Civ 4 and Alpha Centauri: Why stop at Civics?

Hi folks:

First time poster here. I have been playing Civ series since the Mayor used to 'Flee in Panic'.

To the point:

Given that the Designers openly admit to adopting the Civics stuff from Alpha Centauri, why did they stop with that? Why not continue the Tech Tree and Military units past 'Mech Infantry', and into some of the cool sci-fi stuff found in Alpha Centauri?

Before those who would argue that Civ is principally a 'historic' game, I say: If you can build an interstellar space ship in Civ, why not a Hover Tank?

Why not research 'SuperConductors' and Fusion Cores? Why not borrow some of the cool Wonders from AC? (Hunter-Seeker algorithm, Longevity Vaccine).

Any chance that we will see more advance Techs than just 'Future Tech (Elventy-billion)' in later versions?

Civ 4 is generally a game for the masses, while Alpha Centauri was for true enthusiasts.

Civ 4 is much simplified compared to AC - ecosystem, multiple ways of building your civ (tech affinity versus ecosystem affinity), more meaningful planetary resolutions, possibility to design units...

Civ 4 emphasizes Graphics and accessibility, so many things were discarded... Futuristic techs among them.

In the tradition of previous Civs, there never have been any specific future techs. The game has always concluded with space race techs, and a space race win.

Kamamura said:

Civ 4 is generally a game for the masses, while Alpha Centauri was for true enthusiasts.

Civ 4 is much simplified compared to AC - ecosystem, multiple ways of building your civ (tech affinity versus ecosystem affinity), more meaningful planetary resolutions, possibility to design units...

Civ 4 emphasizes Graphics and accessibility, so many things were discarded... Futuristic techs among them.

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A few things:
I'm not sure I agree with the first point, AC seemed popular enough. But then I could be too old and 'out of the loop'.

Simplified aspects
From a design perspective I can ditching the custom Unit builds. Frankly, they were not always that much better than the standard builds in AC. Also, I remember being frustrated after being allowed to build things that were essentially useless in practice (flying transports come to mind...).

The Ecosystem and such are somewhat captured by the Civ4 Civics, though certainly not in the same way as AC. Which is fine. The Worldwide resolutions would be nicer in Civ 4 if the UN / Diplomatic win aspect was totally revisited. I agree with others that building the UN should have a few more benefits than it currently does.

Future Techs
I wouldn't say they were discarded, as I don't recall off-hand if Civ EVER went deep into more sci-fi type Future techs. My little wish is that I WANT to see them go further on the Tech Tree than they have to date. It wouldn't be that hard to do as AC already did it. It would make the late game play / conquest aspects more interesting (esp. if you turn off space race).

Of course, I think being able to build giant combat robots in Civ4 and drop-podding troops from orbit would be cool too.

It would make for an entertaining expansion in my mind. I had always hoped (Especially after playing AC) that there would eventually be something like this. Heres to wishful thinking.

What I liked about AC was the fact that you could build your civilization in multiple DIFFERENT ways. For example when you built many tech improvements, you became enemy of the ecosphere and it started attacking you (spores, fungus, etc). On the other hand, if you researched the ECO techs and did not devastate the landscape, the planet fought for you, you lived in symbiosis.

In Civ 4, you tread one wide road to success - you want to be big, strong, with as much as possible of everything. Then you can win in any way you please, but there is no alternative to this single strategy.

Since the game ends when you send your ship out to Alpha Centauri, I guess they're keeping all the cool future techs for AC 2.

Kamamura said:

What I liked about AC was the fact that you could build your civilization in multiple DIFFERENT ways. For example when you built many tech improvements, you became enemy of the ecosphere and it started attacking you (spores, fungus, etc). On the other hand, if you researched the ECO techs and did not devastate the landscape, the planet fought for you, you lived in symbiosis.

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On the other hand, these various choices were not particularly balanced, and some were wildly overpowered.

AC got far superior diplomacy, REALLY interesting, and CIV IV should adopt that awesome system and improve it further...alas, it only degraded=\. Damn with all future techs - only adaption of diplomacy system would add a lot to CIv IV.
P.S. In AC alas you can't keep farms etc. if not switching to tree farm+hybr.F - your bases become backwards and worms overwhelm all your bases, so you are still forced to switch to eco things(

Phyr_Negator said:

AC got far superior diplomacy, REALLY interesting, and CIV IV should adopt that awesome system and improve it further...alas, it only degraded=\. Damn with all future techs - only adaption of diplomacy system would add a lot to CIv IV.
P.S. In AC alas you can't keep farms etc. if not switching to tree farm+hybr.F - your bases become backwards and worms overwhelm all your bases, so you are still forced to switch to eco things(

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Drat you all. Now I need to go home, kick my kids off my 'old' Win98 computer (has anyone managed to get AC to run on XP??) and play some AC to remember all of its aspects in more detail.

Back to the issue:
Does anyone know if better Future Techs were considered at all for Civ 4 in the concept stages?

has someone made a mod about this to add these kinda unit

(has anyone managed to get AC to run on XP??)

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Well, there's a fix on the official site...

Call to power did this, and it didn't really seem to work IMO. The game kind of ends in a gimmick.

sliganian said:

Drat you all. Now I need to go home, kick my kids off my 'old' Win98 computer (has anyone managed to get AC to run on XP??) and play some AC to remember all of its aspects in more detail.

Back to the issue:
Does anyone know if better Future Techs were considered at all for Civ 4 in the concept stages?

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XP has a feature where you can run old games on an emulator. Right-click on the shortcut and select properties. You can set your box to act as if it's a Win98 machine.

Tom

In XP I got troubles with installation but once installedon 98 or other it works perfectly. But it barks about video but afer manually switching ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=0 in ini file to 1 it works perfectly - just ignore dumb "Dat can make lotz of errorz, BEWARE!" at the beginning.

Thanks for the tech tips. I'll try those out.

Back on topic:
What units from AC would folks want to see?

Personally (aside from hover tanks), I loved the way you could blitz cities with the hi-tech helicopters. Just keep attacking so long as you have enough Move points. Talk about 'strafing' runs!

jayeffaar said:

Since the game ends when you send your ship out to Alpha Centauri, I guess they're keeping all the cool future techs for AC 2.

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Are they making AC 2?

Or is it some kind of horrible joke...

Alpha Centauri 2 will be released just after Duke Nukem Forever.

Truronian said:

Call to power did this, and it didn't really seem to work IMO. The game kind of ends in a gimmick.

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It went too far into the future, and the game engine couldn't keep up with the level of technology. It was hard to believe that a nation which could develop orbital asteroid-chuckers and hyperspace gates would keep it all in a low-earth orbit, but that's what you had to do. CTP2 fared better, IMHO, ending the tech progression about where you would expect to see large-scale colonization of the solar system and beyond (realistically that is, as opposed to this ongoing Alpha Centauri nonsense where you colonize another solar system with early 80s tech )

jimmydean said:

Alpha Centauri 2 will be released just after Duke Nukem Forever.

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If I remember correctly some people at apolyton are making a total conversion (cIV -> AC '2'), so AC fans might just get the chance to play an update of this masterpiece of videogaming history some time soon.

Kilroy said:

It went too far into the future, and the game engine couldn't keep up with the level of technology. It was hard to believe that a nation which could develop orbital asteroid-chuckers and hyperspace gates would keep it all in a low-earth orbit, but that's what you had to do. CTP2 fared better, IMHO, ending the tech progression about where you would expect to see large-scale colonization of the solar system and beyond (realistically that is, as opposed to this ongoing Alpha Centauri nonsense where you colonize another solar system with early 80s tech )

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A sleeper ship like the one depicted in AC is probably the closest thing to what is going to happen if we ever leave this planet, unless some major major breakthrough is made in space travel in the next 100 years or so. And, 80's tech? Debatable...