Colonization of Moon, Mars, etc.

[PolarisGL]

Ok, I have a project in mind that bends down more on my profession.

What about a scenario about the colonization of the moon and Mars from Earth in Fantastic Worlds?

I could do it in ToT, I suppose, and have one map of Earth, the other of the moon or Mars.

BUT, would there be a way to do this in FW?

I was thinking perhaps I could make river graphics be ocean graphics, and make ocean graphics be space.

Or, with the scale we have, just make rivers be the oceans in the game.

But any ideas?

For the actual scenario, I'd prefer Mars. It'd be a long scenario, and somewhat tedious. Send a settler unit to Mars, settle a city, BUT, there will be a lot of impass. terrain. So you have to place your cities near each other, and therefore, you need to go slowly, sending terraformers and what not to make Mars more suitable for humans and for what we have on Earth, and gradually, playing as a nation on Earth, make a little place on Mars.

Some options we need to discuss include if this should be strictly a building of a Martian metropolis, or should there be war units?

Civilizations I was thinking of:
United States
Russia
China
Japan
United Kingdom
France
Brazil

OR

United States
Russia
China
Japan
Europe
Brazil
India

I prefer the earlier, personally.

Please, some suggestions on this. I would really like to make such a scenario.

By the way, I have my Sci-Fi conversions to use (units from various sources... I will show it to all of you once this scenario is finished).

I think if I did do this successfully, it would be an innovative thing for Civilization II Fantastic Worlds. And yes, Fantastic Worlds. I now have regular Civilization II with Fantastic Worlds, so no more MGE scenarios. More people will be able to play any upcoming scenarios I make.

[Jay Bee]

I would replace Brazil by Latin Americans, or simply Latinos, to also include the Iberian countries. Italy would fit into this civ quite well too.

Also, I missed Germany. Perhaps 'Europe' would be a good idea

[Geography Dan]

A scenario about colonization of Mars would be a great idea. Please make it for FW so I'd be able to play it.

For the Civs, I would suggest using confederations or organizations/groups of countries (like the EU), as that is likely the direction in which the world is heading. Perhaps something like this:

USA
CIS
EU
China + India

with the others being 3 of the following (or 3 combinations of the following as the case may be):

OAU
Arab League
Japan + Korea
Latin America
Israel
Brazil
Nigeria
Australia
Canada


I've wanted to make a scenario about this very topic for a very long time, but I don't have the skill to do so; thats why I'm really looking forward to this .


Have your read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series?


-GeoDan

[Jim Winchell]

Replace Brazil with a Martian civ. That way you can impassible terrain, triggers, and little green men (what other reason is there for all of those space probes blowing up?).

[PolarisGL]

Hey Jay Bee and Dan: thanks for the suggestions and what not.

I have read many things on Mars... I don't know about that specific series.

Jim, I can just use barbarian units for that task. Not to worry.


Now, a larger question: allow war or not?

[Hendrik the Great]

If you leave away the earth and only stage the scenario on Mars you could present new settlers, etc.. with techs or other certain objectives like finding usable water springs. These advances, once discovered would allow construction of new units, improvments or other things on mars like terraforming.

However, I do have to admit it would be far more fun to settle mars from earth and not just play on mars.
But if you make ocean space than only "coastal" cities could built spacecraft.

Even though I don't like the idea but I think ToT may be better for this...

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Mathias' Civ II Page
http://members.nbci.com/thalys

[PolarisGL]

I think I'll try it on Fantastic Worlds.

I think I will also just have a map of mars.

The thing about that is, well, MPS did a scenario on it. It wasn't that great of one, but it was still nice.

So how to compete with that one, and lapse it? Any ideas?

More events, technologies, definitely.

[Hendrik the Great]

Make it more, well, "marsian". The mps scenario was so earth fixed in its approach. I don't know how to accuratly express it otherwise. It's future was earth nations continueing what they did on earth.

Have you read the Red, Green and Blue Mars books? If yes perhaps take some ideas out of it.

Or how about different marsian factions fighting for dominance, the United Nations trying to install law and order and being dragged into the mess, powerfull co-operations battling for controll, warlords creating their own little reigns, police states, perhaps a marsian-wide police state, rebels and
oxygen smugglers, alien artifacts, mercenaries, idealists and pioneers. Make it rich in conflicts and possible gains to be made. War should be there to answer your question. Involve terraforming and perhaps accidents and huge catastrophies because of it. Create intrigues and espionge nets. Interests from earth interferring.

Have you seen the film "Total Recal"? Take some of the ideas from there. In any case, don't retain yourself at the standard settings, take a radical turn, sure it has to be realistic but you should push the realm of the possible, give the player the chance to either create a new paradies, a "vietnam war" with no clear sides and seemingly endless, the living hell or a high-tech Dark Age, a new home for refugees from earth...

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Mathias' Civ II Page
http://members.nbci.com/thalys

[PolarisGL]

Hmmm... maybe.

I want it to go slowly though, which is realistically. We land a robotic "five-star hotel" on Mars, no people, then send people, with the robotic "hotel" building a craft for the people that get there to come home after exploring.

Then we gradually send more and more.

We terraform. Rains develop, plants spring, oxygen is apparent.

We then send more, more builders, buildings, etc., and we build colonies on the moon.

Realistically, I don't think there would be warring factions, pirates, etc. Its a good idea, but I want to stay empire-building and real. Perhaps economic fighting, fighting over resources, "war" being done by terraformers, spies, and sabatoguers. Such as, terraformers making flourishing enemy terrain desert... not "enemy" but a difference, a political difference I suppose.

Hmmm... still gaining ideas.

The scenario could last a long span of time, so we can allow war later on.

Competing colonies on Mars, like a Martian cold war, how to maintain the colonies and what not, would be neat.

More planning is needed, obviously.

[Jim Winchell]

If all civs start out with settlers on a inhospitable map, isn't the human player likely to completely outpace the AI-run civs? I played a game on a Anarctic map once and most of the computer run civs spent the entire game moving settlers around the map without ever creating a city.

[St Leo]

I played a game on a Anarctic map once and most of the computer run civs spent the entire game moving settlers around the map without ever creating a city.

The AI is hard-coded to not place cities in Tundra, Glacier, and a couple other slots, so you'd have to use Grassland and Plains slots for the Martian terrain.

I played a game on a Anarctic map once and most of the computer run civs spent the entire game moving settlers around the map without ever creating a city.

You could always take my approach and write a program that custom-generates an event file that gives the AI lots of free stuff. The source code for the most recent version of mine can be found in Imperial Ambition.

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St. Leo
http://www.sidgames.com/hosted/ziggurat/
http://www.sidgames.com/forums/

[PolarisGL]

What St. Leo said, Jim.

And terraformed terrain will become very nice resources and what not. Probably a change terrain event when you discover various terraforming technologies.

[Geography Dan]

I definitely agree with Hendrik. I would venture to say you absolutely have to read (or re-read as the case may be) the Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars) by Kim Stanley Robinson. In fact an interesting project would be to make a scenario specifically of the Mars trilogy. In any case, the books present many aspects of a colonization of Mars that are extremely realistic. Later on I'll post some more ideas, but for now:

Terraforming couldn't realistically be done one little area at a time. Terraforming was more a process done to the entire planet as a whole. That was, in my opinion, one of the main problems with the Micropose Mars scenario. I think that the advance that allows terraforming should require numerous wonders, which would represent the scientific projects required to raise the temperature, atmospheric pressure, nitrogen levels, and to begin the introduction of life. These wonders could include:

-Releasing a mixture of greenhouse gases into the atmoshpere to raise temperatures

- (at later stages of the game) establishing a continuous shuttle to bring huge shipments of nitrogen from the atmoshpere of Titan to add to Mars' atmoshpere, thus raising atmoshperic pressure and nitrogen levels

-genetically engineering cold-resistant mosses to be the first life introduced, to begin adding oxygen to the air and to provide the bases for food chains. (there could be a random even once this is completed involving a mutant strain of moss getting out of control...)

- creating a space mirror of sorts to add heat and lengthen the lenth of daylight

-crashing Phobos into the atmosphere to burn up and thus add lots of gases to the atmoshpere


just some ideas for the projects that would be recquired to make mars viable for terraforming

[Geography Dan]

Some things to think about are who would be colonizing Mars, what would their motives be for doing so, and what would they expect to get from any colonies. Would it be nations, groups of nations, or corporations doing the colonizing? Would they be doing it for the sake of science and exploration, for profit, or for resources to aid wars on Earth? Would they expect the colonists to merely to research and explore, or to generate money or resources? How would the inevitable development of a Martian culture affect the situation?

-GeoDan

[Case]

The designers of the Mars scanario included with FW seem to have read Kim Stanley Robinsons (brilliant) trilogy. A lot of the ideas that Geography Dan mentioned are implimented in the mars scenario in one way or another.

For a while I've been considering making a scenario of the series, but have never been able to find a good map of Mars to get me started.

For simplicity I'd set the scenario after the first martian revolution and have the folowing civs:
-UNTA (the UN+ some big multinationals)
-Praxis
-The Underground (split into the First 100, Mars First and Bogonovists, but strongly allied with each other)
-Reds (perhaps as barbarians?)
-Mars (for impassible terrain, etc)

Setting the scenario before the first revolution would also be very interesting...

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error
-John Kenneth Galbraith
[This message has been edited by Case (edited January 10, 2001).]