Space Colonization

[_BuRjaCi_]

Get your facts straight !

But since I built the frekkin space elevator in the 1970's it seems that realism or historical acuracy isn't a big issue in cIV.

And a SMAC II would be sweet!

[Grenouille]

Is the space elevator feasible anyways?
There`s no known material strong enough for the ropes..

[GeoModder]

...yet...

[Enigma_Nova]

[Bill3000]

The Space Elevator is more feasible than you think. Oh, and carbon nanotubes.

[gdijedi7]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
Marco Polo has been born on The Moon!

My problem with what happened in Test of Time, and to a lesser extent, Alpha Centauri, is that the technological advancement is too full of fantasy. I know that "Any sufficently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," but COME ON! Flying 8-Balls? Reality engineering? Some realism needs to be injected, although, colonizing another planet while you rule a country on Earth would be cool. You could have an option to have aliens or not.

[Enigma_Nova]

How in god's name are you going to generate a 10-kilometre-long carbon nanotube?
You'd need a 10-kilometer-high Laboratory, but you can't build that without the tubes themselves!
Either that, or you build a 10-kilometer-long laboratory, and then you have to sort of tie one end of the nanotube to a spaceship to get it up in the air, and hope it doesn't break.

[vee4473]

Originally posted by Backpack
Hey -
We can already zoom OUT to see a planet view..... maybe one of the expansions will let us zoom WAY OUT to see the moon (Or perhaps with artistic License The Moon to the left of the Earth, and Mars to the right. Then once you have the enabling tech, and NW, you can center on the other planet and zoom in to that playing field.....

at least, That's one way of doing it, but it would take some SERIOUS work in the SDK, or a professional Expansion IMHO to pull off.

I love this idea.

Combining smac and civ was always a dream of mine. And I mean in one game, not 2 separate ones.

[vee4473]

How about a "death star" victory condition. Whoever builds it first gets to use it to blow up the Earth...after evacuating on board of course..

[Xuenay]

Originally posted by gdijedi7
My problem with what happened in Test of Time, and to a lesser extent, Alpha Centauri, is that the technological advancement is too full of fantasy.

You'll have a pretty hard time of making a tech tree that goes a lot into the future and NOT include fantasy-ish elements.

[Grenouille]

There`s a difference between (hard) science fiction and fantasy.

[gdijedi7]

I agree that it may be difficult, Xuenay, but It shouldn't be impossible. Issac Asimov did a decent job of it (most of the time). That said, Grenouville is right. Science Fiction and "Science" Fantasy are different. It may be difficult, but it can be done.

[Xuenay]

Only problem being, hard science fiction is only believable when talking about near-future. One can probably predict advances ~30-50 years to the future pretty well, but going a hundred years forward, the lack of change in most "hard" science fiction just makes it unbelievable. It might work if you just extend the Civ tech tree with a couple of decades, but in a game like Alpha Centauri that covers a couple of *hundred* years? Forget about it.

(Though I must say that while I don't remember the SMAC technologies all *that* well anymore, excluding the psychic stuff they did seem pretty realistic to me. Or at least they didn't break suspension of disbelief.)

[Mujadaddy]

You don't combine civ & SMAC, you combine civ & Master of Orion... the end of the Civ game is the start of a pre-warp MOO game

[Grenouille]

Originally posted by Xuenay
Only problem being, hard science fiction is only believable when talking about near-future. One can probably predict advances ~30-50 years to the future pretty well, but going a hundred years forward, the lack of change in most "hard" science fiction just makes it unbelievable.

You can still try to stay close to what is believed to be physically possible and feasible. And who of us is going to live til the year 2100 to find out if an 2005 game was a realistic prognose the future? hehe