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).

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.

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.

...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?

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.