What makes the late game...

[Sureshot]

oh no, i completely agree with you, the endgame for me is the point where i am able to assert my dominance over the entire world without any difficulty. theres still tons of work to do, but my score is well above anyone elses and ive already gone after the biggest threats and made them minor powers, but the game then involves the tedium of reaching a victory condition without any worry of anyone providing any challenge.

i just want the future techs so if you do get all the techs, theres still more to do, and different civs can continue to develop differently technologically (i always play no tech trading for that reason).

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

I'd prefer the research hit to occur indirectly, as in you won't be running 100% research because you need to be using your cash for other purposes. I'm also a bit doubtful that this mod is intended to go beyond the middle ages (though modern pseudo-magical dystopic settings are cool). Still, enforcing the tech penalty directly might also be an option.

That would be the preferred mechnism. In my first game of ver II my realm was forced to go on 0% R&D just to get the + from Gambling Houses. This was due to war weariness caused mostly by a Hippus that simply would not make peace, no matter how many of his units died. I actually had to start a revolution just to avoid mass starvation for the several turns of anarchy. I did no research (other than beakers from specialists) for at least 50 turns, probably closer to 75. For a few turns it looked like I was faced with the unthinkable, the total collapse of a mature, sizeable empire due to mass discontent. When I finally, FINALLY, managed to scrape up a couple ships I was able to capture one of his more remote, tiny cities. I was then able to trade it back for peace. That broke the war weariness deathspiral. Then I waited to declare war on HIPPUS ... his entire navy and 80% of his army vanished in a hail or fireballs and plagues.

It was the best game of Civ I had ever played.

So, IMO, yes, forcing the player to deal with extreme economic disruption leads to extremely fun, memorable games! But, I don't know how to trigger this circumstance, exactly. I note in closing that research didn't stop for everyone, just me. So perhaps we needn't find a way to drive all civs away from R&D fr awhile, just the player?

 

[Chandrasekhar]

So, to spice the endgame up, we have to add an element of danger to it. Whether this will be achieved by the hell map, by massive barb spawns, or by giving the AI some victory conditions they can potentially achieve remains to be seen. I'm hoping that all three will become a reality. But how could we get the AI some sort of possible victory? I like the idea of being able to build placeholder buildings that replace mana nodes for the sake of the tower of mastery, but maybe there's some other ideas out there.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

oh no, i completely agree with you, the endgame for me is the point where i am able to assert my dominance over the entire world without any difficulty. theres still tons of work to do, but my score is well above anyone elses and ive already gone after the biggest threats and made them minor powers, but the game then involves the tedium of reaching a victory condition without any worry of anyone providing any challenge.

i just want the future techs so if you do get all the techs, theres still more to do, and different civs can continue to develop differently technologically (i always play no tech trading for that reason).

If there was a way tohave future techs random and non-tradeable, I think that'd do the trick. Perhaps when you reserach FT #2, all your melee units get +2 experience. But the next guy researches FT#2 and he gets +1 added to each Oblisk. If they were untradeable they could be randomized and if they're randomized you can get a little variety. It would not take too much effort to design a dozen or twenty little boons, such as +1 / city or the like.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

So, to spice the endgame up, we have to add an element of danger to it. Whether this will be achieved by the hell map, by massive barb spawns, or by giving the AI some victory conditions they can potentially achieve remains to be seen. I'm hoping that all three will become a reality. But how could we get the AI some sort of possible victory? I like the idea of being able to build placeholder buildings that replace mana nodes for the sake of the tower of mastery, but maybe there's some other ideas out there.

Yeah, that much is true but so far I've compartmentalized my pbrainstorming to the violent options.

More significance needs be attached to Mana Nodes. In my ongoing game I was happy to sell off my only mana node. AI's will pay through the nose for a Mana Node, far more than the are worth. I'll take three resources and 25 gold a turn over a free Adept skill-up that might never be used.

But now I'm into play balance. And, hot as it is the idiot dogs want outside.

Gotta love ths mod though. Who'da thunk we'd be sitting here thinking of ways to STOP inventions in Civ, that'd it's be thought of as fun, and that there'd be a team able to program such changes!

Go team!

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

I think that i would not like random future techs, but i prefer to know what i'm investing in. Normally I only research future techs if i'm having a nationwide issue of health or happyness. My sugestion would be to have multiple, repeatable, "future techs".
They should have varied, usefull penefits that would not become overpowering immediatly, but could influence gameplay strongly if invested in heavily.

Potential options could be:
for builders:
Social Improvements: +1 , +1

Advanced Industry: +5% to all citys

Advanced Commerce: +1 trade routes
or +5% or

For war mongers:
Advanced Training: +2 exp for all new units

Advanced Weaponsmithing: +1 Base strength for all new national units (probly too strong.)

Advanced Propaganda: -10% war wearyness

For Mages:

Advanced Education: +3 exp for every new Adept

Additional Education: +2 exp for every existing Magic User.

Weaken Planar Walls: Creates a new raw mana node or two somewhere. (to help finish your tower of mastery)


These should be repeatable, and thus would get quite unbalenceing by the time limit if you could research "+2 exp" 50 times. I think that it should have a very steep rate of increase in cost something like +50-100% every time you research it.
I'd also leave the number of options to a reasonably low number(4-6?) so as not to overly complicate things.

I think that these should remain as tradeble technologys or it would pull that factor from diplomacy making late game bartering less interesting.


on an unrelated note, there should be a notice whenever anyone else starts working on the tower of mastery, including where they are building it. and all sorts of wars should be started against whoever is making it.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Potential options could be:
for builders:
Social Improvements: +1 , +1

Advanced Industry: +5% to all citys

Advanced Commerce: +1 trade routes
or +5% or

For war mongers:
Advanced Training: +2 exp for all new units

Advanced Weaponsmithing: +1 Base strength for all new national units (probly too strong.)

Advanced Propaganda: -10% war wearyness

For Mages:

Advanced Education: +3 exp for every new Adept

Additional Education: +2 exp for every existing Magic User.

Weaken Planar Walls: Creates a new raw mana node or two somewhere. (to help finish your tower of mastery)

I like this idea, and I guess it might be nice if different future techs were linked to different endgame techs. The base costs would have to be really different for them, though, as some of them are much more powerful than others. Same thing with how they progress, you'd have to invest a lot of to get -30% war weariness.

Still, these would only be useful if the endgame lasted long enough to be able to research these. If we want a pure-tech victory/a chaotic war engame/any other reason the game would end early, this wouldn't add much to the game.

Maybe it would still be good for whenever someone turned these limiting victory conditions/events off.

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

I'd find it to be usefull to avoid my usuall cut of science to 0% whenever i've got all the techs and future tech's + + doesn't seem very usefull as food is usually my limiting factor at that point. It's a shame to see all of my carefully built up science infrastructure being disused like that.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Yeah, in the end of FfH, I end up just researching Future Techs to counter the war weariness that world conquest entails. There's really no purpose for them other than that.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I remember plans for more flavorful future techs were discussed at some point... anyone want to go re-read all the FfH 1 thread posts?
...
Alazkan's ideas are a good place to start.

 

[Xuenay]

Potential options could be:
for builders:
Social Improvements: +1 , +1

Advanced Industry: +5% to all citys

Advanced Commerce: +1 trade routes
or +5% or

For war mongers:
Advanced Training: +2 exp for all new units

Advanced Weaponsmithing: +1 Base strength for all new national units (probly too strong.)

Advanced Propaganda: -10% war wearyness

For Mages:

Advanced Education: +3 exp for every new Adept

Additional Education: +2 exp for every existing Magic User.

Weaken Planar Walls: Creates a new raw mana node or two somewhere. (to help finish your tower of mastery)

Oooh, these are really cool. I'd say use them all (except maybe the Weaponsmithing one). It'd make for a very nice and potentially chaotic endgame, with civilizations gradually getting more and more powerful and rampaging...

 

[hawkeye72]

Didn't Kael say that "fire" is where the war scripts are really going to start happening? If so, I think this might be good, in addition to the diplomatic "-4 Is that a growing super-weapon in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" type thing.

And I guess that some of the buildings that let you build t4 units might as well give some economic bonuses, too. I guess I also like the idea of some whole new buildings that can give bigger ones.

If you have closed borders, then wouldn't it be difficult for other civs to know if you are developing the super weapon? Or at least they shouldn't know for certain and they also shouldn't be able to discern how far along you are in that development process.

It just reminds me of all the countries in the real world racing to develop nukes. The ones who've decided to shut the UN (and other countries) out have effectively kept the rest of the world from knowing what they're doing. (I'm not sure how a magick like omnicience might affect this. )

I like the idea of people building up a negative diplomacy, but I don't think it should necessarily be a uniform impact (maybe random) because there should be some degree of doubt.

 

[hawkeye72]

I was thinking about this for the other thread - temple discussion. In China there is a temple/tomb that has thousands of carved soldiers that represent the army the emperor takes into the afterlife.

What if you have a temple/tomb AND Runes and take a divine unit there and "discover" that you can activate the army to golems (or something similar.) Make it dependent upon a late game technology.

This could probably be morphed for a few different religions and whatever religion achieved the tech discovery and the temple investigation first would result in whatever variation or incarnation (but only one allowed in the world.

Veil could be undead... A vast catacomb of tombs is discovered. The XXX conducts the XXXX and an army of undead awakens. -> The number and diversity of units is variable dependent upon when you want it to hit. You could give the player an overwhelming number of units, an Uber Unit or a constant stream of units (like the camp in Gheghis Khan - Warlords scenario.)

That said, I not sure a good old fashioned world conquest isn't how the end was intended in this fantasy world. It seems like a hard and harsh world to me. To the Death! Aaargh!!!

 

[QES]

Bah, im deleting this. Internet boggdoggery.

My post essentially said that we have to be wary about endgames flying off the hook.
Lest we "jump the shark" we must remember that end game technologies, while providing an advantage, should not DRASTICALLY change the course of events. Yes, tech reserach into each section of society is a good idea, but we ought to make sure the advantage of each technology is VERY marginal, so that by itself it doesnt provide undue power to those whove developed them.

After all, most technology allows access to SOMETHING ELSE that provides tangible benifits, thusly slowing down direct tech to benefit ratio. A technology that provides direct benefits, should provide VERY SMALL benefits, in comparison to techs that provide access to buildings, units and resources.

Also, a technology that would allow for artificial production of mana sounds like a good idea, perhaps several technologies (equallyin the number of spheres) would be a good idea. Each one of these would allow the artificial construction of that particular mana-improvement. In this, it would take x amount of these technologies to be allowed to construct x amount of improvements that would prove the x amount of mana you still require for that Tower of Mastery.

 

[tyrantpimp]

No offense but seems like most people see future techs as being all candy and flowers. I mean the future is uncertain, in real life world new techs don't always happen without a cost.

So what if future techs happened randomly as suggested earlier in the thread. However there was possiblity of getting negative effects too.

Here are a few i can think of off hand.
1: Kills x% of your total population
2: Kills x% of non unique military units
3: Shrinks x% of your cultural influence
4: Kills x% of organic terrain bonuses (fish, whales, etc)
5: Diminishes gold by x%
6: Kills x% of specialists (or causes them to abandon you, either way)
7: Causes a revolt which turns one of your cities over to barbarians, preferabbly one that has some tier 4 units.
8: Starts a plague which is transferable via trade routes ( curable perhaps )
9: Madness strikes your most powerfull spell caster ( hey its the cost of being brilliant )
10: Farms operate at reduced output for x turns ( when magic and agriculture go wrong )
11: Abandon GOD ( one of your cities becomes heretical and you have to use an inquisiter to remove the new religion before converting it again, otherwise it might just start spreading. Big negative consequences for you $$ and dimplomacy wise for followers of the true faith, you allow heresey!)
12: Alienate your allies, any civ you have open borders with starts to hate you because your so teched up. I mean you must think your too good for them and better than everyone else

OK those are just a few ideas but i can think of at least 2 dozen more "flavor events" and these could easily be used in lots of fun ways other than "sour techs" Tack one on to your favorite wonder, etc. Or theres always the thought of making them random events.

 

[Sureshot]

Also, a technology that would allow for artificial production of mana sounds like a good idea, perhaps several technologies (equallyin the number of spheres) would be a good idea. Each one of these would allow the artificial construction of that particular mana-improvement. In this, it would take x amount of these technologies to be allowed to construct x amount of improvements that would prove the x amount of mana you still require for that Tower of Mastery.

A tech that makes mana should be randomly placed pure mana. Like a tech called "Unlock the ether" that produces 1 mana node randomly placed somewhere in the world.

 

[tyrantpimp]

I think any late game techs should have some potentially disasterious random consequences. Think of it as making a savings throw in D&D, sure you get the benefit say free mana. But ooops you accidentally unleashed a plague as a by product.

All of these new techs would require more powerful magic, more bloody sacrifices, more (you get the point.) I just see this as being a more interseting alternative than free tech candy. Essentially your dabbling in things unknown here, there must be a price.

AND yes the price must be paid in blood

 

[tyrantpimp]

Just had another thought too, wouldnt it be interesting if those side effects could harm your neighbors too? Whoops super smart civ just unleashed a blight on super military civ and they declared war. Supreme Lord's issued statement of appeasement "My Bad" is not enough to calm the warmongers

 

[Sureshot]

i'd think it would be better not to make it a gamble, and instead a certainty... like you create a random mana node somewhere in the world (which might help your enemies and not you) but it always causes fallout around your cities (waste production of the research).

 

[tyrantpimp]

Perhaps but if you made it certain then people would know to avoid it, and if you made it random it gives you tons of flavor. We all agree the problem late game is you basically have a clear path to victory. A little bit of random terror might help things play out differently.