Back to the Future - Civ 3.

[Comrade Dan]

In Civ 2, you could research up to 255 Future techs, Fusion and go as far into the future as 2020. In CtP there was an extra thousand years of discoveries, and expanded the game greatly. Civ ToT kept the same time frame as Civ 2, but gave us the opportunity to go beyond into more 'proper sciences' otehr than Future Tech.

So how far will we go into the future with Civ 3? Should we just add a few more advances and units and go as far as, say, 2050? Or should we continue with advances and reach far into the future?

[Father Beast]

I, personally, would like to see some future development in civ3. Some sort of near space development, with sattelites and stuff would help me suspend my disbelief at launching an interstellar ship after building stealth bombers
Of course, CTP felt like they made a mistake with the future ages, and have reportedly scrapped the future for CTP2.
But I would HATE to think that sid and co. are scared to do something because it didn't work in CTP.
let's not say that because it didn't work in CTP, it will NEVER work.

[Evil Capitalist]

CTP 2 can't have dropped the idea of future techs- looking at their great library. Although they would have been stupid to have left the length the same as it was.

[Adm.Naismith]

Good points Comrade Dan and Father Beast!

I would like to see less "Future Tech" for the sake of game points, but a more realistic pool of named tech.

Still, I suppose that while the CIV early / middle part of game let us to feel the advance of a Civ in a "historically realistic" background, about near/far future we (players) have really different feeling.

Look how many criticize SMAC, because discovery tree is so "Science Fiction" to be hard to understand.
I too hope that Firaxis can do future level better than CTP.

I will be happy to have the opportunity to manage, in late game, some of greater actual menace on earth future:
- overpopulation and famine
- tap (drinkable) water shortage
- global climate change
- plenty of local conflict to cope with
- energy (based on oil) shortage (do you really know this is a main part of current raise on gas cost, don't you?)
- pollution and biological effects (do you read of polar bears borning ermaphrodites this years?)
- new great disease that put modern medicine on trouble, plus unexpected genetic trouble we can see coming with genetic manipulation.

I'm not looking for a game of trouble , but Civ2 already have a known problem: when you are at mid game you have already seen everything. I'm looking for way to keep game interesting till the end.

I also love the concept of game as a "toy", a laboratory where you can experiment too see how far you can stretch the rules (the game model, to be true).

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[beyowulf]

quote: Originally posted by Adm.Naismith on 09-28-2000 10:31 AM - overpopulation and famine - tap (drinkable) water shortage - global climate change - plenty of local conflict to cope with - energy (based on oil) shortage (do you really know this is a main part of current raise on gas cost, don't you?) - pollution and biological effects (do you read of polar bears borning ermaphrodites this years?) - new great disease that put modern medicine on trouble, plus unexpected genetic trouble we can see coming with genetic manipulation.

I think these would be great, and add more flavor to the game. Ya know, I these things should have periodically crop through the game and you'd have to build, I hesitate to say 'Wonders', but how about 'Projects'. Projects would eliminate or greatly reduce the effects of problems, though, would grant no other bonuses.

Great Wall of China as a project would decrease the amount of raids on your civiliazation.

An island nation might face a problem with flooding, necessitating another project.

Basically, I am talking about natural disasters such as famine, flood, earthquakes, volcanoes, that immediately, and repeatedly threaten your nation, and you would need to build projects to take care of them. In the modern eras, we have man-made disasters such as overcrowding, pollution, fuel-shortages and these would also require projects to take care of.

What'dya think?

[Dr.Oogkloot]

I think Civ3 should go far into the future, maybe around 2500.

Hm, still I think the best idea is like in ToT where you can choose whether you play Original or Extended. For my part I hate SF stuff and the idea that the game doesn't end before 2500 makes me shiver.

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Green Go!

[The Joker]

I think 2500 is simply too far into the future to fit into a Civ game. We have no idea what things will be like by then. I would like a Civ3 that takes the player into the nearer future, with exploration and exploitation of the solar system before making the jump to AC. I think ending the game around 2200 with the proper future techs would work best.

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"It is only when we have lost everything
that we are free to do anything."
- Fight Club

[Shadowstrike]

2200 at most. Up to the discovery of a working FTL drive, which would propel exploration and settlement of the local cluster of systems.

Any futher and everything is speculation. Look at what happened to CTP.

[UltraSonix]

Remember that Civ3 is a part of the "sweep of time" thing? It's supposed to be Dinosaurs, Civ3, then SMAC. So whatever anyone thing, the tech level would probably stop at about the starting tech levels of SMAC (which didn't make any sense though

So SS's comment above would probably hit the mark:

quote: Up to the discovery of a working FTL drive, which would propel exploration and settlement of the local cluster of systems.

For what it's worth, I think that the end tech level should be local space stations, cold fusion, and colonies within our solar system.

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards... Despite any stupid advertisments you may see to the contrary...

[Dienstag]

I agree with 2200 at the latest. I'm not so excited about the FTL drive because theoretically it's impossible. I think 2200 works because it's not inconceivably far off, but not too close that the designers can't come up with some good reasons to end the game there. If they do the techs and "future histiry" right, it could make perfect sense that some country might achieve a militarry, science, political, or economic victory by that time. Throw in the challenges Adm. Naismith listed above and we've got a good game.

Oh, and I would recommend a very limited use of space ships and whatnot, because this is so totally different from everything else in Civ I doubt they could do it in a way that would satisfy me.

[Comrade Dan]

For some strange reason, the future techs in CtP made a whole world of difference to me. Though extending these to 3000 AD was unrealistic (especially with the 4 sets of 10 extra techs) they were quite original...

...such as Subneural Ad (okay, so I hardly ever used them. Coolconcept though), Nanotechnology, Genetic Tailoring (the Beef Vat was for me the most vital improvement in the game, along with Factory, Capital and Mind Controller - it allowed me to increase production by lowering the amount of food needed. Populations of over tens of BILLIONS were normal for me in the Diamond Age), Asteroid Mining and Eden Project (love the video).

However, they were techs that did not confuse me with huge scientific and unfamiliar names like in SMAC. The most confusing-sounding tech in CtP was like 'Digital Encryption' and 'Technocracy'. I can't even remember such a simply-complex name appearing in SMAC.

So I would like the idea of a game that goes as far as 2200. With new units (WAR WALKERS ARE DA BOMB!) and new techs, but in a time frame small enough to represent advanced scientific breakthroughs in detail, and fitting in the same timeframe as SMAC.

I've never been one for challenges (in some Civ games, I have one of those Ducking Birds that constantly presses the Enter key and keep the game running all night so when I wake up, nothing much - apart from city growth and gold - has changed) but they sound cool. Something like the global warming in CtP?

*reminisces about how he wiped out the Dutch through pollution*

[Roman]

I am not keen on scifi techs to say the least. If these are going to be included, we should have the option to play without them, or at least the techs should only go to the very near future, so that minimal speculation is neccessary. I think 2050 is then a sensible date (2100 at absolute maximum). Just think about how fast technology is advancing and it is clear that by 2100 the world will already be completely different and we cannot predict how. The best option would be for the game to finish in 2000 C.E. and just make the tech tree more detailed instead off adding speculative future techs.

[Shadowstrike]

Yay! My opinions do matter....

2200 would be a good drop off point. Consider that we are on the edge of developing good quantum computers, cloning techniques and a sucessful fusion process, I think the game should drop off maybe mid-way through the SMAC tree in terms of technology.

Technology moves faster then ever now. I expect colonies on Mars by the end of the century. I always thought that Civ2 made interstellar space travel too fast, it should slow down a bit. Playing with space colonies would be nice.

[Stuff2]

Actually, the chance of mankind wanting to move to alpha centuari is equal to zero.
Mars on the other hand is, considered bye some scientist of today, likely to be colonized by mankind, maybe not more than 50 - 100 years from now. And not only colonized, but also possible to terraform.

[UltraSonix]

quote: Actually, the chance of mankind wanting to move to alpha centuari is equal to zero.

Ah, what about over-population? Besides, like I've said above, Civ3 is a part of the "sweep of time" thing - civ3's GOT to end up with colonists going to alpha centauri...

quote: I am not keen on scifi techs to say the least. If these are going to be included, we should have the option to play without them

quote: just make the tech tree more detailed instead off adding speculative future techs.

Roman's got a good point... How about having a detailed tech tree, but also have the retirement thing at 2020 (maybe move it to 2050). But the retirement year is no longer mandatory - so you have the option of going on with the game if you want to (with strange SMAC-like techs).

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards... Despite any stupid advertisments you may see to the contrary...

[Shadowstrike]

Civ has always been in the realm of the known.I would like to see it work with near-future technologies, like cold-fusion, solar sails and asteroid mining (not as far off as it seems) as well was what were future techs when Civ first came out, i.e. hydroponics, the Internet, ion drive, antimatter implosion.

We are on the verge of great discoveries. Civ3 should spearhead the future effort instead of letting our tech stagnate.

[Deathwalker]

A great idea, but I think it needs more thought.

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I have walked since the dawn of time and were ever I walk, death is sure to follow