Im just pitching ideas here, but being a scifi fan, I need more than just Earth to conquer, I need planets that bring new minerals, allies even (native aliens?), I need planets that give me the abilility to conquer them also, and I need planets so I can blow them up, much like the obiliteration option in AC. It may sound a bit Star Wars, which I am a fan of, but Civ 3 should expand into Space, considering we all have conquered earth in Civ 2.

quote: Wouldn't it be possible to cleanse the Germans from Earth and leave them stranded and restricted to Saturn???

a total and utter newbie and already making enemies...

welcome on board, fella! don't get on my people, I will throw it back to you

------------------
excerpts from ICQ talks:

Ogga ogga ogg ogg - Provost Harrison
Never Ming - Builder
heh - Warning:
- Ming

Anyhow, I believe that if we expand it to more then 5 - 10 worlds, it will be too big...

quote: Originally posted by CivilizationCanuck on 11-07-2000 04:57 PM Wouldn't it be possible to cleanse the Germans from Earth and leave them stranded and restricted to Saturn??? Comments? Criticism?

I couldn't agree more with what Andy said. Have you gone out of your mind ?!. Sometimes I feel like wanting to cleanse the Americans of the earth, because from time to time they seem so utterly ignorant, arrogant (or whatever frustrates me) like you do now. But what about us dutch ???
Got anything against our eastern neighbours, are you still living in the past ???.
Maybe you could be standing model for a new unit, the fool, decreases happiness and increases frustration tolerance.

we need to show strength now

*shows strength*

Easy there guys!

Wouldn't it be possible to cleanse the "Canadians" (happy? It was an example ) from Earth and leave them stranded and restricted to Saturn???
Comments? Criticism?

Its not like I have anything against Germans, or Canadians, since I am both, just making it more viable to you instead of saying Faction A, Faction B etc.

*takes staff and clubs newbie over the head*

The interface we have for Civ/CTP/SMAC is not well suited to one in which space is another combat arena. For starters, we'd need to be able to overlay orbital facilities/satellites/ships over a view of the entire planet. Turn times would have to be dropped below 1 year since by 2020 Delta's lunar shuttle get's you there in 2 days (or your money back!) and what orbit you're in makes a big difference but wouldn't show in a 1 turn = 1 year system. Furthermore, nearly every space-borne weapon is one of mass destruction when inflicted on planets, so auto-counterattack functionality would be a must to enable any kind of Cold War scenarios.

There's also the question of how to implement the difficulty of launching something out of the gravity well. A single 'Rocketry'/'Space Flight' advance wouldn't cut it. You'd need a whole slew of minor advances that cut down launch costs, spaceship propulsion systems, etc. Orbital elevators (very expensive to build, but allow virtually unlimited orbital access) could become a normal improvement, but only for cities on/near the equator. But there's also laser boost systems (cheap all around, but use lots of power), ramjets (expensive to research and build, but cheaper launches), and rockets (expensive in everything except research).

Consider also that everything you can build a city on is going to have different rules on how to get resources and what it takes to keep the place running. Having resource types rather than just shields/food will come in handy here.

I would suggest that some of you check out an old Sierra game called Alien Legacy for a decent beginning on implementing this.

Obviously the tech tree will have to be extended far out beyond the simple 1960 + starship that civ2 went to.

quote: Originally posted by Tical_2000 on 11-08-2000 08:23 PM Hey man! Easy on the name-calling. I think he was just using the Germans as an example. Its just a computer game and yeah, if I was playing Civ and the Germans really pissed me off I would like to obliterate their race from the earth just like I would to any race that pissed me off. Its nothing personal.

It may be a bit late to respond to this, but somehow you leave me no choice.

It's not just that the germans are being used as an example. Somehow it seems as if they're always just being used as an badexample.
The most obvious choice for a bad example.
The stereotype choice for a bad example.
The easy choice to get away with if you want to pick on somebody.
And that's being done here in the netherlands as well.
This stereotype kind of thinking is what really makes me mad.

I'm sorry if I have offended somebody/you with getting as mad as I've been here.

Perhaps one of Firaxis' next projects would be this kind of game. You play as the director of a space agency starting in 1960 and go from there.

quote: Originally posted by CivilizationCanuck on 11-07-2000 04:57 PM Being a strategy nut, I like to build my empires as far as possible, and one of the things I enjoyed about Test of Time was how they had multiple planets. I believe, if done correctly in Civlization 3, that if Mars, Mercury, Venus, all those planets were included... it would make it extremely better.

Why this almost obsessive need of trying to squeeze absolutely everything into the main-game?

Isnt there enough SciFi-based strategy-games around already? Why isnt some really good Civ-3 SciFi-scenarios enough?

The main dilemma for Firaxis is this. One one hand:

"Expanding the main-game beyond 2020-2040 AD is not going to be popular by conservative players, and those who DO like this approach, are likely to rant about this or that futuristic government, improvement, unit or wonder, and the fact that this or that version of it, perhaps wasnt exactly what they wanted either".

On the other hand:

If Firaxis īnstead developes a main-game that covers the same period as Civ-2 (4000BC - 2040AD), they still have full freedom in adding some great SciFi-scenarios, both together the main game, and with any future scenario-addons.

The latter approach is, seen from a commercial and review-critical point of view; the safest one. They can always repair any "ending 2040 AD" criticism, by adding some lavish tailor-cut futuristic/SciFi-scenarios. If the disapproval instead goes the other way around; they cannot do much about it. (and criticized it will be, if they decides to implement these SciFi ideas - i have visit this site long enough, read too many posts, and read too many CTP, CTP-2 and TOT reviews to understand that some people really DONT LIKE these ideas).

Finally; seen from Firaxis game-developing point of view (and particular in a game thats anticipated to be the REAL heir to Civ-2), it is extremely important that they minimize the risk of failure, by concentrate themselves on a quality-before-quantity approach.
Infact: in many ways, one can use Activisions attempts (especially, the first game: CTP) as a "crash test dummy", when it comes to the real hazards of the "trying to squeeze as much as possible, into the main-game" approach.

How about if in Civ 3 you were restricted to Earth, and the game would end when you built the first successful colony on another planet/the moon. You could then play that game on a sequal (Civ solar colonization,?). That game would cover the exploration, colonization and conquering of the galaxy and would be able to open any Civ 3 game where at least one civ has a colony on a planet/moon outside of earth. When you 'win' that game (build a ship to colonize Alpha Centary, or discover some tech that allows exploration/colonization of the galaxy/universe) then you can play that game on SMAC 2 or MoO 2. Thus you can start one game starting at the origins of that civ and be able to conquer the world, explore and conquer the solar system, and explore and conquere the galaxy.

quote: Originally posted by Vrank Prins on 11-08-2000 07:01 AM I couldn't agree more with what Andy said. Have you gone out of your mind ?!. Sometimes I feel like wanting to cleanse the Americans of the earth, because from time to time they seem so utterly ignorant, arrogant (or whatever frustrates me) like you do now. But what about us dutch ??? Got anything against our eastern neighbours, are you still living in the past ???. Maybe you could be standing model for a new unit, the fool, decreases happiness and increases frustration tolerance. AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGG

What a good idea, a FOOL is probably the best idea yet, however, it should be a diplomatic specialist to sabotage opponents cities.

If Civ3 finished with the completion and launch of the first true interstellar probes rather than a definite spaceship to a definite planet it would leave the needed ambiguity about what happens next. By the time a spaceship really could head off for AC there would certainly be the means and the incentive to begin the colonisation of other bodies in this solar system.