[.85 Exploit - Resolved] Lumbermill Deforesting

Probably. Or heck ... maybe have the trees stay there. Afterall, if a lumbermill is destroyed the trees don't go down with it ... (razing a lumbermill should re-add the tree, if nothing else)

Lumbermill should not destroy the forest.

Updated OP.

Changed the title to "Resolved" after it prompted an internal discussion and we came to the same realization as you in your edit.

You'd be surprised how many times design changes go unnoticed by all but the folks that actually implement the change  

So the 'que' deforestation is fixed?

Per-design, deforestation is now free and placing a building on a forest tile will automatically raze it. I don't believe re-adding forest on an unused razed tile is on the to-do list.

forests don't do anything anyway, do they? aside from allowing certain building(s) to be built on top of them

They also reduce movement, impact the tile yield of nearby tiles, and effect what can be in that tile from a world generation standpoint.

I hate the forests so much. So much. Please tell me there's a spell I haven't found yet to remove them in the gameworld when not adjacent to your city. The AI always builds roads through them.

Whats the point of having an ecologically devastated world, if you can't count on global warming to kill those awful trees? 

Summon chainsaw!

Pretty sure raise (or is that raze?) land will do the trick for you.

Raise Land doesn't mention anything about forests in the description, and raised terrain comes with movement penalties of its own (I think).

And I thought you hated forests for the sake of it!

To avoid the movement penalty you will then have to cast lower land. 

So 50 Mana up, and 50 mana down, not to mention the spell book micro for a single tile of forest?

It seems odd there's not a more direct and efficient option, to both deforest, and even grow forests, for city beautification or defensive purposes.  If there's some balance concern, I'd just point out that if you have the mana do something like that, you already have the ability to do far more nasty stuff to an enemy than a little landscaping.  I'm assuming a person who can instantly raise mountains out of nothing, wouldn't have any conceptual problems doing a bit of expedient gardening.

It's definitely a balance thing.  Back in early WOM hills did not have a movement penalty and raise land was only 5 or 10 mana.  I routinely cast raise land to speed travel through forests.

There are more options later in the magic tree but not that cheap.

A grow forest spell would be a nice addition though, high in the earth magic levels.

Apologies rallying the team towards a false alarm.

I like the new auto-deforest feature. It saves a step. Though it can be unfortunate for a player to inadvertently lose a forest resource by having to change production. But I understand how this would rate as low priority on an already overlong to-do list. 

the reduce movement bit makes sense, as does any terrain buffs/mali... but the rest, does it matter once you've plonked a city down already? does the original city square lose base production/food if you chop down surrounding forests? city base production is based on the tile the original centre is placed and not any of the squares where you build other buildings on, right?

It can't be too much of a balance thing, as it's already possible to deforest at will, it's just clunky and expensive to do.  I'm not even overly concerned about the cost. You could make a dedicated "de-forest tile" spell, and split the difference for a cost of 75 rather than two spells for a hundred, although I think 50 is probably more reasonable.  I dont see it as a casual early game expenditure.  By the time you have enough mana to throw around on stuff like that, you have the ability to mess with the AI in far worse ways than forest exploits.

Now, I'm a believer that terraforming (and probably all Strategic spells for that matter) should be limited to two per turn, like some already are. I'm sure you can do cheesy stuff with it, but you shouldn't be able to do it in a single turn. Terraforming should be a gradual process, except in the case of something like Raise Mountain, where you're paying a premium for expediency. Obviously owned territory restrictions should apply, just like with Raise/lower land.

If I'm not going to have any control building my own roads, I'd at least like to be able to efficiently clean up when the AI makes a boneheaded decision on where to put them. I dont think being able to clear a path between your cities for a reasonable expenditure of cost and effort is unbalancing by the time you have the mana to actually do it.  And think of all the pretty hedge rows and defensive forest walls you could build around your cities with a grow forest spell! I like to keep a tidy empire.

How about making Pillar of Flame destroy forests?

It's too cheap, I think. And if you raise the cost, it loses strategic value as an offensive spell.

I think a dedicated +/- Forest spell is more in order.