Inter Planetary Conquests

[techtedg]

I have always thought, since civ II anyway, that that the space shuttle could have an interesting and useful purpose. What if at a certain point you could possibly control two maps. Perspectively two worlds... Obviously starting the same but at some point whoever won the space race could possibly have the run of their very own new world! The logistics of how this would i don't know. But imagine the possiblities; interplanetary trade, cargo spaceships, two maps working inconjunction. The possiblities are endless. For me this would revive a feature of the game (the space race) that i can say most people disable. This would also feed the fact that it seems we have reached a boundary with civ3. I mean how can we advance the span of the game into more moderm times when we don't know what technologies these civs will discover. I mean who the hell wants to retire when it come time. I personally like to see the whole map my color before i quit.

[Aramis]

Would the new world have new opponents? New techs, new ways to win?
My epic games are already very long. I'd be afraid of losing interest.

Intriguing concept, though.

[Lambiorix_be]

Re: Inter Planetary Conquests

Originally posted by techtedg
...For me this would revive a feature of the game (the space race) that i can say most people disable... I mean who the hell wants to retire when it come time. I personally like to see the whole map my color before i quit.

I never disable the space race. Although when I am at the point of the constructing a spaceship victory is already long since assured. The 'problem' is that the game is already decided long before you even start building your first tanks. So making the game longer by using another map would not be a challenge but rather tedious...

About retiring: you can always continue after your vicory...even after you destroyed every other civ

[Akka]

The concept was already used in Test of Time. Made for an interesting game, though it was becoming annoying toward the end, as all the wonders were slowly made obsolete, without replacements.

[techtedg]

Ya i know you can continue after 2000AD but it doesn't keep score anymore. Also in responce to Aramis i think the "new" world could have its own people, and also it could incorporate civs from the other map. Maybe even not as high scale as having complete control of another map. Possibly just mining and resource colonies. Planned excursions into the unknown. I'm sure there's a whole spectrum of ideas inbetween both of those possiblities. But of course there would be new techs and discoveries or else i agree... it would be boring. I'm looking for an interesting extension to the game.

[Brent]

I guess you could contact the other world by radio long before you can actually go there, and engage in some diplomacy that way. It might be a good idea to set up both worlds as being fairly small, to keep the game from being too long, although you could make the worlds larger if you really wanted to. Maybe if you want to you could make the worlds smaller than you could with only one world and have one civ per planet. My thought was to divide the real world civs among the planets, maybe dividing them by their culture groups. I guess not all the worlds would have to be quite so earthlike, but my idea was that they would all be within the normal range for setup. Maybe a MEW game should have a special tech tree where interplanetary travel comes early, like maybe in the middle ages, or maybe you don't actually travel between worlds but just communicate with them, or maybe you can communicate for a while but the game ends when you reach the other world. Inhabitants of the other world could subject themselves to you before you can reach them, but you win when you do reach them. I guess you could choose to put ficticious civs on the alien worlds if you want to, but I think the way I would want to play is with real ones on them. It could be tricky if each world only has some of the resource types.

I don't actually disable the space race, but I never choose that victory path myself. I normally try to conquer or assimilate the world before retirement, but when retirement comes, I never keep playing.

[techtedg]

I think it would be great to have civs from the first planet/map be able to leap to this new world as well, either through the same means as yourself or maybe through some kind of diplomacy where as one civ buys colonial transports or something. The possibilities are endless. Think about interplanetary trade!

[Brent]

Absolutely, any civ should be just as able to travel between planets as any other, depending on technology. Techtedg: do you agree with me about interplanetary travel being extremely difficult? I guess I think it would be such a well guarded technology that no player in their right mind would help anyone else to make the trip.

[techtedg]

Right it would be a prize technology. But able to be developed by anyone. Whomever got it first would have a jump in colonizing the "other" planet first.

[Trifna]

Actually... for different reasons I wouldn't see anything elaborate on the subject fitting in cIV.

BUT: it would make an incredible easter egg!


Just imagine: you unlock, in some way, the possibility to continue your game on Mars. Since it's an easter egg, hilarious things can be there such as green Martians, blue Martians, Elvis-city... who knows

[Brent]

Let me reiterate that in my version there wouldn't neccessarily be a "first" world. I guess the way I wasw thinking, Earth civs would start on both worlds at the same time, but I think that earlier I had the idea that one person's game could be started, or one multiplayer game could be started, and when they go out into space, they could merge their game with someone else's, which could be at a different point in its history.

Techtedg: Was it your original idea that a civ should have the chance to have an entire alien world to themselves? That could be good too.

Here's pretty much a new thought for me: Maybe you get to choose your rivals on your own world, but not on the other worlds. Maybe the computer chooses them for you. Maybe it can be as if that other world doesn't even exist if you meet some victory conditions before contact, but I guess we could all agree that that would make turns before then way too long unneccessarily. A solution to that would be that the game plants the new civs on the other world right before you get there and runs the alien civs for a few turns and they are very primitive when you find them, but that sounds like it would be too easy to pick them off. But the solution to that could be the impracticality of sending very many forces on the journey. Maybe the "aliens" have some sort of special bonus specifically for the purpose of avoiding the disadvantage of being so much younger than you. They could start with higher tech and/ or advance faster. Your ship could crash and they could recover your tech from your ship, with you being unable to do anything about it. Maybe aliens from a third world are automatically involved, having given the natives advanced technology shortly before your arrival.

Maybe you would start on a regular civ world, which has a moon. This moon is smaller than the minimum size for pregame setup of "Earth". The moon could have earthlike terrain, or moonspecific terrain. There would be noone there until someone arrived from "Earth".

Trifna: I like your idea too.

Maybe a game could incorporate more than one subidea related to this thread. Maybe a game would incorporate one or more, but you don't know which one(s) if any. Maybe you could set it up to include one or more, and it could surprise you by adding others.

[techtedg]

First of all Brent my original idea was to open up discussion on the subject i didn't really have a complete "version" in my head. Just a notion of possibilities. I think the idea for interplanetary conquests is a good one and should be incorporated with many different way to play it out not just one. All these ideas are good ones and i think we should develope each one, there are so many possible ways to configure such an option. I mean maybe the best way to configure this could be a new game type. INTERPLANETARY. One idea that sticks out now though is Brent's option of having both worlds start at the same time, and then when technology permits they could unite and trade... and pillage each other. You could have a 32 civ all out battle. After you defeat the first planet or maybe in the middle of defeating the world you originated from you could spawn off into another map and work it too. So many possiblities keep posting on!

[techtedg]

P.S. i still like the idea of starting out normal and later once techs permitted exploring the "other" planet, sort of unlocking an extension to the game. That would be scored as a part of the game too. I think this and the style i mentioned above should both be available.

[Brent]

Should there be "an Interplanetary Conquest" in the sense of the special scenarios in the second Civ3 expansion pack? It wouldn't neccessarily be conquest in the sense of war.

Or should "Interplanetary Civilizations" be a future game from Firaxis or someone else, maybe Stardock? It would be different from "Galactic Civilizations" because you start at the same level of technology as in Civilization Prime, although you would probably advance faster. You could possibly have neighbors on your own world. The game could be restricted to one star system, and certainly couldn't be as big as you can make Galciv. I lean towards not even having an outer space map, just the individual worlds. The individual worlds probably wouldn't get as big as the Civ worlds can. They could possibly have the option of being smaller. You could possibly have all the options ralating to this thread. Maybe larger worlds would be allowed only if there are fewer of them. It would be cool if Chiron could be one of the possible planets in this game.

A general comment for the general concept of this thread: You could see a map of the other world before reaching it or even before radio contact. Maybe it would start as one hemisphere and slowly widen until you can see the whole map. I guess you couldn't see individual units until you actually arrive. Maybe first you can only see terrain, and later before you arrive you can see cities. I think you wouldn't know the names or affiliations of the cities until you arrive. Maybe you can see roads before you arrive. And I think you should be able to see the effects of agricultural activity.

Oh, and a belated reply to the third post: I want the game to already be decided before it starts: I want to always win. But that's just me. If I ever do decide that I want a challenge, maybe I'll actually play at a higher difficulty level than the easiest.