Endgame options

[Lord God Jinnai]

I don't think so Rich. And as for projects, well i would like to make that they can fit in any technological and social era and place. We don't haveto have endings. The Simcities don't.

I'd say though that it should only apply if you want to go into far future technologies because otherwise there'd be a point of technological stagnation.

[Richard Bruns]

Sorry, my editing could have caused problems. What point don't you disagree with?

SimCity didn't have the tech advances, so things could continue forever without changing. In Clash, the game will have to end when the tech tree ends.

[F_Smith]

Richard:

First, remember that we're only talking about one scenario here -- a 'history of modern man' scenario. There absolutely will be other scenarios that start later than the stone age, and end earlier than the 'ascent of man'.

Absolutely, I can not be the first person to ever have this idea. But I think it's fundamentally different from just keeping score, then ending the game with a wonder.

I do not like an action ending the game. That's the meat of the idea, really. I prefer there to be one of two possible 'finish lines' -- either a distant cutoff date, or after all players have reached an 'ascent to transcendence' (SMAC-style).

I see absolutely no problem with a game being effectively 'perpetual', tho. We can keep coming up with new techs all the way up to when humans evolve to pure-energy type creatures (the 'ascent to transcendence'). At that point, they no longer need the physical trappings of a 'civ', anyway . . .

This should indeed take a long, long time to play. In reality it wouldn't be truly perpetual, in that after something like a year of play the game would end.

And unless we allow faster than light travel and communication, I see no way that 'galactic empires' can happen. So as a game decision, we can avoid that easily. Colonizing the moon should be okay. Mars, absolutely. Maybe one or two moons of Jupiter?

Which sounds very fun . . .

Also -- I do indeed like the idea of there sometimes being 'planet killer' events that throw everyone back to the stone age. What about a 'nuclear war'? Asteroid collision? Global warming floods the world? An ice age? Alien attack? It should be a different challenge every time.

'Planet of the Apes' scenario, anyone?

P.S. -- SimCity 3000 did have tech advances. So does 'Railroad Tycoon 2'. The point is, there is more than one way to play these games, either a 'scenario' with a fixed beginning and end, or a 'perpetual' sim. It could stagnate, eventually. But only after you've played that world to death . . . and if players are playing this that long, we've succeeded.

[Westergaard]

Good points F_smith

But... (Hehe - always a "but" ) there are flaws in the perpetual-game-idea. First I don't like the tech stagnation thing. Yes simcity might have had techs, but they weren't a huge part of the game - merely a little flavor. Civilization-type games depend their entire existence on technological advances, because the human race is expansive by definition - we want new stuff all the time. No one would want to play a game with total tech stagnation - it would take out an important part of the game.

Secondly you're wrong about the galactic empire thing. Even though FTL travel is impossible and we never might reach the stars - our own solar system is more than enough for a galactic (i.e. solar system) empire, with very little focus on Earth. If all the planets you talk about, where terraformed and the sky was filled with satellites - then Earth would have little importance left, and the game would be unrecognizable.


What I'm basically saying is that the future of mankind will change drastically, and it will keep changing. A game trying to model the world forever, would have to make the world go static at some point. Somewhere there'd have to be a limit, and in real life I just don't think there ever will be. The future development of mankind is limitless, and thus cannot be realistically and entirely modelled in any type of game.

[F_Smith]

Hi, West:

I don't necessarily agree that there will be stagnation, to be honest. I think we can come up with enough future techs to go a long, long time. SMAC did pretty well, along those regards.

And do remember that the stagnation will only occur after a *very* long time of gameplay. If, after 6 months of solid, entertaining gameplay, the new techs run out, I think the player will be forgiving. And besides, hopefully the rest of the game will be so entertaining that this game *won't* be all about tech. We're going to have scenarios that will not include any tech advance, scenarios played on a "1 turn=1 year" basis, in which tech advance will be minimal. The game will have to be fun at that level, or else we've failed.

Hopefully this game will be about empire building.

Also, I think perhaps colonies on close planets, and space-based colonies, would not fundamentally change the dynamics of the game, as far as I can tell. Only increase the scale of the game. But it is do-able.

[Richard Bruns]

F_Smith:

'Ascent to transcendence' is an action that ends the game. The gameplay dynamics of such a thing would be exactly the same as building a final project like a network of satellites.

You think that this action would be the best way to end the game. I think that completing a couple major projects like energy satellites or ocean colonies should be the action that ends the game. It's just a matter of preference.

So this would basically be an option for game startup. One choice would be to limit the game to near future techs and the planet Earth and end with the building procests. Another would be to go into far future techs and colonization of other planets and end with the 'transencence' project.

[F_Smith]

Richard:

Absolutely there will be a wide variety of victory conditions.

I was thinking that a civ who attained 'ascent' would only remove themselves from the game, not end it for all other players. Likely it would be a huge point bonus.

So it's actually fundamentally different from the 'civ' approach.

And again, I'm mostly thinking about an online, 'perpetual' game (not literally 'perpetual', but 'ongoing').

The basic Clash scenario victory conditions, of course, can be whatever the group thinks.

[Richard Bruns]

F_Smith:

Okay, I understand what you wanted to do with transcendence.

But that could lead to problems. If score is tallied every turn, someone who stays around and muddles through another thousand years could accumulate a higher score than the player who transcended the people at the first opportunity. It seems like there wouldn't be much incentive for being the first one to finish the project. Someone else could walk into your territory and take over your now empty infrastructure and resources. This could allow them to generate huge amounts of wealth and economic activity, raising their score. If that player concentrated on making the people happy and healthy with your resources, you could end up with a lower score for your troubles.

It is still a good idea, but we have to work around this problem. Perhaps the transcendor would get points every turn, not just one time.

[manurein]

hi all

very intersting idea, very interesting discussion.
I have a few remarks, if i dare :

- on the energy point : like Westergaard suggested, modeling energy in Clash would be very intersting, not only for economic purposes, but also because it is a very important stratecgic component of any foreign policy (securing petroleum sources etc...)

- i think that the space race begun on earth for one main reason : building rockets was a way to build new, effective weapons (german V1 and V2 in WW2); then it became the most effective way to send nuclear warheads to their targets (the Spoutnik was for the soviets primarly a way to demoinstrate that they were able to reach US territory with their nuclear missiles); as I guess that nuclear weapons will be modeled in Clash, i guess (i hope) that space conquest will be triggered by the need for ICBMs, like in reality.

[Westergaard]

I’m not 100% sure that I understand the idea. If the game just were extended real far out in the future, wouldn’t that tilt the balance between past, present and future, creating an exclusively sci-fi game? Wouldn’t it be better to make the tech advance real slowly or have the turn increments be real short? Or is that what you propose? In that case I think it’s a great idea.

Is this the correct reading of your idea F_Smith:

Extend the timeframe of the game and have the turn increments be real small or alternatively have the tech advance real slowly – so that no one but the most ultrahardcore player would ever go all the way from ancient time to far future. Before starting the game the player should select perpetual-game and then choose a time-period in which the game would start. Then he’d play in a newly generated world in the chosen period. This game would hardly ever advance from the chosen period, because the technological advancements were so slow and so he could keep playing all he ever wanted.

So the difference between a “perpetual-game” is either the small turn increments, or the slow tech advance. Is this correct?

If so, I love the idea.
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Of course this idea doesn’t show what to do in the standard Clash scenario (the one you get if you click “start new standard game” or something). In this discussion it seems that there are two standpoints: Either there’ll be an ending “project” or wonder or the game would continue into the far future, making Clash focus more and more on sci-fi and less on history, the longer the game went on.

I personally think that there will have to be a cut-off somewhere, so the balance between past, present and future won’t become distorted. Players, such as Lord God Jinnai, who were annoyed by the cut-off, could choose perpetual-mode and “play simClash” in the chosen time-period, without being interrupted by stupid time limits.

IMO we should now agree on a project or happening that definitely ended the game…

[Westergaard]

we posted at the same time

Manurein:
Yes, energy should be an important point of the game. Mark said that energy would probably be implemented as a special in the economy-model. If I understood the specials-model right, then oil would only provide a bonus to production. But I really think that it's too little. When out of oil or another energy source, production should be almost totally halted. So maybe there should be an entire model for energy. I had a few ideas on the topic in the first post of this thread.

Regarding the reason for a space race, I thinkt it should be up to the player what do to. But all possibilities should be included. If the player wanted to go to space for strategic reasons - fine. If he wanted to solve energy problems - OK or if even if he went there for research purposes, it should all be possible.

[F_Smith]

Richard:

I was thinking that the 'ascent' could carry an outrageous point total. So that anyone who achieves 'ascent' will automatically beat anyone who hasn't. So once someone does reach it, the other players will not win unless they, too, achieve it.

And I like the idea of leaving behind the infrastructure, because that forces a civ to be careful chosing 'ascendence' -- but perhaps that's something that should be discussed further.

* * *

West:

Yes, that's what I had in mind.

Altho some 'age advancement' would happen during the course of a regular player's game, but very little, compared to a standard 'civ' game.

So tech is a way to continually present different game situations, not the goal of the game.

Oh, one other thing -- a player joining the online game wouldn't have a world 'generated' -- they'd choose from one of a dozen or more worlds already in motion, each staggered to present a variety of time frames to chose from. Hopefully each populated with dozens of other players' civs.

[F_Smith]

Just more thinking outloud . . .

That means, I think, that the goal will to be one of the last to 'transcend', or at least to wait the longest before 'ascending' (so you can rack the most points up). That's why the world should be so hard . . . players should run a serious risk passing up a chance to transcend.

I'm thinking it would take something like 2,000 years of growing for a civ to reach, anyway.

So when you join a world, the player would see the highest score/scores to date. Highest could be someone still playing/surviving, or it could have been someone that ascended over a thousand years ago, game time.

Then the player tries to beat that score, playing in this world!

Every time the high score is set by a new player, that player should gain recognition (and prizes?).

Sorry to go on about this, but it seemed interesting enough to post.

[Westergaard]

Sheesh - I just thought I'd understood the idea, and then you tell me that you can start in a game where players transcended thousands of years ago.

I thought that when you started in a multiplayer game you were given a small civilization, formerly run by the AI, at about the same level of the rest of the players.

But if a player transcended 1000 years ago, it would mean that the newly started players enters with a lower than average tech-level. I simply can't see how a world with such a diversity of different tech levels (1000 years of research!) can exist. The low-level nations would be crushed by the already established high-tech civs.

Please explain...

Besides I think this discussion is way too focused on achieving transcendence. It sounds like the game is all focusing on that single project.

[F_Smith]

West:

I'm sorry, I ramble incoherently sometimes (or at least that's what my daughter tells me).

Remember, most civs will not last 200 years. The world will be too hard.

So 'transcendence' is sort of an 'expert-level' designation/goal. A civ would have to live something like 2,000 years to reach that point. It should be rare. It should be amazing when a player reaches 'transcendence'. Most games wouldn't have any players 'ascending'. It should be amazing for multiple players to transcend in the same game, and would probably only happen in 'expert' games.

Another way of thinking about it, 'Transcendence' would only be the goal if someone else had already transcended.

Then you'd have to run a civ for a long time, accumulating more points than the person that transcended did before transcending, and then transcend. All while the world tries to destroy your civ.

Absolutely, a player jumping into a world would get a civ that had been handled by the AI up until that point. So they would have a comparable tech level to the rest of the world. And then, from that point forward, would have to make it an *additional* 2,000 years before they could reach transcendence.

Perhaps it should be a point minumum, instead of a number of years? I like that . . . what do you think?