The Moon and Mars

[Melios]

What I never could understand in Civ1 and Civ2 is how you could develop the Apollo Program (land of the Moon, do some things in orbit around Earth) and suddenly be able to colonize a planet in ANOTHER SOLAR SYSTEM ??????????

That makes no sense. Logically, you'd wnt to develop colonies on the Moon and Mars before even thinking about colonizing another Solar System.

It would make more sense if you won by building a colony on the Moon or Mars. That's the real next step.

[The diplomat]

You make a good point. it would certainly be more realistic.

The "problem" is that civ3 is about empire building on earth. If you introduce the colonization of the solar system, then you completely deviate from what the game is all about. Civ must stay focused on earth, and so realism has to be truncated somewhat.

[TechWins]

Who's really cares? Who cares if you're colonizing Mars or Alpha? What's the big difference, it's just a small minor detail that doesn't even matter. If you want to think that you're colonizing Mars then just pretend because it doesn't matter.

[Pythagoras]

Maybe you can edit out "Alpha Centauri" and put in "Mars"

[Bill3000]

Originally posted by Pythagoras
Maybe you can edit out "Alpha Centauri" and put in "Mars"

I don' think it will take years to go to Mars.

[General Ludd]

You're right, it should only take 6-18 months to get there. I guess you could edit the years into days/months while you are at it

[jdlessl]

The entire space race part of Civ is totally unrealistic anyway. Nobody goes from putting a man on the moon to sending out interstellar colonies. There's the entire development, colonization, and industrialization of the home system, all of which is totally ignored in Civ and barely touched on in SMAC.

The problem, of course, is that expanding into space makes it a different game altogether. Anyone know of any good single star system colonization games?

--
Jared Lessl

[General Ludd]

The only space exploration sim that I can think of is buzz arden's race into space, an ancient game about the space race, you can find it at alot of abandonware sites. I've never gotten it to work on this computer though, so I have no idea what it's like.

[Col Bigspear]

I've got BARIS, tis a good game. Got it from www.theunderdogs.org. Very hard game. I play as Yanks, Soviets launch first satellite etc and win. I play as Soviets, Yanks lauch first satellite etc and win. The AI knows when a launch will be a success or failure. 4 turns in Americans launch first sat, here's me 62% R&D on sputnik and several turns away from a launch, and I put all my budget in Sputnik programe . I can only get the game working about every 2/10 times so I don't play it that much. Nice sounds though, Russian count down etc.

I agree though the space race in civ needs an overhaul.

[jerkwaterbox]

Re: The Moon and Mars

Originally posted by Melios
What I never could understand in Civ1 and Civ2 is how you could develop the Apollo Program (land of the Moon, do some things in orbit around Earth) and suddenly be able to colonize a planet in ANOTHER SOLAR SYSTEM ??????????

That makes no sense. Logically, you'd wnt to develop colonies on the Moon and Mars before even thinking about colonizing another Solar System.

It would make more sense if you won by building a colony on the Moon or Mars. That's the real next step.

In Civ 2, the point of the spaceship going to aplha centauri is that they are looking for a new planet to move people from earth because overpopulation is recking the planet. Apparently in the game Alpha Centauri has an atmosphere like earth.

also there are techs discovered between the time of the apollo program and the time you can build spaceships. The only part of the ship you can build after completing the apollo program is stuctual. the other parts require new techs to be researched.

[Pythagoras]

Sending a ship to AC is one thing, sending thousands of colonists because you somehow know there is a habitable planet there is another...

[isaac brock]

hey, i'm not going to question the idea of going to alpha centauri as long as the ship has a planetary party room. i mean, if you want to go to mars, go ahead and freeze to death.

[RedWhiteArcher]

Col Bigspear

Oh man. You are playing the game really wrong.
Just here is some tips:
Unless you get a random reduce development card, launch the satellite the next season in addition if you make it in first try you get a budget bonus the next year.
Tell me if you want detailed help on the game. I beat it without save & load twice and I know how to do it the easy way (but its not interesting)