Thread Tools
Old August 1, 1999, 22:37   #61
Tornado7
Chieftain
 
Local Time: 08:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jun 1999
Location: Central Islip New York America
Posts: 74
Not neccesarily. In strictly "now" terms, a one-way trip to Ganymede takes about 5 or 6 years. AC is a couple thousand years away.
Obviously, advanced tech will cut down on this, but the time scale is still on different orders of magnitude.
Anyway, I think it adds a nobler goal to the game than just beating the living dodo out of the computer. Granted, that's a fun thing to do, and every once in a while I take great pleasure in doing that, but I want a little more of a goal to the modern to future era than just out-nuking the mongols or getting the first strike on the celts. (Both of which happended in the last game I finished)
Utopian peace-loving intentions aside, the prospect of interplanetary warfare is really, really cool.
And as for the endgame, you could always change the goal to discovering and building a FTL starship. This sets an anchor point for a whole series of future techs.
The whole idea could be colonizing the other planets and looking for alien artifacts or something, researching them, and using that tech to build the blasted thing.
This means going off to other planets and colonizing and terraforming them to find the artifacts.
And like I said, they could cut down on the city improvments on colonies to make city managment a helluva lot easier.
Stuff like combining all the happiness improvments into one thing and stuff like that.
Tornado7 is offline  
Old August 2, 1999, 00:05   #62
Maniac
Alpha Centauri Democracy GameC4DG Team Alpha CentauriansACDG The Cybernetic ConsciousnessACDG Planet University of TechnologyPolyCast TeamACDG3 Spartans
 
Maniac's Avatar
 
Local Time: 10:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Gent, Belgium
Posts: 10,712
You're right Smilo. Here some usable ideas for Civ3. I posted it also on the OTHER thread.

New victory condition : colonizing and terraforming Mars. Therefore a second map is needed off course.

Colonizing is simple. You must have a certain amount of people on Mars. Wonders like the Space Elevator, buildings like Aerospace Complex or units like Space Transport could increase emigration to Mars.

Terraforming will take a bit longer.
1) You need to bring oxygen into the Mars atmosphere. This could be simulated by collecting 200 oxygen points.
Every forest produces 1 oxygen per turn.
2) You need to decrease the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Haven't got an idea how to do that. I am no scientist.
3) You need to warm Mars by 50 degrees. This is necessary to make Mars warm enough for life and also to make ice fluid.
This could be simulated by collecting 500 warmth points.
Every population unit produces 1 warmth point per turn.
*) There should be several city(on Mars called base) improvements speeding up the terraformation. That means Mars should have different unit and building types as earth.

Even if it isn't your intention to win by colonizing and terrafoming Mars, you have a reason to go to Mars. Mars should be full of Minerals and Resources that can be transported to Earth.
Maniac is offline  
Old August 2, 1999, 13:21   #63
Maniac
Alpha Centauri Democracy GameC4DG Team Alpha CentauriansACDG The Cybernetic ConsciousnessACDG Planet University of TechnologyPolyCast TeamACDG3 Spartans
 
Maniac's Avatar
 
Local Time: 10:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Gent, Belgium
Posts: 10,712
No, I don't like that alien artifact idea. Very unrealistic. I'll stick with my Mars victory condition. I don't think I want to look to alien artifacts throughout the entire solar system. And colonizing and terraforming Mars alone will be enough work on it's own. I think I'll be satisfied with two maps : Earth and mars.
Maniac is offline  
Old August 2, 1999, 14:43   #64
Tornado7
Chieftain
 
Local Time: 08:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jun 1999
Location: Central Islip New York America
Posts: 74
oops, double post.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Tornado7 (edited August 02, 1999).]</font>
Tornado7 is offline  
Old August 2, 1999, 14:43   #65
Tornado7
Chieftain
 
Local Time: 08:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jun 1999
Location: Central Islip New York America
Posts: 74
Alright, that was just an idea, but I would still like alot of bodies in the solar system.
Tornado7 is offline  
Old August 2, 1999, 17:15   #66
The Ellimist
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Hmm... I think I implied that normal means without a wonder. You can just build your mining ship, launch it toward any old asteroid, and set up a mining center.

I think there should be a wonder that increases the benefits of doing it this way, however.
 
Old August 2, 1999, 17:29   #67
smilo
Warlord
 
Local Time: 08:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: Belgium
Posts: 284
Harel,

I never ment that the discussions are worthless for civIII, I said the way you discuss is not contributing to its fullest extend.
Add to what you write a proposal so that what you explained can actually be used in civIII. As you said yourself, I cannot (and will not) add physics theories to the summary. So without a clear proposal your discussions will be lost in space.

Discussing is fine, but not if it is for the mere purpose of discussing : it needs an appropriate goal. And that is my final word on it.
smilo is offline  
Old August 3, 1999, 13:17   #68
Maniac
Alpha Centauri Democracy GameC4DG Team Alpha CentauriansACDG The Cybernetic ConsciousnessACDG Planet University of TechnologyPolyCast TeamACDG3 Spartans
 
Maniac's Avatar
 
Local Time: 10:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Gent, Belgium
Posts: 10,712
Westergaard, the Space Elevator Wonder should make bringing objects into orbit much simplier.
Maniac is offline  
Old August 3, 1999, 14:02   #69
Gordon the Whale
Chieftain
 
Local Time: 08:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Posts: 31
I don't thing there's really a problem with CO2 on Mars... The biggest problem with Mars, and the moon, is that there's not enough atmosphere of any kind! A good bit more CO2 on Mars would cause better heat retention (greenhouse effect) and warm the place up a bit, it's mighty chilly there now. Add to the air pressure, which is a bit low. Also, CO2 isn't particularly bad for you, especially in moderation. It's pretty much inert under typical conditions. But if you do want to get rid of it, those trees make Oxygen by breaking down CO2 and water, so getting rid of it is a necessary stage to getting oxygen. However, it doesn't result in any net production of atmosphere, just changes what was already there. To really get a good atmosphere, you'd have to pull oxygen out of the rocks, or better yet, find a good way to get nitrogen or argon. Oxygen really isn't all that good for you. There's a theory that this could be accomplished on the moon by setting off a nuclear bomb (or anything else really hot; the nuclear bomb has the unfortunate side effect of being radioactice) on the moon's shady south pole, which is (presumably) covered in ice and frozen gasses, which would melt, boil, and make a nice cozy atmosphere which would last for thousands of years. That would make terraforming the moon a viable wonder, which would only be built once and then end up with a playable moon. I don't know if there's any realistic way to do the same on Mars, Total Recall notwithstanding.
Venus could also be terraformed, if only there were a good way to get rid of some of it's atmosphere... Take it to Mars, maybe... I can just see a big vaccuum cleaner going from one to the other. ;-)
Gordon the Whale is offline  
Old August 3, 1999, 15:22   #70
EnochF
Prince
 
EnochF's Avatar
 
Local Time: 00:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 610
Well, in game terms, you could assign Engineers to work a land tile on Mars and convert some of its pent-up oxygen, carbon dioxide or nitrogen into atmosphere. Let's say a standard "sand" or "desert" square will get you 1 point of atmosphere every two turns; a "rock" or "canyon" square will get you 1 point per turn; but an "ice cap" square, such as occurs near the poles, will give you 5 points of atmosphere per turn. And your goal is to expand the atmosphere to, I dunno, 500 or 1000 points, at which point you can plant forests and convert the atmosphere to something breathable, at which point you've successfully terraformed Mars and win the game.

The problem with this path to victory is that... well, what happens when two competing civs are on Mars, terraforming it? They're not really competing, are they? How do we decide who just terraformed Mars? Was it the civ that completed the last "point" of atmosphere, or the civ that planted the most forests, or the civ with the most cities on Mars?

I still think sending a ship to Alpha Centauri is the best measure of victory. But perhaps we could make terraforming Mars a necessary step toward that goal...
EnochF is offline  
Old August 3, 1999, 15:50   #71
Gregurabi
Prince
 
Local Time: 08:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jun 1999
Location: Lorain, OH, USA
Posts: 404
I don't like the Mars colonization ending because it's too arbitrary. Why should the game end just because you've got (say) 50 people on Mars? In other words, what's so special about that 50th person which makes the game end? The victory conditions should be clear and undisputable -- conquering the whole planet, or being the first person to accomplish some monumental feat, etc. -- not just "hang around on Mars for a few turns".

Maybe that's why I dislike the CTP alien life victory ending -- not enough feeling of having accomplished something which fundamentally and irreversibly alters the world. Shrug.

For those who are interested in the physics that's been discussed (in some cases butchered) for the last few days, check out The Particle Adventure at http://pdg.lbl.gov/cpep/adventure_home.html -- it starts out a little bit slowly, but it's a very good introduction to quantum physics. It omits all the math, and presents only the concepts; a smart 8-year-old could follow most of it. Well worth reading, even for those who think they already know this stuff. (There have been some advances in this area since I graduated college in '93, so I learned a few things.) If you want to continue learning after reading the Particle Adventure, then please go to your local library and find a good book on quantum physics. (I haven't read it myself, but I've heard good things about Feynmann's QED (quantum electrodynamics). That may be a good one to continue with.)
Gregurabi is offline  
Old August 3, 1999, 16:19   #72
Maniac
Alpha Centauri Democracy GameC4DG Team Alpha CentauriansACDG The Cybernetic ConsciousnessACDG Planet University of TechnologyPolyCast TeamACDG3 Spartans
 
Maniac's Avatar
 
Local Time: 10:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Gent, Belgium
Posts: 10,712
Gordon the Whale :

CO2 not really a problem!!!!!!???
95% of the atmosphere is CO2. The goal of terraformation is to make it possible to breathe without dieing.

Good tree idea! A forest breaks down one CO2 point each turn and produces one oxygen point.

You're right the atmosphere has to become thicker. I forgot that in my original post.
So now there are 4 necessities for a successful terraformation.

1) collect 200 oxygen points to simulate 20% oxygen in the atmosphere.
2) collect 500 warmth points to simulate the raise of temperature by 50 degrees.
3) destroy 500( I think this number is too much cause the atmosphere is thinner so there is not that much CO2, that is, compared to earth's atmosphere) or 100 CO2 points.
4) raise the tickness of the atmosphere to 600? hPa. I thought that was the pressure needed for oxygen to get in the blood.
Means collecting an additional ?(can somebody tell me thickness of the Mars atmosphere in hPa?) atmosphere points.

BTW, perhaps the terraformation processes of Venus and Mars could be the same. They both suffer an abundance of CO2.

EnochF :

Good idea for collecting atmosphere points!

Really good question about how is decided who wins.
Perhaps it should depend on two factors.
1) Who has the largest population?
2) Who has done the biggest job for terraforming Mars? = who has collected the most points?

Point 2 makes sure the player wants to get on Mars as quickly as possible to have a headstart on other competitors.
Point 1 is automatically needed cause humans produce warmth, adding warmt points.
Bases are also automatically needed if there are certain city/base improvements speeding up the terraformation process. That way you want as much bases as possible.

Perhaps this could lead to wars on Mars...

Don't worry. I still want the possibility to build a spaceship to go to AC, but it should be more futuristic than the Apollo Program.

Terraforming Mars is more realistic and less futuristic than AC.
Maniac is offline  
Old August 3, 1999, 16:20   #73
smilo
Warlord
 
Local Time: 08:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: Belgium
Posts: 284
What about the following victory condition : you have to build an interstellar ship to sent people to Alpha Centauri, BUT the ship reauires a huge amount of a very rare mineral,metal, whatever. THE PROBLEM is that the stuff is only abundant on mars. You can also make it artificially but it costs huge amounts of money. So you have a choice either you fly to mars and set-up a large number of mines, or you make it on earth but need zillion $(more expensive than flying to mars). When you have enough of the stuff you can put in the final part of the interstellar ship and launch it. The first to get to AC wins.

Any other planets might be possible to, like jupiter from which you need to pump zillion of litres of a specific molecule.
smilo is offline  
Old August 3, 1999, 16:52   #74
Maniac
Alpha Centauri Democracy GameC4DG Team Alpha CentauriansACDG The Cybernetic ConsciousnessACDG Planet University of TechnologyPolyCast TeamACDG3 Spartans
 
Maniac's Avatar
 
Local Time: 10:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Gent, Belgium
Posts: 10,712
Gregurabi, you haven't paid attention.
Having a certain amount of people is only a part of the victory condition. The real goal is terraforming Mars. Isn't that a monumental feat?

I even doubt if I would include having a certain population necessary for winning.
You'll need them anyway for warmth and bases.


Another reason for getting a part of your population to Mars is to avoid population pressure on earth.
Let me explain how I want to simulate population pressure. I already have explained it on the SE/Government v2.1 thread but I doubt people are reading it.

Just as in in CivX I want buildings that determine your population limit.
These are my proposals.
8 : Aquaduct
12 : Sewer System
20 : Apartment Block
30 : Arcology

I want cities to grow further beyond the 'pop limit' even if they don't have eg an aquaduct.
As a drawback the people beyond the pop limit would be all Revolutionaries = very unhappy citizens. This is to simulate that they are angry because they haven't clean water (Aquaduct, Sewer System) and living space (Apartment Block, Arcology).
If a city has too many Revolutionaries, it revolts and forms a new major or minor civ.

As you can see there is no building to grow over 40. So all citizens beyond that are Revolutionaries. = pop pressure. The only reason to get rid of them is to send them to Mars.

Second reason for going to Mars = pop pressure.
Thirth reason should be that there are many resources on Mars that can be transported to earth. So even if you don't want to win by terraforming, you still have a reason to be there.

I see you guys thinking : "Oh, just don't give those Revolutionaries food and they'll disappear."
I have a rather radical solution for that.
Cities should continue to grow even if there isn't enough food. Off course that people won't be happy and will also be Revolutionaries.
It's not because there isn't a food surplus that cities stop growing. Look at Iran. You could say they have a 'pop boom' although there isn't enough food. Same for whole Africa, India and China.

So two ways to simulate pop pressure :
1) Revolutionaries above pop limit.
2) Revolutionaries if no food.

First reson to go to Mars = winning.
Second reason for going to Mars = pop pressure.
Thirth reason should be that there are many resources on Mars that can be transported to earth. So even if you don't want to win by terraforming, you still have an economic and industrial reason to be there.

You see Mars perfectly fits in the game.
Maniac is offline  
Old August 4, 1999, 00:48   #75
Westergaard
Chieftain
 
Local Time: 09:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Denmark
Posts: 58
I think it's a good idea to have other planets for the player to colonize. But on a small scale though, it is very hard to survive on another planet.

Also, I once read somewhere that the best place for human settlements would actually be in near earth orbit, where it would be protected from radiation by Earth's magnetic field.

It would be cool if you could launch orbital cities like those but at a very, very high cost from earth (it's very expensive to launch anything from Earth because of it's gravitaion). If you wanted cheaper orbital cities you'd have to build mines on the Moon, or maybe on Mars.

This way the race to colonize space could be fleshed out a little bit, starting with small extra-terrestrial mines and orbital manufacturing plants, which later became huge cities in the sky.

This would also cut some of the micromanagement of having multiple maps, if you only had mines and very small settlements on the other maps.
Westergaard is offline  
Old August 4, 1999, 00:50   #76
Westergaard
Chieftain
 
Local Time: 09:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Denmark
Posts: 58
double post
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Westergaard (edited August 04, 1999).]</font>
Westergaard is offline  
Old August 4, 1999, 02:07   #77
Iceman88888888
Settler
 
Local Time: 08:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Wollongong,NSW, AUST
Posts: 28
Terraforming Mars? Sounds like civ 3 will be like Sim Earth something I DONT want to see. Maybe you could produce large "domes" which cover 4 or so squares which you could put in plant life, and let humans work the mines etc.
Iceman88888888 is offline  
Old August 4, 1999, 05:13   #78
Westergaard
Chieftain
 
Local Time: 09:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Denmark
Posts: 58
I like smilo's idea, where you could greatly decrease the cost of a spaceship if you had mines on other planets. But instead of using the rare mineral idea, I suggest that you somehow had to get the building materials to the orbiting manufacturing plant where they build the starship. If you wanted you could send them from Earth at a very high cost, it's expensive to launch anything from Earth because of the gravitaion. Or you could send the minerals from mines on the moon, Mars or an asteroid where the gravitation is much smaller than Earths.

In game terms you could have an SS structure cost 1000 shields when build on Earth, 200 shields when build on the moon, and 100 shields when build on an asteroid. If you had the space elevator wonder it would be much cheaper to build the parts on Earth too.

This wouldn't force you to build off-world colonies, but it would help a lot if you did.


I think the terraforming thing is a bit too futuristic. I mean, something like that probably won't happen before the end of the third millenium. And it's a bit too much like simearth.

But still, I really hope that they let us have colonies on other planets, even if they are very small.

I would be happy with some huge spacestations in near earth orbit, and a dozen off-world mines with only a small staff (one-population point or so) around the solar system, sending building materials to support the orbiting spacestations.

Somebody (ember I think) had an idea in the radical ideas thread, where you split production into man-hours and minerals. If you used this idea, the minerals could be sent from the off-world mines to the orbiting spacestations, where the workforce would produce something useful from the minerals.

So if you wanted spacestations you'd either have to build off-world mines or send minerals from earth at high cost (something like: every four minerals sent, only one arrive)


By the way M@ni@ac, I don't see why humans should add warmth points to mars. Any heat artificialy introduced to Mars would quickly dissapear again. One way you could warm mars in an effective way would be to put a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere. Because of the greenhouse-effect the Sun's heat would be trapped and slowly begin to warm the planet. You could still have the 120 mb oxygen needed for humans and animals to survive, but you'd have to have a lot of CO2 too.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Westergaard (edited August 05, 1999).]</font>
Westergaard is offline  
Old August 4, 1999, 14:42   #79
Gregurabi
Prince
 
Local Time: 08:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jun 1999
Location: Lorain, OH, USA
Posts: 404
Maniac -- sorry, my response was too ambiguous. Yes, I was paying attention.... Let's try again.

I don't like the proposed terraform Mars ending because the victory conditions are too arbitrary. At what point do we draw the line? From one turn to the next, we may have raised the temperature by 1 Celsius degree, or increased the partial pressure of oxygen by 1% (of an earth atmosphere) -- how does that little change mean the difference between struggle and victory? If humans can survive at (say) 20 degrees C and 0.20 atm O2, then they'd probably do OK at 19 degrees and 0.19 atm O2, wouldn't they?

This is different from the spaceship options in Civ1/2. In those games, if your spaceship is missing a drive, it will go slower; if it's missing life support, some people won't make it. Each component you add to the spaceship serves some specific *purpose* -- it's not just a matter of collecting N spaceship points (for some *arbitrary* number N). The victory is accomplished by the actual arrival of the spaceship -- an instantaneous and indisputable event. When this event occurs, the game ends. But with the proposed terraforming ending, there's no single event -- no point on the timeline -- when you can say "Mars has now been terraformed by the Babylonians". It's just a sliding scale of percentages.

The other problem (as someone else pointed out) is that if two or more players are simultaneously terraforming, then there's no clear winner when the terraforming is "done" (whatever "done" means -- see above). All you've done is extend the competition between civilizations into another realm -- you haven't established a condition which clearly spells VICTORY.
Gregurabi is offline  
Old August 4, 1999, 16:06   #80
Maniac
Alpha Centauri Democracy GameC4DG Team Alpha CentauriansACDG The Cybernetic ConsciousnessACDG Planet University of TechnologyPolyCast TeamACDG3 Spartans
 
Maniac's Avatar
 
Local Time: 10:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Gent, Belgium
Posts: 10,712
Westergaard :

I think within the next two hundred years terraforming Mars could be possible.
It isn't that futuristic. A spaceship to AC is much more futuristic.

I don't know simearth.

I am 37 degrees. You not? Humans do produce warmth. Also the human installations, bases and factories.
Perhaps with a thicker armosphere the warmth would stay.
BTW, I think Mars is too far away to cause a greenhouse-effect.

Gordon the Whale :

wearing a (winter) jacket (with electric warming)is off course enough to solve the warmth problem for humans, but the warmth is still necessary to melt the ice to water.
So warming is absolutely necessary for a successful terraformation.

Genetically engineered land algae can also reduce CO2 or add oxygen.

No, I suggest the game to end in 2200.
Then you should have terraformed Mars.

New way of bringing water to Mars.
Let crash small ice asteroids on Mars.

I want AC as a victory condition, but also Mars.
And I don't care a damn about the sweep of time trilogy. For me Civ3 doesn't need to be a prequel.
Maniac is offline  
Old August 5, 1999, 00:54   #81
Gordon the Whale
Chieftain
 
Local Time: 08:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Posts: 31
PROBABLY won't happen by the end of the millenium!! hurry up, guy, we've got to terraform Mars in the next 5 (or 17, depending on how you look at it) months, so we can put it in Civ3!! I think EVERYTHING in this thread assumes the game to extend into its 7th millenium. Ther could be a TI, the Pressure Dome, which allows some food to be produced on inhospitable terrain (you COULD build them on Earth, too, but they wouldn't be that useful. Maybe on the poles or underwater, to supply food to mining colonies. fo those of you who've read the thread(s) on villages, a Pressure Dome is like a village that can be built ANYwhere, but also takes more than 1 turn (I'm thinking 5 or 10.) these allow you to set up a resource base on Mars/the Moon/Europa/Venus, wherever. The things you have to do to terraform each planet would be different. Mars, I maintain, does NOT have too much CO2. It has too little oxygen. CO2 is not really a toxic gas. There would be 4 atmospheric conditions for a "terraformed" planet:

Atmospheric Pressure, the #1 requirement (in terms of which you'd have to work on first). The planet has to HAVE an atmosphere. If you went to Mars or the Moon without a spacesuit on, you wouldn't have time to worry what the Oxygen content was or whether the atmosphere was toxic. You'd pop first. In our solar system, there are no rocky planets suffering from too much atmospheric pressure. Such a planet would have really heavy gravity, anyway, and so would be largely uninhabitable by humans.

Temperature, the #2 requirement. Venus is a toasty 400 degrees. C02 would freeze on the moon at night, and water would boil during the day. Mars is chilly, but within the realm of really cold places on earth. If you can get an atmosphere on the moon, it's temperature would be fixed pretty well... After all, it's the same distance from the sun as the Earth is. Adding CO2 to Mars would help, but it's going to have to be cold there. Always wear a jacket. Venus needs its awful, heat trapping clouds destroyed. For anything past Mars, you're just too far from the sun to get a planet with a habitable temperature, so you are limited to people in space suits, no matter what atmosphere you can build up. This makes a big minus to growth, of course, but if you develop the right techs, you can grow bacteria farms and such that will provide foor outside a Dome. Jupiter's moons are an od exception, because they are kept internally heated by tidal forces from Jupiter. Io is not a terraforming option anyways, being highly volcanic, but Europa _may_ have a liquid water core. This would allow some sort of colonization. Another problem with planets/moons past Mars is the lack of sunshine. Mars, even when fully terraformed, should get -1 to food in all squares for this (Venus gets +1?) Speaking of Heat trapping clouds on Venus...

Getting rid of toxic atmosphere is #3. I don't remember air pressure on Venus, but I think it's similar to Earth. It's made of all sorts of nasty things though. Have to get rid of all that before you do anything else. This is also a sort of problem on Saturn's moon Titan, which is covered in Methane sludge.

Lastly, once you have an atmosphere made of innocuous gasses like Nitrogen, Argon, Helium, CO2, and water vapor, you've got to put in some Oxygen. Not too much, of course, since Oxygen is also a toxic gas. More than 30% and you can't really live in it for extended periods of time... And I wouldn't reccomend driving your car, either. Require 10% oxygen for human life, with minuses to growth up to 20%, then give bonuses up to 25%, and minuses after that, with toxic levels at 40% or so. Also required, for outdoor farms, is CO2, in levels of at least 1%. Plants will grow much better in a low-oxygen environment, so under 20%, where there are growth penalties, make food bonuses.

So, there are the requirements; How are they attained in game terms?

Air pressure can be obtained by releasing gasses stored either in the rocks or deeper in the planet core. Build Gas Production TIs to release gasses. It can be assumed that no one is stupid enough to put toxic gasses into the air, which they will later have to get rid of, so these will put out oxygen, nitrogen, argon, helium, water vapor,and CO2.

Temperature is partly a factor of distance from the sun, and that can't be helped. It's also dependant on the Greenhouse effect. Put a denser atmosphere on Mars, with lots of CO2 (remember, Mars currently does NOT have lots of CO2, it just has more CO2 than anything else) and you'll warm the place up a bit. Get rid of all those pretty clouds on Venus, and you'll cool it down. Gasses can be removed by building "filters" which react undesired gasses with whatever, binding them into a solid. These act much more slowly than the gas releasers, and take a higher technology and more time to build.

Filters are also used to take out Toxic gasses.

If building up atmospheric pressure didn't give you enough Oxygen, you can convert CO2 to Oxygen by planting Forests, putting Algae in the oceans (If you've ended up with the right temperature and more than minimal water in the atmosphere, you'll get oceans), or moss all over, whatever will survive. Remember it took hundreds of millions of years to build up Earth's oxygen supply... This is a slow, slow process, that might need to be augmented with more big machines.

There's how to terraform planets in Civ3, or A way, in any case. Here's the next question: Why? Is it necessary? The question has been addressed before, by myself as well as others. End result: Unless the Moon or Mars have some massive, isolated store of frozen atmosphere, as the Moon at least may, this can't be done in one fell swoop, that could be done as a wonder and end the game. Terraforming would take HUNDREDS of turns, otherwise. Do we want to add hundreds of turns on to the end of the game?

Next: I think that, at least in our real world, if the Moon or Mars are terraformed, it will be a multinational project. No reason for it to be anything else in Civ3, if a non-wonder terraform were a victory condition. Work it as the real, peaceful way to win the game. You get points for each bit of good atmosphere you put in, or bad atmosphere you take out. That way, whoever did the lions share of the terraforming gets the lions share of the points. All that a successful terraform is is a cue to tally up points and end the game.

However, if I went through all the trouble of making the moon habitable, you can be DAMN sure I'd want to colonize it. Add another couple hundred years on to the game. At this point, sometime in the late 3rd millenium, interstellar trave might actually be feasible, so you can win by a more realistic spaceship to Alpha Centauri. However, it's broken the plotline to SMAC, which is based upon Civ2, not Civ3 (that's the problem with writing prequels.) In the end, terraforming planets, to me, would make a fun game, but it doesn't really go with Civ. Maybe do something like in Test of Time, where the game comes with multiple play modes which can be linked together. So you can play a terraforming game, where you start with one Colony Pod and one Terraforming Engineer on an inhospitable alien planet (like the Mars scenario in Fantastic Worlds) or you can play regular Civ3 or you can link the two together. Either game could be won by sending the ship to Alpha Centauri, but if using the Tech tree from the Terraforming game, either alone or as an add-on to the historical tree (make the starting techs on the terraforming tree the ending ones on the historical tree) the tech required to build the ship to Alpha Centauri would be much higher (realistic).

Now, as an add-on...
Gordon the Whale is offline  
Old August 5, 1999, 02:06   #82
Iceman88888888
Settler
 
Local Time: 08:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Wollongong,NSW, AUST
Posts: 28
Crashing Ice astroids now its getting really like Sim Earth. Colonizeing Mars? Yes We should do it by 2100 but Terraforming? that sounds abit to advanced for a ending in 2200 ,if it ended in 3000 sure. Maybe it could be a group project with other Civs with colonies on mars.
Iceman88888888 is offline  
Old August 5, 1999, 06:55   #83
Westergaard
Chieftain
 
Local Time: 09:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Denmark
Posts: 58
Just to straighten things out.

What would happen if and unprotected human walked on Mars today?

Well first he would explode because of the lack of pressure. So the first priority would be to build up pressure in the martian atmosphere. The atmospheric pressure is currently very low, just over six millibars, which is less than one hundredth of that at Earth’s surface. There would have to a pressure of at least 140 mb for humans to survive and the closer to earths pressure the better.


Suppose he did survive and didn't explode he would quickly die of radiation sickness since there is no protective ozone layer to shield the planet from the ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sun.

This could also be solved by building up an atmosphere with an ozone layer and maybe using a good sunblocker.


Third he would freeze to death. The temperatures near the equator of Mars averages about 60 degrees below zero.

This would obviously have to be solved since, it is not just enough to put on a warm coat. The plants growing on mars would at least need to be above zero degress and preferably higher. The only way to solve this would be to let plenty of greenhouse gasses, such as CO2 and CFC gas out in the atmosphere. And no, M@ni@c, Mars is not too far away to use the greenhouse effect. In fact just a little of the more active greenhouse gasses such as CFC-gas, could rise temperatures a lot. These could either be produced or you could extract them from the rocks. It is believed that the surface of Mars holds huge amounts of CO2.

On the other hand I think that the presence of humans, and their bases, would do extremely little to heat up Mars. I mean what could a few million people with central-heating do to a whole planet? Earth isn't getting warmer because of it's billions of inhabitants, but because of a slight increase of greenhouse-gasses in the atmosphere.


And finally the poor human wandering on the surface of Mars would suffocate since there isn't any oxygen on Mars.

This is one of the hardest problems to solve, but also one of the least important. If you wanted to survive you could just bring your own oxygen supply, like some sort of SCUBA-gear.

It is possible to introduce the 120 mb of oxygen that is required to breathe, put it is such a huge task that I think that it shouldn't be neccesary. Even if the entire face of the planet was overgrown with plants, and even if you had genetically engineered those plants to produce a lot of oxygen (say at 1% efficiency, which is high but not unrealistic), it would take almost 900 years to build up the 21% oxygen atmosphere. It would take such huge amounts of energy that it is unrealistic to convert enough CO2 to O2, even if you did it in huge reactor tanks it would take centuries.


As you can see it's pretty big task to terraform Mars. But it could be done. To solve the "when is Mars terraformed" question, you could say that the game didn't end when Mars was terraformed, because it could never be completly terraformed. Instead the better you made the climate the faster the growth and the more points the terraformer got(eg 1 atm pressure achieved, +50% growth and industry. 285 degrees K achieved, +50% growth and industry). In the case of multiple terraformers, they should divide the points.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Westergaard (edited August 05, 1999).]</font>
Westergaard is offline  
Old August 5, 1999, 10:55   #84
Maniac
Alpha Centauri Democracy GameC4DG Team Alpha CentauriansACDG The Cybernetic ConsciousnessACDG Planet University of TechnologyPolyCast TeamACDG3 Spartans
 
Maniac's Avatar
 
Local Time: 10:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Gent, Belgium
Posts: 10,712
Iceman8x8 :

I'm serious. I have never heart of Sim Earth before.

Westergaard :

"What would happen if and unprotected human walked on Mars today?

Well first he would explode because of the lack of pressure. So the first priority would be to build up pressure in the martian atmosphere. The atmospheric pressure is currently very low, just over six millibars, which is less than one hundredth of that at Earth’s surface. There would have to a pressure of at least 140 mb for humans to survive and the closer to earths pressure the better."


Before there is an atmosphere every human should wear a pressure suit outside, off course.

"Suppose he did survive and didn't explode he would quickly die of radiation sickness since there is no protective ozone layer to shield the planet from the ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sun."

I know that, but it's not like they are gonna die directly after they set foot on Mars.
Besides, there living spaces could have some protective layer, so they only get the radiation when they walk outside.

"Third he would freeze to death. The temperatures near the equator of Mars averages about 60 degrees below zero."

I know that too off course. Until Mars is terraformed, they would have to wear electrically warmed suit.

"And finally the poor human wandering on the surface of Mars would suffocate since there isn't any oxygen on Mars."

Ever heart of an oxygen supply?


You have summarized the things why humans have to wear suits + you have just given all the reasons why Mars should be terraformed. Thank you.
Maniac is offline  
Old August 5, 1999, 13:44   #85
Maniac
Alpha Centauri Democracy GameC4DG Team Alpha CentauriansACDG The Cybernetic ConsciousnessACDG Planet University of TechnologyPolyCast TeamACDG3 Spartans
 
Maniac's Avatar
 
Local Time: 10:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Gent, Belgium
Posts: 10,712
Two maps is enough.
Maniac is offline  
Old August 5, 1999, 18:29   #86
Gordon the Whale
Chieftain
 
Local Time: 08:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Posts: 31
Ice asteroids and comets are the primary reason that the moon, at least, and maybe Mars (Mars could have gotten it some other way, like Earth) have water ice today. Over the billions of years since they formed, they catch comets, which hit the planet/moon and leave ice behind. That said, I looked up the data from the recent Lunar Prospector mission to see the status of water on the moon right now: estimated are between 10 million and 600 million tons of ice, in craters at the poles. Great! water on the Moon, and lots of it! Then I figured out how much water that would be if you melted it all and distributed it all over the moon... The upper estimate gives 0.014 millimeters. Not exactly promising, and that's what accrued over 5 billion or so years of lunar history... Certainly, if we could condense the Oort cloud and move it to the moon, we'd get a lot of water. But that's unlikely, and the number of icy bodies at any given time in the inner solar system is pretty low, so that's not a very fast way to get water onto the planet. Then again, there aren't so many other ways, other than extracting hydrogen and oxygen from rocks and combining them, which is slow and expensive.

Whether Mars has enough water on it to melt down for terraforming is still unknown; the Mars Polar Lander is currently enroute to the Martian South Pole to find out, unless something has gone wrong with it. Mars shows evidence that it once had enough liquid water to cause erosion. If so, the water may have all frozen at the poles as Mars lost its thicker, heat trapping atmosphere, which it presumably once had. Heck, you can look at a picture of Mars and SEE the water, but that doesn't say there's really enough to cover a reasonable amount of the planet. If Polar Lander (they sure do give them creative names, these days) finds out that that's the case, putting a good atmosphere on Mars will warm it back up and melt the water. Still one problem: radiation. An ozone layer is all fine and good, but it only stops UV. There are much nastier thing out there, and only a strong magnetic field, like Earth's, will stop them. Mars does have a magnetic field, discovered in 1997, but it's less than 1/800 the strength of Earth's. No dice. you need to bioengineer radiation-insensitive crops (probably photosynthetic bacteria... yum) and live inside radiation shielded houses. Of course, the moon has even less of a magnetic field, so this is a bigger problem there.
Gordon the Whale is offline  
Old August 6, 1999, 00:07   #87
Tornado7
Chieftain
 
Local Time: 08:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jun 1999
Location: Central Islip New York America
Posts: 74
Ok, this idea assumes that we'll have multiple maps, of different planets. There could be a simplified "mini" map, representing interplanetary space or the solar system. The map would be revealed once you discover astronomy or something. Anyway, this could represent and simulate interplanetary travel, with spaceships traveling between the different planets. That way, you could blockade a planet during a war or something. Just a thought.

------------------
Truth is stranger than fiction, and people are weirder than both.
Tornado7 is offline  
Old August 6, 1999, 05:32   #88
Harel
Prince
 
Local Time: 08:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: May 1999
Location: Ramat Hasharon, Israel
Posts: 326
Maniac, you don't need to get read of the co2 in the mars atmosphere. You need all the gas you can get! Mars atmospheric pressure isn't a TAD lower, it's 1% of earth atmosphere. Mars almost have no air to breathe at all. You won't die because of the co2 if you breath Mars air: not enough co2 to kill you. No, the problem is you don'have anything to breath.

The main problem in mars is not co2 to heat up the planet ( enough is trapped in the rocks ), nor even the oxygen ( if the hyptosys about Mars under-ground ice oceans are true, we got enough oxygen also ). The problem is not enough "passive" gas. Earth atmopshere has 79% neon: even if you covert all of mars assumed neon to gas, you won't have even a fraction.
Some scientist also suggest using Argon: but still, not enough to go around. It's suggested to create an automated shuttle carrier fleet to bring argon from gynamide.

You can't, however, just dump all the co2 you can get and then wait for it to break-down with planets. First off, high portions of co2 are even toxic to plants. Besides, it would take MILLENIAS to break-down the co2.

No, you must build a solid, moderate atmosphere right from the start.

BTW, gordon, Mars is not the same distance from the sun as Earth! It's three times further!

Also suggested are giant mirros which will orbit Mars and center 25% more lift on the equator line.

In any case, terraforming mars completly would take no less then 500 years, regardless of what technology you use.
Beside, a FULL terraformation of mars is impossible: you won't never have enough neon, the tempture would always be lower ( cause of the distance ), and the G would just be wrong.

But, for the best information of Mars terraforming, read ( hell, run to buy it! ), Kim stanely robinson GRAND triology: red mars, blue mars and green mars.
Harel is offline  
Old August 6, 1999, 05:50   #89
Westergaard
Chieftain
 
Local Time: 09:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Denmark
Posts: 58
I think that it is very interesting to discuss terraforming and how it could be put in the game. But to be serious i doubt that it's going to be in the game, I have heard some people saying that they'd like Civ III to end before 2050, because Civilization is a game of history and it has to end with us going to AC before 2050 so that SMAC can begin, and stuff like that.

I think it would be very sad if Sid wanted to follow the story line that hard, because I'd really like to try to colonize space. So how about we go for a compromise, and demand a few off-world colonies and spacestations, but focus more on the near future space exploitation.

Also I doubt Mars will be terraformed before we have a huge space infrastructure, with fuel-stations and manufacturing stations in orbit etc. It is much easier to build in near earth orbit where you can be radiation-shielded by Earth's magnetic field. As Gordon said, radiation is a serious problem, and you'd have to live in huge shelters.

So for now I think I would be better if we focused on making a realistic, yet fun, way of colonizing space on a small scale.


M@ni@c
Oh, by the way M@ni@c, What I wanted to point out with my previous post was that your terraforming system wasn't very realistic because:[*]Humans don't collect warmth points[*]You don't have to destroy CO2 you have to collect CO2[*]One forest tile converting one CO2 point to one oxygen point per turn, should take some milleniums before you could breathe. It is a huge task to produce oxygen.[*]I think I did point out that you'd have to wear SCUBA gear for a long time after you built up the atmosphere.

Of course a few changes would fix that problem.

Harel
You're absolutly right that you have to build up at least 140 mb pressure, and at best the same pressure as on Earth.

You wrote that the atmosphere on Earth is 79% Neon (symbol Ne), I believe you mean Nitrogen (Symbol N). Right?

And though it is a great idea to fill up the martian atmosphere with Neon or Argon (being passive gasses they won't react) it is not realistic to shuttle it in from elsewhere, it'll just take too much time and energy.

So you'd have to use any gasses available on the planet, but I don't know excactly what these are. But I think there should be some oxygen and a lot of CO2, but I'm not sure. Do you know?

The way I see it you'd just have to settle for sufficient pressure so you won't need pressure suits, and a temperate climate with higher temperatures so you could have agriculture. This way you would still have to bring your own oxygen supply, but that's not unrealistic. They had oxygen supplies in SMAC too.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Westergaard (edited August 06, 1999).]</font>
Westergaard is offline  
Old August 6, 1999, 05:50   #90
Westergaard
Chieftain
 
Local Time: 09:23
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Denmark
Posts: 58
double post
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Westergaard (edited August 06, 1999).]</font>
Westergaard is offline  
 

Bookmarks

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 04:23.


Design by Vjacheslav Trushkin, color scheme by ColorizeIt!.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2010, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Apolyton Civilization Site | Copyright © The Apolyton Team