Future tech...(same boring ol topic)

[AzNtoccata]

So just a survey:

-no future tech! they stink ass!

-up to about cloning and space colonies

-up to nanotech

-up to singularity, temporal mechanics, starships

[Roman]

I vote for number 1. Since this is a frequently repeated topic I just copied my comments from another thread.

No future techs, please!! That is the main point that spoiled CTP for me, which otherwise has some decent mechanics (wages, PW, etc.).

As to the problem of shutting of research after the player has everything, it cannot be solved, but can equally effectively be delayed by making the tech tree denser rather than go into the future.

I you really have to include future technologies, at least make them only very close in the future and only those that already exist, but are not yet in practical use, for example fuel cells, or fusion. Anyway it simply is not possible to make any sound projections for our technological development more than 50 years into the future and even these are very inaccurate.
I want to reiterate, please no future techs, especially no warp drives, cold fusion (which was in fact a scientific hoax) and so on.

[Roman]

Another copy of my previous post:

Hmm, looking at the gallery on civ 3 homepage, I cannot find any futuristic renders or animations. This I think makes it safe to assume there will be no future techs in civ 3, or at least they will not stretch very far out into the future. Hurray, long live Sid!! It seems my atheistic prayers have been answered.

[wittlich]

I vote for up to nantechnologies, but drop space colonies (keep cloning).

[Grumbold]

I vote for a game so well balanced that you can't have a runaway technological society discovering all the techs before 2000 anyway.

[wittlich]

quote: Originally posted by Grumbold on 01-31-2001 10:58 AM I vote for a game so well balanced that you can't have a runaway technological society discovering all the techs before 2000 anyway.

Touche' Grumbold!

[DarkCloud]

Up to cloning and space colonization.

[Mister Pleasant]

As long as there are no space colonies (ala CTP1, which I might add I removed from my version). And of course some future tech is fine. Especially SDI and uh . . . uh . . . THE FRICKEN UNITY SHIP! So maybe nano-tech (cloning and retro virus therapy ARE present technologies for the most part so if they are not included you are not playing up to the present day). But I agree with that other guy, when it's time to colonze other planets, its time to put Space Empires IV in the old DVD ROM drive . . .

[Shadowstrike]

Y'know, nanotechnology isn't as far away as we think. We might very well get it before building orbital cities.... BTW, I'd vote for Option #2.

[Transcend]

As far as nanotechnology goes, we are already beginning to build quantum transistors, transistors that use the quantum properties(tunnel effect) of electrons to perform switching functions. HP Labs, Intel, and several research institutes such as MIT have already built first working prototypes. Even though these early devices are still very sensitive to external noises and have a long way to go to enter mass production, we don't have to wait very long for that day.

[loinburger]

Now that I've learned that MOO3 is coming out in 2002, I will be be satisfied with or without future technology. As I see it the biggest problem with future tech is that it will be incomplete without the ability to colonize the moon/Mars/Venus/the asteroid belt (it seems silly to be able to bend time and space and yet be unable to create a colony on the moon), and yet colonization is probably beyond the scope of the game (it might require the addition of space combat, star fortresses, planetary defense systems, and other items more appropriate to an interstellar Civ-type game like MOO2). Nanotech without colonization would be all well and good; temporal manipulation is going too far.

In Masters of Orion II the problem of tech research after all techs have been developed is handled by creating extremely expensive future techs that provide some minor benefits. The most expensive regular technology costs 15,000 RP's; each future tech costs 25,000 RP's base cost plus 10,000 * (the advanced tech level), so Hyper Advanced Construction III will cost 45,000 RP's to research. I almost always play a tech-mongering race, and even I have trouble coming up with 95,000 research points in under ten turns.

The benefits of future techs were more than just ways to garner more points; each tech provided minor benefits. For example, a Stellar Converter (the weapon on the Death Star) takes up 500 space on a starship; since starships have a maximum of 1500 space, this means that you can put on at most 2 stellar converters as well as the necessary peripherals (shields, armor, ship drive, etc). However, each future tech provided a slight miniaturization to the Stellar Converter; about future tech 10 (costing 115,000 research points to acquire) the Stellar Converter has shrunk down to only take up 200 space, meaning that you can cram five or six of them onto a starship. It took a long time to glean any benefits from future technology (a Stellar Converter that takes up 450 space instead of 500 is not much benefit), but unlike Civ and SMAC future technology did provide some minor benefits.

Regardless of how high the Civ III tech tree goes, I think that future tech could be better handled in the manner of MOO2, with exponentially increasing research costs and minor benefits granted. For example, in Civ III a howitzer might cost 200 shields, but after 20 future tech advances (at an exponentially increasing RP cost) it might only cost 50 shields. It doesn't seem too unreasonable to me that a Civ willing to spend a hundred turns in order to reseach twenty future techs should receive a minor reward for its pains.

[Jer8m8]

I think I vote for four. I want to have bases in multiple solar systems, be fighting for posseion of a star on the other side of the galaxy, and be mining asteroids in the Kuiper Belt. IMO, the end game should be sending a manned ship to the Andromeda galaxy

[Grumbold]

Your civilisation has discovered space flight and the evidence of active alien civilisations..in a panic a general world council is held and elects you planetary governor for the duration of the crisis..please insert your Master of Orion CD..

[Cyclotron]

But wouldn't this break down at some point, when everything cost a nearly negligible amount? What would be the point anymore? I like the above system, but there needs to be some kind of limit. I also think (far out theory) that future tech should be random. That's right. I mean, each future tech you get gives you bonus points, and then has a random possibility to gain a particular benefit like some mentioned above. Either that, or a CTP style future tech system, where each tech reduced pollution a bit or a similar benefit. But wait... what's the point of that if you've got the Gaia Controller? Oops... I better quit, I'm getting into CTP-bashing mode...

[Grumbold]

I'd forgotten the MOO2 system. Yes, if we absolutely have to have empires capable of immense research output then that would be an excellent way to go. With a few different types of future tech you could gradually decrease construction costs, support costs, pollution and increase combat effectiveness and movement rates. With escalating research costs it should be possible to exclude the possibility of anyone getting past construction/support/eco/military tech 10 even on a gigantic map where a single nation owns the whole world bar one small city eking out a living on the antarctic coast.

I would be happy for the tech tree to culminate before the construction of any interstellar craft like the Unity. The obvious precursor stages to an interstellar colony ship are interplanetary craft, asteroid mining, orbital power and colonies on other planetary bodies inside this solar system. Unless Civ 3 can handle them indirectly as required wonders which some nation(s) must build before interstellar craft can be built then the leap directly from the Apollo Project to the Unity is just too vast.