Incrased Space Race

Well, in real life, we didn't just build a spaceship and send it to a foreign star system straight away, did we? No. We sent people into Low Earth Orbit for a few hours, then build satelites to stay in LEO and had a seperate spacecraft transport people there, then the moon...

I propose you have to take smaller steps. Before sending a ship to Alpha Centauri, you have to safely get people into orbit, then to the moon etc.

I always thought that the space race was too short... They need to expand it. But before you can build a spaceship(Low Earth Orbit), you have to build a nuke. Also some of the technologies needed to build a spaceship to the Moon, Mars, and later, Alpha Centauri, require that you have a certain number of spacecraft in orbit. Here is how my proposed space race would go:

1. Build 10 nukes. After it is done, an option for research "Satellites" comes up.
2. Research Satellites and start building your first orbital object.
3. Launch 20 Satellites(500 hammers/satellite)
4. Construct a ship to the Moon, and then to Mars.
5. Create a Mars Colony.
6. Space Race as we know it.

Here are my ideas for a space race. Hope you like it.

imperiex1 said:

I always thought that the space race was too short... They need to expand it. But before you can build a spaceship(Low Earth Orbit), you have to build a nuke. Also some of the technologies needed to build a spaceship to the Moon, Mars, and later, Alpha Centauri, require that you have a certain number of spacecraft in orbit. Here is how my proposed space race would go:

1. Build 10 nukes. After it is done, an option for research "Satellites" comes up.
2. Research Satellites and start building your first orbital object.
3. Launch 20 Satellites(500 hammers/satellite)
4. Construct a ship to the Moon, and then to Mars.
5. Create a Mars Colony.
6. Space Race as we know it.

Here are my ideas for a space race. Hope you like it.

Click to expand...

That's pretty cool. I agree there should be many steps before we get to full on Space exploration and finally Alpha Centauri. There should also be the possibility of failure (and maybe your success increases depending on how much science output you have) in launching your ship/shuttle or on it's voyage wherever it goes.

kain6th said:

That's pretty cool. I agree there should be many steps before we get to full on Space exploration and finally Alpha Centauri. There should also be the possibility of failure (and maybe your success increases depending on how much science output you have) in launching your ship/shuttle or on it's voyage wherever it goes.

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I missed one thing; you need to establish a Moon colony and a Spaceport on it before going to Mars. Sorry I missed that one. By the way, your ideas are great.

Maybe not nukes, but rocketry. So instead of 10 nukes, 10 rockets, and maybe then as well as satelites you can develop jet engines as well

Pouakai said:

Maybe not nukes, but rocketry. So instead of 10 nukes, 10 rockets, and maybe then as well as satelites you can develop jet engines as well

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Yeah, it's the platform more than the warhead that's of import here.

Such an extended space race probably doesn't work from a gaming perspective, but there are various ideas that could be incorporated, keeping in mind civ 5 will probably have different mechanics from civ 4 anyway.

1) Have some specific future technology in the tech tree that relates to the space race - solar sails or laser propulsion or whatever they think sounds cool. They already had a space elevator but that had a minor and almost negligible effect. But with a bit more tech, they could make real choices/investment necessary - a regular ship could take dozens of turns to get anywhere so future techs would be helpful

2) Tie in diplomacy, joint construction, or a similar way for civilizations to cooperate rather than compete. This is the biggest obstacle to the Space Race - from a game perspective, it has to be reasonable for players to do so, rather than just build tanks/modern armor and attack other nations, to "win the game." If the space race gets even more expensive just kicking back into war becomes even more likely for most people playing the game. Personally even in civ 4 terms I would be fine with a way to "share" victory and build a spaceship together with an ally, or perhaps the UN or something like that could declare a world effort that then removes the Space Race victory condition for individual civs (other perk - it could increase bonuses towards winning a diplomatic victory then).

One of the key factors that could change with civ 5 is the investment between beakers and hammers. Civ 4 naturally had all techs cost beakers, and hammers for spaceship parts, but with tech trading and other mechanics all changing, even something here could be different. Rather than having to build "10 nukes/rockets" I think it would be more cool if say, all modern era techs simply had a hammer component along with a beaker component - in civ 4 terms it would wonk up tech trading a little (if you couldn't trade without the hammer component completed) but it would still be doable enough and imply the sort of infrastructure/investment that modern technologies and societies make.

After all, by the Industrial/modern age the idea of "Great Scientist Socrates discovers Constitution" or something just doesn't fly - having modern tech require more than just single great people is part of the same philosophy and it could all tie in. (Plus small, undeveloped countries lacking infrastructure couldn't trade tech/tech whore willy nilly, a check on the AI, or maybe some human slingshots)

Well, one minor nitpicky point: They did include a future technology representing the projected method of propulsion in Civ IV. The SS Engines come with the technology Fusion, and presumably the engines are some kind of fusion drive, which makes sense for a 40-year journey to Alpha Centauri; for instance, the one proposed for [wiki]Project Daedalus[/wiki] had a projected cruise time of 46 years.

Lockesdonkey said:

Well, one minor nitpicky point: They did include a future technology representing the projected method of propulsion in Civ IV. The SS Engines come with the technology Fusion, and presumably the engines are some kind of fusion drive, which makes sense for a 40-year journey to Alpha Centauri; for instance, the one proposed for [wiki]Project Daedalus[/wiki] had a projected cruise time of 46 years.

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I know this may be a little far-flung, but here is my idea for a tech that could get you to Alpha Centauri. Even with a Fusion Drive, it would still take quite a while to get there.

There should be a tech with a prerequisite of Fusion and a requirement of at least 3 future techs researched before you can get the Antimatter Drive tech. Of course you could continue to build the SS Engines with Fusion as usual, but with the Antimatter Drive you could get to Alpha Centauri in 50% fewer turns - increasing your likelihood of a Space Victory.

Somebody here mentioned "rockets." They could behave as a special kind of unit, orbiting the Earth and coming down when called for. In previous Civ versions, the Satellites technology revealed the world map. In this one, they should make you launch actual Satellite units that orbit t the earth once/10 turns, providing you with troop movements of enemies. I know this is kind of railroading us to war, but anyone, please post some ideas as to how to improve it.

Lockesdonkey said:

Well, one minor nitpicky point: They did include a future technology representing the projected method of propulsion in Civ IV.

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The Engines are required; you cannot complete a spaceship without them. An optional thing that made the spaceship faster or better with regards to a more complicated space race is more what I was thinking of, but I can see the confusion. Still, the main problem remains - if anything, more tech/stuff to build/investment in the Space Race can end up as pretty useless when the player would rather just build armies and kill the other civs and "win the game." The number of players who you could argue have another playstyle that makes a complicated but pointless/exorbitant Space Race possible are just too diminishingly small to count I think.

Earthling said:

The Engines are required; you cannot complete a spaceship without them. An optional thing that made the spaceship faster or better with regards to a more complicated space race is more what I was thinking of, but I can see the confusion. Still, the main problem remains - if anything, more tech/stuff to build/investment in the Space Race can end up as pretty useless when the player would rather just build armies and kill the other civs and "win the game." The number of players who you could argue have another playstyle that makes a complicated but pointless/exorbitant Space Race possible are just too diminishingly small to count I think.

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I understand your point Earthling - that the game would just end up being quicker to end with domination. However, with One Unit per Tile, I think that the military will acquire a smaller role in the game, and the player will seriously start having to consider some other ways to win.

I know this is a little off-topic, but there should be a way to slow down players' expansion so that they consider other options for victory. Maybe riots in a few cities, not necessarily a conquered city, could be the key to a longer space race.

Also, upkeep for military units could be increased very, very slightly. This would not do much damage to a player with infrastructure and a reasonable military, but it could do a lot of damage to a player who has a 10,000 unit army that has conquered much land, but is short on money. This may be the key to seriously considering more victory conditions, and, in the end, a much better game.

Guys, the whole point of the short tech race is because a longer race would eliminate it as a viable win option. Think about how easy it is to get conquest in Civ4, and how much easier it will be in Civ5. Capture JUST a capital city? Wow, sounds rough. (Not!) Culture is pretty easy. Diplomacy can be done very quickly under the right circumstances. The space race is almost as rare as the time/score victory. Making the space race longer only makes it less likely.

It needs to be made shorter, and more realistic by turning it into a race for Mars. Crossing the gulf of space via sublight to AC requires a leap not much different than crossing it via wormhole, and we can all agree that's not going to happen any time soon either, but making it to Mars within the game's timeframe, using all the typical tricks, is most definitely within the design of the game. You could swap out Alpha Centauri with Mars and no one would notice, except for the feel of authenticity suddenly going up.

But that's beside the point. The point is that the space race needs to happen more quickly to make going for it a viable strategy.

Guys, the whole point of the short tech race is because a longer race would eliminate it as a viable win option. Think about how easy it is to get conquest in Civ4, and how much easier it will be in Civ5. Capture JUST a capital city? Wow, sounds rough. (Not!) Culture is pretty easy. Diplomacy can be done very quickly under the right circumstances. The space race is almost as rare as the time/score victory. Making the space race longer only makes it less likely.

It needs to be made shorter, and more realistic by turning it into a race for Mars. Crossing the gulf of space via sublight to AC requires a leap not much different than crossing it via wormhole, and we can all agree that's not going to happen any time soon either, but making it to Mars within the game's timeframe, using all the typical tricks, is most definitely within the design of the game. You could swap out Alpha Centauri with Mars and no one would notice, except for the feel of authenticity suddenly going up.

But that's beside the point. The point is that the space race needs to happen more quickly to make going for it a viable strategy.

I just had an idea. What if, to simulate the reason for the space race victory in the first place, how about there being an unhappiness penalty after a certain point. The situation would be rectified by the construction of the spaceship (showing your citizens you are working on a solution for the overpopulation, pollution, etc.)

So have it not only as a victory option but also as a happiness booster?

Yeah, that just makes it harder to do spacerace right along with anything else.

TheDS said:

Yeah, that just makes it harder to do spacerace right along with anything else.

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Actually, it doesn't do anything of that sort. It gives people an incentive to complete the space race. Maybe this unhappiness could start as soon as your population reaches the 10 million point? The population could be reduced with slavery and drafting, but that would cause unhappiness of its own. There should also be a 5% upkeep increase. So if I have 1,000 units and each costs 1 gold to maintain, I lose 50 extra gold per turn.

One thing i would love to see is an expanded role for space.

Not just you have to do more stuff to win the space race but rather that the stuff you do helps you in other ways. I like SDI and the space elevator but why not more?

What if you could build spy satellites to keep an eye on your enemy? Build scientific satellites to increase research and space ship production and later space stations that give you even bigger bonuses. How about anti-satellite weapons and attack satellites to destroy your enemies' orbital facilities?

That would be so cool!

phantom000 said:

One thing i would love to see is an expanded role for space.

Not just you have to do more stuff to win the space race but rather that the stuff you do helps you in other ways. I like SDI and the space elevator but why not more?

What if you could build spy satellites to keep an eye on your enemy? Build scientific satellites to increase research and space ship production and later space stations that give you even bigger bonuses. How about anti-satellite weapons and attack satellites to destroy your enemies' orbital facilities?

That would be so cool!

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It sure would. +1 for you.