Future tech...(same boring ol topic)

[Vrank Prins]

I'm voting for option 1.
For my comment read the thread "The Future", or else I'm going to have say things I've already said two or three before.

[Roman]

I personally hate future techs. Hovewer, even I would agree to the MOO2 system you described above i.e. incremental decreases in pollution, or unit costs, or range, etc. and exponentially increasing costs of research. I think, though, that the improvements should really be very gradual indeed.
This does solve the problem of player turning off the research after researching all the techs and keeps us who hate various futuristic units, etc. happy. Good job whoever suggested this. I propose someone sends this to Firaxis.

[tniem]

I guess it depends on when the game ends. If it ends around 2020, than human cloning is a real possibility. It was announced earlier this week that scientists will clone their first human by 2003 in a country where the government won't stop the experiments.

So, if the game goes past 2000, then cloning in some way (maybe just a wonder) should be included. As should the Human Genome, neither being an actual future tech by the time the game is released.

As for going past that, I really don't think it is that great of an idea. Possibly nanotechnology, but I really don't want to have space colonies that I have to control at the same time as my Earth civ. It just isn't what I figure is very fun.

[Trachmir]

There must be future techs in civ3 (I hope they extend the ending year to 2100), and should account for about 1/8 of the tech tree... but I think the question is what do you consider future techs? Laser-Fusion, Human Cloning, Genetic Manipulation, Nanotechnology, Neural-Interface (using myomuscular (sp?) neural feedback), Robotic War-Machines, Underwater Colonization, and even worm-holes and antimatter are NOT future tech... they are simply unpolished not-yet-implemented modern technology... this is the 21st century, what many would consider to be sci-fi is actually sci-fact. Why sell the game short because of a few technophopes? If you are talking about an end game of 2020... that's less than 2 decades, and much of what I listed above will be implemented.
I do agree that any "future tech" must be theorectically sound, and plausable in the near future (say 50 years)... and definatly add more too the past, but don't cut short our future!

[Theben]

Up to orbital stations and craft. No colonies, except abstract ones sending in minerals, etc. from asteroids or the moon (even these would be stations only, and frequently lost due to operating in an unknown environment).

Even the spy sats/combat sats could be abstracted: +% to espionage, % chance to kill a sat/station with killer sats, etc.

Keep future tech, with the reductions or with my suggestion on another thread (1% increases per future tech).

[SI]

I would vote #1, no future techs. I would rather see a n expansion of the ancient and middle ages period of the game, so they are more than a time to try to build as many cities as you can. I would be willing to buy an expansion pack with future techs if it means a better basic game.

[Odin]

All the way to #4, This gives us the option of colonizing planets. Also undersea colonies like in CTP1&2.

[joseph1944]

There is this little old place about 40 mile south of Napa located in the town of Livermore Ca. on interstate 580 east bound call Lawrence Livermore Lab. Inside of that lab they have a little old item call EMP gun (Electrical Magnetic Pulse Gun. Granted it would take two 18 wheelers to haul it anywhere but it's there nevertheless. So the question is how long before it is man size?

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[Cyclotron]

Or, we could have a vehicle called the "go-back-in-time-and-destroy-all-other-civs-while-they-are-still-settlers gun."

When must it stop, people? We aren't talking about realism, we're talking about gameplay. Future techs only water down the tech tree and create fanciful things that are quite hard to visualize. Besides, CTP I botched the job so thouroughly that I dread CTP-style future techs cotaiminating Civ3. Stuff within the near future, up to human cloning and orbital sattelites are good, but most of the rest of it has no basis for reality and is whimsical at best. Stuff like wormholes aren't even remotely feasable... to open a wormhole to more than an infinitecimal size it would take more energy than is currently available in the universe, let alone the galzxy, let a lone a relativley tiny civilization of bipedal carbon-based life forms. I'm not a technophobe, I just want a good game.

[loinburger]

I don't even see what the point of being able to create a wormhole in a Civ game would be. Why would you use a wormhole unless you're trying to leave the solar system? Why would you want to leave the solar system in a Civ game? Certainly not to colonize other solar systems; it takes me several hours just to colonize Earth, let alone the entire galaxy. If you're not leaving the solar system then slower-than-light travel should suffice; in SMAC we were already able to instantly transport tanks all the way across the globe using orbital insertions, plus I don't even want to think of what would happen if we suddenly opened a wormhole from Detroit to Shanghai.

In regards to cloning: In Masters of Orion one of the structures you could build was a cloning center, which would increase the population growth of your colony. The cloning center did not clone entirely new humans (or psilons, or sakkra, or whatever); the cloning centers were basically advanced medical centers where failing or missing body parts could be replaced. It didn't increase the birth rate, it decreased the death rate. In regards to Civ III a similar technology may be appropriate; the structure resulting from the tech needn't be called anything futuristic like "cloning center," instead something along the lines of "advanced medical center" would suffice. Being able to clone a new human would unbalance Civ III, in my opinion; if you double your population every turn then you can crush your opponents just by outbreeding them.

[Trachmir]

The comments about worm-holes were related to another post I made in a diffrent thread... I suggested that opening a worm-hole as the Science Victory condition (i.e., the End of the game)

BTW, it is theorized that opening a worm-hole through 4-space around a rotating body of signifigant mass (read: Planet), could tap into "echos" of the present... thus energy could be drawn from a "limited-infinite" of layers, therby producing enough power to open a worm-hole... the second theory involves creating a worm-hole on a subatomic scale, the using antimatter within a controled EM field to "pry" the "opening" larger.

I agree this tech is far off, but for a science victory you need something "show-stopping", what better than setting the stage for galatic (or trans-galatic) exploration/colonization.
[This message has been edited by Trachmir (edited February 11, 2001).]

[bagdar]

whoa... It'd be great to send my Nano-Mano-Ranger-Ninja's through that hole and... whatever.