Space Race Non-Victory

[Spatzimaus]

This primarily came up in discussions about a future mod I'm working on (adds ~40 new techs in three eras). The problem is this: if you don't turn on the Space Race victory condition, there's no reason to build any of the SS parts, which in turn makes certain modern techs less valuable.

So, the question was: how could you change the game such that the spaceship didn't end the game, but was still something people wanted to build? (Similar logic applies to the U.N., but there's already an answer for that one; that's sort of what I'm looking for here.)

Basically, I'm looking for suggestions. Here's what I've got planned, so far:
> Each of the spaceship pieces is a World Wonder for a single U.N. ship, the Unity (no individual ships for each civ). Once all 10 pieces are built, the ship launches.
> Each piece provides a bonus to the city that built it. Engines give a production bonus, cryogenics give a health bonus, and so on. (The assumption is that a city that's tooled up to build that specialized equipment would get some general benefits from the industry once the ship's left.)
> Additionally, each piece provides a number of extra votes in the U.N., so if you're a small builder civ that completes the entire ship yourself, you could have more votes than the big, aggressive civ. The point is that it was a U.N. project, so those civs that contributed the most would get more influence within the U.N. structure.
> 20 years after the ship launches, the first transmission from Alpha Centauri comes back. In my mod, this unlocks a series of new "Centauri" techs for every civ. There'll still be plenty of future techs that don't depend on these, but the Centauri techs include things like psychic combat, which tend to level the playing field a bit for those civs that have fallen behind in pure tech.

So, suggestions? None of the things I listed above should be too hard to code, although I'm still in the middle of trying.

 

[Uty]

You noted that a certain phase of the game will begin when the Alpha Centauri transmission comes back to a civ. What I would do (and this completely circumvents your other ideas, sorry) would make it such that each civ gets the transmission 20 years *after* their own personal ship lands.

 

[Spatzimaus]

I thought of that, but there's several problems.

In Civ3, a civ that's reached the industrial or modern age tended to pull away from the others. I've simply never played a game, on any difficulty level, where more than one civ was building a spaceship at the same time. So, if these new techs require your own ship to travel there, then the civs that are a bit behind technologically will simply fall further back. And this is the exact opposite of what I intended these techs to be for in the first place; for instance, SMAC's "psychic combat", the attack of the Centauri native life, ignored the weapons and armor of the units involved and just gave the attacking unit a simple 3-2 advantage (modified by unit damage, etc.). So, I wanted to add this to the game as a stabilizing effect; the "backwards" civs could focus on these psi units to allow them to counteract the technologically-advanced units of the tech leaders, at least temporarily.

Also, it brings up a concept problem: can I steal or trade for a Centauri tech that hasn't unlocked for my civ yet? (If so, then why should I bother spending so much time and effort making a ship of my own? Wait for someone else to go, buy the first tech, then progress normally.) It's simpler if it just unlocks for everyone at the same time, or else you'd have to go back through all of the logic to ensure that no incongruities like this occurred.

Finally, there's a thematic issue. How do you keep the Alpha Centauri ship from being a victory? The solution I went with was to make it a purely U.N.-based effort, creating the single colony ship used at the start of the Alpha Centauri game. With one single UN-owned ship going to AC, every civ should benefit equally from its communications. If you don't go with a single ship, then why wouldn't it be a "win" for the civ?

One possibility is to simply move the Space Race victory later. Say, for instance, that the 10 modern components the game already includes are for a Mars colony ship (with the sorts of benefits I mentioned earlier), but then much further down the line we add a second set of components for an Alpha Centauri trip. But that doesn't fit quite as well with the new techs I want to add.

 

[Fintilgin]

I'd say shuffle the modern techs around to remove the spaceship parts and tweak things a bit to still have them be valuable and interesting. Then move the 'spaceship' victory to the end of your added techs as the research/production victory like it is now. I don't think it's a good idea to limit the game to conquest/culture/diplomatic victories. I think a lot of people enjoy the spaceship victory even if its implimentation in Civ4 is a bit underwhelming.

But it dosn't nessecarily have to be a SPACESHIP to Alpha Centauri (though that's cool). I was thinking another valid end to Civilization would be a SMAC style 'Trancendence' using bio-engenering and advanced cybernetics to create a new race of superhuman machine minds (or whatever) and win the game by moving beyond merely 'human' history.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Actually, I AM adding the Transcendence victory. And yes, that will replace the Space Race as the "research" win, with the added plus that I just ported the movies from SMAC over, so it looks really nice. But I don't want to just toss out the whole spaceship thing unless I absolutely have to, since I'd then have to figure out a whole bunch of other things to put at those techs. (And, I still need to find a way to justifying unlocking all those various psi-related techs, which the AC spaceship would have helped with.)

Besides, this isn't really about my mod. In the core game, there should be some benefit to building SS parts, even if you turn the Space Race victory condition off. It's sort of like the U.N.; sure, it was first implemented for the Diplomatic Victory, but there are all those other things you can vote on, so even if the diplo win is disabled, it'd still be a useful thing to leave in-game. So, I'd like some sort of mod that can be applied to the core game for those times when I don't want the spaceship to win the game.