Azem.Ocram
King
Why not make a Total Conversion Mod for Civilization VI (after the official modding tools and an expansion comes out, perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself) that takes place on an alien planet?
Civilization Beyond Earth only sold 1.5 million copies but I am a huge Sci-Fi geek and I learned a little bit from making my unreleased (because of balance issues and low-quality artwork) mods for Civ V and BE. Alpha Centauri is also extremely fun.
Features____________________________________
Factions can arrive anywhere between 1900 and 2400 with the first arrival depending on rate of science in Civ VI (early starts come with advantages and disadvantages as I will explain below) and the last arrival depending on distance from the Sun to the Planet's Star (with the date of the final wave of colonists being 2400 if the planet is 40 light years away)
*The first wave will be explorers who find a single-use (or double-use) portal on Mars, becoming the "lost colonists of mars" (with possible shades of early English Colonial legends), transported to a distant star by lost Progenitor technology.
*The second wave will be science focused factions taking off as soon as they had set up the required industry to do so (after discovering the SOS signal from the first wave and learning more about its origins)
*The third wave will be the main wave where most everyone starts setting off for interstellar colonization
*The fourth wave will be late arrivals (slow ships) and late departures (stretching the last of the resources near the Inflection Point, but having developed more technology and culture on Earth)
*The last wave will be player-assisted exodus (Mastery AKA Purity/Supremacy victory)
_______________
An early arrival (importing statistics from an early Space victory) will mean that all civics and techs you hadn't discovered will need to be researched and all information-age equivalents exclusive to the mod will need to be researched. You start with a colonist (CivBE art, modified if needed) which takes some time to become a city. The alien planet is rather hostile, with your city taking -1 health (health and happiness will both be included) until a certain technology is researched. Exploration will be difficult because it will take more turns to reach even partial miasma immunity and early explorers are weak to the megafauna. However, it's possible for you to be ahead in the territory game when the main wave arrives.
_______________
Military Strength will come from science (technology), culture (civics), and Affinities (upgrades). Certain upgrades will require civics but most would come from Affinities. Certain units will be unlocked from civics but most would be unlocked by techs.
Affinities will come mostly from buildings, districts, improvements, and wonders every turn but can also be earned from missions and techs/civics. Instead of passive bonuses from Affinity levels, the Ideology system will return. After a certain amount of Affinity points have been earned, the player will be prompted to select 3 tenets for their Affinity Ideology. Ideologies come in the mid game and are unlocked from a sufficiently high amount of points. The first Affinity (whether straight or hybrid) unlocked will be the player's Ideology, with a choice if 75 of one Affinity is earned at the same time as 150 of another Affinity. However, the Ideology will have 3 tracks: military-focused, Affinity-focused, and faction-focused. Tier 1 tenets will have a wide pool from all 3 tracks while tier 2 tenets will have either powerful focused effects, moderately strong hybrid effects, or weak generalized effects, depending on choice of track(s). Tier 3 tenets will focus on victory. A generalized approach towards tenet selection will result in Diplomatic, Starships, and Affinity victory tenets becoming available. A military-focused approach will replace Diplomatic Victory tenets with Domination tenets. An Affinity-focused approach will cause the Affinity victory tenet selection to be stronger.
_______________
Trade between different sponsors will be more powerful than internal trade routes. In addition to generating Credits (and/or Energy), and science (if they know techs you don't, which is likely), certain buildings will grant production to international trade routes and culture can be generated depending on difference on arrival dates (signifying how earth-like or space-like their culture has become) if the trade is between different factions (different leaders playing together from the same faction will have no cultural bonus to trade).
Trade will be integral to the Reclamation victory, where trade routes through the Warp Gate will eventually earn Purity victory (if Emancipation isn't too far underway).
_______________
Each faction will have its own distinct Purity architecture and units and slightly distinct hybrid Purity architecture. Neighborhoods will be replaced with Affinity Neighborhoods with a visual shift in all neighborhoods once an Affinity Ideology has been adopted. Purity neighborhoods become more glamorous once Purity is adopted; they take on a Marble, Porcelain, and Silver look (with cyan lighting and Purity flags) once Mastery is adopted; they look like iBuildings once Supremacy is adopted; they look like granite/brownstone buildings from classical antiquity (of their ancestral civilization) thrown into the future with plenty of greenery once Harmony is adopted; they look fancier with smaller gardens if Ascendency is adopted. Supremacy neighborhoods under Purity Ideology are iBuildings just like Purity neighborhoods under Supremacy Ideology.
_______________
I have written down many details about how various systems would need to be tweaked and have sketched some concept/mock-ups for how it would look. Then again, Civilization VI has just released so I might be going far too ahead of myself.
EDIT: Here are some more feature ideas
New Tile Improvements:
Farms will be vital for providing food in the early game, when the technology to work unimproved terrain has yet to be researched
Domed Farm replaces terrain yield with 3 food -1 energy, cannot be built on forests, resources, or hills
Supreme Vertical Farm replaces terrain yield with 6 food -2 energy, cannot be built on forests or resources
Pure Terraformed Farm replaces terrain yield with 3 food, cannot be built on forests, resources or hills, with adjacency bonus for each Terraformed Farm
Harmonious Hybridized Farm adds 1 food to terrain yield with adjacency bonus for each food providing improvement
Later technologies can reduce the energy consumption of Domed and Vertical Farms and increase base yield
Terrascapes (2 builder charges) would function the exact same as in Beyond Earth but would have a Purity/Harmony counterpart of a Hybrid Forest (takes 3 builder charges) without base food production but without energy maintenance and adding to the terrain yield (instead of replacing).
Mountain mine: must be built on a hill adjacent to a mountain, adds +2 production to all adjacent mountains, adds +1 resource per mountain if built on top of a mining resource. Takes 2 builder charges
Replacement Buildings:
Industrial Districts would have Warehouses, Factories, and either a resource refinery (if there is a worked source) or a manufactury (which decreases health) with Affinity Factories available to replace the default factories down the line.
Commercial Districts would have shops instead of markets.
Aquaducts would be replaced with water pipelines and all water pipelines will have the option of building a water treatment plant for extra health.
Victory Wonders:
Space Port (Starships)
Warp Gate (Exodus, Emancipation, or Reclamation)
Beacon (Contact)
Mindflower (Transcendence, Human-controlled Mind Hive, or Borg Mind Hive)
Global Headquarters (Diplomatic)
Victory Assistance Wonders (one for each Affinity Ideology):
Supplies Warehouse (combine with Warp Gate for Reclamation)
Psychic Capitol (combine with Global HQ for Diplomatic or combine with MF for special Transcendence)
Exodus/Relocation/RoButler Warehouse (speeds Exodus)
Virtual Eden [Skynet/Matrix] (Supremacy/Domination)
Techno-Bio Augmentary (Emancipation/Domination or combine with MF for special Transcendence)
Xeno Preserve (speeds Transcendence, occasionally spawns aliens, makes aliens peaceful to owner of Xeno Preserve)
Civilization Beyond Earth only sold 1.5 million copies but I am a huge Sci-Fi geek and I learned a little bit from making my unreleased (because of balance issues and low-quality artwork) mods for Civ V and BE. Alpha Centauri is also extremely fun.
Features____________________________________
Factions can arrive anywhere between 1900 and 2400 with the first arrival depending on rate of science in Civ VI (early starts come with advantages and disadvantages as I will explain below) and the last arrival depending on distance from the Sun to the Planet's Star (with the date of the final wave of colonists being 2400 if the planet is 40 light years away)
*The first wave will be explorers who find a single-use (or double-use) portal on Mars, becoming the "lost colonists of mars" (with possible shades of early English Colonial legends), transported to a distant star by lost Progenitor technology.
*The second wave will be science focused factions taking off as soon as they had set up the required industry to do so (after discovering the SOS signal from the first wave and learning more about its origins)
*The third wave will be the main wave where most everyone starts setting off for interstellar colonization
*The fourth wave will be late arrivals (slow ships) and late departures (stretching the last of the resources near the Inflection Point, but having developed more technology and culture on Earth)
*The last wave will be player-assisted exodus (Mastery AKA Purity/Supremacy victory)
_______________
An early arrival (importing statistics from an early Space victory) will mean that all civics and techs you hadn't discovered will need to be researched and all information-age equivalents exclusive to the mod will need to be researched. You start with a colonist (CivBE art, modified if needed) which takes some time to become a city. The alien planet is rather hostile, with your city taking -1 health (health and happiness will both be included) until a certain technology is researched. Exploration will be difficult because it will take more turns to reach even partial miasma immunity and early explorers are weak to the megafauna. However, it's possible for you to be ahead in the territory game when the main wave arrives.
_______________
Military Strength will come from science (technology), culture (civics), and Affinities (upgrades). Certain upgrades will require civics but most would come from Affinities. Certain units will be unlocked from civics but most would be unlocked by techs.
Affinities will come mostly from buildings, districts, improvements, and wonders every turn but can also be earned from missions and techs/civics. Instead of passive bonuses from Affinity levels, the Ideology system will return. After a certain amount of Affinity points have been earned, the player will be prompted to select 3 tenets for their Affinity Ideology. Ideologies come in the mid game and are unlocked from a sufficiently high amount of points. The first Affinity (whether straight or hybrid) unlocked will be the player's Ideology, with a choice if 75 of one Affinity is earned at the same time as 150 of another Affinity. However, the Ideology will have 3 tracks: military-focused, Affinity-focused, and faction-focused. Tier 1 tenets will have a wide pool from all 3 tracks while tier 2 tenets will have either powerful focused effects, moderately strong hybrid effects, or weak generalized effects, depending on choice of track(s). Tier 3 tenets will focus on victory. A generalized approach towards tenet selection will result in Diplomatic, Starships, and Affinity victory tenets becoming available. A military-focused approach will replace Diplomatic Victory tenets with Domination tenets. An Affinity-focused approach will cause the Affinity victory tenet selection to be stronger.
_______________
Trade between different sponsors will be more powerful than internal trade routes. In addition to generating Credits (and/or Energy), and science (if they know techs you don't, which is likely), certain buildings will grant production to international trade routes and culture can be generated depending on difference on arrival dates (signifying how earth-like or space-like their culture has become) if the trade is between different factions (different leaders playing together from the same faction will have no cultural bonus to trade).
Trade will be integral to the Reclamation victory, where trade routes through the Warp Gate will eventually earn Purity victory (if Emancipation isn't too far underway).
_______________
Each faction will have its own distinct Purity architecture and units and slightly distinct hybrid Purity architecture. Neighborhoods will be replaced with Affinity Neighborhoods with a visual shift in all neighborhoods once an Affinity Ideology has been adopted. Purity neighborhoods become more glamorous once Purity is adopted; they take on a Marble, Porcelain, and Silver look (with cyan lighting and Purity flags) once Mastery is adopted; they look like iBuildings once Supremacy is adopted; they look like granite/brownstone buildings from classical antiquity (of their ancestral civilization) thrown into the future with plenty of greenery once Harmony is adopted; they look fancier with smaller gardens if Ascendency is adopted. Supremacy neighborhoods under Purity Ideology are iBuildings just like Purity neighborhoods under Supremacy Ideology.
_______________
I have written down many details about how various systems would need to be tweaked and have sketched some concept/mock-ups for how it would look. Then again, Civilization VI has just released so I might be going far too ahead of myself.
EDIT: Here are some more feature ideas
New Tile Improvements:
Farms will be vital for providing food in the early game, when the technology to work unimproved terrain has yet to be researched
Domed Farm replaces terrain yield with 3 food -1 energy, cannot be built on forests, resources, or hills
Supreme Vertical Farm replaces terrain yield with 6 food -2 energy, cannot be built on forests or resources
Pure Terraformed Farm replaces terrain yield with 3 food, cannot be built on forests, resources or hills, with adjacency bonus for each Terraformed Farm
Harmonious Hybridized Farm adds 1 food to terrain yield with adjacency bonus for each food providing improvement
Later technologies can reduce the energy consumption of Domed and Vertical Farms and increase base yield
Terrascapes (2 builder charges) would function the exact same as in Beyond Earth but would have a Purity/Harmony counterpart of a Hybrid Forest (takes 3 builder charges) without base food production but without energy maintenance and adding to the terrain yield (instead of replacing).
Mountain mine: must be built on a hill adjacent to a mountain, adds +2 production to all adjacent mountains, adds +1 resource per mountain if built on top of a mining resource. Takes 2 builder charges
Replacement Buildings:
Industrial Districts would have Warehouses, Factories, and either a resource refinery (if there is a worked source) or a manufactury (which decreases health) with Affinity Factories available to replace the default factories down the line.
Commercial Districts would have shops instead of markets.
Aquaducts would be replaced with water pipelines and all water pipelines will have the option of building a water treatment plant for extra health.
Victory Wonders:
Space Port (Starships)
Warp Gate (Exodus, Emancipation, or Reclamation)
Beacon (Contact)
Mindflower (Transcendence, Human-controlled Mind Hive, or Borg Mind Hive)
Global Headquarters (Diplomatic)
Victory Assistance Wonders (one for each Affinity Ideology):
Supplies Warehouse (combine with Warp Gate for Reclamation)
Psychic Capitol (combine with Global HQ for Diplomatic or combine with MF for special Transcendence)
Exodus/Relocation/RoButler Warehouse (speeds Exodus)
Virtual Eden [Skynet/Matrix] (Supremacy/Domination)
Techno-Bio Augmentary (Emancipation/Domination or combine with MF for special Transcendence)
Xeno Preserve (speeds Transcendence, occasionally spawns aliens, makes aliens peaceful to owner of Xeno Preserve)
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. I think that would be easier as it already has the sci-fi themed artwork.
