Editor - How to influence the ground quality

[Ulli]

Hello,
I´m just making my first steps using the editor. I want to create a map, where you have to make a lot of money with rum. So you have to build sugar farm. But there aren´t enough good places for sugar. So does anyone know, how to influence the soil quality  
Thanks in advance,
Ulli

[Railnut]

I don't recall axactly what conditions you will need to grow sugar. But You can create just about any condition by using the Raise/Lower terrain tool and then adjusting the CloudRate through an event. Make the land so it drains at the best speed to keep the moisture level where you need it. Write the CloudRate event part of your setup file so the change will take place at the start of the game. Remember that the number you use to adjust the cloud rate will be a percentage of change to the original base rate. So if you use AddTo CloudRate 50 you will have one and a half times as many clouds. AddTo CloudRate 100 will be twice as many clouds. I would expect it will take a few tries to get just what you need. And when you do, could you post the numbers here so I can save them for future reference.

[Cyanide Baron]

Thanks, I was wondering myself.

[Olle_Petersson]

Last night I made my very first scenario, from scratch.
I tried this "lots of sugar and rum" approach, adding 300% to the cloud rate from day one. (And dropping tourist rating by 50 (%?) as an effect of the bad weather. )

There was no immediate effect, other than that the few showers present intensified. Then more clouds and rain came over the map, and a few years later the entire island was permanently wet.
By then all land had perfect conditions for sugar farming, and wasn't totally useless for pineapple. It was unsuited for all other crops...

A little less rain could improve things.

Cheers
Olle

[Railnut]

Yeah, Olle, I seem to recall some warnings from PopTop Brent, or maybe one of the other scenario creators here, about having too many clouds and too much rain.
But hey, with enough rum you kind of forget about food anyway, no?

[Olle_Petersson]

Well, I did run low on food.
Then I switched one or two farms to pineapple, and built another three pineapple farms, as well as two fishing wharfs.
A few years later the food production was on par with consumption...

So for this (or any other) type of extreme climate, food production is a lot about fishing. I forgot to check if a goat ranch could be an option, but I guess it's possible.

Cheers
Olle

[Marlow]

This thread is both very useful and really hard to find, so I figured it would deserve a place on page 1.

[Railnut]

Boy, I wish I had read this old thread before I just spent half an hour testing the script I posted in Marlow's other 'rain' thread. Funny thing is, I kind of got a deja vu feeling while I was writing it.

[Chairman Robbo]

 

[Che_Miguel]

Hi friends,
in my experience there is an easy way to guarantee the growth of sugar:
1. raise a large region of land
2. lower a part of this region to create a hollow
3. the rain cannot flow off and will be *collected* in this area so that it always stays wet

4. if a very good programer creates a rice farm to built, rice would grow in this area, too (I think!)  

Hope I could help, Che

[Rock Superstar]

Well, a perfect rum making island would be perfectly flat with all sorts of rain.  Hmm... rain makes grass grow faster.  Cows eat grass, cows live on flat land...


... Maybe you could fix the food shortage by raising cattle to feed to your people.

[sissyfuzz]

There is another way to influence climatic conditions with map editing only.
Of course, you will lose out on realism to some extent.
Before actually designing your island, raise the entire map a few notches.
Consider the following case study (It's not supposed to be pretty, just making a point).
I raised the entire map to produce optimal conditions for papaya - I like the graphics for these babies much better than corn. Notice to what extent the overall conditions for tabacco and coffee improve as well. And corn can still be grown effectively.
For sugar, of course, you'll still have to dig some swamps.
I'll not comment on whether or not I consider this method 'cheating' lol  

Hey- after all, your island could be located inside a lake way up in the Andes.....

[Coconut Kid]

I'm just making my first steps using the editor. ... So does anyone know how to influence the soil quality?

Using the editor to terraform the land profile in order to try to change the soil quality is a long, hard slog with few predictable results. Some things can be done with the paint tool, but mostly soil quality is a function of the map generation routine. Almost all of the discussion in this thread is about soil wetness - the key to good sugar growing land.

Far easier than slaving away with the editor is simply using the initial setup tools to make an island idealized for the crop in which you wish to specialize. The vegetation slider sets not only the density of the initial forestation, but also the level of rainfall that matches that density. That is, a setting of 'overgrown' means heavy rainfall. There is also a height setting which can be used to match the ideal conditions for the various crops. Example: For a surgar island, set vegetation to overgrown, and the height to low.

[Coconut Kid]

I see some guests looking at this. So here are some cross-references which are more detailed:
Advanced Agriculture: http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=5471.0

and Where is the? which deals with the paint tool:
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=1183.0