Please use this thread to jot down ideas on how this mod can actually be won. :D

In testing I normally only played through era 1 so winning/losing wasn't really important. It will be now.

Please use this thread to jot down ideas on how this mod can actually be won. :D

In testing I normally only played through era 1 so winning/losing wasn't really important. It will be now.


currently the three eras of the SotM mod flow as follows -

start -> isolation event -> standard Civ 4 victory conditions

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the normal Civ 4 victory conditions will of course remain - if you kill every other civ, dominate in population and geography, etc. the player chooses which of these default victory conditions to enable before the game starts. (I know, some maps disable some of the default victory conditions, but I think that is a bad idea since it only reflects the playing preferences of the map designer.)

the spaceship victory condition is one of the default victory conditions the player chooses when he starts the game. I have seen previous posts in CivFanatics that state the spaceship (SS) victory condition cannot be disabled. I personally have never played a Civ 4 mod in which there was a victory condition listed upon game startup other than the ones that come with the vanilla Civ 4.

the question for this folder is "what will be the UNIQUE victory condition for SotM that other mods do not have?"

based upon the above analysis this translates into "how will the SS victory condition be different in the SotM mod?"

we will have to proceed upon this assumption unless someone knows how to update the code so as to add another victory condition to the options at the start of the game.

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I personally find the builtin SS victory condition to be nonsensical. the game starts on the Moon, so obviously spaceflight has already been mastered.

to modify the standard SS victory condition the least, the obvious change would be to keep the current SS parts, but instead make Mars the destination of the SS.

this would be a lame approach, but at least consistent with the mod and would involve the least amount of coding.

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one replacement for the standard SS victory would be for a civ to build an SDI shield to protect itself from its mother country.

the downside of this idea is that it only suggests a few techs or structures to be built.

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I would favor instead an approach that expands the role of aliens in the game.


as it stands now aliens contribute debris to form goody huts on moon based maps, and do absolutely nothing else. (even the minor barbarian civs that may appear on a moon based map do not have alien names.)

elsewhere I have suggested aliens could form the basis of religion in the revised mod. to expand upon that the game could end with a replacement for the SS that involves building techs and structures to welcome the aliens to your civ. for example, a language translator, a space port, a golf course (seriously!), etc.

the downside to this approach is that assumes the aliens will be friendly. to assure this will be true various techs could be researched that indicate the true feelings of any given alien race towards humans. anyone could skip these optional techs, but each new game will randomly generate say only 1 of the 8 alien races as being truly friendly. anyone who guesses wrong will of course lose and be wiped out.

that is the black and white approach. a more nuanced approach would make each of the alien races contribute a different number of victory points. in that case a player may decide to end the game before researching all eight of them since one of the known alien races is " good enough" to win. this approach would change the endgame mechanics drastically since the other players would be given a set amount of time to also contact the aliens. someone who waited until he contacted the correct "best" alien race might still beat someone who was guessing or premature in his choice.

the obvious objection to the above nuanced ending is that someone could luck out by guessing the best alien race to contact. one way to reduce the chances of winning for such a luck player is to have a tiered endgame in which say three races have to be contacted to win, and each later contacted race presupposed contact with the previous race(s). in that case the chance of guessing the right race 3 times in a row would be 1 in 8^3 or one in 1 in 512 or 0.2%

I personally find the builtin space race victory condition to be nonsensical. the game starts on the Moon, so obviously spaceflight has already been mastered.

to modify the standard victory condition the least the obvious change would be to make the SS parts, etc. the same, but instead have Mars as the destination.

this would be a lame approach, but at least consistent with the mod and would involve the least amount of coding.

I agree with everything you posted, but want to focus on this part for now.

While it's true spaceflight has been mastered there's no guaranteeing that it can be duplicated once you're on the Moon and have no contact with Earth. It should require some new tech breakthroughs and ingenuity.

Plus, people will be focusing on survival at first so working spaceship parts will most likely be cobbled for more pressing needs and have to be rebuilt.

I don't have a problem with some sort of Alien Transendence victory if it isn't lame.

from my post 878 on page 44 -

the space race victory was enabled in my games, but its conditions were not satisfactory.

the mod changes vanilla Civ 4 space victory so that it is only necessary to build five (simultaneous) SS casings to achieve a space victory.

as a practical matter we need to first map out the game eras and tentative overall desires for the tech tree before considering changes to the victory condition.

whether or not ALIENS are part of the eras and tech tree will imply whether or not they become part of the victory condition.

there is a separate thread for "Tech tree & Game eras".