Idea (for Civ3 XP2): how to make the Modern Era EXCITING

[vondrack]

OK, I do not frequently start threads because of ideas that happen to cross my mind, but this time I can't get something off my head. It started in a rather ugly thread where I was conducting a futile dispute about the relation between immersion and competition in Civ games. It doesn't really matter what it was about... anyway, based upon sidenotes by vmxa1, player1, and WarpStorm, I had an idea come to my mind.

Most people seem to complain of rather boring Modern Age gameplay (tedium and such). There seem to be rather hollow options, what one can do:

1) if the game went well in previous ages, it is just a matter of playing through the tedium to whatever victory one chooses, usually not even progressing through the whole techtree.
2) if the game did not go well in previous ages, it is usually a matter of trying to stop the current leader, sometimes even on the expense of doing things that make sense from the win-lose point of view, but make little sense in world-wide point of view (unless your only goal is to have the whole world in ruins until 2050AD). I mean: what can you do, if a rival civ is close to launching a spaceship? Unless you are closer, your only option (unless you are ready to "die as a gentleman") is to attack and hope for destroying that civ's capital/SS. Which some consider just fine, others don't, as it spoils their feeling of "immersion".



OK, anyway, here is the idea (most of it has already been posted in that other thread, but since the idea was not related to its topic very much, I am starting a new thread for it here):

To make the Modern Ages an exciting period of the game for both warmongers (=players oriented more on destruction) AND builders (=players oriented more on building, often "immersing" in the Civ-world), I suggest Firaxians add one new victory condition and completely redo one existing victory type:

The new victory condition would be called, say "DeathStar" (yep, after that Star Wars thingy). Its principle would be to build a special compound unit made up of one Army-like container filled with various special "part" units. Once completed, it would grant the owner an immediate and total control of the whole world - game over, much like when the SS launches to AC in the current Civ3. This unit would be much like the current SS, as far as the tech-tree dependency goes. You would need an early modern tech to be able to build a prerequisite small wonder ("DeathStar Construction Yard"? ...) and few more to be able to build the "parts" units. I would make it kinda units 'cause the player would often have to move them in order to assemble the DeathStar (unless he would construct the whole thing slowly in one city, part after part...), which would bring in the risk of his secret project being exposed to his rivals.

Once such a project would be exposed, it would be a perfect (and credible!) reason for all the other civs to form a broad coalition, doing their best to crush the insane leader of the DeathStar-constructing nation. It would make perfect sense BOTH from the game win-lose point of view (DS completed = game over, hence everybody would be trying to prevent that) and from the "story telling" or "immersion" point of view (imagine the righteous struggle for the freedom of the world!).

Warmongers longing for a real challenge would start building their DeathStar and consciously risk facing the military of the desperate rest of the world (ultimate challenge here!). Builders would either switch this victory condition off (if they really dislike warfare that much) or just focus on not letting anyone else build it (enjoying what they like most - a grand story of the Civilization, an epic struggle for the better future of their nation and the whole world).

The other part of my idea would be to rehash the SpaceShip victory. I would suggest making the spaceship a small wonder allowed by the Future Tech 1. A small wonder that would be rather cheap to build (shield-wise), say 1-2 turns in a properly developed metropolis, in order to make reaching Future Tech 1 basically equal to winning the game "scientifically". Once you started building the ship, there would be very little that could be done to stop you. Being a small wonder, nobody would know (by F7) where the SS is being built, thus making it very difficult to destroy in the (very) limited timeframe.

This way, the Modern Era could finally become exciting (at least I can imagine so). The techtree would finally make sense up until the very last tech (building the SDI would be the prudent thing to do before starting the SS construction... )

And what's best, we would finally have something thrilling going on in the Modern Era. Not just mindless crushing of other weaker empires, just because "they are there and we have nothing better to do..." or rather boring construction of all kinds of city improvements, "because we do not want to wage any more war and have nothing better to do". Even better... this might provide us with what we ask for: a way to allow civs that are a bit backward, smaller, and less powerful to win the game. Because if they manage to secretly build the SS, they win. Even if they fail to conceal the secret, somebody still have to stop them. A very good reason for a world superpower to maintain powerful forces throughout the world and not just fortify on its own continent! You opt for building "Fortress MyCiv" and start building the DS? Prepare to be nuked from all around! Prepare for SOME fighting. Prepare for the ultimate challenge! I believe that it would bring what many call "the balance of power".

I would love to hear your comments on the idea. I do realize that there would be many more aspects to precise, like the cost of spying on other civs with regard to the DS construction, balancing the DS container/parts shield-costs etc. But do you think it could work? Would like to have it implemented?

The beauty of this idea is (at least I strongly believe so) that Firaxis would probably be able to implement it as part of another XP. IMHO, it does not need radical changes to the game-engine, rules, nor the AI...

Hey, guys, what do you think?

[Tiberius]

Hey Radek, not bad!

I'm too tired now to get excited about it (about anything right now, for that matter) and I need to rereaed it tomorrow, but after a first reading: promising!

[Jon Shafer]

Get rid of RR infinite movement.

Voila.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Trip
Get rid of RR infinite movement.

Voila.

Trip, this would also be fine and I would welcome that, too, but it's something completely different from what I'm proposing here with DeathStar. Finite RR movement does not solve the inherent tedium of the Modern Era. True, the wars would be more about tactics and strategy and less about mindless troop massing. But you would still lack the reason to go to that nice war... unless you are happy with just about any war...

[Inverse Icarus]

make the naval / air game more involved and useful. the current "blockade" is ineffective. trade routes to foriegn nations should be visible on the map, and a ship anywhere on it should force the civ to find a new route using different cities. this way, trade could be blockaded by ships not sitting next to the city, although it would take more.

[monkspider]

I have to admit, I like the deathstar idea!
I wish that you could commence primary ignition and blow up a country with it though.

[HazieDaVampire]

Originally posted by Trip
Get rid of RR infinite movement.

Voila.

Yeah, what i'd like to see is little trains containing units going around!

Then i can launch an air campaign against a convoy holding UberKrux's 5 armys full of tanks. MUHAHAHAHA!

[vondrack]

Originally posted by UberKruX
make the naval / air game more involved and useful. the current "blockade" is ineffective. trade routes to foriegn nations should be visible on the map, and a ship anywhere on it should force the civ to find a new route using different cities. this way, trade could be blockaded by ships not sitting next to the city, although it would take more.

OK, guys, I really appreciate you throwing ideas in but I may have used a misleading thread name... I am honestly sorry for that. In this very thread, I am not looking for more ideas how to improve the Modern Era gameplay. There have been numerous threads on this topic and I don't think it would be worth our time to repeat what has already been said. This time, I am proposing something quite new and am kindly asking what your opinion about the DeathStar idea is.

Oh yes, it does involve reading that lengthy first post... will anyone spend the time?

[HazieDaVampire]

trade transporters is what we need, during peace they should be automated unless we say otherwise in out options.

That way we can have a little transporter on the other side of the world full of 2000gold trying to get home and has about 20 u-boats hunting it, now thats a good game! Its a good game when you can think back to a certain fun point and say "it was so cool when i managed to avoid them u-boats!"
and "it was so cool bombing Uber to hell and back"

[Arrian]

I read it.

I'm not sure about it. What would be the trigger for discovering that a civ is building the DeathStar, a successfully planted spy? Would then every other civ be FORCED to declare war on the offending civ, or simply have a strong encouragement to do so?

If the game has gone well, fighting the whole world wouldn't be all that difficult, especially if you plan it properly (use a palace and an army from your Mil Academy city as prebuilds for the small wonder and the first component, and not doing this until all the DS tech was discovered. Then it's just a matter of holding off the AI until you complete the construction projects).

Anyway, this, like many of the more involved ideas on how to fix up the modern age, would require significant programming changes from Firaxis. If they are willing to do that, I'd rather other changes be made (beef up the UN, for instance).

-Arrian

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Arrian
I read it.

Thanks!

Originally posted by Arrian
I'm not sure about it. What would be the trigger for discovering that a civ is building the DeathStar, a successfully planted spy? Would then every other civ be FORCED to declare war on the offending civ, or simply have a strong encouragement to do so?

Well, I thought about something like this... first: you would have to have a spy planted. Second, every turn, there would be a certain probability that the project gets exposed - every "DS-part" unit located/built in a city would add a certain set amount of exposure probability (like, say, 10%... if there are 10 parts of the DS). If you kept all the parts in one city, the probability would be quite high (actually, progressively higher and higher), but there would be just a single check made every turn (since there would be only one city housing/building DS parts). If you distributed the DS-parts across your empire, the exposure probability would be pretty low, but every turn there would be a separate check for every city housing or building at least one DS-part. If you were daring enough and kept the DS parts outside your cities (like well hidden somewhere deep in your territory), then there would be no exposure check (or the exposure probability would be significantly lowered, like 1/10 of the normal amount or whatever...), but you'd risk that someone will simply happen to spot your secret place (using the Recon planes or something...) or spot your DS-part unit moving to there...

DS would not - by any means - directly force other nations to declare war. It would just be a very strong encouragement to do so... just like there is currently a very strong encouragement to jump on a civ that is getting close to completing the spaceship...

Originally posted by Arrian
If the game has gone well, fighting the whole world wouldn't be all that difficult, especially if you plan it properly (use a palace and an army from your Mil Academy city as prebuilds for the small wonder and the first component, and not doing this until all the DS tech was discovered. Then it's just a matter of holding off the AI until you complete the construction projects).

True. Which is exactly what you can currently do with the spaceship. Maybe there could be a dead-end tech needed only for the DS... once you find out that a civ researched it (and you do find out quite easily through the Trade screen), it would be a pretty good sign something is happening...

My original intention was actually not to invent something brilliant to solve the Modern Age problem. I just disliked the fact that in order to avoid losing the game, I have to attack anyone being close to the SS launch. That just did not feel right to me... made sense in the win-lose terms, but was a nonsense from the "story-telling" point of view...

I first just thought of "renaming" the SS to DeathStar, thus making it an ultimate evil that would actually suggest a desperate military action in order to prevent the end of the world/game. Would make sense then even from the "story-telling" point of view. Only later I realized that there could be other added benefits...

Originally posted by Arrian
Anyway, this, like many of the more involved ideas on how to fix up the modern age, would require significant programming changes from Firaxis. If they are willing to do that, I'd rather other changes be made (beef up the UN, for instance).

Well, yes, you are correct. Unless someone from Firaxis actually estimates how much programming this DeathStar thing or beefing UN up or any other major change/addition would be, it is just dreaming... but then, we keep dreaming about new Civ features every day...

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read my idea and commenting it, Arrian.

[Demerzel]

my main problem with the modern era is that you have to micromanage so many cities/units that each turn takes forever not even considering the time the AI takes to manage its own affairs. even worse if it feels the need to move its stack of death through/nearby your terrority, watching all hundred units move slowly is great fun every goddamn turn.

also normally you have tanks or MA whereas the enemy has nothing comparable and you have the tedium of slowly wading through enemy civs knowing that it will take too long to win to keep your interest going when a new game is more fun.

with regards to that, a set of new victory conditions would be good. a "deathstar" sounds awful similiar to the real life USA's "we dont care what you think our ballistic missile defence is great and we'll build it over all our allies' objections". not that peeps will attack the USA in RL over the missile defence but it shows the blatant lack of regard for anyone else that a "deathstar" victory would entail. us versus them indeed.

[jshelr]

I like it. 2 cents below.

I agree that the modern world is too warlike in Civ III. Building on Arrian's comment, I've always thought that the UN should be an alliance that attacks anyone attacking a member state. The UN should be a small wonder available to everyone. So, in the modern era, if you attack one, you attack all.

To attack all, you need the deathstar.

To win as a small nation, you need to keep out of trouble and build the SS, which now takes longer.

Otherwise, the winner is the big guy.

This sets up a rock/paper/sissors scheme. Big guys that go the deathstar route can get into serious trouble. Those that don't could get deathstarred. Just being big "don't cut it" if the little guy gets the SS. The game ain't over 'til it's over.

So, my serious comment is that the big guy should not have an overwhelming advantage in building the deathstar. It might require its own branch of the tech tree. Once you go down the dark side of the tech tree, you fall too far behind to ever catch up on the SS branch. Do you see the tradeoff and what it would do to late-game competition??

[bbaws]

I'd go for a moonbase on the farside perhaps. Electomagnetic catapult hurling moonboulders down on the foe. To me the whole SS to Alpha Centauri has always been pretty dubious. The game should continue until the colony is established well and has sent "we're ok" back home. I've thought since Civ that the space win should be determined by mastership of the moon. Once you control the moon and the space within it's orbit you are master of earth and the other civs bow down.
The apollo project in my ideal Civ wouldn't be a wonder, it would be a gradula development of technologies geared chiefly toward the taming of the moon. To make it super interesting I's want to see a lot of opportunity for cooperative diplomacy in the early part of the space age.
Probably you'd need a sub game on the moon. How do you keep control of your colony over that distance. How do you get other civ's moonbases to join you without triggering an all out nuclear exchange. Most importantly I'd be looking for ways that a small civ could turn the game to their advantage. What i think would work best would be if you needed to have a production base big enough to churn out 5000-10,00 shields per turn. Either you've got to be a huge empire or you are forced to work with your rivals to get over that threshold. Probably you'd want threshold on cash turnover and scientific research. Ideally I'd want to be forced into an era where war is impossible as an end game. The whole military industrial complex of the civ world rendered powerless by stalemate and the issue being decided in a small but intense subgame where even the biggest safest empire could be lost to a chance mis step.
New tech internationalism (appearing as if by magic) after any industrial or modern age war that lasted too long or destroyed too many units/population/ The player and the AIs suddenly left with the stark choice of total destruction or adeveloping jointly a smaller arena to express their rivalry.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by jshelr
I like it. 2 cents below.

Thanks! Every cent welcome!

Originally posted by jshelr
So, my serious comment is that the big guy should not have an overwhelming advantage in building the deathstar. It might require its own branch of the tech tree. Once you go down the dark side of the tech tree, you fall too far behind to ever catch up on the SS branch. Do you see the tradeoff and what it would do to late-game competition??

Even though this is different from my initial idea, I must admit I like it much more than what I came with. Making a special dead-end techtree branch specifically for the purpose of the DeathStar strategy would be great. It would also bring one thing I miss a bit... a choice where to go in the techtree. I am quite okay with that I have to make all my way through the techtree in the Ancient, Medieval, and Industrial Eras, altering only the order of researched techs. It's still quite a lot of strategy involved. But having the crucial decision which branch in the techtree to go for in the Modern Era would be great. Am I big? Has the game become kinda boring and way too easy? Good, let's see if I can make the DeathStar and finish the game quicker. Let's choose the DS ("evil") techtree route, giving up the SS ("peaceful") route. Challenge involved, tedium decrease possible. Making the DS-tech researchers fall back on the SS-techs seems like a very good idea to me.

Originally posted by jshelr
I agree that the modern world is too warlike in Civ III. Building on Arrian's comment, I've always thought that the UN should be an alliance that attacks anyone attacking a member state. The UN should be a small wonder available to everyone. So, in the modern era, if you attack one, you attack all.

Thinking of this, I guess Arrian could throw in a bit more of his thoughts about the improved UN. I can now see that it would probably complement my DS idea greatly. Becoming a member of the UN, you would have to agree on giving up the DS route. In exchange, you'd get backed up by everyone else (kinda MMPP, multi-MMP) and you'd get a UN emissary in every UN member state. That would be sort of an official spy, allowing to spy on secret DS building (see my prior post for the spying mechanism). Once someone starts fiddling with the DS, he/she gets ousted (if a UN member) and all the UN guys turn against him. Trade embargoes, military pressure and such...

Damn, another idea crosses my mind... I am almost unable to type quickly enough.

Here: there are basically two scenarios for the Modern Era. Either you rule the world or you are quite out of the competition, hoping for the UN or SS victory. Out of my experience, it is rather rare that I enter the Modern Era coming close second or third (speaking the actual power, not histograph ladder position). The breakpoint usually comes in the Industrial Era (the ToE/Hoover combo) at latest anyway. To beef the Modern Era up, you need something that will challenge you even if you are #1, plus something else that will give you a honorable way of "winning" the game even from behind... something you could still be proud of (not just the UN vote, which still seems a bit cheap to me).

Now, what about this: let's redefine the SS victory condition COMPLETELY. Lets make it a TEAM goal or TEAM victory, at least to an extent. All the UN members would - somehow, details not that important right now - cooperate in order to construct the spaceship and go to AC, being attributed a "victory share" proportional to their contribution to the SS project, which would be indirectly a result of their scientific and economic strength (and fine SS-construction strategy, too). Various SS-techs would allow constructing various SS parts that would be "Great Wonders" by their nature. Every SS-tech might allow several SS-GWs (do you still get me? ), priced equally shield-wise, but valued differently with regard to the "SS victory share". Apparently, the civ that invents a tech goes for the most valued SS-GW, while others - which may receive the tech for free from the UN after several turns (kinda like from the Great Library), or immediately for a fixed price (profit to be given to the civ that invented the tech, helping it build the most valued SS-GW related to the tech in question - ok, I do realize there is a problem with this, as money currently cannot help you with a GW... would have to think of a workaround). There would be SS-GWs enough to allow for cascading almost every time someone beats you to one of them (maybe having some "spill-over" parts that would not be GWs by nature and which you could always build, to save the shields from being completely wasted... they would be valued significantly lower than the SS-GWs, but still add a bit to your SS-share), to simulate the cooperation... even though the cascades would be less valued in terms of the SS-victory share.

If the UN members manage to build all the SS-GW-parts, they are proclaimed winners. The SS launch movie gets tweaked a bit to show crowds of people from all races (to symbolize the joint effort of the civilized world) watching the SS launch... on the bottom side of the screen, there is the running text, like "Today, the dream has come true. The SpaceShip, a joint effort of the leading nations of the world, finally launches. The immense efforts of CivA's, Civ'B, CivC's etc. scientists, engineers, and workers have brought a new hope to the civilized world. The mankind gets closer to the stars." ....aaahh... just a moment, I am wiping a tear...

The civs would be listed in the order of their "SS victory share". Reading your civ name on the first place would still be rewarding, wouldn't it?

OK, back to the ground. What would the possible Modern Age scenarios be?

1) Me big guy. Me bad guy. Me wanna win alone. Me build DeathStar. - ultimate challenge for those that aim for a total victory shared by noone else.
2) Me big guy. Me good guy. Me wanna make the world a better place to live and go to AC. Me go the UN/SS way and use my research and economic power to make the greatest contribution to the SS project and become "the first among winning nations".
3) Me sucker. Me still wanna win. At least a bit! Me go the UN/SS way and do my best to make as much as possible to contribute to the SS project, eventually being proclaimed one of the winners, even if not becoming the SS-project most important contributor.
4) Me kinda sucker. Me evil sucker. Me still wanna win ALONE. Me give the DeathStar a try and see if others are powerful enough to stop me.
5) One of 1,2,3,4, but complicated by the fact that some rogue AI nation decides to go for the DS, thus implying a UN-coordinated military action against it. Welcome to WW3!

Getting back to jshelr's idea about hampering the SS research capabilities of anyone going the DS route, it could be done by UN granting a significant boost to one's science output. The DS techs would be kinda cheaper beaker-wise, but still pretty difficult to get, 'cause there would be mostly only one country researching them. The SS techs would be much more expensive beaker-wise, making them pretty much unreachable to any rogue civ building the DS, but their higher research costs would be - for the UN member states - roughly offset by the extra science boost granted by the UN membership.

Arrian, what else would you do with the UN? I have never been much into SMAC, so I have only a very vague idea what such thing could be good for...

Ooops... this is by far the most exciting thread for me in weeks... Guys, keep your comments coming, please! Thanks!

P.S.: I do realize now that the ideas are more for Civ4 than for Civ3 XP2, but I still believe that it would be enough to just enhance and further develop the current game engine, without any need to rewrite the game from scratch.