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Deforestation - Wood should be a renwable resource


balduin
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I am playing 0 A.D. for quite a while now. I like the game a lot. One thing I do not like is, maps often times look pretty at the beginning, but over time the look and feel of maps decline because of massive deforestation. The maps start to look very empty.

Furthermore, deforestation seems to have been an issue for the Roman empire:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_during_the_Roman_period#Consequences_of_deforestation

- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/45407393_Ancient_Deforestation_Revisited

There are games in which trees grow slowly over time and are therefore a renewable resource. One game which implements such a model is Stronghold Crusader.

I would love to see small trees spawning and growing over time in 0 A. D. I think this would make long matches or scenarios in which one side does not have a lot resources more interesting. After all wood is a renewable resource.

 

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1 hour ago, balduin said:

I am playing 0 A.D. for quite a while now. I like the game a lot. One thing I do not like is, maps often times look pretty at the beginning, but over time the look and feel of maps decline because of massive deforestation. The maps start to look very empty.

Furthermore, deforestation seems to have been an issue for the Roman empire:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_during_the_Roman_period#Consequences_of_deforestation

- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/45407393_Ancient_Deforestation_Revisited

There are games in which trees grow slowly over time and are therefore a renewable resource. One game which implements such a model is Stronghold Crusader.

I would love to see small trees spawning and growing over time in 0 A. D. I think this would make long matches or scenarios in which one side does not have a lot resources more interesting. After all wood is a renewable resource

It it easy to tell but had to do I am not sure that would be done because this game never exceds 1.5 hours( mostly)  and average half an hour so it would be like having to grow trees there every 10 minutes or so but that is some more difficult in game as down people need to clear up spaces to build new building or those trees grow on buildings. And some maps have trees here and there so they block buildings and need to be clear off. If they do something like this expanding would be a more difficult job. 

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Yeah that would be nice but time of regeneration must be accurate then it would also make the player's never run out of wood which must be some hard In present game as in some games we just make our enemy never expand beyond certain territory which makes them wood less instead makes them build traders which need gold which also runs out quickly which forces them to surrender or to attack at full force which we get prepared to defend in ease. 

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People need to clear up spaces that is correct. However, I am talking about slowly growing trees. If there is a building already, then trees can not grow there anymore. In addition, 10 minutes in game feel like a very long time. Even, three minutes feel long.

Furthermore, trees should only appear if there are still trees or bushes around, not just randomly all over the map. I think the best way of doing this would be to remember where a tree stood in the first place and spawn a new small tree at the same place. Under the condition that there are trees still around.

If you use 20 workers to cut a tree, they will cut all trees in a short amount of time. So, you would actually not have a benefit from regrowing trees. You only have a benefit if you use maybe 1-3 workers or so.

 

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The spread out startergy won't work you need to cut out forests to supply with wood and I usually have 15 women 25 men on a same set of trees on opposite sides and with 2-4 storehouses for fast gathering then I fill it with towers if to defend houses for pop or barracks to reinforce front line. 

 

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I am guessing the proposal would work something like the following:

- Player cuts half of ForestA and then moves to ForestB and completely cut it.

- Meanwhile, ForestA starts to regrow. A tree every 5 minutes or so.

- The completely exhausted ForestB does not regrow at all.

In that case, shouldn’t an untouched forest also slowly expand?

- The untouched ForestC gained a few trees in the meantime.

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In my opinion, I think trees shouldn't regrow for a couple of reasons, it will impede building space later in the match. I think also that some maps with a lack of wood encourages aggressive expansion and intense fights in order to gain sparse resources and finally one can already use merchants for any resource that they need, also you can trade at the market.

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@Rolf Dew I think you overestimate the impact of trees regrowing. If you decide to cut all the trees right away, trees will not grow anymore. Like I mentioned, one condition is that you do not cut all trees in a forest. Grown trees have to be still around to regrow trees. Second trees regrow slowly, meaning it will take 10+ minutes to have another fully grown tree.

Furthermore, there would be no change with maps where you have a lack of wood (mostly deserts). The only change here would be do you want to wait 10+ minutes to have a new tree or do you cut all trees right away? In addition, it would make trees more valuable. Currently, if you want wood you go to a place you cut all the trees and bring your soldiers back to safety. With regrowing trees you might have an interest to protect trees or a forest.

Regarding merchants, yes having merchants help a lot on maps where you have a lot of space, because the trade income depends on the travel distance of the merchants. On maps where you have neither water nor a lot of space, regrowing trees could be a game changer. For example, mountainous places tend to be exactly like that, you might just have two or three valleys. What do you do, cut would on a sustainable rate or do you cut them all at once? I think the choice should be up to the individual player.

 

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You're forgetting that this is primarily a SP-feature that doesn't necessarily need to be relevant to MP-games. I get the impression that a lot of competitive players don't realize that single players can spend many, many hours on a single map, just toying with the AI and building whatever town/city/empire we can dream of. Perhaps regenerating trees could be an option in game-setup. The trees can be set to grow back over a half hour period or so, making it less or almost not noticeable in short games. But at least the map in a late-game, 6 hour long SP fantasy wouldn't look like a desolate wasteland. 

The main issue I see is the art side (saplings + growing animations). 

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You are really overestimating this. First of all, no one in their right mind would stop chopping away a forest to get one tree in 10 minutes. Even if they did, it’s 6 trees in an hour. I doubt it will have a game changing impact. This change will be nothing more than eyecandy.

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23 minutes ago, Altrine said:

If wild animals increase in due time there would be no need of corral

 

like reality , for small amount of food its ok but after a while you cannot rely on that as a source of food :) 

lets say at the begining of the game there is a group of elephant with 5 elephants ... lets say you dont kill them , after every 3 min 1 baby elephant add to their group and after another 3 min it will become a mature elephant .... and of course there must be max limit for example lets say 10 ....

At the end considering current game play time it is not a big deal .... but really nice to see reproducing animals in wild :) instead of killing them in first 2 min and extinction 

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3 minutes ago, dmzerocold said:

I also really like to see weather/season change during the game, or having day/night ... during night people use fire for better vision ...

Yeah, good idea. Maybe it would be better to let the player choose in settings before the game the hour of the day he wants to play.

7 minutes ago, dmzerocold said:

 lets say at the begining of the game there is a group of elephant with 5 elephants ... lets say you dont kill them , after every 3 min 1 baby elephant add to their group and after another 3 min it will become a mature elephant .... and of course there must be max limit for example lets say 10 ....

 I think it's too much time. Talking about 1v1 games, a rusher player needs hunt fast, and 6 minutes for only 1 elephant is too much.

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2 minutes ago, Jofursloft said:

Yeah, good idea. Maybe it would be better to let the player choose in settings before the game the hour of the day he wants to play.

10 minutes ago, dmzerocold said:

changing time during game or fixed time , so player can chose , :) all is good 

2 minutes ago, Jofursloft said:

 I think it's too much time. Talking about 1v1 games, a rusher player needs hunt fast, and 6 minutes for only 1 elephant is too much.

lets say X min :) if someone develop it changing time would be easy part ...

I just gave an example :D it can be any time 

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Anyway, I think that add new animals should also be a problem. Let's suppose for example that a desert map adds 1 camel per minute for every herd of camels (it would be a good amount for a rusher player). This means there are something like 4-5 camels more every minute (considering in the map a total of 4-5 herds of camels)

But now let's suppose that 2 players are playing a small map and they both decide not to rush, so not to hunt. This means that when they will decide to attack, around minute 16-17, there will be something like 100+ camels in the map. That's quite crazy, don't you think? XD 

 

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