Possible Forest Clearing Exploit

[Philippe_at_bay]

Not sure if this is WAD or not, but when I was playing around in the deep south I noticed that the fastest way to clear our a forest was to found a selltlement and then disband it immediately and move on. A settlement seems to clear out the six adjacent hexes in theory, but in practice using settlers for forest clearing will generally clear out three additional hexes at a time.

It's still pretty difficult to hack your way through all that forest, but if destroying settlements to clear forests isn't a design feature, perhaps some of the cleared forest should grow back when the settlement is abandoned, with the amount remaining clear a function of how long the settlement was actually there. Otherwise parties of settlers become slow-moving lumberjacks cutting a huge swath through the primeval forest.

My impression was that the forest was supposed to be really hard to hack your way through, hence the need for boats to colonize the coast.

[DarkThug]

lol, pretty clever exploit.

I'm more favor of a delay on settlement disband though. Not only it will slow down this exploit, if you took enemy's settlement, you need to hold it for awhile before you can destroy it. Giving your enemy opportunity to take it back. 2 turns is too fast imo. At early game, I usually take every unwall settlements I come across. Pack it up. And resettle it somewhere safe in my territory. This can screw up even a very hard AI, giving me edge on early game foothold.

[Asterius]

But it costs money, doesn't it? Clearance doesn't cost any money but labor.

[Aries]

Another one is when you settle, wait few turns til the city grows, disband it and get 2 settlers. Noticed it when I took an ai city under 15 pop but was in a bad spot.. Got 2 settlers when I dibanded

[zhukodim]

Originally posted by Aries:

Another one is when you settle, wait few turns til the city grows, disband it and get 2 settlers. Noticed it when I took an ai city under 15 pop but was in a bad spot.. Got 2 settlers when I dibanded

It is not a few turns. I think you can get 2 settlers if you do in city with 10+ pops.

[Neutron]

Sneaky

[Philippe_at_bay]

I think the solution to the original problem might be to simply do away with the automatic hex clearing feature. It doesn't really add anything to the game.

[Neutron]

Originally posted by Philippe_at_bay:

I think the solution to the original problem might be to simply do away with the automatic hex clearing feature. It doesn't really add anything to the game.

It's there to stop the forest cluster models overlapping the town in an ugly way.

[Philippe_at_bay]

Game rules should not be altered to accomodate visual eye candy.

Make the overlap smaller, and the problem will go away as the owner of the town clears the hexes surrounding it.

There's no justification for giving a new settlement a free ride when it comes to forest clearing.

[Aries]

Disbanding under 15 is great in early game if you settle and few turns later uncover a resource just out of reach and taking small ai cities that are not in the best spot.
What would be useful is allowing to settle when entering a forest tile.. Since it clears forest anyway. I find lots of areas where there are forest tiles blocking some awesome resources w/in reach of a city but can't settle there

[zhukodim]

Originally posted by Aries:

Disbanding under 15 is great in early game if you settle and few turns later uncover a resource just out of reach and taking small ai cities that are not in the best spot.
What would be useful is allowing to settle when entering a forest tile.. Since it clears forest anyway. I find lots of areas where there are forest tiles blocking some awesome resources w/in reach of a city but can't settle there

You can clear forests by using another city. Citys have a large area for that.

[汤姆猫]

This is the best way to clear forest and marsh, saves tons of labour cost. But using this settler clearing exploit will greatly decrease gaming difficulties,would recomand fixing it.