Disasters

Hello all
I was wondering about the disasters system will work. For example about natural disasters like floodings, will they behave according to the terrain?
Will there be thunder storms with lightning strike?
And another matter, will they be weather effected for example will rain extinguish fires?

Also a suggestion that you properly thought about it that when you speed time whenever a disaster happens, time will return to normal speed

1 Like

Disasters are still not in the game but planned.
Not sure about how many will be in the first release but each one we add will behave in the right way.
Once we have implemented fluid dynamics (unlocked as a goal in KS ) that would allow floods to behave realistically.
Every map will have a different probability for different disasters; For instance, if after some years you already know you are living in a land with lots of heavy earthquakes, you better move to another land before building stone structures :wink:

The game already have a notification system with different levels of importance. Important notifications already make game time return to normal speed. Disasters very likely will trigger this kind of notifications when we add them to the game.

4 Likes

Realistically speaking, “move to another land” as in accept your fate and start a new game? Do you have the option to start anew with your current number of citizens? Or are the maps actually vast enough to “outrun” an earthquake area? With earthquakes having devastating effects on well over 10 - 20 km away from the epicenter, depending on severity, it would ask for a considerable map size to allow for realistic earthquakes with the ability to safely overcome that on a single map.

Migration (completely move to a new map with all your citizens and the resources you can carry ) is planned to be in the game to depict the nomadic tribes. In later ages you can do this with a whole city as well, with a heavy penalisation. While not common this has happened sometimes in history.[quote=“Sir_Vainglory, post:7, topic:345, full:true”]
It would be cool if you could return to an abandoned settlement decades or centuries later to see how it was affected by the ravages of time, and then once you reached a high enough science level you could send citizens back as archaeologists to uncover the remains. Or am I taking this a bit far?
[/quote]

While it sounds really cool it goes a bit far right now :wink:

7 Likes

Amazing

Sounds really cool.

It would be cool if you could return to an abandoned settlement decades or centuries later to see how it was affected by the ravages of time, and then once you reached a high enough science level you could send citizens back as archaeologists to uncover the remains. Or am I taking this a bit far?

1 Like

While it sounds really cool, it goes more than a bit too far :wink:

1 Like

Stop! I’m already too excited by this game!!! So many amazing ideas!

1 Like

Honestly, the most damaging disaster is drought, nothing causes more long-term migration then drought.

3 Likes

So true.

1 Like

The concept of legitimate migration to a whole other geographic area is really quite fantastic guys. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that implemented or even really experimented with in any other game, whether RTS/simulation or grand strategy/turn-based. Great stuff, really interested in this dynamic.

1 Like

I hope fluid dynamics opens the possibility of mud slides along with the physics of uprooting trees! Unique environmental disasters and historical plagues would really set Ancient Cities apart from other strategic city builders. Stretch goals, anyone?!

3 Likes

Wikipedia: Noah’s Ark

For well over a century scholars have recognised that the Bible’s story of Noah’s ark is based on older Mesopotamian models. Because all these flood stories deal with events that allegedly happened at the dawn of history, they give the impression that the myths themselves must come from very primitive origins. But in fact, the myth of the global flood that destroys all life only begins to appear in the Old Babylonian period (20th–16th centuries BCE). The reasons for this emergence of the typical Mesopotamian flood myth may have been bound up with the specific circumstances of the end of the Third Dynasty of Ur around 2004 BCE and the restoration of order by the First Dynasty of Isin.

There are nine known versions of the Mesopotamian flood story; each more or less adapted from an earlier version. In the oldest version, the hero is King Ziusudra and this version was inscribed about 1600 BCE in the Sumerian city of Nippur. It is known as the Sumerian Flood Story, and probably derives from an earlier version. The Ziusudra version tells how he builds a boat and rescues life, when the gods decide to destroy it. This remains the basic plot for several subsequent flood-stories and heroes, including Noah.

Probably the most famous version is contained in a longer work called the Epic of Gilgamesh, now known only from a 1st millennium Assyrian copy in which the flood hero is named Utnapishtim, “He-found-life”. (Gilgamesh is the hero of the complete epic, not the flood story hero).

The last known version of the Mesopotamian flood story was written in Greek in the 3rd century BCE by a Babylonian priest named Berossus.

Eventually, when modding tools are provided to create scenarios, I think a ‘build a large boat to save your village from an impending flood’ timed-mission would be an impressive way to show off fluid dynamics.

3 Likes

Drought and famine, Aztec empire. :slight_smile: What would the probability of moving be. I am thinking that the other lands might have other tribes or raiders and moving would not be possible and you would be left with watching the screen shake for the rest of the game.

1 Like

I know it is a bit late to reply to you on this topic, but what @Uncasual meant was that if you had originally set up your civilization in an earthquake-prone area, and you had been building upon it for some time, it would be wiser of you to move your civilization away in order to build stone structures. Otherwise, those stone structures would instead topple over your citizens or they would more simply continue to live in an unsafe area (my point being staying in the area is unsafe in general). Obviously escaping an earthquake is unrealistic. I understand maybe you had missed the “if after some years you already know you are living in a land of lots of heavy earthquakes.”

2 Likes