How can other factions change weather patterns near your cities?

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Author Topic:   How can other factions change weather patterns near your cities?

The Doc posted 05-05-99 10:41 AM ET
I've seen this message a lot and I'm not sure what it means or how it's being done. Even a faction half way across the planet will change weather/rainfall patterns near so-and-so a city that belongs to me. It sometimes happens when I play multiplayer too, and the other player doesn't know what he did either. Does anyone know?
Smeagol posted 05-05-99 10:46 AM ET
I've had this message many times, and it must be a bug.
MoSe posted 05-05-99 11:07 AM ET
See the "Planting trees ..." topic from Darkstar I rescued up from the bottom for you.
HTH
MariOne
Urban Ranger posted 05-07-99 07:09 AM ET
Where's this "Plant Tree..." topic? I can't see it. How old is it?
MoSe posted 05-07-99 09:31 AM ET
Heck!
Seems to be gone!
The date of a topic is the one of its LAST post. So it had +or- the date& time of my previous post here, and I saw it had a dozen more posts the subsequent day.
The surroundings here are still VERY unsafe...
Suggestion: DOWNLOAD the topics you want to keep as a gaming reference.
Nell_Smith posted 05-07-99 09:19 PM ET
OK here's my theory (yeah I know I've posted this same thing about 10 times now, but hey... people keep asking)
This seems to be a simple text string glitch. I noticed it myself and I think this is what happens. The first time *anyone* builds a terrain enhancement that alters rainfall patterns (e.g. condenser, raise/lower terrain), you will get a correct message telling you that the rainfall pattern has been altered near the relevant base, be it your base or another faction's. After that, every time *anyone* builds any further rainfall-altering enhancements, even though the enhancement does work correctly, i.e. the rainfall gets altered at the place where the enhancement is built, the message that pops up will have the wrong base name in the text string. Even though you get the message at the right *time*, i.e. when the enhancement is built, the name of the base will always be shown as that of the first base near which an enhancement was built.
The reason why the name of the base is usually that of one belonging to the human player is simply because the human player is usually the first one to build any rainfall-altering enhancements.
I think this is right. It seems to hold true in all my games.
Hope this helps
Nell
Urban Ranger posted 05-07-99 10:22 PM ET
Are you sre? Strange things seem to happen in my games (at least some of them). A number of squares, which used to be "moist", become "arid", without me doing anything around them (no mountain building there).
Darkstar posted 05-08-99 05:27 AM ET
Question: Has anyone noticed that if you drill a borehole next to an ocean, it moistens the air downwind?
Now, I went looking for the lost thread. Still haven't found it using 1 year, and looking in the other forums. Don't know why that thread disappeared, but maybe EA will update this forum to something like what Apolyton is running.
Anyways... we had discussed whether the hydrological model of Planet was truly that complicated or just had crummy messages. The weight of the opinion was that it was just crummy messages. However, I have been noticing that somewhere between 30 to 50 TURNS after being warned, those areas tend to go down in moisture level by a grade (rainy to moist, moist to arid... Arid doesn't go down). That may just be an odd coincidence in those games.
The original question I had asked was how did my/the AI formers planting forests CHANGE the rainfall patterns? I had gotten noisy (and still am) about how this happens... I am still interested in trying to figure out the basic code rules and algorithm to better figure out how to terraform. While lots of known scientific principles got tossed around (and just fun supposition) it is hard to imagine that there is any SIGNIFICANT code in the hydrology model of Planet as all wind blows west to east, regardless of hemisphere, heat differences between water and land, etc etc etc...
Maybe the Firaxis team should contact Maxis, now that they are owned by the same company, and see if Will Wright would be willing to let them have the SimEarth/SimLife engine that modelled wind and rainfall patterns ON 286/386 processors! True Weather modelling is VERY simple Cellular Automatia with a simple formula at its heart. Even the simple 4 bit machines could do THAT.
Ideas?
-Darkstar
Nell_Smith posted 05-08-99 09:10 PM ET
Urban Ranger:
I'm not saying it's impossible for other factions to alter your rainfall patterns, or for you to alter theirs, but was just explaining why the popup always has the same base name in the text string. It's certainly possible for other factions to change your rainfall patterns, and yes this does sometimes happen, especially if other factions are raising or lowering terrain. It's not a bug, it's supposed to represent the dynamic nature of weather patterns, and the way in which building mountains on one continent can divert the wind/rainfall patterns on another continent that is downwind... err I think!
Nell
Urban Ranger posted 05-08-99 11:34 PM ET
Darkstar,
My understanding is weather modelling is tough business (Have you noticed how inaccurate real life weather forecast is?) with lots of DEs (differential equations).
Don't forget Chaos Theory, either.
Urban Ranger posted 05-08-99 11:43 PM ET
When I looked at alpha.txt, there's a whole bunch of lines under "#WORLDBUILDER" that seem to be related to weather, such as:
5, ; Cloudmass peaks (Size of cloud mass trapped by peaks)
3, ; Cloudmass hills (Size of cloud mass trapped by hills)
Does anybody has any ideas about what these lines might do? For example, there's a line that says:
10, ; Shelf (Encourages fractal to grow shelf)

I can't tell how to encourage the fractal to grow continental shelf. Do I increase or decrease this coefficient?
Darkstar posted 05-09-99 04:13 AM ET
Urban - Innaccurate? Where have you been? The American Military (Navy and Air Force) have 99.99% accuracy in predicting the weather in a 2 hour time zone for somewhere between 21 to 28 DAYS in advance (depending on what area of the planet you are talking, etc). At about 30 to 35 days, they reach the accuracy of the local weather people... at 40 and outward, its merely a wild guess.
Last I looked into it, weather is described/determined by an EXTREMELY simple formula. The problem is that we don't have enough data or processing power to model the entire planet's atmosphere. So it looks to us like Chaos theory. But it isn't.
If you want, I should be able to find some public Hydrology links that the Hydrology lab at my work has available for the public. That's Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA, for those that want to know the formal name of my work place. We have NASA's best Hydrology labs, among other things. Not that that is saying much, but they have more data about weather than your local TV station.
Nice place about my work site is that I have a rocket park in my building's back yard. Just what I always wanted growing up. But they are probably moving me so that the Rocket Park will be across the street. And me with no windows...
-Darkstar
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Author	Topic: How can other factions change weather patterns near your cities?
The Doc	posted 05-05-99 10:41 AM ET I've seen this message a lot and I'm not sure what it means or how it's being done. Even a faction half way across the planet will change weather/rainfall patterns near so-and-so a city that belongs to me. It sometimes happens when I play multiplayer too, and the other player doesn't know what he did either. Does anyone know?
Smeagol	posted 05-05-99 10:46 AM ET I've had this message many times, and it must be a bug.
MoSe	posted 05-05-99 11:07 AM ET See the "Planting trees ..." topic from Darkstar I rescued up from the bottom for you. HTH MariOne
Urban Ranger	posted 05-07-99 07:09 AM ET Where's this "Plant Tree..." topic? I can't see it. How old is it?
MoSe	posted 05-07-99 09:31 AM ET Heck! Seems to be gone! The date of a topic is the one of its LAST post. So it had +or- the date& time of my previous post here, and I saw it had a dozen more posts the subsequent day. The surroundings here are still VERY unsafe... Suggestion: DOWNLOAD the topics you want to keep as a gaming reference.
Nell_Smith	posted 05-07-99 09:19 PM ET OK here's my theory (yeah I know I've posted this same thing about 10 times now, but hey... people keep asking) This seems to be a simple text string glitch. I noticed it myself and I think this is what happens. The first time anyone builds a terrain enhancement that alters rainfall patterns (e.g. condenser, raise/lower terrain), you will get a correct message telling you that the rainfall pattern has been altered near the relevant base, be it your base or another faction's. After that, every time anyone builds any further rainfall-altering enhancements, even though the enhancement does work correctly, i.e. the rainfall gets altered at the place where the enhancement is built, the message that pops up will have the wrong base name in the text string. Even though you get the message at the right time, i.e. when the enhancement is built, the name of the base will always be shown as that of the first base near which an enhancement was built. The reason why the name of the base is usually that of one belonging to the human player is simply because the human player is usually the first one to build any rainfall-altering enhancements. I think this is right. It seems to hold true in all my games. Hope this helps Nell
Urban Ranger	posted 05-07-99 10:22 PM ET Are you sre? Strange things seem to happen in my games (at least some of them). A number of squares, which used to be "moist", become "arid", without me doing anything around them (no mountain building there).
Darkstar	posted 05-08-99 05:27 AM ET Question: Has anyone noticed that if you drill a borehole next to an ocean, it moistens the air downwind? Now, I went looking for the lost thread. Still haven't found it using 1 year, and looking in the other forums. Don't know why that thread disappeared, but maybe EA will update this forum to something like what Apolyton is running. Anyways... we had discussed whether the hydrological model of Planet was truly that complicated or just had crummy messages. The weight of the opinion was that it was just crummy messages. However, I have been noticing that somewhere between 30 to 50 TURNS after being warned, those areas tend to go down in moisture level by a grade (rainy to moist, moist to arid... Arid doesn't go down). That may just be an odd coincidence in those games. The original question I had asked was how did my/the AI formers planting forests CHANGE the rainfall patterns? I had gotten noisy (and still am) about how this happens... I am still interested in trying to figure out the basic code rules and algorithm to better figure out how to terraform. While lots of known scientific principles got tossed around (and just fun supposition) it is hard to imagine that there is any SIGNIFICANT code in the hydrology model of Planet as all wind blows west to east, regardless of hemisphere, heat differences between water and land, etc etc etc... Maybe the Firaxis team should contact Maxis, now that they are owned by the same company, and see if Will Wright would be willing to let them have the SimEarth/SimLife engine that modelled wind and rainfall patterns ON 286/386 processors! True Weather modelling is VERY simple Cellular Automatia with a simple formula at its heart. Even the simple 4 bit machines could do THAT. Ideas? -Darkstar
Nell_Smith	posted 05-08-99 09:10 PM ET Urban Ranger: I'm not saying it's impossible for other factions to alter your rainfall patterns, or for you to alter theirs, but was just explaining why the popup always has the same base name in the text string. It's certainly possible for other factions to change your rainfall patterns, and yes this does sometimes happen, especially if other factions are raising or lowering terrain. It's not a bug, it's supposed to represent the dynamic nature of weather patterns, and the way in which building mountains on one continent can divert the wind/rainfall patterns on another continent that is downwind... err I think! Nell
Urban Ranger	posted 05-08-99 11:34 PM ET Darkstar, My understanding is weather modelling is tough business (Have you noticed how inaccurate real life weather forecast is?) with lots of DEs (differential equations). Don't forget Chaos Theory, either.
Urban Ranger	posted 05-08-99 11:43 PM ET When I looked at alpha.txt, there's a whole bunch of lines under "#WORLDBUILDER" that seem to be related to weather, such as: 5, ; Cloudmass peaks (Size of cloud mass trapped by peaks) 3, ; Cloudmass hills (Size of cloud mass trapped by hills) Does anybody has any ideas about what these lines might do? For example, there's a line that says: 10, ; Shelf (Encourages fractal to grow shelf) I can't tell how to encourage the fractal to grow continental shelf. Do I increase or decrease this coefficient?
Darkstar	posted 05-09-99 04:13 AM ET Urban - Innaccurate? Where have you been? The American Military (Navy and Air Force) have 99.99% accuracy in predicting the weather in a 2 hour time zone for somewhere between 21 to 28 DAYS in advance (depending on what area of the planet you are talking, etc). At about 30 to 35 days, they reach the accuracy of the local weather people... at 40 and outward, its merely a wild guess. Last I looked into it, weather is described/determined by an EXTREMELY simple formula. The problem is that we don't have enough data or processing power to model the entire planet's atmosphere. So it looks to us like Chaos theory. But it isn't. If you want, I should be able to find some public Hydrology links that the Hydrology lab at my work has available for the public. That's Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA, for those that want to know the formal name of my work place. We have NASA's best Hydrology labs, among other things. Not that that is saying much, but they have more data about weather than your local TV station. Nice place about my work site is that I have a rocket park in my building's back yard. Just what I always wanted growing up. But they are probably moving me so that the Rocket Park will be across the street. And me with no windows... -Darkstar