- Joined
- Mar 17, 2007
- Messages
- 9,306
For the uninitiated, about 21 months ago I started a story in the Civ 3 forums that grew rather long, based on the premise that I would conquer everything in the world. Turns out that game took a lot longer than I planned (real time wise) - 31 civs adds up! But in February I finished the conquest, and my Greeks were masters of the Earth, prosperous and enjoying their newfound peace.
Since then there's been little word of them. But why would history end with world being conquered? So here's the story of the next big adventure in Greek history!
Settings:
Game: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Difficulty Level: Librarian (which is equivalent to Regent in Civ3 in terms of production, and somewhere in the range of Monarch in content-citizens)
Map Size: Huge
My Civilization: The Spartan Federation
Ocean Coverage: 30-50%
Erosive Forces: Weak
Native Life Forms: Rare
Cloud Cover: Sparse
Victories: Conquest or Diplomatic. Cooperative victory allowed.
Other non-standard settings: Look First on (can move initial settling pod before settling), Do or Die on (that is, no AI respawns), Tech Stagnation on (slower technology), Blind Research off (can choose exactly what to research, rather than general categories).
This will be my first SMAC game, so things could get a bit rough. No guarantees on victory here!
For those of you interested in knowing the pre-story to this, see The Conquest of the World. Here, we begin after that story left off in 2050.
Table of Contents: To be created when necessary.
So without further ado, here's the beginning of the tale:
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Part One: Life on Earth, and Soon Beyond
For many decades after their conquest of the Earth, the Greeks focused their efforts on improving their own quality of life. Indeed, they were quite successful at this, becoming ever more prosperous. The people were content, there was no war. Generally speaking of course - every so often there was a small rebellion, and once in a while there'd be significant backlash against a royal decree. But generally, life was good.
Even so, it was inevitable that eventually the happy Greeks would venture far beyond their own skies. They had first reached the moon more than a century ago, in the still-warlike days of 2004. By 2075 a profitable mining operation was in place, bringing back titanium from the Moon. But it was concluded that there wasn't much point to colonizing the moon. Per the Space Ministry's Colonization Report of 2092:
King Basil XXIX gave this decree his approval that year, and indeed there was no mass colonization of the moon in either his reign of those of his successors. But in 2117, King Anthimus III declared that extraterrestrial colonization was to begin - on Mars. He cited several factors:
So planning began within weeks. The humans were going to go out into space!
Since then there's been little word of them. But why would history end with world being conquered? So here's the story of the next big adventure in Greek history!
Settings:
Game: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Difficulty Level: Librarian (which is equivalent to Regent in Civ3 in terms of production, and somewhere in the range of Monarch in content-citizens)
Map Size: Huge
My Civilization: The Spartan Federation
Ocean Coverage: 30-50%
Erosive Forces: Weak
Native Life Forms: Rare
Cloud Cover: Sparse
Victories: Conquest or Diplomatic. Cooperative victory allowed.
Other non-standard settings: Look First on (can move initial settling pod before settling), Do or Die on (that is, no AI respawns), Tech Stagnation on (slower technology), Blind Research off (can choose exactly what to research, rather than general categories).
This will be my first SMAC game, so things could get a bit rough. No guarantees on victory here!
For those of you interested in knowing the pre-story to this, see The Conquest of the World. Here, we begin after that story left off in 2050.
Table of Contents: To be created when necessary.
So without further ado, here's the beginning of the tale:
---------------------------------------------
Part One: Life on Earth, and Soon Beyond
For many decades after their conquest of the Earth, the Greeks focused their efforts on improving their own quality of life. Indeed, they were quite successful at this, becoming ever more prosperous. The people were content, there was no war. Generally speaking of course - every so often there was a small rebellion, and once in a while there'd be significant backlash against a royal decree. But generally, life was good.
Even so, it was inevitable that eventually the happy Greeks would venture far beyond their own skies. They had first reached the moon more than a century ago, in the still-warlike days of 2004. By 2075 a profitable mining operation was in place, bringing back titanium from the Moon. But it was concluded that there wasn't much point to colonizing the moon. Per the Space Ministry's Colonization Report of 2092:
Space Ministry's Colonization Report of 2092 said:For the reasons outlined below, the Ministry concludes that colonizing the Moon would be a most silly expenditure of resources:
a). That there's not a whole lot to be gained from a colony there. Though titanium mining has proven a good investment, there's just not that much else that's worth going there for, economically speaking.
b). The fact that the Moon is not conducive to plant life. By which follows, we'd have to keep importing all our food from Earth, or growing it within our space stations. While this is acceptable for the relatively small and very important mining operations in place, it would be entirely impractical for a large society.
c). The fact that we can't breathe the Moon's air. We suspect that most people would tire very quickly of always having to wear a spacesuit when they went outside. The miners only put up with it because they'll be quite rich when their five or ten year stint is finished - after awhile the novelty does wear off.
d). The remaining dependence on Earth. A good question to ask is, if something happened to the Earth, would our first colony survive? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if the Earth were obliterated, the Moon would go careening way off course soon afterwards and probably be rendered hopeless. And then there's the issue of if we do something that messes up the Earth to the point we can't live on it, but left it physically intact (that is, still a near-sphere of similar mass in a fairly unchanged solar orbit). In such a case, our poor Moon colony may be able to survive on its own, but the chances of it ever being able to expand beyond the Moon without the help of the Earth are nigh nothing.
King Basil XXIX gave this decree his approval that year, and indeed there was no mass colonization of the moon in either his reign of those of his successors. But in 2117, King Anthimus III declared that extraterrestrial colonization was to begin - on Mars. He cited several factors:
Anthimus III's Summary on Reasons for Colonization of Mars said:*Even with advancing technology, eventually it will be necessary to colonize another planet to support all the Earthlings.
*The Martian environment, while cold, will support some hearty plant and bacteria life, and does have, if not anywhere near as much water as Earth, at least enough water to be eminently useful.
*Mars has a much greater mineral base than the Moon, giving a reasonable chance that a colony on Mars could, at some point, spawn its own colonies if necessary.
*Mars would be independent of any disasters on Earth, barring the possibility that the new Considerably Original Mammoth Powerful Anti-Charm and Top Accelerator (COMPACTA) malfunctions and produces a black hole that swallows the entire solar system. But scientists are relatively certain that won't happen.
*With 38% of the gravity of Earth versus the Moon's 16%, golfers will have a much less difficult time adjusting to Mars than the Moon.
So planning began within weeks. The humans were going to go out into space!