Civ7 Space Race Science Victory.

[BuchiTaton]

While that would be fun, speculations about the future tends to be a territory that's fraught with bad cliches (see: Robot, Giant Death) and very poor understanding of technology and warfare.

And any lesser space goal fails to explain *why* it's a victory condition.

In terms of gameplay any form of space colony would be an "outside map" element, included the ones still in the Solar System making them functionally equivalent.

Send interstellar unmanned expeditions is something very different from send a colonization missions. Before any attemp to do the later we can be sure that any "space power" would need to learn a lot from the expansion in the Solar System, building orbital infrastructure, sustainable colonies, minning bases, etc.
Even more, be a MILITAR space power is needed to be sure that your interstellar expedition would not be reached and destroyed by a bigger larger expedition from a rival power.

Think about it, the player would be likely not far away from the technology of others power, so the expedition would be in disadvantage in terms of technology when they reached their objetive since the time was "slower" for them during the trip. A later rival expedition would have better technology since what can be advanced in the Solar System would be still better that the limited amount of research and infrastructure done by the expedition.

From the AMNH:

Five years on a ship traveling at 99 percent the speed of light (2.5 years out and 2.5 years back) corresponds to roughly 36 years on Earth. When the spaceship returned to Earth, the people onboard would come back 31 years in their future--but they would be only five years older than when they left.

So the later expedition would likely have way more advantages than the hasty and precarious first expedition.

 

[Zaarin]

From the AMNH:
So the later expedition would likely have way more advanteges than the hasty and precarious first expedition.

This is why I use hyperspace in my sci-fi. Dealing with relativistic time makes my head hurt.

 

[BuchiTaton]

This is why I use hyperspace in my sci-fi. Dealing with relativistic time makes my head hurt.

We can also think about the chance to have habitable planets/moons in our own start system, after all the average game dont have the same continents as the real Earth
Maybe the average match is on a "fake Earth" made by ANCIENT ALIENS!!! as part of an experiment with humans extracted from the real Earth

 

[Zaarin]

We can also think about the chance to have habitable planets/moons in our own start system, after all the average game dont have the same continents as the real Earth

This is a good point. If you're not playing on a real Earth map, who's to say there couldn't be a second habitable planet in the system? Mars would be on the edge of the habitable zone if it were larger/geologically active/had a thicker atmosphere.

 

[Evie]

Like I said, I don't think victory conditions should be things that we see as reasonably achievable in the short or medium term. They should be dreams humanity has long yearned for and never achieved or yet dreams about with only the faintest hope of witnessing. World conquest has never happened, almost certainly never will. Not even close. Same universal culture or religion. Or electing a world leader.

Humans on Mars, we're likely to see sooner than later, and while that's still a fair way from a base, it seems like a plausible dream for the next century. It's something that to my mind is more suited to wonders/projects than a victory condition.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Like I said, I don't think victory conditions should be things that we see as reasonably achievable in the short or medium term. They should be dreams humanity has long yearned for and never achieved or yet dreams about with only the faintest hope of witnessing. World conquest has never happened, almost certainly never will. Not even close. Same universal culture or religion. Or electing a world leader.

Humans on Mars, we're likely to see sooner than later, and while that's still a fair way from a base, it seems like a plausible dream for the next century. It's something that to my mind is more suited to wonders/projects than a victory condition.

What about Science Victory as different projects done realy ahead of the average time range. I mean an Interstellar Colonization Project is already pretty futuristic for our current level, but what about have a Base in Mars in the WW2 Era, have Nuclear Weapons in Victorian Era, or build a Railway in Medieval Time?!

Pretty much achieve a "PUNK" (steam, clockwork, space, cyber...) alternative era.

 

[pineappledan]

But why would we make it a lower bar?

So it’s less speculative and pie-in-the-sky, I guess? *shrug*

We can conceive of what a cultural or domination victory by 1 world power would look like, even if it hasn’t been done before the idea of it is fairly mundane, and could be done today. What is required to happen before we have enough technological capacity to travel to and terraform another planet though? There are several steps missing there. We don’t know what they are, but we’re definitely nowhere close, we’re not sure if some of the steps that need to be taken are even physically possible, much less doable. A space elevator though? That would be an extremely impressive and important technology that is only waiting for a handful of breakthroughs in materials engineering. We know the forces, distances, and specifications required for making a space elevator; it requires a material with lighter weight and higher tensile strength than anything we can produce now. But we know exactly what we’re looking for, and have some ideas about how to get there (carbon nanotubes, etc). In comparison to colonizing another star system it’s far more grounded.

The tech tree right now looks like. Social media. The internet. Global supply chains. Nanotech. INTERSTELLAR SPACE TRAVEL. It’s just ridiculous how many steps were missed there. Talking about Facebook in the same breath as travelling at a fraction of light speed is like talking about how the discovery of bronze alloys leads to modern monetary theory.

 

[Zaarin]

What about Science Victory as different projects done realy ahead of the average time range. I mean an Interstellar Colonization Project is already pretty futuristic for our current level, but what about have a Base in Mars in the WW2 Era, have Nuclear Weapons in Victorian Era, or build a Railway in Medieval Time?!

Doesn't everyone already do this in Civ?

 

[Evie]

I submit that we *can't* actually conceive of what a world conquest or cultural domination would truly look like. We're at best projecting from much more limited experience (regional conquest or colonial empire) and upscaling, while ignoring the fact that most of these regional dominations or colonial empires were already stretched to their limitd and struggling to avoid collapsing. Which suggest that going even larger in scale with the same methods *wouldn't* actually work, and that even existing and known methods are simply insufficent to achieving these goals.

In much the same way as all our conceptions of extrasolar colonization are simple upscaling of transcontinental colonization, even as evidence suggest we do not actually possess the technology and methods to do so.

And that's just fine. If we were to be realistic, there wouldn't be victory conditions, because no one has ever won history, no one ever will. The end of history did not happen with the Cold War, and it won't happen short of extinction. So since victory itself is completely unrealistic, why should victory conditions be bound by concepts of realism? Victories should be about achieving the things mankind dreams of (or has dreamt of), not about realistic goals.

If we were to replace extrasolar colonization, I would look at scientific utopia as the new science victory. Conquering diseases, food and energy scarcity, those things.

 

[shmily_dana]

But why would anyone else want to contribute if they knew you would win? Even if everyone in the world were your allies, I still don't think they would want to join knowing they don't get anything out of the end result.

They would also vote over which of the top eligible players to line up with. If the top players are aligned, they might be given the option to do a joint project. I support your space program helps you. But it also gives me diplomatic victory progress. The smaller nations might require a large donation to contribute. But there would be a risk to providing too much technology. So now I might have to support a small civilization in a war with a neighbor with the potential of fighting a larger war. I'm probably getting too complex.

I am also thinking about possible ways to speed up the end game. In Space Empires IV, you could get smaller opponents to surrender to you if you were 10 or 20 times larger in score. (I forget what the threshold is). So one could snowball in a few turns down to just one enemy. So I would like to have there be a point in the game where the smaller civilizations realize they are not going to win and align with one of the larger civilizations. Or whomever is aligned with their preferred victory.

 

[Patine]

I submit that we *can't* actually conceive of what a world conquest or cultural domination would truly look like.

Those who even try to make a serious attempt at portraying this concept are usually Dystopian Science-Fiction authors.

 

[Zaarin]

Those who even try to make a serious attempt at portraying this concept are usually Dystopian Science-Fiction authors.

Any utopia is a dystopia if you look closely enough.

 

[Patine]

Any utopia is a dystopia if you look closely enough.

Even the futuristic unified Earth Governments in both the Star Trek and Babylon 5 franchises (which, I ASSUME, by your different avatar images, you're familiar with both) are so radically different in tenor and portrayal from each other.

 

[Zaarin]

Even the futuristic unified Earth Governments in both the Star Trek and Babylon 5 franchises (which, I ASSUME, by your different avatar images, you're familiar with both) are so radically different in tenor and portrayal from each other.

Oh, the Federation is totally an unconscious dystopia that DS9 turned into a low-key conscious dystopia, and it was very much on my mind when I posted that. Earthgov, though, was always a conscious dystopia that got more consciously dystopic with each passing season (Nightwatch, anyone?) because JMS has more sense than Roddenberry's starry-eyed optimism.

ETA: And there were definitely some shots fired at Roddenberryan utopianism on B5--like when Dr. Franklin says it takes more than 100 years for humans to change or when Sheridan's "political officer" assured him that there was no crime, poverty, or homelessness on Earth since they rewrote the definitions.

 

[Evie]

I'd argue the notion that it is impossible to conceive of an utopian society.

It's just impossible for entertainment fiction creators to do so, because we cannot imagine storytelling without conflict and conflict naturally requires trouble in paradise, and the conscious or subconscious rejection of the utopia.

Thus any entertainment creator must miss the point of Omelas (which was written to question the obsession with giving utopias dark secrets), and any utopia in fiction must become Omelas, because Omelas is, alas, more narratively interesting than an actual utopia.

(Which is precisely why building an Utopian society should be a game-ender).

 

[Zaarin]

I'd argue the notion that it is impossible to conceive of an utopian society.

It's just impossible for entertainment fiction creators to do so, because we cannot imagine storytelling without conflict and conflict naturally requires trouble in paradise, and the conscious or subconscious rejection of the utopia.

The only way we'll do away with conflict is by going extinct. Whether that's a utopia is open to interpretation. Even the outward appearance of utopia could only be achieved with a totalitarianism that would make the USSR, PRC, and North Korea look free and open because it would require the total suppression of human nature.

 

[Evie]

Eh. I like our chances of overcoming conflict (or of bringing conflict resolution to a point where the existence of conflict is meaningless, which is functionally the same) better than our chances of developing FTL drives

 

[pineappledan]

I submit that we *can't* actually conceive of what a world conquest or cultural domination would truly look like. We're at best projecting from much more limited experience (regional conquest or colonial empire) and upscaling, while ignoring the fact that most of these regional dominations or colonial empires were already stretched to their limitd and struggling to avoid collapsing.

Right, like the British conquered or claimed to control some large percentage of the earth's total landmass and something north of 25% of the earth's total population at one point, and they did that without instant communication or sophisticated economic or sociological theories of population control. I think if it weren’t for M.A.D., world government would be quite achievable. Quite the opposite problem, we have too much technological power for a single global political entity, because it’s too easy for a relatively minor player to burn it all down.

 

[Zaarin]

I'm more willing to bet on our understanding of physics being wrong (it wouldn't be the first time) than our understanding of human nature (which hasn't changed much in the past 4,000 years since we have records nor from what we can piece together from the archaeological record before that).

 

[Evie]

The British Empire was also bursting at the seams by that point, many of its colonies were already diverging, and was almost exclusively able to expand at the expanse of nations with which they had a large technological gap. It never actually attempted to extend its sway over technological equals, and on the rare occasion it faced them, bloody stalemates were a common outcome.

No, I do not see an even larger British Empire, particularly not one expanding in Europe, as a remotely plausible theory.

Zaarin - I mean, that's four thousand years of scarcity being the norm, where posT-scarcity is essential to utopia, so there's that .

(Realistically, I do not see utopia as particularly plausible, but the dystopian united earth of later Trek is also highly implausible, so...