Blog Quest 2: Design A Game Item

For this blog quest I have designed a building type for one of my favourite games in the past few years, Sid Meier's Civilization 5.

Civilization 5 is a turn-based strategy game where players lead their civilization from the stone age into the future, on a procedurally-generated map represented by hexagonal tiles. The player can win the game by eliminating other players, through diplomacy, technology or culture. The element of the game I'd like to focus on specifically are cities.

When a player starts the game, they must first establish the location of their city. They guide their civilization's first settlers (a unit that has the ability to found cities) to the desired location (represented by a tile) and establish a city there. Once a city is built, a player can start creating buildings and units that each have their own function.

The item I am proposing is a Terraforming unit.

As a player plays through the game, they research several technologies that give them access to new buildings, units, and resources. The final technology in the game is Nanotechnology, at which point the player can research Future Tech any number of times to simply increase their score. I am proposing, that in addition to Future Tech, the player can research Planetary Engineering which will allow the player to produce a Terraformer unit. Planetary Engineering can be researched up to 5 times (details below).

Details for the Terraformer:

1. The Terraformer will allow players to alter only the resource tiles within their cities' limits. 
2. The Terraformer will terraform the tile it is on. 
• An upgrade detailed below will allow it to terraform an adjacent tile.
3. The Terraformer will be able to change the tiles to any of the terrain types featured in the game.
4. When a tile is terraformed, there is a chance that any of the resources featured in the game may appear on that tile.
5. The Terraformer will be consumed after 3 tiles and must be attached to a worker unit (the worker unit won't be consumed). 
• The unit may be upgraded by research Planetary Engineering again. The upgrade will add 1 more use every time it is researched up to 7 tiles.
• The 5th upgrade (after the 7 tiles limit is reached) will allow the Terraformer to alter a tile adjacent to it, as opposed to the tile it is on. The purpose of this is to allow terraformation of a mountain or water.
6. The worker unit will have to pick up, place, and then operate the Terraformer. Each process will take a specific amount of turns.
7. Once terraformation has begun, it cannot be stopped.
8. Should the worker unit be destroyed by battle during terraformation, the tile is automatically pillaged.
• Should the worker unit be taken by an enemy, the Terraformer will also be taken with it.
9. Any improvements that were made or resources on the tile will be destroyed once terraformation has begun.
10. While the unit is terraforming a tile, the resources on said tile will not contribute to the city.
11. Every time the Terraformer is used, it will permanently add unhappiness.
12. Every time the Terraformer is used, there is a chance a random number of your citizens may die.
13. Every time the Terraformer is used, there is a chance that a building in your city may collapse.
14. While the unit exists, it will cost gold to maintain.

The unit introduces new military strategies. For example, a player could terraform the outskirts of their cities to be mountains, and leave one space open. This would limit enemy land units from surrounding the city as they would be forced to enter from one tile. 

It also gives players a chance to shape the land to his/her civilization's needs. Civilizations can demand specific luxury resources, or a player may need a strategic resource. A player could terraform a tile and take a chance at gaining a new resource.

This would also enable, a growing practice in our world today known as land reclamation, which is commonly used in real life when a county needs more land for its people, or perhaps simply wants to add more land to sell to others. In Civilization 5 this would be mostly used for the former, as you can run out of room for a civilization if you don't have enough land.

I hope to actually create a mod for Civilization 5 that enables the use of the Terraformer to spread awareness of the effects of artificially created land and water masses. The inspiration for this unit came to me when I watched a film (which shall not be named so as to not ruin it if you haven't seen it) in which the villain begins to terraform the earth to match his/her civilization's planet. The film reminded me of the practice of land reclamation, and the creation of artificial lakes and land masses. I thought it was an interesting concept to have the ability to reshape the land, but realized that countries around the world do this already, and it can have both positive and negative effects on the ecosystem.