A return to the good old days of the space race

[Zebitty]

I long for the days of Civ2 where the space race was much more mercenary than in Civ3. The fact that you could fling a half built craft in space if you were losing the race to Alpha Centauri, or race to nuke the capital of the nation that got into space first in the intervening twenty year gap and cause theirs to self destruct, was a great system. The Civ3 method of just informing you that so-&-so has won the space race was tragically flawed. Hopefully that is remedied in Civ4. Sadly, none of the shops have it here yet.......... But to quote a rather sad semi-celeb from down under....."I'm excited"

[Ansaga]

Prepared to be very very dissapointed.

[Zebitty]

because of the game in general or just the space race thing

[Lineatus]

Zebitty,
I agree with you 100%. I really loved the old space race from Civ I (which apparently is similar to Civ II).

Civ IV is horrid. When you build the parts you can't see what you are building. After you build the last part the space ship teleports to wherever it is going and you win. You don't even get to press the LAUNCH button. The ability to capture the capital to destroy the space ship made for real interesting and fun games.

So far my two changes to Civ IV would be to put back the fun space race, and to get rid of the UN dictatorship (Currently you have to do whatever the UN says, you have no choice at all. You can’t even refuse).

[Zebitty]

thats rather disappointing - the idea of religion and civics seemed great but some of the downsides that I'm hearing about are making me wonder if it's another Civ3 in sheep's clothing. I mean recent history has proven that nations don't have to obey the UN.......but there are potential consequences to that disobedience....I wouldn't have thought that would be too hard to model in-game

[Willem]

Re: A return to the good old days of the space race

The fact that you could fling a half built craft in space if you were losing the race to Alpha Centauri,

Yes, that was kind of cool. There were a few times that I squeeked out a victory by finishing a ship that was just a bit faster than the other civ's and getting there first despite launching after his. Though it happened the other way around as well.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I agree it was more fun in CivII, which is the ultimate goal, but I can see the argument for making it work this way. When you nuked the enemy capital and stopped their ship, that was really a military strategy trumping the scientific victory...meaning that the scientific strategy was really useless unless you had a military backup plan.

But like I said, that's really a devil's advocate position, it was a lot more fun in ye olden days.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Koyaanisqatsi
When you nuked the enemy capital and stopped their ship, that was really a military strategy trumping the scientific victory...meaning that the scientific strategy was really useless unless you had a military backup plan.

It would be easy to correct that. Just have the spaceship constructed in space, with only the individual components built on Earth. Which is where an interplanetary spacecraft should have to be built anyway. Destroying the capital would mean you only stop production of a single component.

If the space race were brought back, you could then get into designing your ship, which would be fun. Build one for speed but less colonists, or build a slow one that carried more people. The more colonists you send out, the more points you get.

[FrostyBoy]

You don't see the spaceship!? What was Firaxis thinking?!?!? So now, one of the most fun parts of Civilization, has dropped below all 3 previous Civ's?

Way to go Firaxis:

[ZanThrax]

You can look at a picture of it, but it isn't like the old days where you see the components added on. More of a graphical checklist. And no variation of design allowed.

[meriadoc]

I too think that the Civ IV spaceship is rather lame.

First, I had looked forward to the ability to once again be able to launch incomplete spaceships. That was a nice, realistic feature that was also, in my opinion, fun.

My biggest complaint with the current system, however, is that the "graphical picture" of the ship is useless. Civ III's screen showed, without having to move a muscle, what had been built, what still needed building, and what was being built where. Civ IV's "screen", on the other hand, shows nothing useful.

[Gray_Lensman]

So far, from all the posts I have read. I am absolutely thrilled that I have no been duped into rushing out to buy this beta release. My posture of wait and see has paid off!!! At least this time, I have not wasted any money.

Time to go back and play Alpha Centauri/Crossfire.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Gray_Lensman
Time to go back and play Alpha Centauri/Crossfire.

Nice to see that I'm not the only one playing that game still.

[CaptainVW]

Actually, you can still mess with your opponents spaceship production by using spies- my last game ended with 4 of the 7 civs in a space race. I had 1 spy on each of my opponents' continents. I pumped up my tax rate (not needing to develop tech anymore) and kept sabotaging the production of the most expensive components in my enemys' cities. It's expensive to complete this action (around 3000-4000 gold), but it can knock back production a few turns. The spy lets you see how much time a particular city has until it completes it's part. I only lost 1 of my 4 implanted spies by doing this, and thankfully I had a backup on the same continent.

I DO miss the spaceship display, the current "blueprint" that never updates feels incomplete, and I hope that that's addressed in the future. For now, you can get a report on both your and your closest rival's spaceship progress in the 'score' screen.

I also agree that the game ends pretty abrubtly upon spaceship completion. I think there should be an option for a 15- or 20- turn period after launch where a capitol capture (and spaceship stop) is possible. BUT- I think the spy's sabotage feature is supposed to be the replacement for that, and for what it's worth, I had a great time with it tonight. And I won! :-)

[LzPrst]

why do they insist on taking away good things for every new version? in civ2 they put in fantastic wonder movies. in civ3 they removed them. in civ3 they had a decent civilopedia, in civ4 its deficient. in civ1 you had a great spaceship building epoch in civ3-4 its been nerfed. smac had the civics idea, wonderful, it wasnt included in civ3, luckily it came to civ4. combat system in civ2 was great, combat system in civ3 was horrid.
in civ3 they put in resources. great, but we've been muttering that a single resource will feed an entire empire. nothing has been done about that

i'm sad to say, the game is still incomplete. its only 95% done, and a game should not be sold until it is 100% done.