Right now this idea (which is over 16 months old) has been used, abused, and warped into something that I'm not sure any of us completely understand. In the beginning we needed something to cut off trading He3 for food. We then had immigration, now we don't. We never had an Isolation Event at a certain turn because we didn't have the knowledge to do that. As a compromise in XML we gradually lowered the food/He3 trade value to simulate self sufficiency until the Isolation tech was researched. This unfortunately leads to every civ being cut off at completely different times. I'm sure we can overcome this now.

To top it off we never fully figured out what Isolation actually means. Is it WWIII on Earth? A plague? A natural cataclism? Other? This needs to be addressed to make the actual Isolation Event seem plausible.

I think that AA and Geo have been tossing around ideas in other threads, but I'd like to centralize them here now if possible. I'd also like to hear other elegant, not-so-elegant, and outrageous ideas.

My idea which may or may not be original and definitely needs work:

We somehow tie He3 output and a FfH2 Armageddon Counter into Isolation. Based on map size, # of civs, ect we come up with a value based on how many resources are being harvested and for how many turns. This value then starts the clock ticking towards Isolation. Why though? Maybe the colonists want He3 for themselves? Maybe all of this He3 triggers more global conflict? Maybe a huge He3 explosion on Earth? Who knows.

Is something like this possible and would it be plausible?

In the year of lunar colonization Earth is in dire streights. The supply of fossil fuels has been dwindling for decades and renewable sources are unable to match with the continually growing population. Wars fought over oilfields, coal mines, and nuclear fuels have destabilized most of earth.

As earths resources dwindle, scientists look upon the moon as their salvation. He3, rare on earth but abundent on the moon, has been sucessfully used in fusion reactions so efficient that they may herald a new age of cheap energy, if only the fuel can be collected.

Nations and powerfull Corporations, remembering the energy wars of the early 21st century, carefully begin attempts to collect this precious resource. Working together peacefully at first, every leader harbors the secret fear that this resource too, will prove insuficient to sate Humanitys hunger.





History records clearly the first blow of the Helium war. Powerfull nations, always ready to defend their economic concerns saw the construction of an orbital tether in Indonisia as a paramount threat to their ability to compete for He3. Lacking sutibly equitorial territory of his own for such a project, President Ricolivan ordered the invasion of his neighbor to the south.

We may never know from whom the last blow of the war came, as the genetically designed plague destroyed those who released it as well as their intended targets. Unrestrained nuclear war coupled with unstoppable plauge appears to have been more than Earth could take. It has been a month now since radio transmition has been detected from the surface of the Earth and telescopes have been unable to pierce the radioactive clouds of nuclear winter.

Basically my idea is that competition for limited He3 causes everyone on earth to kill each other in a massive war.

This is all good stuff AA. :thumbsup:

This does cause me to have some questions as to our civ choices and such which we need to address for BtS:

Would there be any chance Science or Space Agencies would even be on the Moon? Wouldn't it be a competition solely between Businesses and Countries? Maybe Space and Science don't revolve around He3 for some reason?
Is the conflict between business and countries more than with science people?
What happens after Isolation? Do we have Lunar Wars based on Earth conflict? Maybe even before Isolation?

What do you think of the Counter AA?

Some organizations ala alias would be nice !

Whatever the background of Isolation, the only thing that concerns us are the effects for those upstart colonies on the Moon.

Does it matter if it is a He³ counter or a random number counter activating the event? We could even let it be triggered by a population counter. The effect is the same. I suppose what's the easiest to code in python would be best. In any case, I think it's best to make it something the player can't control so he has no say in when the event will happen.

Woodelf, as on your question if Space Agencies have a place on the Moon in a predominantly economic demand, the answer is yes. To make a comparison, it's not because there are oil platforms all over the coastal shelfs on Earth that the reefs/seabeds near them aren't investigated. On the contrary.

However it gets triggered it'd be nice to have era 1 techs about complete. Either population or other trigger. Whichever is easiest is definitely the way to go for now.

This is all good stuff AA. :thumbsup:

This does cause me to have some questions as to our civ choices and such which we need to address for BtS:

Would there be any chance Science or Space Agencies would even be on the Moon? Wouldn't it be a competition solely between Businesses and Countries? Maybe Space and Science don't revolve around He3 for some reason?
Is the conflict between business and countries more than with science people?
What happens after Isolation? Do we have Lunar Wars based on Earth conflict? Maybe even before Isolation?

What do you think of the Counter AA?

I think that the more idealistic nations could still base their lunar colony around "research". America for instance could have NASA as well as there being an American-based corporation there for mining. Claiming 'science' is also a way to try to get other people to think you arn't doing it for millitary reasons. I see Scientific Agencys as merely an arm of the nation itself.
More militaristic nations wouldn't bother with the pretext of science.

I would definantly want to have Lunar wars during and after the isolation event. As earth destabilizes there could be forced wars between civs on the moon as well as strong diplomatic modifiers, and when isolation occurs every nation should be in at least one, preferably more, wars.

I think the whole noticable isolation event should be very quick though, lasting mere turns.

I like the idea of the counter for determining the isolation event. Since isolation is merely one early stage in the long game i would make no way to every lower the counter, and it should progress toward isolation no matter what actions are taken my players and AI. Allow the player to slow it down or speed it up, and AI activitys affect it as well, but make sure it happens.
Also, I don't think that the player should know exactly what the counter is at ever. They should only see it by its effects. Diplomatic modifiers, wars, storyline popups and events, etc.

Is this a python task you want to tackle AA? No timetable and lots to play around with. :)

Sounds like fun.
I will start looking at how to make one based off of resources, population, wars and/or research. We can worry about exactly how is should be triggered later, and I'm sure that it will need tweaking once it is in place as well.

Super. Thanks man.

No hurry at all, but if you come up with anything pre-BtS then we can test it out here. ;)

Keep bouncing ideas off here so we know what is easiest and what's possible as you start going. Some ideas we've discounted out of python ignorance might not be that bad in the end.

Here are a coulple of my thoughts on Isolation:

-It happens all of a sudden and no-one knows when it will happen

-It only happens after more then 75% of the civs have researched certian techs that would be vital for survival without an earth connection.(those civs that don't have those techs will likely not survive)

-It only happens after more then 75% of the civs have reached a certian population.

-after the above two conditions are met (there will be no ingame notification when they are) the isolation event will occur in a random turn within the next 50 turns (so that it happens within the 2 era)

-only the mod designers (and sneaky people who look in the python files for the mod) should know the trigger techs and trigger population.

This would be relitively simple to program and should give the player no disadvantage over the AI since it should be completely unexpected.

We will also need to figure out the effects of isolation on the moon colonies.(these effects should be drastic and affect the player strategy greatly)

If the event is always triggered by the same thing then it will eventually be known by the player and no longer be a suprise.

We could make several different mechanisms for triggering the isolation event, and randomly choose which are used at the beginning of the game, unknown to the player and AI?

For example,
75% of civs researched tech "A"
75% of civs researched tech "B"
50% of civs researched tech "C" (a slightly later tech)
Any civ has researched tech "D" (an even later tech)
All civs have made contact with all other civs.
At least "#" of citys per civilization.
75% of civs have total population of at least "____"
World population is at least "______"
Turn number is greater than "###"
etc.

If we made a list of like 30 of those and at the start of the game pick 3 of them, including at least one requirement of some technology allowing reasonable survival ability, then when two of the three (including the tech requirement) are completed Isolation occurs.

With a system like this not even the developers and sneaky python-reading people would know what will trigger it in any particular game.

Cool. Tons of options for a trigger work for me. Plus we could simply have option 25 be it happens on turn X no matter what. :p

One question here: is this in convergence that in the first era (settlement from now on?) settlers/workers and stuff are only delivered by Earth and not produced by the factions? At least until Isolation occurs?

I know I'm giving a whole other string of events to you python guru's with this... :sad:

Yeah, originally I don't think food was attempted to be cultivated or produced and the only way pop went up was via immigration. And we did have additional colony pods coming every X turns until Isolation.

Belizan and matthewv did something like this originally with immigration, but I removed it. If it's the way we want to go I don't have any problem with that.

If the event is always triggered by the same thing then it will eventually be known by the player and no longer be a suprise.

Since Isolation would occur at a comletely random number of turns after the trigger I don't think this will be the case.

The problem with having a bunch of randon triggers and then randomly chosing which on to use is that we can't design the tech tree knowing the isolation event will highly likely occur when most people are in a peticular era.

Even with a random number of turns, it will be known by the player and will not be a surprise after the first time they have played the mod.


I think that we can tune all of the possible triggers so that there is a reasonable range of technology that the civs will be in when isolation occurs.
I wouldn't want the event to always occur at the same point in the game, that would reduce replayability. if one time you play it occurs quickly and it is a struggle to survive, and the next time it occurs late and there are large self sufficient empires already it will not feel like you are playing the same game twice.
If isolation occurs at approximately the same point in the tech tree every time it will seem like the same game being played over again.

Even with a random number of turns, it will be known by the player and will not be a surprise after the first time they have played the mod.

The random number would change with every game thus every game would be different. one game it may happen early in the era it is designed to happen in but in another game it may happen very late.

The random number would change with every game thus every game would be different. one game it may happen early in the era it is designed to happen in but in another game it may happen very late.

Wouldn't be very random if it didn't now would it?

When the player knows what tech triggers it they will use it to their advantage. If they are ready and the opponents aren't, they can trade the tech around to make isolation occur sooner. If they need more time they might delay developing that tech as long as possible.

I don't want to have any idea what I can do to make isolation occur sooner or later.

I think that we can tune all of the possible triggers so that there is a reasonable range of technology that the civs will be in when isolation occurs.
I wouldn't want the event to always occur at the same point in the game, that would reduce replayability. if one time you play it occurs quickly and it is a struggle to survive, and the next time it occurs late and there are large self sufficient empires already it will not feel like you are playing the same game twice.

If you guys think you can do that, by all means go ahead. I just figured this would be rather difficult to do. Some of the triggers you mentioned earlier highly depend on the size of the map you play and thus would be difficult to tune (for example: All civs have made contact with all other civs.).

Since Isolation would occur at a comletely random number of turns after the trigger I don't think this will be the case.

The problem with having a bunch of randon triggers and then randomly chosing which on to use is that we can't design the tech tree knowing the isolation event will highly likely occur when most people are in a peticular era.

Actually, I feel that's not really necessary. If by chance Isolation happens way in the Colonization (2nd) or even in the Expansion (3th) era when quite a bit of the moon is already settled, so be it. All hail to the imaginary political leaders on Earth who managed to steer off the inevitable for so long. ;)
Such a game would be fast paced in the beginning, and isolation would likely not hit that hard but it would hit nevertheless.

What if just a virtual dice was rolled every turn, and when the magic number(s) was/were hit the event happens? And the more magic numbers the more of something that is determined at the start of the game is present ingame?

So: the chance to hit the trigger starts from turn one, and the chances increase with every [something] that is present.

I've been wondering if we want He3 to be the driving force behind colonizing the Moon and if we want to rethink Isolation. Any thoughts, changes, or desires to remain the same?

Did anyone work on python coding the Isolation?

I've been wondering if we want He3 to be the driving force behind colonizing the Moon and if we want to rethink Isolation. Any thoughts, changes, or desires to remain the same?

Well, with the charters in place (scientific,...) we could let that be the determining factor where the factions start. A mining company would start near He³, a scientific outpost could start near weird features and with a sort of lab facility or improvement. Stuff like that.

Did anyone work on python coding the Isolation?

Not that I know of. At least not after Belizan&company.

Well, with the charters in place (scientific,...) we could let that be the determining factor where the factions start. A mining company would start near He³, a scientific outpost could start near weird features and with a sort of lab facility or improvement. Stuff like that.

That would be cool. :thumbsup:

Not that I know of. At least not after Belizan&company.

I guess we really need to figure out how to trigger it.

Maybe an AC like FfH2, but based on other to be determined factors.

An AC (<--??) like FfH2?

Something simple could be the amount of techs researched (researched, not received by trade or bribe). I suppose a python check on how many techs every civ has and using that return (or a divider of this number) as the chance percentage of Isolation to occur would be possible.
We could even give the player an option at startup on the chance probabilities of Isolation happening sooner or later, and link his input with this return number.

I can do the programming for the isolation event when you guys figure out what you want to trigger the event and what all the event does.

An AC (<--??) like FfH2?

Armageddon Counter from Fall from Heaven II. Geesh. :p

Something simple could be the amount of techs researched (researched, not received by trade or bribe). I suppose a python check on how many techs every civ has and using that return (or a divider of this number) as the chance percentage of Isolation to occur would be possible.
We could even give the player an option at startup on the chance probabilities of Isolation happening sooner or later, and link his input with this return number.

It could be that simple, sure. As long as it always doesn't happen at the same time in every game I'm fine with anything.

I can do the programming for the isolation event when you guys figure out what you want to trigger the event and what all the event does.

Great. Thanks!