Idea for new oceanic terrain types.

[HoneyBadger]

Now that the Devs have brought out among us many wonderous gifts of terrain type shapechanging, that we may Know of them and be Pleased by them, it occurred to me suddenly that ocean terrain is pretty much surface terrain-atleast in it's variety-it just happens to be under water, instead of under air.

So here's some suggestions for new and varied water terrain types, that might make things more fun and interesting for our fans of aquatic nations:

Coastal Plane: Impassable by ships.
Occupied by Ichthytosians, Shamblers. Low in Resources, Gold, very high in Supply, Low in Sites.
River: Low in Resources, high in Gold, high in Supply, Low in Sites.
Shallow Sea: (simplified term for continental shelf and shallow ocean waters, as well as actual shallow seas). Occupied by Atlantians. Average in Resources, Gold, Sites, high in Supply.
Coral Barrier: Impassable by ships. High in Resources, Gold, Sites. Very high in Supply.
Sea Basin: Basic land type, average Gold, Resources, Supply, low Sites except for Water, which is average.
Confluence: (where two or more bodies of water meet, like a river meeting the ocean). Very high chance of Holy and Water Sites, average otherwise.
Deep Trench: Very low in Resources, Gold, Supply, Sites, except average in Water, Death, Fire.
Sargasso: (forest of kelp) High in Resources, Supply, low in gold, sites, except for Nature sites, which are high.
Sea Cave: Impassable by ships. Very High in Resources, low in everything else, except Earth sites which are high.
Tumulous: Impassable by ships. (simplification: consists of coastal stacks, cliffs, tides, whirlpools, sand banks, coral, and any other geological features close to the shore that would make the area dangerous for sailing) Impassable by ships. High in Resources, average everything else, except high Earth sites and average Astral sites. Low in other sites.
Salt Marsh (oceanic swamp, basically) Very Low in everything except Nature and Death sites.
Seamount. High in Resources, Average in Gold, Low in Supply, Low in Sites except Earth and Fire.

To clarify, "impassable by ships" means you can't sail through that area to get to another province. They're basically amphibious provinces, functioning as both land (as regards to sailing through them) and water (as regards everything else), at the same time.

Slight revision on this: Ideally, this could work that you could land on one of these provinces, and then sail off it the next turn, continuing on, or in another direction, but you'd still be in the ocean, and subject to attack from amphibious creatures, etc.

[HoneyBadger]

Oh and before any oceanographic or geologic experts show up and start dismantling this innocent little post in some sadistic fashion, I'm neither of those things.

[Endoperez]

Can you combine e.g. Ocean and Swamp terrains? How would that play out?

[Tifone]

The ideas are very nice and thematic, even if I personally wouldn't like to play with so many different kinds of "water terrain"... So for the land we should create Jungle, Savannah, Permafrost, all the terrain variety around the Mediterranean, and much much more... the game seems me already so difficult! But for you experts' mods and maps it would surely add tactical variety.

I can't agree just with one thing: River low in sites? o.O Rivers have been magical places for tons of legends and religions. Just think about King Arthur, or the godly aura around the Nyle and the Mesopotamian rivers... any kind of magic shall be present in the proximities of a river imho.

[Dedas]

Excellent ideas HoneyBadger! I would really love to see some of them implemented thus diversifying the otherwise dull sea provinces.

[Edi]

There is a problem with the implementation side with the bitmasks getting really ridiculous. Bordermountain is already a very long bitmask and they would simply keep getting longer. I suppose it could be done, but it ain't going to be user friendly. That's assuming that the extra long bitmasks are not going to break something else.

The alternative would be some modification on how the land sea division is done and each of those having its own bitmasks, but that would not be backwards compatible and all existing maps would have to be redone. So while this thread subject is very interesting, it does pose a set of possibly non-trivial issues.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm not sure what you mean, Endoperez, could you clarify the question please?

I'm not sure how it would work, Edi. I don't have access to the code, and I know we have a lot of maps that people are very fond of, so it might at best have to be an add-on, something that only comes into play for new maps, like cave provinces. Could your alternative be applied in an optional way? So that it could be turned off for maps we already have, and on for new maps?

[Edi]

I don't have access to the code either, but I know terrain is a bitmask currently. Just giving a heads up on why things may not happen even though it's a good idea.

[HoneyBadger]

Heh, that's ok. I'm pretty used to having what seems to me, anyway, as a "good idea", and it not happening. The Devs are truly awesome in their work ethic and generosity, but there's only so much they can do, and I can't expect more than a tiny portion of what they can do to represent any inspiration directly from me. It's just creatively and logistically unfeasable to expect more than that.

I have my fun coming up with ideas, good or bad, and "laying them out" so to speak. There's just something about a nice presentation that hopefully other people can get behind, even if it amounts to little more than putting an idea of how things might be expanded, that they might not have thought of, into their heads.

[Gandalf Parker]

I suppose we could always open another bit.

Too bad we cant logically split things then and put the terrains in one and other items in the other. But that would not "grandfather" well with older maps and such. Another thought for the Dom4 bucket I guess.