Time Travel Civ

[Leland]

In another thread, the idea of a strategy game based on time travel came up, but since that thread is not the right place to discuss this notion I decided to start a new one.

The basic idea is to take your average civ-like strategy game and modify it so as to include a strategic component of time travel. I am unaware of any actual games that do this, and in fact I'm not sure if it can be done in any sensible way, but that's what this thread is for: to let your imagination loose and envision a time travel strategy game that could in theory be fun to play.

Here're my quick ideas:

1) Help from your future self

Every now and then (say, every 10-20 turns) the computer takes the current game situation and extrapolates it to the end of the game, where time machine has been invented. Then the player gets to choose one (or more, but a limited number) of his future units/facilities to send back in time to his old self. Every player gets the same opportunity (but weaker players are less likely to have as good units to spare) if they are still projected to exist in the future when the time machine is invented.

So in this approach the player would still play linearly, but he'd get assistance from his "future self" every now and then. This would probably make the game shorter because the players get rewarded from early success, but you'd also get to use those high tech gadgets that normally would be invented in such a late phase that the game is practically over. Also the goal here is not to actually destroy your every opponent, but just to get to the point where they are going to be eliminated in the future (according to the computer prediction).

2) Help out your past self

Another possibility would be to extend the late phase of the game so that if there is no clear winner when you are technologically capable of building a time machine, you could take a few units or other goodies and go back in time a bit (say 20-50 turns) where you'd control your civ in the same situation where it was then, plus with the stuff you brought from the future. This time around you should be able to invent the time machine a bit faster, and you could go even further back in time. Repeat until you either beat your opponents in the present, or travel back to the beginning and make sure your opponents never even existed.

Obviously this works only in a single player mode. To make it more interesting, the game could start in the future where all civs are equal and the player would play his way back to the past, trying to gain more ground with each trip.

[VetLegion]

Hi Leland

I read it and I simply can't wrap my mind around it

Btw., there is a time travel scenario in Civilization II: Test Of Time (the one with multiple levels of the playing board (underground, land, orbit) and fantasy and sci-fi modes of play).

I haven't played that scenario, so I don't know if it relates.

[VetLegion]

I think that point 1) seems to add too much randomness to the game, plus it would harm the whole idea of tech ages.

How would you solve the problem of someone getting a strategic bomber in an early phase of the game?

Point 2) could work out, if your opponents get the same chance to bring back advanced units as you do. Otherwise it is unfair advantage for you.

[lajzar]

This just rewards the leader for being the leader.

[Epistax]

Very interesting idea (especially #2), however it certainly doesn't belong in a vanilla Civ4. Sadly I don't see how any level of editability expected could achieve this. I wouldn't be surprised to one day see this done for a game in its own right. I'd like to try it out.

[Brent]

It does sound fun, but a little crazy for Civ. I should know, I'm crazy myself. Now other forms of SciFi, like space travel and other planets, I'm OK with...

Idea 1 does sound fun. Interesting too, but like I said, too wierd.

I prefer the main body of idea 2 over idea 1, but I don't like the second part of idea 2. Maybe as a scenario. Even if I don't like it, it wouldn't hurt to have it as a scenario, although there are a lot of other sorts of scenarios that I want in first. And time travel would be sure to stand out from other scenarios. It would require more work to create.

I don't really agree with Vetlegion's comments on the specific ideas.

[The diplomat]

I think the concept would be very cool for a TBS game, but I am not sure it would work in civ.

One way to implement it would be to have multiple maps where each map represents a parallel universe. Every map would start absolutely the same but as you made different decisions on each map, each map would become different. On one map, your civ might be huge, on another map, your civ might be small. When you discover time travel, you would be able to transport units from one map to the other thus helping yourself in the other parallel universes. The objective would be similar to every empire building game except you would have to win in every parallel universe.

[Brent]

cool and wierder. Maybe wierd is good, I don't know. It might have to be a completely separate game, but maybe this fits with the "umbrella game" concept. It would be nice if the "umbrella game" concept included licensing, so you could have official civ games for Middle Earth, Ancient Vulcan, etc, but of course I digress.

[The diplomat]

I had an idea for how to implement time travel in a way that is both strategic and civ-like.

When you discover the time travel tech you could build a time travel facility in a city. A time travel facility would allow that city to build time travel units. The player could move a time travel unit to an enemy city and stop that city from building a city improvement or a unit at some point in the past. If your unit goes back in time to when the city was first founded, it could prevent the city from ever existing. If your mission is succesful, the computer would extrapolate what would have happened if that city, city improvement or unit never existed. If you travelled back to the beginning of the game you could try to prevent an enemy capital from existing which would mean the entire civ never existed. Of course, to carry out a time travel mission you would have to spend a special ressource. The further back in time you go, the more costly it would be in that special resource. So, travelling back 100 turns would cost more than travelling back 10 turns.

The reason I mentionned needing to build a time travel facility before building time travel units is because that would allow players to "attack" each others time travel. You could undo the time travel mission an enemy did against you by doing a mission against the enemy time travel facility that created the enemy unit. Of course, you could use time travel in an offensive manner as well by doing missions against enemy cities preventing the cities from ever existing. The enemy cities would vanish, cities that were created by settlers from that first city would vanish since the settlers were never produced. Of course, the enemy could produce time travel units and do the same to you or undo your mission.

The special resource would be collected and pooled on a national level. The player could either use all the resource on a single mission to do one big mission that travels far in the past and does more damage or do lots of small missions.

[Brent]

In a way such ideas are growing on me, but I think the multiple worlds idea in another thread is more civish. Maybe both multiple earthlike worlds and time travel should be completely separate games, but if you have a game whose main concept is time travel, would it make much sense to have strong Civ elements?

Just how rare would this special resource be, and where would it occur, and would it make sense for it to occur naturally, or do you want to be like Colonization and use natural resources to manufacture other resources? It would seem like a time travel resource ought to be very rare, but then you couldn't do much and maybe it would be practically imposible to go farther back than the minimum.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Brent
Just how rare would this special resource be, and where would it occur, and would it make sense for it to occur naturally, or do you want to be like Colonization and use natural resources to manufacture other resources? It would seem like a time travel resource ought to be very rare, but then you couldn't do much and maybe it would be practically imposible to go farther back than the minimum.

As you probably guessed already, the special resource would represent the fuel your time machine uses.

You are right that if the special resource were natural that this would raise problems. If the resource were rare it would limit the amount of travel time which would kinda defeat the whole fun of the concept. Also, like natural resources in civ3, you'd have situations where a civ was lucky enough to have that resource nearby and another civ would be out of luck if there were no resource nearby.

I think the resource should be manufactured. That way almost every civ could produce the resource if they had the infrastructure and tech level. Thus, every civ could take advantage of using time travel as a weapon if they reached the necessary tech level and built the insfrastructure. It would also mean that players would have to decide how much emphasis to put in time travel versus conventional units. Lastly, if the game required players to produce the resource needed for time travel, then both players could use time travel to undo the enemy's production of the special resource.

[Vince278]

How's the computer going to extrapolate the end game when it can barely handle extrapolating the next turn? A high tech alien invasion would be cool but Test of Time has that too.

[Dauphin]

Time travel has too many paradoxes that it would just get stupid and unbalancing.

Turn 1.

" You are the leader of a nomadic tribe, you have knowledge of alphabet, masonry, irrigation, mining and roads"

"Found city of Sit Vis Nobiscum"

Turn 2
"Your civilization has been destroyed by death rays from the future. Bad luck."

Play Again?

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Dauphin

Turn 1.

" You are the leader of a nomadic tribe, you have knowledge of alphabet, masonry, irrigation, mining and roads"

"Found city of Sit Vis Nobiscum"

Turn 2
"Your civilization has been destroyed by death rays from the future. Bad luck."

Play Again?

The general idea of the time machine is interesting, but definately more of an addition or a fun option. Too unbalancing to make it a serious part of the game.

[Epistax]

Originally posted by Dauphin
Time travel has too many paradoxes that it would just get stupid and unbalancing.

Turn 1.

" You are the leader of a nomadic tribe, you have knowledge of alphabet, masonry, irrigation, mining and roads"

"Found city of Sit Vis Nobiscum"

Turn 2
"Your civilization has been destroyed by death rays from the future. Bad luck."

Play Again?

I agree with your notion, however I think it's understood that for this whole concept to work, Hitchhiker's Guide time rules woud need to be in effect. That is, nothing is caused to happen in the past until the cause happens in the future. That is, yes time flows only forward, and it flows forward at only one point. It jumps in the past, then jumps back.

There are no great cascades of change caused. You successfully capture a city 1000 years ago, it's your city now. Cities that spawn from that city owned by your competitior are still owned by your competitor, unless you capture each and every one. I kind of see the back flashes as an alternate play mode where the original time traveler has a button to go back to modern time. You don't just keep playing from 1000 BC or whatever over and over again. Additionally the cost to go back in time needs to be somewhat exponential in relation to number of units and number of years back.

I think it's perfectly playable, you just need to choose your time travel cause-effect rules.