Philosopher's Stone "space race"

[Aethelend]

Hello all,

Lately I've been thinking of what a good "space race" victory could be for a fantasy mod. This question had been bugging me for some time, until a few days ago, when I saw a special on the Philosopher's Stone on the History Channel.

It seemed so obvious that I'm suprised no one has suggested it before. Throughout the medieval period and into the early modern era, it was considered to be the highest goal of all science and alchemy, called the "great work". It was thought to be the ultimate substance, capable of transforming basic metals into gold, granting eternal life, curing any illness, and even transform the world itself into a paradise by the desires of whoever wielded the Stone.

It's obvious that any nation that could create the Philosopher's Stone would easily become an indisputably dominant power.

So, what would be needed is research on, first, what "wonder" would be build to instigate the Philosopher's Stone race. I believe that this should most likely be a fantasy parody of the Smaragdine Tablet by Hermes Trismegistus. Second, we would need the processes that would result in the creation of the Stone. According to the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher's_stone), there are either 7 or 12 steps to the creation of the Stone. We would need 10 steps, and understand them, and be able to write Civilopedia entries for them.

This would be no easy feat. Much of the knowledge on the subject is arcane in nature and very difficult to decipher. However, I believe that enough information should be readily available to those who earnestly seek it.

Come then: who will join me in my quest to create the legendary Philosopher's Stone in Civ 3? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

-Aethelend

 

[georgestow]

Sounds interesting.
First of all, I'd like to point out that you can change the number of spaceship parts in the 'general settings' tab in the editor from anywhere between 0-100.
Also, I suppose I can help-I've made a space race thing before and I know it's no easy feat, and I did need help from other people, so it's only fair I pass on the helpingness.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Interesting idea

First of all, I'd like to point out that you can change the number of spaceship parts in the 'general settings' tab in the editor from anywhere between 0-100.

Yeah, but to use the space race screen which shows your progress, you need 10 parts, IIRC, so I guess it's all down to whether or not you want the screen

 

[georgestow]

Interesting idea



Yeah, but to use the space race screen which shows your progress, you need 10 parts, IIRC, so I guess it's all down to whether or not you want the screen

Oh, didn't know that.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Yeah, another flawlessly-designed bit of Firaxis coding...

 

[Blue Monkey]

Track down The Hermetic Museum: Alchemy & Mysticism which is about 700 pages worth of images. Most of those images will be somewhere in the WWW but perusing the book will focus your hunt. Here's an accurate list of the stages or "parts". And it's worth looking into the work of Athanasius Kircher for ideas. He made some interesting things:

 

[Aethelend]

Awesome! Thanks for the help!

Virote_Considon, you said we can't change the number if we want to keep the main Space Race screen. Does that mean we can do away with the screen? I'd rather not, but then again I'm a novice at graphics design, so if that'll make things easier for me I may just consider it.

If I do use it, though, I'm thinking that the background screen will be this:

On that note, I have no idea what to do about the end movie.

So between 7 and 12 steps to creating the stone, I'm sure we can "bs" our way to coming up with an even 10. It shouldn't be too hard; this is fantasy, after all.

As I said, I suck at graphic design, and may be in over my head with this. My work will probably consist of a lot of happy copy-and-paste action.

-Aethelend

 

[georgestow]

Just did a few searches on youtube and google, and came out with this: http://www.downarchive.com/movies/d...nel-five-the-philosophers-stone-the-true.html
If you download it, there are some good clips in it, so I'd get it, and crop it down to the bits you want. The version I found on youtube had a little thing in the corner which would have been really annoying to have in the final video, so that's why I advise downloading it like this.

 

[Virote_Considon]

You can do away with the screen, if you desire

 

[Blue Monkey]

You can do away with the screen, if you desire

Don't make a hasty decision guys. I've looked at quite few race screens trying to work out a design for the steampunk scenarios. Give me a day or so to review that - I haven't looked at it since last year. I may be able to suggest a workable set of design parameters for you.

 

[sum_aar_jam]

Hey correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Civilization: Call to Power have the wonder "Philosopher's Stone"? Perhaps you can take a few pointers from that game. BTW I saw the same special. Quite interesting...

 

[Aethelend]

Ew, you have to pay to open an account to view that movie. No, thank you.

You have all given me a lot of great ideas, but in looking at everything more closely, I feel I am gaining a more realistic understanding of my own limitations. For all my imagination and desire, I really do lack talent as a designer, and I think that something this complicated may be beyond me.

I hate to say it, but I can't do this. I hope, though, that I have inspired someone else to pick this up. I feel that it's a wonderful idea and I'd love to see it used at some point.

-Aethelend

 

[Takhisis]

No. The only way to learn is to do it. So, you might as well go ahead and have everyone else look over your shoulder and offer advice.