Terrain is how cities, units, buildings, and wonders calculate their values and effects in Civilization: Beyond Earth.
Summary[ | ]
In Civilization: Beyond Earth, the alien world is made up of hexagonally- shaped “tiles” (also occasionally referred to as hexes or spaces). These tiles come in a variety of “terrain types”: desert, plains, grassland, hills and so forth – and many include “features”, like forests.
These help determine the tile’s usefulness to a nearby city as well as how easy or difficult it is to move through the tile. A tile’s terrain and features may have important effects upon any combat occurring there.
The tiles may also contain resources that offer benefits when “improvements” are constructed in the tile; resources are sources of food, productivity, energy or culture. Additionally, they may provide other special bonuses to a colony. Some are visible at the start of the game, while others require the acquisition of specific technologies before you can see them.
Terrain Types[ | ]
There are ten basic terrain types in the game; in addition, groupings of one to ten hexes of water terrain are termed “lakes". You may not see all ten types in a given game.
Terrain Features[ | ]
Features are elements of terrain or vegetation that appear in a hex, atop the hex’s terrain. (A grassland hex might, for instance have forest or marsh on it.) Features modify a hex’s productivity and might also alter the amount of “Movement Points” (MPs) a unit expends when entering the hex.
Features may also provide defensive combat bonuses or penalties to a Unit occupying the hex.
Feature Values[ | ]
Like terrain, features also have values that determine yield, movement, and combat.