Longturn Forum

and now something totally different

What about new way of winning - spaceship built as end of chan of big wonders?

Now you can win by building spaceship, which is crown of technological speed, so in fact space race is, like in real world, available only for USA and USSR, Canada didn't even try, Mexico didn't even think about it.

But what if you can start building your spaceship in very beginning of game? Let's say - you need to build such chain of "big" wonders:

Black Stone Temple - Grey Stone Temple - Lighting Temple - Zeus Temple - (....) Great Monastery - Library (....) Library of Congress - NASA Science Lab - ....... Space Shuttle.

And you don't need to have very advanced technology to build it. If you don't like idea of having space shuttle without technology, then call spaceship program "capture the flag game" and call wonders "outpost 1".. .... "outpost 10" ... "Flag".

Why? Because it would improve competitive mood among players - because neighbour will want to capture city with Lightning Temple, because now when he keep his wonder city safe, he will be able to build Zeus temple and next wonders and win the game. So it's what Wieder like I guess.

And it will also allow player to play in "defense, research, build and develop" way. It's just enough to keep defense, so it's what Corbeau like I guess.

In a way isn't this already like that? You will need all the technical advancements for building the ship and then you will also need the ship parts.

It was said that the ship is too fast to build so I will make it to cost more anyway. This will prevent the game from ending too fast when the players can start building the ship. In the real world nuclear weapons have been available for a long time and the ship would be much more expensive compared to those. This would mean that the ship parts should be at least 10x as expensive as they were in the past.

Or maybe more?

The managattan project needs to be cheaper but that's another story.

maho wrote: What about new way of winning - spaceship built as end of chan of big wonders?

I like idea but i prefer to see it as a race, that you need to win several times, you need to build first wonder in T50, second wonder in T60 and so on.
Because you once you will reach production supermacy it is to easy to build anything you want.
But when you cannot grow rapture but need to focus on production wonder it is quite nice idea.

wieder wrote:In a way isn't this already like that? You will need all the technical advancements for building the ship and then you will also need the ship parts.

That's why space race begins when we have winners and loosers de-facto set. And space-race for winner is rather kind of saying "see, I could smash you, but I will win in elegant way".

What I propose is, that you need to start space race from first turn. You need to build just series of wonders (or capture city with wonder and build remaining from chain).

edrim wrote:

maho wrote: What about new way of winning - spaceship built as end of chan of big wonders?

I like idea but i prefer to see it as a race, that you need to win several times, you need to build first wonder in T50, second wonder in T60 and so on.
Because you once you will reach production supermacy it is to easy to build anything you want.
But when you cannot grow rapture but need to focus on production wonder it is quite nice idea.

Once you reach supremacy - you're supreme and noone can do anything with that. But in such way you can win by production supremacy in non-destructive, development, peaceful way. In that way lamb can win with wolf, if only his factories produces more.

I'm really not sure how to implement wonders like that. It should also be evaluated if the game would still be balanced with those.

In any case the space race victory shouldn't happen too fast anyway with these settings. In the past it has been a problem to have the ships launched too fast.

Space component will cost 1600 instead of 160
Space module will cost 3200 instead of 320
Space structural will cost 1000 instead of 100

After launching the space ship the others have at least 5-6 turns, probably much more, time to destroy the capital.

wieder wrote:I'm really not sure how to implement wonders like that.

AFAIK currently some buildings can be built only when other building is in city. Eg - bank after marketplace

After launching the space ship the others have at least 5-6 turns, probably much more, time to destroy the capital.

After launching the space ship is too late to change anything. But when you starty you spaceship project when you're still walking with spears wearing furs, then it's a bit different.

And when it's THE ONLY way of winning, then things become very interesting.

I like this concept, but not only for spaceship. To be able to build anything, from legions to howitzers, doesnt just require knowledge but also a supporting industry. If a medieval civilisation recives plans for cruise missles its ridiculous if they can build them straight away. It would be better to have a series of small wonders that enable the building of certain things.

Dividing the technologies into different eras (Ancient, Gunpowder, Industrial, Modern, Space Age) there could be basic units that anyone can build (Defensive or all round units, eg. Phalanx Archers Horsemen for Ancient) and advanced units (The game changing stuff eg. Swordsmen Catapult Chariot) that require a small wonder or building. So players build up thier capacity to produce specialised units over time. The wonder/building should cost substantial upkeep, so that building all of them is difficult and players will specialise. The units themselves could be cheaper to compensate.

So.. even if you get all the tech from an ally you still cant build everything if you dont have the industrial base. Which could make limiting free trading of tech less important.
If your central industrial cities where you have the wonders get taken then you wont be able to produce stealth bombers in a crappy desert city.
If an enemy steals your tech you still have as long as it takes to build the wonder before your enemy can use it against you.

Building the spaceship to win should require being able to maintain the highest level of industrial capabilities, in production and economy as well as having the research, while other players are trying to stop you.

Everyone will see once you start to build the ship and building it should take some time since it's expensive. Should it be even more expensive is another question?

"If a medieval civilisation recives plans for cruise missles its ridiculous if they can build them straight away. It would be better to have a series of small wonders that enable the building of certain things."

In a way we have that covered. It's npt possible to trade techs in LT34. Also not possible to steal them or get any by conquering cities. You will have to research all the techs. The only way to transfer is the techs becoming cheaper once someone invents them. This makes it impossible for medieval nations to build advanced techs.

For the future games there is another solution if tech trading is enabled. You will need to have all the previous techs for any tech you trade. Skipping techs is not possible.

wieder wrote:Everyone will see once you start to build the ship and building it should take some time since it's expensive. Should it be even more expensive is another question?

I am sure it can be done on a TC, start build spaceship 1 minute before TC and send it just after:)

I doubt it would be that easy to build a space ship in one turn without someone noticing how much gold you have before you build the ship. I doubt if 10 000 gold would be enough with those ship part prices. Then again why not. After that there would be at least 5 turns to kill the capital. Maybe not that easy.

At least it would be extremely difficult to get the required techs in few turns if you were a medieval nation and then build the ship that fast. I really think it would be noticed. Then again I can be wrong about that.

Are we missing any more GT-simcity issues we would like to have fixed?

I am not telling that it wont be noticed, I am only telling that between start of building spaceship and sending it out may be only couple of minutes.

Yeah, and I'm not telling that I have figured out the entire game. Just that I'm guessing how something can be done for those who are about to launch the space ship.

What was the last LT game with the space race enabled and how did that turn out?