Terrain Types

Each CELL is assigned a single, immutable TERRAIN TYPE for the duration of a single game. The assignment of TERRAIN TYPEs to each CELL constitutes a MAP. Each game session has a single MAP. The JCiv game suite MUST provide a mechanism to load a MAP from disk.

TERRAIN TYPE defines how hard it is to move through that CELL, what kinds and amounts of RESOURCES can be extracted from that CELL, how long it takes to produce one FRU of that CELL's RESOURCE, and how the CELL is displayed in the user interface. RESOURCE properties (type, limit, and production time) are discussed in Section ; movement cost is discussed in Section . A TERRAIN TYPE may have other properties as well, at the designers' discretion. For example, some TERRAIN TYPEs might change DEFENSE VALUE or VISIBILITY.

Table: Minimal set of TERRAIN TYPEs for JCiv, and their respective properties.

TERRAIN TYPE	Resource Type	Resource Limit	Production Time	Move Cost
Plains	food	3	10	1
Desert	none	--	--	1
Forest	wood	2	20	2
Mountain	iron	1	30	3
Swamp	none	--	--	3

The JCiv game suite MUST implement at least the TERRAIN TYPEs specified in Table .

The visual display for the TERRAIN TYPEs is unspecified and may be chosen by the designers. All TERRAIN TYPEs MUST, however, be visually distinct. The TERRAIN TYPEs MUST be represented by a graphic representation rather than (or in addition to) a plain text string. This graphic may be arbitrarily simple (e.g., a plain blob of a pure color, with a different color for each TERRAIN TYPE), but bonus credit MAY be awarded for a nice visual design.

OPTIONAL RULE Additional TERRAIN TYPEs MAY be provided, at the designers' discretion. For example, the JCiv game MAY support water (ocean, lake, or river) TERRAIN TYPEs that can only be navigated by special UNITs (such as ships), or TERRAIN TYPEs that produce special types of RESOURCEs (stone, gold, rubber, etc.)