Please provide info about the research wins

[tobyr]

I'm having trouble finding documentation about research wins, although I think I have read in the past that:
- original game: future tech V wins (?)
- fantasy game" hanging from yggdrasil 8 wins (?)
- sci fi game ??

My questions are:
(1) What exactly ARE the three research wins?
(2) What makes them "fair", considering that all you have to do while researching them is devote all your resrouces to defense and mayb a little hindrance of your opponents?

Tnx in advance...
- toby


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[John Possidente]

There is a research win in all of the new games, and someone sneaked an undocumented research win into the original game, too.

At some point, one of the Future Techs and one of the Hangings from Yggdrasil results in a win. I honestly don't remember the numbers. In the Extended game, it's Transcendence (as noted on the poster). In the SF game, returning to Earth via the Earthgate (as noted on the poster) counts as a research win.

The theory behind a research win is, first of all, that Civ players asked for it. You might be surprised by it, but we really do listen to what you all have to say and, when it's possible and reasonable (there's that word again), we try very hard to put what you say you want into the games. The other major thought behind adding it was to complete the flexibility of Civ. One of the strengths of this game is that it allows every player to pursue his or her own type of strategy--military, economic, or whatever. The only major missing piece of that was the possibility of winning through purely scientific endeavors.

If you believe that it's not fair (too easy), then maybe we made the research wins too easy to accomplish. The theory is the same as the space race win--if you can hold off your enemies long enough and keep your productivity (of components or research) high enough, you can win by non-military means.

[SixArmedMan]

To win by research in the sci-fi game, you have to kill all those guardians that come from Nona first if I'm not mistaken. I think there's at least 3 or 4 different aliens that have to be killed. Once you procure the techs from killing those things, THEN you're allowed to win by research. I thought that was VERY well implemented rather than just letting the player plod blindly forth and win by research.

And to win by hanging from yggdrasil, I thought from reading the events.txt or something like that, that it was totally random, like a 1/25 chance. So it would take MASSIVE researching before one finally nails it I guess.

[tobyr]

Thanks, SixArmedMan, I did not know where to look. It's a 1/35 chance per turn, I think, after yggdrasil 8. Each turn is probably a year at this point, so it means you are likely to get the win within 50 years of reaching ygg 8. If you are getting advances every 3 turns, you probably will win within 75 years of getting ygg 1. (But maybe you are getting an advance every turn...)

The main problem is that this process is likely to be boring; but maybe this long process means you really have to worry about the other civs catching up to you and wiping you out or building the final great siege engine.

- toby



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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com