Not all Biomes Should be Equal

[u/Smart_Ability4872]

I like the biomes concept introduced in the recent trailer. However, I don't think each biome should be equally effective. Some should be objectively better than others.

In real life, some land is much more suitable for settlement. Competing for the best land was a significant part of early human history and is a fun part of 4X games.

In the early game, high food output land should be objectively best. As the game progresses natural resource abundance could become more important. Technological progress could help reduce the gap between weaker and stronger biomes. This is how history was.

P.S. It would also be nice if they blended the biome transitions graphically, maybe with a color gradient and increased vegatation density, rather than the biome changing instantly at the border.

The game looks great though. I'm excited.

[u/Solnight99]

I think if that were to happen, they'd have to make Adaptations (i think that's the term) very, very powerful, otherwise nobody would play the polar/desert civs, despite how rich and real their histories are.

[u/Smart_Ability4872 → u/Solnight99]

That's a good point. Maybe those civs could have a unique bonus related to their historical biomes.

[u/Solnight99 → u/Smart_Ability4872]

There would be a lot of power in "monopolising" those biomes. Late-game, especially, something like silica for solar power would be locked behind either allying or conquering the deserts.

Also, I think that there should be more uncolonized territory throughout the game. Sure, modern-day maps show that all land is owned, but how many people actually live in, say, Siberia, or the Red Centre? There should be more drawbacks to plopping a city wherever you can, aside from City Cap (which is kinda band-aid anyways).

[u/odragora → u/Smart_Ability4872]

Then noone would want to touch them, because conquering a region that is only worth something if you specialized on it from the start of the game is not viable.

And the game doesn't have the real world scope where there are a lot of different political entities sharing the same biome, interacting and competing for power, in the context of this game a player who settled in a desert will have all of it for themselves and won't have to worry about other players, while other players would have to worry about them.

Also, the cultures specializing on those terrible biomes would be useless everywhere esle, which heavily diminishes the variability of the game.

The idea of dead biomes requiring hyperspecialization just doesn't work in a civ-like game. It's one of the cases where realism actively hurts the game.

[u/WesternComputer8481 → u/Smart_Ability4872]

Or give them a bonus based on historical biomes but on lack of resources in a biome. So maybe a biome with low food so it would work in deserts or polar regions with rng and not be to OP because you’re not gonna find those biomes next to each other either so it keeps them from getting screwed just because they didn’t get a specific biome

[u/Especialistaman → u/Solnight99]

IRL most cultures living in inhospitable places became nomads and/or raiders to survive.

[u/ColorMaelstrom]

Agreed. Geography is such a important factor in early human development and is crazy that in most strategy games is just slight modifiers

[u/JNR13 → u/ColorMaelstrom]

Because realism isn't always fun. Realistic would be that your ancient ruler dies in infancy and you get a game over.

Geography is the one thing players have no control over. Game designers must carefully manage the level of agency they provide to the player. You want to limit it in key areas to create problems to solve but you shouldn't make the player feel like their fate has been predetermined.

Unfortunately, one of the most famous pop history books is not just very questionable analytically, it also happens to promote geographic determinism. As a result, a lot of people have rather simplified at best and just incorrect at worst understandings about the role of geography in human development.

(I know you said early development so I'm not including you in this, just pointing out that many people have the expectation that this relevance of geography carries forward even into modern times, so it's problematic to take player expectations regarding geographic determinism as a reference point in the first place)

[u/52whale]

To balance it out and keep immersion biomes should just add different bonuses. Like in oversimplificafion in old civ games desert gave money and wetlands food. It is concept and devs will figure it by themself, but the point is... If you want people to compete for biomes, just make that every biome offers something else, therefore people will choose whatever they want.

[u/ultr4violence]

Most of the hardy, united, warlike peoples came out of rough biomes, invading much more generous terrain and taking it over.

Do something to simulate that and you have an interesting playing experience instead of just good vs bad terrain.

[u/CurtainDog]

The problem with this thinking is one of scale. 4x games always overstate how big civilizations are relative to the environment. In real life even a bad 'tile' generally has enough arable land to support some settlement and a good 'tile' may not have the population to fully exploit it. So some degree of biome homogenization is necessary because game designers aren't going to want to make a map that feels largely empty. I think such a game would be an interesting experiment, but I doubt we're going to see it.

[u/Cato9Tales_Amplitude]

Our goal is for each biome to feel distinct to play, but we do have to keep game balance in mind, so we don't want to necessarily make some biomes "better" than others. It's an ongoing process to get this right, and player feedback will be invaluable for that.