Aquatic Sieges

[madd0ct0r]

one of my fondest memories from a computer game occurred in Sid Meir's Alpha Centuri.

I had naval dominance, but was having trouble getting a foothold on a reasonable sized island continent that was dominated by a single faction. My cruisers could shell his port cities, and destroy infrastructure but under the game rules they couldn't capture undefended cities, while my transporter fleet and main army were on the other side of the map, entangled in a different, half conquered Island nation.

In the end, I 'terraformed' the seabed around him lower and lower until his entire city sank under the waves. My crusiers could then move in and capture it.

How could this terraforming process work?

[Chaotic Neutral]

What do you mean "terraformed"? It sounds like you just used a giant shovel to take away all of the ground below it.

[Sarevok]

In the end, I 'terraformed' the seabed around him lower and lower until his entire city sank under the waves. My crusiers could then move in and capture it.

Wait. Lowering what used to be unprepared land based cities beneath the waves simply did not kill everyone in there ? Or did the AI faction simply contruct an underwater dome in preparation ?

[Razor One]

There's a base improvement that can be built that allows bases to survive submersion. Sea bases have it by default, land bases must build it. If your base does not have it... bye bye base.

The only way to achieve this in my limited, subjective and in all probability completely incorrect imagination would be to tunnel under the bases, set off charges and bring the entire base crashing down into the ocean, followed of course by the necessary capture immediately thereafter while everyone's having a chaotic old time. One has to wonder though if there'd be anything worth conquering after the fact... the structures and materials would have to survive what I would factor to be an underground nuclear detonation going off under them (potentially multiple detonations) and the subsequent fall. It'd be like beating down an entire city with a sledgehammer after a massive earthquake.

While Alpha Centauri does progress into super-materials science when you progress far enough, Pressure Domes are somewhat basic... I'd write off the scenario as a consequence of gameplay rather than as a realistic "Could happen in real life" strategy.

[Simon_Jester]

What do you mean "terraformed"? It sounds like you just used a giant shovel to take away all of the ground below it.

In this context, "terraforming" is a term for what you do in the game whenever you alter terrain in any way- whether that mean tiling the area with solar panels, or taking away the ground underneath the base with a giant shovel.

[madd0ct0r]

It helps that a terraforming crusier looks like a toy boat with a giant drill on it.

I was hoping for some rather more subtle answers - like building underwater dunes to erode their seafront, that sort of thing

[Purple]

How about slightly nudging the polarity of the gravitational levitator pillar that keeps the continental plate under alignment by about 3% so that the entire plate tips over ever so slightly and this motion in turn gets amplified due to the distance and becomes a massive level gazillion earthquake that sinks the city by forming a neat fold line around it causing it to slip into the ocean?

I mean, as much as I liked SMAC the terraforming displayed there make as much sense as Star Trek Voyager plots.

[Simon_Jester]

It helps that a terraforming crusier looks like a toy boat with a giant drill on it.

I was hoping for some rather more subtle answers - like building underwater dunes to erode their seafront, that sort of thing

Well, I'm not enough of an expert to know if such a thing is practical. Given years and an unlimited budget, maybe.

But by and large, it is difficult to make a given area of ground sink hundreds of meters below sea level unless something very, very strange is going on, and most ways we can imagine to do it would utterly destroy the base.

So while I don't normally agree with CN on things, in this case "sounds like you just used a giant shovel to remove all the ground under the base" is about as good an answer as I can think of.

[Spoonist]

There's a base improvement that can be built that allows bases to survive submersion. Sea bases have it by default, land bases must build it. If your base does not have it... bye bye base.

If I remember correctly the AI cheated with this in that it got the improvement if it's city was submerged.

It was one of the things I cursed not seeing in the CIV sequels after AC, terraforming. How could the ancients plant huge forests and I can't as a futuristic society. How can we level mountains today, build channels and dam rivers then in game I can't.
In CIV IV I used the worldbuilder with a set of rules on paper which tech I needed and how many workers I had to delete for X terraforming event.

[Simon_Jester]

If I remember correctly the AI cheated with this in that it got the improvement if it's city was submerged.

It was one of the things I cursed not seeing in the CIV sequels after AC, terraforming. How could the ancients plant huge forests and I can't as a futuristic society. How can we level mountains today, build channels and dam rivers then in game I can't.
In CIV IV I used the worldbuilder with a set of rules on paper which tech I needed and how many workers I had to delete for X terraforming event.

You can build interoceanic canals in Civ IV- cities on isthmuses, or fortresses, will do the job. Likewise in the expansion packs you can dam rivers- the Levee improvement in a city represents exactly that, at least as well as it represents anything else. About the only thing you can't do is remove a mountain range... something we can't do today; the world's truly impressive mountain ranges are not something we could really do much with, short of massed use of thermonuclear weapons to blast them apart, with obvious consequences.