic is fair...but I always thought terraforming was a logical counterfoil (I think it might be gauche to mention the "Civilization" game which allowed it).

Remember the ozone layer? Whatever happened to that, and is HAARP really a giant conspiratorial ozone generator? Find out on the next episode of the Ex-Files (only available through tinfoil satellite dishes).

[Gimpy]

I don't personally believe in Global Warming. When I was in school in the 70s--not that long ago--we were taught that Global Cooling would kill us all. As far as all that goes, a fellow Mensa Canada member published an expose of how research scientists chase demons they know are never going to destroy Earth, but must scare the populace into accepting higher taxes and donating so they can keep driving Ferraris and eating fish eggs.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

Believe in it or not, the science is there, and it's not going to vanish just because you don't like the implications.

Still, Global Warming as, well, whatever it is, is known and feared worldwide, so using it as a game dynamic is fair...but I always thought terraforming was a logical counterfoil (I think it might be gauche to mention the "Civilization" game which allowed it).

A valid point. Some way to counteract it in the late game would be nice.

Remember the ozone layer? Whatever happened to that, and is HAARP really a giant conspiratorial ozone generator? Find out on the next episode of the Ex-Files (only available through tinfoil satellite dishes).

What happened to the ozone layer is the damage to it has slowed significantly since we stopped pumping CFCs into the atmosphere. Probably not a good thing to bring up if you're trying to argue against the idea that we can affect the Earth.

[CivHyperFreak]

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

Believe in it or not, the science is there, and it's not going to vanish just because you don't like the implications.

A valid point. Some way to counteract it in the late game would be nice.

What happened to the ozone layer is the damage to it has slowed significantly since we stopped pumping CFCs into the atmosphere. Probably not a good thing to bring up if you're trying to argue against the idea that we can affect the Earth.

Dude. Civilization 5. Are you excited or not?

[Gimpy]

Dude. Civilization 5. Are you excited or not?

Hell yes.

But I had to say it anyways

[dar25]

Sigh...

Believe in it or not, the science is there, and it's not going to vanish just because you don't like the implications.

Just because YOU say the "science is there" to support it, does not actually make it so.

"For the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming." according to leading climate scientist. Get the facts first please. http://bit.ly/drclBH

[garyda]

Geeze given that there have always been holes in the ozone layer a the poles that get bigger in winter and smaller in summer it is likely some what debateable as to what if any major impact CFC's had as well.

2nd exactly how is the average obtained given that 2/3rds of the earth has fewer meterological stations than the other one third?

3rd it is debateable to some extent at least exactly how meaningful an average temprature for a planet that varies as much as 200 degree F from place to place and time to time.

4th if you want it fine leave the rest of us the option to turn the damn thing off. This is after all a game.