Seems unlikely, the science between climate change is solid and becomes more solid as research progresses.

Where have you seen this explaination?

These are the kind of comments that make this led to Darvond's comment about you trying to start a dangerous thread. It kind of feels like you don't actually care that much about whether climate change is in the Civ series, you just want to mock those who don't believe in climate change.

Edit: Just read your article, and yeah, that's not doing you any favors as far as evidence that you are curious about the game or series themselves. This looks like a culture war oriented thread in disguise.

Personally, I think climate change should be left out; my own observations of my own local weather patterns lead me to believe, no matter how badly industrialised a society is, even if it was a comically and fantastically video-game-inspired Steampunk-style society, humans (or whatever race(s) may live on a particular planet) will absolutely never be able to affect planetary climate whatsoever, and that the average temparatures for different climate zones and times of the year and day only seem to fluctuate because of natural climate change (i.e. periodic general shifts in the weather and average temperature due to changes in the jet-streams). For example, in the areas between Louisville, Kentucky, and Frankfort, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio (i.e. where I live), the average yearly temparatures have gone from above-normal (approximately 2000-2008), to well-below-normal (approximately 2009-2011), to above-normal (2012-present); just prior to each switch in temperature averages, I heard the weathermen report on a shift in the jet-streams, so I think it's fairly safe to say that our Earth is just going through natural changes, nothing that would be our doing.

As for the flat-Earth theory, I think those who believe in it are misconstruing the original theorist's use of 'Earth': I think he meant to say that the universe is flat (which it is), but called the 'universe' the 'Earth' to refer to the universe as the place where all life exists; humans/Earthlings have known that their planet is round for thousands of years, dating back at least to the days of Ancient Greece, perhaps earlier.

Heh, probably :-) Until Civilization VI, the games were based on a cuadricule. A cylindrical topology was good enough for the gameplay, especially with people used to the usual Mercator projection of the surface of the Earth. With all its inadequacies (bigger than most think: how large is Africa really?), it is the way many people imagine the world. Maybe Google Earth (and Arcgis Earth) help a little with that.

Just for fun, other options have been featured as well, including a toroidal topology, as someone said.

Someone else mentioned that the only thing that the shape of the Earth IRL is important is for taking a round trip by airplane. It goes way beyond that. It is important for both air and sea navigation, but also for infrastructures such as watchtowers for firefighting or land observation of any kind, land based, airborne and of course spaceborne. For any of these applications, assuming a flat earth = failing badly from the start.

I had a sudden sea level rise in Tropico 4:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbTeIZw_5BY

Not sure if it was due to global warming, though, after all, if it is colder in "Frankfort"...it surely is a myth

Avoiding controversy is the cowards way out and if controversies is what dictates the features and mechanics included in the game then you can take your game and get out of my face.
It's better to decide what mechanics your game is going to have whether they are good or actually add something worthwhile to the games experience.

People will always complain because of various reasons but "controversial" content can be solved by falling on deaf ears.

Exactly. They went and put science on par with, let’s say, gender pronouns statements. Really?

The reason they provided is upsetting, really. No, people, not because of the gameplay. They seem to be scared and protecting their investment. Like science can make of you the next Beamdog.

By the way, even in SMAC, mindworms attacked heavy polluters...

The funny thing is, again: Why “global warming” was less of an issue in the 90’s and 2000’s than it is now? What is the difference between these game makers and those of yore? Is it because they are putting more money on the game? Did the target audience change over time? Is it related to the fact that some series have become more gamey, while at the time they were more simulation (UFO: Enemy Unknown, Civilization).

Maybe considering these questions might lead to a better understanding of how and way are games changing. Especially those with large budgets.

This

If they want to protect their investment, they should just make better games, or find someone who can.

Civ was unique. Civ2 improved everything. Civ3 was fun to play. Civ4 is mindblowing all the way to TBS. Then, Civ5.
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Everything about SMAC was interesting: the overarching story, the deep flavor from Frank Herbert's The Jesus Incident, the factions, the diplomacy, the freefom at unit design (yes, you could build submarine carriers).
Then, Beyond Earth, feels like broiler chicken that someone left boiling in plain water for a couple of hours. At RPS they called it "a digital shrug". Maybe.

Then Firaxis goes and cowardly decides to cater to the crackpots, ignorami, trolls, noisemakers and the crew that take tbeir news from Russian bots. O-kay, people, call when you remember how to make good games. Games that pose interesting options and that never let the question arise: "Why am I playing this?"

It's about time games stopped putting liberal political propaganda into them. Good on those devs. All devs should do likewise.

I don't see why they should remove it. It's about as fictional as Gandhi being obsessed with nuclear destruction. It's all a bit of fun.

Don't call the modern left "liberals," that's an insult to liberalism, which implies freedom of expression and so forth. The modern left is "facist." They not only attack true liberals, but they have this massive infighting not too different from how students of one McDojo have to fight with students of another McDojo to say that their spirit bomb is better than the other school's spirit bomb. It's why the national socialists in germany went around killing the global socialists. I hear Rockstar's currently under fire for giving equal treatment to feminists that they give to the apolitical (you can kill them). The lefties have a problem that they aren't unkillable like children. The big joke is, we should treat them like children?

The one thing I don't understand with the climate change debate is that even though most of the deniers seem no longer even dispute the warming and are just arguing over whether it is caused by human influence or not, we are still stuck on that issue instead of moving on and starting to plan together what we should do to ensure that we and/or our descendants can better adapt to the challenges that await us.

Lets say that the deniers could be right and the planet's average temperature kept rising no matter what we did and how soon we started, our descendants would still be better off if we had invested in solar power, better energy efficiency, recycling resources and limiting the pollution than if we just selfishly kept on our current course maximizing short term profits with no regards to what happens tomorrow.

Finally! This thread was lacking without them. It is so heartwarming to have their blessing! =)

Are you sure you want to mention that in a topic I've posted in, particularly when it isn't really relevant to the topic?