Why didn't like you civ5?

[Funky]

It's just not a useful argument for saying "FTL is possible" because if you accept that, then X is possible for all X, and "impossible" has become a meaningless word.

I think this is exactly the point, for both sides. I have no special interest in dignifiying the word "impossible". In fact it's a pretty devious word, which constrains our thoughts and perception. Why care if its meaning becomes less significant, that may actually be a good thing.

To the point, I think we should distinguish between "according to today's knowledge of science and physics FTL is impossible" and "FTL is impossible". The latter of the two doesn't take the fact into account that our scientific knowledge is far from complete and will continue to progress over the coming decades and centuries, which could open up new possibilities. Maybe FTL won't be one of them. But as long as the possibility exists that it could be, which we cannot yet foresee, we shouldn't be too definite with our statements.

The core of the disagreement here seems to be not so much disagreement in itself, rather the clash of physical and philosophical standpoints, which both, in their sense, are perfectly correct.

 

[gps]

It's just not a useful argument for saying "FTL is possible" because if you accept that, then X is possible for all X, and "impossible" has become a meaningless word.

Well, the "realtivity theory" is called "relativity theory" for a reason. It's not called "relativity fact". So it's not proven. And the last time I checked there were also still some issues where the "relativity theory" did not match "quantum theory" - meaning there are still issues in this whole theory construct where the scientists are still scratching their heads and there might be the next Einstein who discovers something else that in that complex, abstract and theoretical matter might make FTL possible again.
Who would have thought superconductors where possible - before the discovery of quantum mechanics? I am pretty sure with the same vehemence you now call FTL impossible you would have also done with superconductors. Mathematically impossible - as long as you don't know the proper rules and effects to apply your maths on...
Btw. who brought up this subject, and what does it have to do with Civ V?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

That's just "science might be wrong" again

More like "I hope science is wrong in this case but given no evidence that it is hopes aren't high", if you want to be precise. That, or science might not necessarily be wrong and there may be some things we just don't know about that open up possibilities none of us can consider at this point. I'm not sure FTL is among those things, but might as well hope so.

And I think that's sort of my point (although I suppose the game need only go on until every civ has either launched a ship or been eliminated, or until a ship is now impossible to overtake (eg, launch a ship with all components, you win immediately), removing the criterion that your capital must survive until ship arrival.)

The ability for worlds to influence each other on a meaningful scale with that kind of travel time is almost nil. Space as a victory would be questionable condition without FTL or some equivalent. Then again, diplo "wins" were *always* questionable so it's not like it would suddenly be out of place .

 

[Abegweit]

The odds of science being wrong are approximately zero. The concept isn't really even meaningful since science is usually a process of refinement and accounting for additional cases rather than outright rejection of previous theories.

Thus Copernicus found the insight that the earth revolves around the sun.
Kepler refined this to point out that the trajectory is not a circle but rather an ellipse.
Newton came up with laws which explain this motion.

Relativity did not repudiate any of this. Newtonian physics is still every bit as true as it was when Newton first proposed it. Relativity added an understanding of what happens when particle velocities approach the speed of light.

Relativity states that it is impossible for an object with mass to reach the speed of light. Impossible. This theory will not be reversed. It has far too many proofs and ramifications for this to happen.

It is possible that some mechanism might exist to allow communication at speeds exceeding that of light. I submit that parsimony implies that this cannot happen. Otherwise we would be in communication with, or at least know about, extra-terrestrials who have this capability. We aren't.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Otherwise we would be in communication with, or at least know about, extra-terrestrials who have this capability. We aren't.

Come on now, this is just ridiculous. We can't assume with any practical justification the existence, nature, or motivations of advanced ETs. Heck, even if we could do THAT, we would still have to have some method for recognizing and understanding such communication on our end or whatever they're capable of doing, should they want to communicate with us at all, would be pointless.

 

[gps]

Relativity states that it is impossible for an object with mass to reach the speed of light. Impossible.

But we still don't know what mass really is or how gravitation works. The problem with lightspeed is that mass rises and time slows when approaching lightspeed. But who says there is no way ever imaginable to compensate for the increase of mass. There's proton and neutrons, there's matter and anti-matter, there's gravity - so why should there be no anti-gravitiy??? And if there were anti-gravity - is it completely out of the picture to theoretically(!) imagine a device able to shield the mass of a moving object so it does not rise??? Thus keeping the energie to accelerate so low that lightspeed can be reached???
Just try to have a bit of vision and imagination: it's impossible for a beeing without wings to fly - then give hime wings. It's impossible for an object with mass to go FTL - then take away the mass...

 

[Abegweit]

Come on now, this is just ridiculous. We can't assume with any practical justification the existence, nature, or motivations of advanced ETs. Heck, even if we could do THAT, we would still have to have some method for recognizing and understanding such communication on our end or whatever they're capable of doing, should they want to communicate with us at all, would be pointless.

Parsimony again. The odds of us being the first technological civilisation in the universe are minuscule. The odds of us being unable to recognise the existence of an inter-galactic civilisation are just about as small.

Conclusions:
1. no evidence of such a thing means that no such civilisation exists.
2. since it doesn't exist, FTL is impossible.

Similar logic, BTW, leads to the conclusion that there are no advanced civilisations of any kind in our own galaxy. The utter failure of SETI programmes to find evidence of extra-stellar intelligence is not surprising at all.

None of this is certain, of course, but Occam's Razor usually comes up with the right answer.

 

[Pangaea]

The universe is a rather big place though. Certainly not impossible for other lifeforms to be out there, despite us not knowing about them at this point in time.

 

[Abegweit]

Correct. However, it's a lot smaller if FTL is possible, which is why I say that Occam's Razor leads to the conclusion that it's not. We would know about them.

The Milky Way, though, is not especially large even at non-relativistic speeds. If extra-terrestrial civilisations existed in our galaxy then we would know about them.

General conclusions:

1) It is almost certain that somewhere in this huge universe, there are intelligent lifeforms. The place is just too big.
2) They have not been able to get to our neck of the woods -> FTL is impossible, or least not much faster than STL.
3) The galaxy is fairly small. Any extra-terrestrial technological civilisation could only be a couple of million years older than our own, which is nothing on a geologic timescale -> such civilisations don't exist.

None of this is certain, of course, but the logic of it all definitely holds together.

 

[JoeyB98]

Lag, opening movie, and 1UPT, in that order.

EDIT: Wait. Are we talking about aliens now? 'Cause that's some insane thread-jacking.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The odds of us being the first technological civilisation in the universe are minuscule.

Odds based on what, exactly?

The odds of us being unable to recognise the existence of an inter-galactic civilisation are just about as small.

Really? Our technology struggles to discern the # of planets distant stars have (we can do it at least)...and you want evidence of other civilizations? How exactly are you assuming that we'd have noticed such evidence? What kind of evidence would there be? Maybe we're being given evidence right now, but can't recognize it as such.

Besides, if you assume FTL impossble, what incentive would other civilizations have to attempt STL travel that we do not?

Similar logic, BTW, leads to the conclusion that there are no advanced civilisations of any kind in our own galaxy

None, huh? That's...interesting. I wonder what you would consider an advanced civilization then.

The utter failure of SETI programmes to find evidence of extra-stellar intelligence is not surprising at all.

No it isn't, given the probability of intelligent life that is close enough for us is many orders of magnitude lower than the probability of alien intelligent life somewhere. Sitting at a computer it's hard to conceptualize just how ridiculous these distances are, even "within our galaxy"...and the fastest tool we have is light. How would you expect SETI to succeed?

The universe is a rather big place though. Certainly not impossible for other lifeforms to be out there, despite us not knowing about them at this point in time.

I would say that life of SOME kind elsewhere is more likely than not. Intelligent life as we imagine it is much less likely, but like you said, it's a reaaaaaaaaaallllllllly big place.

 

[SyntaxError]

What happened to the Civ 5 rants?

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Back to the topic please.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Funky]

Moderator Action: Back to the topic please.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Which one? Aliens or Civ 5 rants?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What happened to the Civ 5 rants?

Don't worry, no amount of discussion of unrelated topics will change what is wrong about civ V .

 

[Ambidexter]

My major objection to Civ 5 is the the damn 1UPT. Civ in any flavor is a strategic game. 1UPT works in tactical games. Sure the CivIV SOD can get ridiculously huge at times but think about how superpowers build up their militaries. During the Great Patriotic War (WW2 to Westerners) the Soviet Army had over 60 tank divisions and over 200 rifle divisions. The Soviets had some serious SODs on the Eastern Front. Civ 5 penalizes a large civ with a massive industrial base which can pump out military units quickly but has nowhere to put many of those units.

 

[Pojman]

Regarding stacks of doom, does my memory serve me right that I remember loosing an entire stack of units to one death in Civ I (sorry it was many many years ago).

And by the way - The reason why I did not like Civ V, was due to the fact that I found it offensively terrible compared to what I was expecting. It was literally the biggest "PC game letdown" I have ever experienced. I don't even want to get into the reasons why, it just was.

This was about the time that I realized that PC gaming would likely never be the same for me again. Oh well - At least we got Civ IV.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

My major objection to Civ 5 is the the damn 1UPT. Civ in any flavor is a strategic game. 1UPT works in tactical games. Sure the CivIV SOD can get ridiculously huge at times but think about how superpowers build up their militaries. During the Great Patriotic War (WW2 to Westerners) the Soviet Army had over 60 tank divisions and over 200 rifle divisions. The Soviets had some serious SODs on the Eastern Front. Civ 5 penalizes a large civ with a massive industrial base which can pump out military units quickly but has nowhere to put many of those units.

I stand by the assertion that there are simply too few hexes. 1UPT could work with more of them...much more. So could stack limits.

 

[Pisskop]

So if they dumped down the graphics, reorganized the ui, expanded the map sizes, increased mechanics like min city distance and etc, and (hell they could even keep the movement rates relatively stable) tinkered with food, prduction reqs the game would be playable?

A mod could do that. . .

 

[Camikaze]

Jon Shafer posted an article that may be of interest to some of you.

I stand by the assertion that there are simply too few hexes. 1UPT could work with more of them...much more. So could stack limits.

One of the extracts:

So is there a way to make 1UPT really work in a Civ game? Perhaps. The key is the map. Is there enough of room to stash units freely and slide them around each other? If so, then yes, you can do it. For this to be possible, I'd think you would have to increase the maximum map size by at least four times.

Another line:

Out of all aspects of Civ 5 that I was involved with, I'm particularly proud of what our team accomplished with the UI.

He seems to be referring specifically to the visual interface.