Space/Sea Citys?

[KingSheba]

Just wondering if Civ III will have space and sea cities. Anyone know? Or, if not, do think it would be a good/bad idea?

[airdrik]

This has been discussed (in fact I believe I was the one who last brought it up ), and the answer is no (unless the people here have had a change of heart ).

[King Richard]

I don't think there will be any space/sea cities in civ3, although it might appear in a extended game (like in civ2ToT). The original game will probably stick to the things that is possible to accomplish in real life, which I think is a good thing. The only major exception to this in the civ-series is the space-race to alpha centauri. I'm in favour of a extended game though.

[dognheat]

I think that each civilization should be able to have 1 space city and 1 ocean city. They could confer benefits like increased income, science, happiness etc. upon the civilization as a whole. 1 per civ would be enough, any more than that turns into micromanage hell.

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[SerapisIV]

CivIII is avoiding any scifi influences, only near term easily predictable science advances in the next decade or so. Do you really expect to see ocean or space cities? Its costing about $100 billion to hopefully have 7 people in space at once. Not exactly cost effective pop growth.

I'd rather have Civ be the semi-historically-based game it is, not scifi or SMACII with a long early game.

[dognheat]

If I was building the Space station it would cost half that because I would use Celeberties for slave labor. Since the cost would be reduced, I could make it huge !! If I am El Presidente who is to tell me I can't ?? That is kind of the problem with making it too historically accurate.

Anyway if they have Fusion Power, Superconductors, SDI defences and send Spaceships to colonize Alpha Centruia then I would say that is a scifi influence. I do like the Idea of having something in space\ocean that helps you out. All right so maybe not a city that you manage, how bout a Space\Ocean city wonder.

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[joseph1944]

Once up on a time we had SeaLab I, II, III. One of the original (7) Astronauts lived on board it for several weeks or months can't remember. I think it was Carpenter not sure. He spoke to us at Mare Island Naval Shipyard one day and the Sea Lab III was located on our Building Ways until the Navy moved it to the sea location (Monterey Bay if I remember correctly).
How about a Space Station since that is in orbit right now anyway. In case some of you where not aware the Russian did have anti-satellites weapons in space during the 70th and 80th. They were called Cosmo. The Russian maintain that they were not anti-sat. Weapons however all they did was rendezvoused with other satellites and only stay up for a few day before they came back to Earth.


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[Gammaray fan]

Space and sea cities could be built in Call to Power. They detracted from the game, and made it a hell of a lot less fun to play. In any case, as someone may have said before, space and sea cities are just not feasible in the near future. Spaceships are another thing. Perhaps, you should be able to build a 'wonder' such as the Mir space station that would provide increased science. It could cost heaps, but be possible to build it with other allied civs - like the International Space Station they are putting together at the moment.

[SerapisIV]

A space station wonder. I like that idea. It would give a big trade boost to the owning civ, due to the large amounts of research and technology that is needed for its creation and the actually companies that contracted to build it. This sounds more like a scientific bonus, but by the time a space station wonder is about to be built, you'd be pretty close to future tech anyway, which is just a waste of output in my opinion unless you're going for score.

About SDI, superconductors, and fusion power. Superconductors right now exist, its just a matter of getting them to operate at reasonable temperatures. The current limit (which I'm sure has been surpassed by now the way physics progresses) is about 100K or -280oF, not exactly the temperature of my PC. SDI, if we kept up its development and funded it heavily from the mid-80s, an SDI system would've been deployed by now. It wouldn't have been perfect by any imagination, but it would exist. Fusion power, a Brit lab I believe got fusion to work for about a fraction of a second. Fully capable power systems are about 30-40 years away, a little past Sid's 2020 limit, but its at least a reasonable future tech, not scifi. It'll be close to a hundred years before any large scale growth occurs in space (outposts with populations larger then 1000). So space cities is way more scifi then the other options.

About Alpha Cenaturi, I'd like to see it solely for tradition. Just like I want to see Elvis return as the attitude advisor (complete with those damn sunglasses even in 4000BC). There needs to be some kind of science wwin condition, the CTP alien life victory is lame. Creating a colony on Mars, now that sounds much more reasonable and kinda cool to me. (And less scifi then a space city, as its easier to build a city on another planet then it is to build a full city in a vaccuum)

[Roman]

What future tech debate wouldn't I join?

I strongly oppose the inclusion of space and sea cities in Civ 3. The reasons were already outlined above by others and by me in other threads, so I won't dvelve deeper into that here.

As to some techs:

SDI:- This currently exists, though, under a different name. The 1972 ABM Treaty, allowed the USA and the USSR to build one ABM system each to protect either their capitals, or one missile range. The system, however, was limited to protecting only one city (that's why the fuss about the NMD the US is currently pursuing). The USSR has built such a system around Moscow, and it is at the moment the world's only functioning ABM system. Despite initial plans to do so, the USA has decided not to build such a system.

Fusion Power:- Currently the best performance for an experimental fusion power station was attained at JET (Joint European Torus) in the UK several years ago (2 years ago, if I recall correctly). For the first time ever, the "power station" produced more power than was actually put into it. However, the fusion reaction lasted less than 10 seconds before it shut itself down. Moreover, it is prohibitively expensive to build such "power stations" and they are currently incapable of producing any significant amounts of power. Full blown fusion power stations are expected to make a debut in about 50 years time, but in reality nobody knows for sure when the technology will come of age.

Superconductors:- Naturally, these already exist. Indeed, they have existed for quite a while now. The most recent superconductors, which work at a temperature of a little over 100K are revolutionary in the respect that they work at a high enough temperature to be cooled by liquid nitrogen, which is relatively cheap to produce. This has widened the uses for superconductors profoundly.

[Roman]

As to the space station:-

I think the ISS should be made into a wonder. It would have the effect of costing a fortune to build and then draining science production from the cities of the civilization that built it to represent the lack of useful science conducted at the ISS, as well as the enormous upkeep costs that could otherwise be invested into research. The purpose of the wonder would be: The human player would build it if he/she was too far ahead of the AI to retain some level of challenge in the game.

[Lord_Davinator]

I feel that se really don't need cities in space/sea, but what we do need is some way to be able to use the resources in the sea which do not fall directly under our cities influence.

I really belive the ISS should be a wonder too...but how about making it more usefull? with the addition of more tougher opposition?

[airdrik]

quote: Originally posted by Roman on 04-18-2001 07:21 PM As to the space station:- I think the ISS should be made into a wonder. It would have the effect of costing a fortune to build and then draining science production from the cities of the civilization that built it to represent the lack of useful science conducted at the ISS, as well as the enormous upkeep costs that could otherwise be invested into research. The purpose of the wonder would be: The human player would build it if he/she was too far ahead of the AI to retain some level of challenge in the game.

LOL
Actually an international space station would cost a fortune for all the civs participating, but relations between those civs would increase. (just look at the US and Russsia. We don't openly hate each other's guts any more, we only want to secretly blow each other's brains out ).
[This message has been edited by airdrik (edited April 19, 2001).]

[Vrank Prins]

We shouldn't have space- and seacities in CIV-III.

I guess the reason that these "gadgets" are present in CTP is that the line of production of shields, sciences etc. in CTP is that much speeded up that in the end game there is production "left over" if they hadn't come up with these . . . , well I think they're nonsense. I think it was just a matter of filling things up, otherwise you would have ended up with nothing to do in the endgame.

[Sean]

Space cities and sea cities just plane detract from the game. They even come too late in the game to be a factor. And are annoying to take over.

Thats not to say that the game can't make improvements in the two areas of space ans sea, only that they shouldn't do it with cities.