Can We Improve the Space Ship?

[jshelr]

Favoring Peace

The SS victory is actually a very clever metaphor for an overall scoring system that rewards a peaceful civ and penalizes rampant late-game warmongering. If large civ A attacks another large civ B late in the game, small civ C could easily win the SS race by staying in democracy.

I would appreciate thoughts about how rewards for peaceful co-existence could be carried further. I'd like to see diplomacy have a chance to become a more dominant road to victory. Among half-baked ideas of my own:

A. Membership in the UN can be earned by building a small wonder and members automatically have a MPP that would trigger mutual response to any aggression after UN is founded. If set up right, this system would allow and encourage the creation of an "axis of evil" with two or more civs forming an alliance to attack, knowing that they then will be at war with the rest of the UN members.
B. A modified scoring system that gives little weight to territory owned and lots of weight to "quality" indicators for how well you manage your civ. Maybe it could use the factors in F11 -- per capital GDP, literacy, disease, etc.
C. The scoring system should make it more rewarding to provide entertainment and, thus, provide a bigger penalty for 100% science.

The game would run to 2050, absent domination by one civ, and any civs left standing would be scored on quality. The "race" aspect of the SS, which is not realistic, would be replaced. Conquest still is a reasonable victory condition for budding Adolphs and Napoleons out there. But there should be a big price to pay if you start a late war and can't pull off the complete domination victory. The rest of the world should be ready to gang up on you if you try.

[Ninot]

i like the way it is now, but its too cheap

i was trying for a domination victory, but i was getting three leaders every turn, so i ended up rushing the SS anywas.

it should be non-rushable.

[nbarclay]

There are two things I could quibble with about the space race victory condition as it stands now. First, it comes too early, leaving some interesting techs and wonders not worth researching if that's how you plan to win. And second, I'm a bit disappointed at how little a production sacrifice is necessary to actually build the parts. Not that I'd mind a "best overall civ" victory condition in addition to what we have now, and a scoring system that better balances all the things that make a civilization "better" would be more than welcome in my view.

I also have a quibble with the movie, although it doesn't affect gameplay. A ship bound for Alpha Centauri would be assembled in space, not launched from the ground like an Apollo rocket or space shuttle. The special effects in the space launch movie are nice, but the unrealism of it gnaws at me a little.

Nathan

[jshelr]

I agree that making the SS more expensive and later would be a big help. Perhaps it should also require another tech (the space station)that is off the established tree to increase the cost of going the SS route.

[Arrian]

The SS techs need to be set back a bit. As it is, you can build the SS without researching half the techs in the modern age.

Come to think of it, such an undertaking really doesn't belong in the "modern" age, but in the future age. We haven't even gone to Mars yet.

I like the idea of a Space Station first.

Satelitte tech should allow a CivII-esque clearing of the fog of war (remember the old Apollo?).

The UN needs work. There was a thread in the general forum with some good ideas on what to do. I'm fairly certain some sort of "peacekeeping" MPP-type setup was suggested. But there was more...

I totally agree about the scoring system. I like the idea that happy citizens boost your score. That's good. Territory needs to be there, but to a much lesser extent. I like the idea of using the F11 stats - that could be good. But how about also including culture. Points for your world rank in total culture (last place 0 plts, 7th 1pt, 6th 2pts, etc) AND points for your rank of culture PER CITY. This would help reward small civs that were run well. Perhaps a small reputation bonus (like the old peace bonus in CivII).

-Arrian

[jshelr]

Arrian
All your ideas were good ones as far as I am concerned.
jshelr