Just food for thought . . .

If there will be aliens then make it possible to customize their behaviour: agressive or peaceful. It could be a possible way to win: defend Earth from invading aliens! Or trade with aliens for inter-galactic flight techs (but make it real-real hard), and only then could become the journey to Alpha Centauri possible!!

quote: Originally posted by Deathwalker on 11-09-2000 06:44 AM Though this is an interesting idea, contacting aliens, I do not think they should be a civ in there own rights. But having conact would be a interesting idea. Maybe it could be a wonder

Oh, c'mon! Meeting aliens as a wonder??? How unrealistic can you get!!! Can no one here imagine how FUN and EXCITING war in space against aliens would be like?!?!?! Use your imaginations, guys (and gals)!!!

In civ3, you might sometimes encounter or communicate with an alien race that knows of the Progenitors. Possibly an enemy of the Progenitors. The Progenitors would still be very enigmatic but this way, when you get a ship off to AC, the story would be set that somewhere out there lies a mysterious alien race called the Progenitors, that you would finally meet in SMACX.

Also, here is another cool idea! There should be two types of maps in Civ3: galactic maps and planetary maps. Galactic maps are maps of an entire galaxy; planetary maps are maps of planets. Galactic maps can have planetary maps within them, meaning that they can be combined into a single file. This would allow players to not only create their own planetary maps, but also they can create their own galactic maps as well! Galactic maps should contain tiles of empty space as well as tiles with stars, planets, asteroids, comets, nebulas, black holes, and worm holes (maybe), etc. Note: there should be different types of stars such as white dwarfs, red giants, novas and supernovas. Planets are added to galactic maps by choosing planetary maps to go into specific tiles. Also, I think planets and comets should orbit around stars, and other objects such as asteroids should move around as well.

Transportation in the space age could be made much easier by adding two nanotech advances: Warp Drive (or Hyperdrive) and Transporters. The discovery of Warp Drive should give some spaceships a warp function, which allows them to move from any explored tile in a galactic or planetary map to another in a single turn! The discovery of Transporters should allow most units to have a transport function, which allows them to move from any tile on a map to another on the same map, or from a map to a spaceship (or vice versa) that is within transporter range as many times in a turn as they want (It shouldn't take a freakin' year to transport a unit, should it. That is highly unrealistic!). I think the Space Age should be counted in single years and should last 'till at least midway into the 3rd Millineum; that should give players enough time to settle their relations with alien civs and win the game!

I think their should be five types of spaceships in Civ3: small fighters/bombers, medium-sized battle cruisers, Large Corellian Battleships, Battlestations (or Motherships), and transport ships. Each type of ship (except small fighters/bombers) should be equipped with a limited number of docks that can dock smaller ships, with Battlestations being able to dock the most ships. Transport ships are short range ships that can be docked by every type of ship except small fighters/bombers and are used as an alternative to using transporters. They give transporting units an offensive/defensive advantage; they can be dispatched without using any turns.

I think their should be a nanotech advance that gives you a weapon that can destroy entire planets (like in Star Wars Episode IV). This would prevent players from having to spend too many long turns having to conquer alien worlds by taking them city by city. But such a weapon could allow a player to win a game too quickly if discovered too early and should be left as one of the last advances to be discovered in the tech tree.

BTW, if we are to have even 5 - 10 maps, we are going to need provinces... it would be too hard to manage.

Aliens could work like a off-map civilization, as suggested earlier. They have no cities or units for most of the game, but can come in, establish cities and fight/live in peace with humans. Obviously they would have more advanced tech, and trading or scavenging their tech could be the only way to get to Alpha Centauri, or another star a la X-Com.

I think humans should only start on Earth. It is the only known planet that is hospitable to human life.

Edit: Work, UBB Code.... Work....

quote: Originally posted by Zero_Tolerance on 11-09-2000 12:45 PM I personally think it would be nice if you could choose where in the galaxy you want to start; in other words, you don't have to start on earth. You could start on any planet in any solar system (note: this will add customisability to the game).

hehe, considering there are over 100,000,000,000 stars in the galaxy i think thatd probably be too much customisability for me

quote: Originally posted by DrFell on 11-09-2000 07:41 PM hehe, considering there are over 100,000,000,000 stars in the galaxy i think thatd probably be too much customisability for me

well, maybe part of a galaxy. I think there are only about 20-30 constellations that have been counted in our own galaxy, and not every one of them has to contain planets, nor do all of the planets need to be planets that can sustain life. that may pretty much narrow it down to say about 10-20 habitable planets (considering there may be only about one habitable planet per solar system) per game, and to be realistic not all of them should have intelligent life on them. Over a period of about 500 years you should be able make and sustain peace throughout the galaxy, or destroy all the extraterrestial civs in the game (quite inhumane to do it this way, though, I think). Upon doing so, all civs on your home planet lose interest in fighting against each other and gain interest in exploring what is left to explore in the universe, and as result unite their powers into one civilization and the game ends.

I personally disagree with the idea of not having extraterrestrial civs in Civ3. Why? WE ALL WANT THIS TO BE "THE BEST GAME EVER," AND IF THAT IS GOING TO BE SO THEN WE NEED TO DO THIS TO "HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD" THIS TIME. LET'S MAKE SURE THIS IS THE BEST AND FINAL SEQUAL IN THE CIVILIZATION SERIES. MAKE IT SO!!!

quote: Originally posted by Tiberius on 11-09-2000 07:56 AM Contacting aliens in the (very) late game could be an interesting idea. But aliens as a civ?? I don't know, maybe for scenarios or an option in a txt file. If there will be aliens then make it possible to customize their behaviour: agressive or peaceful. It could be a possible way to win: defend Earth from invading aliens! Or trade with aliens for inter-galactic flight techs (but make it real-real hard), and only then could become the journey to Alpha Centauri possible!! Be careful though, many don't like SF, so by default NO aliens. But as an option, yes, I'm for it.

This is the most sensible idea yet.

I usually dislike SF in history games. If I want SF I'd buy SMAC or something. I want civ to be historicall.

However, making it an option is quite cool. Also, I think the end game should be something like what Tiberius said: either defending agaisnt aliens, either trading tech with them.