Here are 3 ways that I see how this idea of "utopias" might be implemented:

1) Utopias as Social Engineering choices.

Admittedly, this is my least favorite way but here it is. Utopias would be similar to SMAC's "future societies". Utopias would be a SE choice that should be very difficult to implement but would confer significant SE benefits to your civ.

2) Utopias as Wonders of the World.

The player would "build" (spend ressources)or "acheive" (meet certain requirements) a certain utopia similarly to how a player builds a Wonder. And just like a Wonder, each utopia would confer a big bonus to the owner.

3) Utopias as Victory conditions

The player would have to acheive certain dificult conditions. Furthermore, the player would have to maintain the utopia for a certain amount of turns. At that point, if the player sucessfully maintains the utopia for the given amount of turns, then the player would win the game. Naturally, there would be a proper utopia movie and victory screen to celebrate the victory.

I personally think that the idea of utopias can make civ3 really cool. I am not sure how exactly to best implement the idea so I have just suggested these 3 ideas.
What do you guys think?

Tical_2000: I know that human nature forbids a trully perfect society. I am talking about a game not real life. After all, civ is just a game. It never claimed to be real life.

The question is: will my idea make the game better?

quote: Originally posted by The diplomat on 11-27-2000 01:08 PM 3) Utopias as Victory conditions

I vote for above, if any. Check below post, from the "Civ3 Editor tools..." thread:

"While the player can create any scenario to be either historic, modern, futuristic or even fantasy, the MAIN GAME, by comparision, should ONLY concern itself with historic and modern eras (upto 2040 AD) - just like Civ-2, basically.
The reason for this is that with a powerful SCENARIO-EDITOR you can, besides making historic and modern scenarios, also tailor-cut exactly how you want these futuristic (or fantasy) scenarios to be - including chosen value-systems and overal existence-conditions.

The problem with expanding the MAIN GAME horizon beyond 2040, is that Firaxis then easily build themselfes in a corner. As long as we are dealing with prior 2040, then we are dealing with mostly known value-systems and realities. Unless something very drastic happens the next 40 years, the historic and modern facts and conditions of mankinds existence here on earth are likely to stay, mostly the same.

However, then we are looking beyond - into the distant 2100-3000 AD future, then our indevidually subjective (and often narrow-minded) pre-conceptions about our future begins to rear its ugly head. Someone wants "market- and mega-corp" to be the most advanced future government, while others wants "Tecnocracy" (what ever that means). A third wants a "humane world-peace and economical justice" government.

These future made-up governments and value-systems felt perfectly OK in SMAC, because the Alpha Centauri world was so totally strange and different. But, know we are talking MOTHER EARTH here.
Personally, i feel almost repulsion about the idea of "Market- and Mega-corp" being an so-called "advanced", and still viable future 2200-2500 AD government alternative, while likewise; someone else feel the same about some unrealistic "social paradise" type of "true Utopia".

Even though such a utopic government-type could be implemented in the main game, its almost unavoidable that we have narrow-minded ideas about the limitations of such a futuristic humane utopia-society.

The truth is WE DONT KNOW what our future is going to be. We can only believe strongly (or vaguely), or perhaps not believe at all.

Ralf: You make a good point!