Opinion on Space feature for Civ 3

[Theben]

I think Madad makes a good point- if the game allows players to build a huge spaceship capable of traveling to another solar system in a few years, why does so little else occur in space?

The answer IMHO is not to add huge layers to the space portion of the game (spy/war sats, orbital space stations, high altitude combat aircraft, and maybe 1 or 2 orbital spacecraft capable of combat is all), but either to remove that victory condition or instead make the journey to Mars instead of Alpha Centauri. Since this should only take a 1-2 years to complete, the victory should be achieved when the spaceship is launched.

But, as always, the game should be customizable so that players who want space combat can get the level they desire. Others will want to remove it completely.

RE: future techs- perhaps future tech can be set to give the receiving civ some kind of bonus. FE, a 1% bonus to the major aspects of the game (food, mineral, and trade production, and Att/Def in combat) per future tech. That way it won't be a total waste for gameplay (who cares about points anymore?). In addition, they could have one or more random events occur down the future tech line: FE, a real cure for cancer (huge boost to happiness and/or growth), environmental sustainability (all pollution eliminated and boost to happiness), maybe the tech to build Utopia, like a Wonder (removes all negative modifiers of your current SE/govt, maybe a game victory). These would occur at random intervals down the FT line and may or may not occur in your game, starting at about FT #15. Give a reason to research FT w/o having to come up with stupid names for unknown techs.

[Roman]

Indeed, the future techs when the tech tree runs out should give you some small benefit to production, or trade, etc. This is to prevent people switching off their research once they come to the end of the tech tree. The techs should also have exponentialy increasing cost of research. This has been discused in another thread (Future - the same old boring topic).

[Chronus]

Hmmm ... this is tough. I agree with Madad in regard to the space thing. However, obtaining the techs to reach the stars means accomplishing A LOT of future techs; a feature many people do not seem to want.

Nevertheless, there should be some type of grand project/goal to try to accomplish. Space is usually the reasonable choice since it's still an unrealized dream (in regard to colonizing planets, better space travel, etc.) that gets closer to being a reality. What other kinds of "space goals" are there that are within reason of accomplishing? Perhaps space isn't the way to go for a grand project. CTP2 players: is the Gaia project a worthy and fun pursuit? Other ideas?

[Trachmir]

As far as a science victory goes, I would like to see the completion of the first Interstellar Explorer vessel to be the goal, using worm-hole manipulating technology to bridge the vast distances. And Worm-Holes, and our ability to create/manipulate them is NOT science-fiction... it is being done (including time travel on a sub-atomic scale!), it needs refinement (currently worm-holes that can "transport" an object larger than a sub-atomic particle swallow themselves... using anti-matter, we might soon be able to create more stable and larger worm-holes)

[Mister Pleasant]

CTP space cities were awful. A space layer would be cool to work with (eventually I removed space colonies from CTP) for sats and later tech type craff (space planes or even blackbirds for that matter). But no cities please. Here's an idea for the science victory. Like Contact. Build a sophisticated enough computer system to decypher alien messages and build one of those giant transportation devices like in the book/movie.

[Roman]

Wormholes exist on subatomic scales only for a good reason. The energy required to create a wormhole increases exponentially with size. I read in "Scientific American" that to create a wormhole large enough for a small spaceship to fit through would require more energy than is available in the entire universe even assuming 100% conversion efficiency from matter-antimatter reactions. True, energy requirements can be reduced by "thinning" the wormhole, but the relationship is only inversely proportional. Moreover, it has also got the effect of making the wormhole less stable.
I am not saying that in the future we will not devise some way to cheat Relativity, but that is speculation and hopefully will not be included in Civ 3.

Please, no future techs.

[Biddles]

Can I ask a serious question (to which I expect a serious answer, not a hail of abuse):

Why do so many people hate the idea of future techs?

I disagree with crap like 'wormhole technology' near future techs like superconductor (which does exist today, just not at room temperature, but with new ceramics Room temp superconductor isn't too far) should be included (IMHO).

Could someone answer this seriously please, I'd really like to know.

[Roman]

Ok, a serious answer. If my previous posts seemed abusive, I appologise, they were not intended to be. Maybe I am too forceful in presenting my opinion, though, I usually try to explain myself.

By the way, I am not a technophobe by any measure. In fact, I admit to being somewhat of a science freak, regularly reading "Scientific American" various scientific books (especially about physics) and science news, but not science fiction.

The problem with future techs is that although I can usually ppicture how they work (with the notable exception of complete fallacies such as the "Fusion Tank" from Ctp 2), I cannot identify with them in a historical context like I can with the rest of the civ game. To top it off, including future technologies would automatically mean decreasing the depth of the tech tree and more depth is something I would like to see.
Moreover, we have nowadays got many techs in their infant stage, some of which will mature into something wothwhile and some of which will not make it very far and will be forgoten by history. It is currently impossible to know which ones will mature and turn out to have practical uses without prohibitive costs. Any such predictions are pure speculation, especially once predictions stretching far into the future or those concerning interstellar travel (Just look at the predictions from 1950s and 1960s - virtually everyone thought that by 1970 we will have colonies on the moon and humans will have landed on Mars. Now it is 2001 and Mars landing is planned for around 2020, while nobody is seriously considering moon bases, let alone colonies). I would prefer Civ 3 not to speculate on these issues and instead give me technologies that are already available and useful in their present form without requiring furter research to reach any level of practicality, technologies that are proven and hence I can relate to them. For me the inclusion of future techs would take fun out of a game that has its mechanics rooted in human history.
Yet another thing is thing is that people in games companies are not scientists and tend to do a stuningly bad job at guessing which techs will become important in the future, and an even worse job at what applications these techs will have. They should not be blamed for it since it is indeed a difficult job (for example in 1950s both USA and the Soviet Union wanted to build nuclear powered planes) and that's one of the reasons why I think they should avoid it.

Hope that answers your question biddles. If you want more information feel free to ask.

[Roman]

A copy of my previous post on how future techs should be implemented.

Indeed, the future techs when the tech tree runs out should give you some small benefit to production, or trade, etc. This is to prevent people switching off their research once they come to the end of the tech tree. The techs should also have exponentialy increasing cost of research. This has been discused in another thread (Future - the same old boring topic).

[Grumbold]

quote: Originally posted by Roman on 02-08-2001 07:33 AM ... To top it off, including future technologies would automatically mean decreasing the depth of the tech tree and more depth is something I would like to see. ...

Somehow I had always overlooked that point before. You are absolutely correct. On the basis that the Tech tree must be of a finite size and Firaxis are not going to want to make that so huge that technologies dominate the game, I would rather see historical periods fleshed out in more detail. For instance there are now strong signals coming from Firaxis about at least two types of tank, Early WWII and modern. Personally I would rather see technology space allocated enabling there to be even a third historical tank type or a modern solar collector improvement rather than a fusion tank or power plant. Generic 'future tech' that provides a small improvement
but does not take up tree space can then be a reward for fast developers without making less expert gamers
feel inadequate for winning the game without completing the main tree.

[MrFun]

What I really did not like about space cities in Call to Power was that it was too late in the game to improve and develop them.

And that it took 30 to 40 turns to produce one space unit while it took 50 turns to improve the space city so it can produce a space unit quicker!

As I said before - WHERE IS THE TIME FOR SPACE CITIES SO LATE IN THE GAME??

[bagdar]

aha, 2 problems:

1-tech tree
2-ending date

I think both of these should remain UNchanged.

Ergo, No Space Cities. :P

[Fredric Drum]

IMO there is one problem with space cities (and undersea cities) in CTP (and CTPII): By the time you have the technology to build them they won't be of much use, because you're already too far ahead of the other nations. In CTP, for instance, I've only ever built one undersa city.. and that was just to "have done it", I didn't actually use it for anything. In fact this is true for more than just space and undersea cities. Units like the Kraken and Dreadnaught (and to a lesser extent the Fusion Tank and Hover Infantry) have never served me any good. They're ok when you pursue a line of research and peace (paradoxically), but let's face it.. most of the time you go for conquest (at least I do), and then you really don't need anything better than tanks and artillery.. by the time you've invented the fusion tank you rule the world and don't really need those hi-tech weapons.

Fred

[Trachmir]

Roman
I guess we'll just have agree to disagree, and I too don't mean to offend (the Technophobe comment was not a serious comment... we all are on an on-line forum after all...). But perhaps the level of disagreement is being exagerated by examples of future tech found in most 4x games.

I do not want wild show-stopping techs/units... no fusion tanks, but how about one with a mass-driver for a cannon (after superconducters and advanced power storage has been researched), I don't want space cities, but I would like an orbital aerospace carrier... I don't want krackens, but how about "uplifted" dolphins... I don't need a body exchange, but how about cloned tissue and organs?

I want future techs that are plausable (I know worm-holes are just theoretical, but I was talking about the Science Victory... which needs to be a show stopper) and could be implemented now or within the next couple of decades if we just decided to spend the resources on it. Additionally they should not provide you with huge advantages, instead they should be kept in line with the progression throughout the game.

My problem with those who don't want any future techs, is that much of what they would dismiss as sci-fi, is in fact a reality today...

I aslo agree that a denser tech tree is a great thing (the pics of the tanks and jets give me a good feeling about the game), but I don't think you need to sacrifice that in order to add plausible "future techs". If the game's historical tech tree is say 200 deep... just make 25 of those plausible "future techs".

So in the final analysis, I am not for Future Techs, but I strongly support "Near-Future" Techs.

[Roman]

Trachmir,

I suppose I could swallow some of these "near future techs" you propose being included in the game provided they did not "thin" the tech tree, etc., etc. Examples of bearable techs include as tissue engineering, stem cell organ cultivation and a few similar techs. They are after all almost available now.
What I cannot foresee, though, is what new units, or city improvements would such techs give you. All I can think of is them providing some form of generally applied benefit to your civ. It would be much more acceptable for me to have some near future techs in the form of wonders like civ2 had the Human Genome Project (when it was still future).
Near future will not bring radically different weapons systems that we can predict now that they are coming. For example, there will still be fighters in 20 years, more advanced, but still present. At most, they might be complemented by UAVs.

Of course, I would prefer future techs to be non-specific and follow a course I briefly outlined above and that is more accurately described in the thread "Future - the same old boring topic".

PS.
Anti-Balistic missile defence (like SDI in Civ2) is not a future tech. The Anti-Balistic Missile Treaty permitted the US and the Soviet union to build one such system each but only to cover a circular area of 150km in radius. The Soviet Union has built such a system around Moscow, while USA did not use the opportunity. To this day the missile ring around Moscow remains the only ABM system in the world, though as we all know USA has now decided to build a much bigger version, banned by the ABM Treaty.