Does anyone else think the "space race" kinda blows?

[Vertronix]

Strange....a Space Race victory is my preferred victory condition in Civ IV.

I like to build a secure, efficient and culturally superior core....play my competitors against one another via diplomacy, and build my Starship. :shrug

 

[XGustaX]

In the next expansion you should accuatly have to go to alpha Centri and find a planet and set up some sort of colony or something? What do people think of that?

 

[kingpenguin]

It's been suggested before several times. It'd be pretty tiring to have to do that, though, when any other victory would have stopped the game while space race basically starts a new one, I don't like the idea.

I don't much like space race, either. Every game so far has been a space race victory for someone. Ought to be timed out to happen slightly after the other victories due to its near secondary nature.

 

[Lord Chambers]

Perhaps it should be more like Civ 1, where you could actually decide how big your spaceship should be, and when to launch it, and then get a certain % succes based on how much effort you put into it.

Oh man, I had forgotten about that! Good times. Considering Civ 1, the current space race seems like a huge step backwards. They took any thought out of it and made it more simple and dumbed-down.

I think there is definitely room for moving the space race from simply a tech race and a selecting-something-to-build-in-your-cities exercise. There ought to be some strategy involved. Where that strategy would come in to play is fun to imagine.

It could be a more elaborate version of the choice you made in Civ1, either to launch early with a barebones ship, or launch later with a ship packing enough thrusters to pass up the first. In Civ4: the expansion, you could have solar sails that caught random solar winds which could get you to Alpha Centaurif aster. You could have shields that'd protect you from meteor damage; perhaps slow and stable wins the race over something fast that gets damaged and has parts break down. You could have some a command center module that'd keep the ship going even if your capital was taken after the launch. You could have landing gear that'd let your peeps land on the surface instead of having to die in a fiery crash landing. Lots of possibilities.

Perhaps you place the structures of your ship yourself. You BUILD it from the pieces your city constructs. The way you position different things relative to others could increase or decrease it's speed/success rate. This could have SMAC elements of unit design. Should you go with the titanium hull, which is light, but weak against stuff that hits it, or go with the uranium hull, which is strong against everything, but extremely lethal to the people inside your ship? Should you go with conventional thrusters, or spend the extra hammers and shoot for the deluxe mark II mega awesome thrusters? Imagine the spaceship design screen where you consider the different options and check out how you ship looks when you've got it in borg-style design versus the same components in a Star Wars style.

Hell, you could even throw combat in the mix. Maybe one civ gets space tech first and has a relatively dominant presence in space. Maybe getting past his laser satellites requires better shields and a few lasers of your own.

I mostly throw that last part out to address the issue of Civilization gameplay. I think if I were to read someone's outlandish ideas about how to make the space race a worthwhile part of the game I'd be inclined to reject them outright since they're so far from the regular Civ gameplay. "Lasers and shields? Why not just pilot the damn thing in a third person view, shooting aliens, collecting power ups, and racing for Alpha Centauri!" That sort of thing. Well, I agree, having a very complex or elaborate spaceship design system would seem disjoint from the regular Civ experience. But I would also say that even having a space race victory is weird and disjoint considering how you spend the majority of your time playing Civ. You start off in ancient times. You research. You build. You move units around. You war. Basically you act out the history of civilization in every aspect of the game. Then, at the end, you can fly off to colonize the stars? There's a precedent for that, since we've landed on the moon, but considering the majority of the game (just glance at the civilopedia to find what Civ is REALLY about) is completely different, it's weird as hell you can win by building a space ship.

So I'm not so scared of ruining Civ4: the expansion's gameplay by having a more elaborate space race. Space is already in the game, and we may as well make it an interesting strategic aspect.

Without going so far as to let you land on Alpha Centauri and start building your civ there. That's ridiculous.

 

[Huxley Hobbes]

But I would also say that even having a space race victory is weird and disjoint considering how you spend the majority of your time playing Civ. You start off in ancient times. You research. You build. You move units around. You war. Basically you act out the history of civilization in every aspect of the game. Then, at the end, you can fly off to colonize the stars? There's a precedent for that, since we've landed on the moon, but considering the majority of the game (just glance at the civilopedia to find what Civ is REALLY about) is completely different, it's weird as hell you can win by building a space ship.

That isn't the only precedent however, there are numerous others. Specifically, those others are every landmass you don't start on but end up colonizing or even just exploring. Space isn't in keeping in 'gameplay', but it does entirely fit with the ethos of Civ. Explorination and pushing back the boundaries - which is what you spend most of the game doing.

However, I would prefer the space race to cumulate in various benefits for your civ (Specifically I'm thinking of research and production bonuses.) rather than an instant victory. You could have a wonder like 'Asteroid Mining System' which... mined asteroids... the raw materials would help you build stuff faster. In fact I messed around in Civ III and put something akin to that in, and I felt it worked quite well.

 

[dh_epic]

I feel like the victory conditions have always been weak for the Civ franchise.

It's really a game of conquest, with a few runner-up victories should you not be able to make it in time. The end result is that conquest is considered the ultimate victory, whereas the other victories are second rate -- something you settle for if you can't reach the ultimate victory.

 

[lysander]

Yeah, I feel much more satisfied winning domination or cultural victories, both of which are pretty tough in civ 4. Space Race and diplomatic are jokes. Civ 2's space race was muuuch more fun: you got to build as big a ship as you wanted and protect your ship before it launched (and, if I remember right, while it was in flight). Now you can't destroy anyone's space ship so whoever gets it built first wins. That last ditch nuke the capital city a few times and get a paratrooper in before he wins was always kind of fun.

Now space race just feels stale, although as far as domination goes, wiping out that last country when you already own half of the planet is really dull too.

 

[GamesMan]

I think the SS parts are way too easy and quick to build, but I have seen Elizabeth start building SS parts, and I got a friend to attack her; she pretty much stopped building SS parts for quite a while after that. So, while it does not destory the "ship" itself, simply attacking a SS building Civ seems to get it off track for a while.