Promised Land should be a culture victory

[Minor Annoyance]

As we know the victories are a little shallow and there are features from civ5 BNW that aren't used in BE.

I suggest that aspects of the BNW culture victory should be used in the Promised land victory. Tourism in BNW represents the esteem felt for another civilization. In BE it is just assumed everyone would want off earth to where ever you can go and the Emancipation victory reinforces that by suggesting that taking over earth to remake in in the image of supremacy is an act of mercy. Narratively that works but I think gameplay wise it might be more interesting if it took more convincing to get people to abandon the hell-scape of Earth for the unknown of an alien planet. The devil you know beats the devil you don't.

Something I've noticed is that the dome and terrascape, both of which are used to create earth-like environments give culture and Purity also gets the Terra vault building and the holomatrix orbital, also gaining more culture. The other affinities have there own culture boosters but purity seems to have a slight extra focus.
I would suggest that purity should have to prove the viability of living on an alien world to earthlings. Their cultural output representing the general quality of life on the planet and enhanced with domes and terrascapes that have a distinct earth-like appeal. A tourism like system could be used to measure the desire to relocate to the new planet.

Also, currently you can place them on snow and they're fine. I'd also suggest that the earthling settlements have some needs to them. Currently they allow stacking of six in one settlement. I'd suggest that that number be based on the tile yields of the area or from trade routes. So to stack a large number of earthlings you'd either need a good location (thus not using it for a productive city), a location made good with terrascapes, or trade routes to the settlement. The settlements would function for their own good but not for the betterment of the colony at large. I would though still have cultural improvements around settlements contribute so they can add to the culture needed to attract more earthlings.

Obviously this is too much for a patch and it would have to come along with improvements to the other victories, but it makes the promised land more like the building of a new earth than just dumping earth losers onto an iceberg like it is now.

 

[legalizefreedom]

I like those ideas.

 

[LORD ORION]

I would keep the current victories (Variations of science victories for the affinities) and add new ones

eg: Your new cultural victory could be about helping earth achieve a Purity Utopia without military force, and not necessarily be about evacuating it.

 

[Lglenhaber]

I think with the prommised land victory, on top of needing to incentivise people to come, you could have to build terrascapes to house people. Each terrascape would house 1 citizen, so you could not just build cities in the middle of nowhere, and expect people to come.

 

[Gritf]

Maybe a little inclusion of the tourism mechanic. Kinda like promoting your affinity and the well-being of your colony. Often while playing I look at my own civ and think:

"How can my citizens put up with such body horror? If I were there I would run to the first purity colony that opens a trade route with my city"

"These guys are savage alien murderous monsters. I need to GTFO to a peaceful harmony colony"

"So the web isn't open to the people and is just used in scientific research? I've heard Supremacy offers free wi-fi"

 

[Minor Annoyance]

I'd though of other factions culture countering yours in getting earthlings to come to the planet. If word gets out that the planet is also full of mutant robots then it might not be so much the promised land.
"If the robots catch you they'll replace your blood with motor oil and you become a robot."
"I heard the mutants breed giant beetles and if you get bit by one you become a beetle every fool moon, and the planet had four moons, and the fractions of individual moons add together so it's mathematically unlikely for there NOT to be one full moon in the sky!"

Also, culture your be part of emigration between colonies. A high culture city getting increased growth or a smaller food requirement for growth by being connected to another city. That would give a way to counter the crazy high food requirement to growing already large cities.

 

[Lglenhaber]

As well, you could have the victories not be afinity-specific, but keep the victories

Here is a example for promised land

Spoiler :

Purity
"Wow, this planet is awesome! We need to get humans to this planet... But, there are too many mutants on this planet. We need to kill all of the aliens before bringing people here
Suppremacy
To fuel our robotic battle suits and AI, we need more humans to include into our nural net. Maybe we should go to earth to get those test subjects...
Harmony
All life needs a chance, and the humans on earth are no exception! Lets get them to this planet!

For the harmony victory:

Spoiler :

Purity
If we could enslave this planet, it would benifit us! Maybe, if we enslaved it, we could finaly get rid of the alien menaces
Harmony
We need to talk to the planet!
Supremacy
If we could talk to the planet, maybe we could find out were the metals are in the planet!

And finaly, Supremacy victory

Spoiler :

Purity
We were picked from earth because we are the best. Now, lesser humans want to come? No, we are the pure humans
Harmony
If humans came from earth, they would mess up the biospere. We need to get the humans before they get us
Suppremacy
KILL ALL HUMANS!! THEY ARE WORSE THEN OUR ROBOTS!

 

[AxiomaticBadger]

What drives me crazy is that the victory types don't fit with the affinities, but fit the Virtues trees really well. What I would do is:

(1) Remove specific affinity requirements from victory techs, but have them require a sum or max affinity level.

(2) Have the victory quest chains inaccessable at game start. Unlock access to specific quest chains as the 5 point synergy bonus on the virtue trees, with:
Might: Supremecy
Prosperity: Promised Land
Knowledge: Transcendence
Industry: Contact


Re-engaging Lurk Field.

 

[Ryika]

I don't think that fits at all.

Might may be okay, but why would a Supremacy-Faction that focuses on "Prosperity" want to bring weak human fleshlings with backwards views on morality onto the planet? Why would a Purity-Faction that has spent the last decades fighting the planet and re-creating it the way they want it to be, suddenly want to sacrifice themselves to the mind of the planet? And while Industry is certainly a good source to get the energy needed to win a Contact victory I don't see ANY connection between the two lore-wise.

I think the way the victories are distributed does make a lot of sense and is just fine. What needs a lot of work are the mechanics of the victories - right now they're really one-dimensional.

That said, I largely agree with Minor Annoyance. I think making it a "purely" culture-based victory is taking it too far, but adding a large portion of "culture-requirement" of some sort (and really, that shouldn't just be "get X virtues!") would be a great addition.

 

[AxiomaticBadger]

... why would a Supremacy-Faction that focuses on "Prosperity" want to bring weak human fleshlings with backwards views on morality onto the planet?

Because their focus on welfare combined with their enhance robo-morality compels them to render assistance to the puny earthlings? Because they can filter the colonist pool to only allow people down with the Cyborg lifestyle through the gate? Because cultural assimilation?

More seriously, because if your society is based around providing for a large population, it follows that your victory condition will be an extension of that principle - you win because you have All The Mans. Mirroring this, if you're aiming from the start to evacuate Earth, then you need to build up your society in such a way as to handle the population influx.

A purity faction would never "surrender" to the planet... but imprinting your culture onto the planet itself? Creating a bio-mechanical interface which would force the very ecosystem to acknowledge that "Humans Are Special"?
Again, it's more that a society based on knowledge and social mores should get the victory which exemplifies this, and creation of a super-intelligent hivemind suits this to a tee.

I agree that the Contact ending is the weakest, but since it can be summed up as "Build This Huge Thing... FROM SPACE", I find it gels quite well with the concept of a manufacturing-based victory.