15-10-2000 17:13									#31
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Ahaa… Now I understand! Transcendence is achieved when a civ has existed a number of years or accumulated a number of points (I like the latter solution best), right? I first thought that transcendence was something inevitable at the end of a technology-tree like in SMAC, and so it would only be accomplished in a certain time-period (out in the far future). But you think it’s accomplished when an empire has survived long enough, right?

Assuming this is correct, I see a whole new bunch of problems coming. Initially I thought that transcendence was a final project, ending the game. Now that I understand that it’s not, such a project is missing. I know that some people are opposed to the idea of an ending project, but I maintain that this is indispensable. If the game is allowed to continue on with however many technologies there are designed, the game will end up being played chiefly in the future. I think that the future should be modelled, but not at the expense of the past. The longer the game continues the smaller the history part becomes. This is fine, to a point. And I don’t know if that point should be 2050 or 3000, but I know that if the game is unlimited it has the potential of going on for a hilariously long time. If it FE went on to about 30.000 AD it would leave a game where the past took up only 12% of the game. I think that is unfeasible, and consequently I think that an ending project is essential.

I like the transcendence idea however and I think it should be implemented. But I also think that we should come up with a new ending project.

	16-10-2000 05:48									#32
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Well there isn't ness. any problem with F_Smith's proposal except that there would need to be some minimal technological or understanding of what it means to transcend. Also the civilization as a whole would need to be geared into that direction. A civ that survives because it is able to supress everyone else wouldn't cut it IMO. Finaly the time factor is for the reason i would call 'golden age' thinking in that it would take an extreme amount of prosperous time for people to be able to come up with these ideas and whatnot needed. The end of the golden age would mean an end to the project because after a few years, facts are lost or at best ger distorted in meaning or actual wording and the second golden age if there was one would haveto take time to sort things out, ect. And in the end take just as long.

	16-10-2000 20:07									#33
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West:

I agree, a certain number of points. And that should probably only make you elligible to transcend -- then your people would have to reach a certain level of 'education' -- the top level of education could be called 'enlightened', perhaps, and from there you can chose to 'transcend'?

Remember, the idea is for an online multiplayer game, which is why transcendence doesn't end the game. If the game ended, it would mean the end of a game for dozens of people. I don't know if ya'll want to include transcendence for a single-player scenario, that's up to everyone else.

* * *

Lordy:

I do think a civ can reach transcendence thru suppressing others.

I love your idea of a 'golden age'!!! Consider that done?

	16-10-2000 20:16									#34
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No, unfortunatly it cannot. I'll explain. See, in the short run, its possible to have a 'golden age' while surpressing most of the populace, but as time goes on, more and more money and resources will be sucked into keeping those who you want to be supressed, surpressed so there's less and less time to consider ideas and such so without some major breakthru there can be no golden age. That doesn't mean that democracy is the only key to this, just that surpression isn't, atleast in its extreme form (as democracy its its extreme form is anarchism which isn't going to work either).

	16-10-2000 20:44									#35
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F_Smith:
OK, glad we agree. Transcendence is a cool idea for multiplayer. But I still think that we should agree on a real "ending project". I made a brainstorm and came up with this list of more or less wild projects:

• Go to Alpha Centauri (again-again)
  
• "Single-player-transcendence" which do end the game
  
• Colonize other planets (I don't like this one - involves other maps)
  
• Energy sufficiency as proposed in the start of this thread (I agree that this one lacks the je-ne-sais-quoi, which makes a cool ending – should be possible to achieve though)
  
• Discovering some new technology with huge consequences for the world, as we know it. “Our scientists has discovered the meaning of life” or something. (Maybe this is part of transcendence?)
  
• Construct a “ringworld” (sci-fi term for a giant “belt” around a star, able to collect unlimited energy, on a huge area of land. Think it was a guy named Dyson who invented it)
  
• Contact extraterrestrial life. (SETI anyone?)
  
• Win a final war against hostile aliens.
  
• Deflect a huge meteor, which would otherwise destroy the entire planet. (Build a Bruce Willis wonder or something )
  
• Find the cure for a newly found, lethal virus which would otherwise wipe out the entire population. (almost similary to the previous)
  
• Planetary exodus: All people in the world are lifted into space cities and Earth is declared natural preserve.
  

I know that some of these projects sounds hilarious/stupid but it were just a quick brainstorm.

One of these projects should be used as an absolute ending at where it would be impossible to advance any further. I don’t think the game should end at a set year, only at a set technology-level – this leaves the option of literally bombing the enemies (and yourself) back to the stone-age.

Come to think of it, it would be cool if there were a lot of different endings possible (more than FE SMAC). This gives the player more options, which is a good thing. Either a civ could pursue a complete planetary exodus, or they could aim for a small colonization mission to Alpha Centauri. Each ending should of course provide different points.

The meteor, alien attack and virus-type endings could be randomly triggered by certain parameters. Alien attacks could FE be a risk if a civ pursued the “alien contact ending”. Lethal virus ending could be possible in overly polluted worlds (Don’t know if it should still be a “victory condition” however. Maybe just a bad random event if you didn’t protect the environment.

Of course there should also be the traditional endings: Unite the world peacefully, conquer the world, convert everybody to a certain religion and any other forms of economic civilian victories. But these don’t guarantee an ending at a certain point and the problem with the limitless game occurs.

----------------------------

Oh – by the way. I’m going on vacation tomorrow, for an entire week, so I can’t participate in the discussion until then. I’m going to Sicily See ya.

	12-11-2000 06:40									#36
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I may have missed it, but I didn't see "Stable world government" or some such as a way to end the game. Obviously its not very good for a perpetual game, since things will get pretty boring if everyone is in a peaceful world confederation (unless the aliens land and attack :P ). But for a SP game its a good way to end it in a constructive way. If it lasts sufficiently long, each power in the world govt. would get a score bonus and the game would end.

	18-11-2000 04:22									#37
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Hi!

Greetings from an offical 'lurker'!
First off, I think you guys are doing a great job-
I'm really looking forword to Clash. Some ideas on this
subject:

I don't think 'hold the world for 100 turns' is a very good ending. After 100 turns, the excitement of conquring the world kinda wears off.'Stable World Government'however, is a good idea (the future of the U.N...).

Undersea citys and space satellites are great too! And thare should be an option to win thruw 'most points by year X'.
I gotta go- more later.

	26-11-2000 02:28									#38
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Hey Whitemage:

I agree with you that we need to make sure our victory conditions aren't anti-climactic. We'll need to balance them for the correct feel when we get to that stage in the demos.

	16-12-2000 20:16									#40
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We have definitely been planning for player choice. I see this project as making not a game, but a game engine and creation utility. When we are discussing the "default" game, we are basically making one possible scenario out of many. What we plan on doing is having programmers make the game editors first, and then have others make scenarios using those editors. The "default game" will be a scenario that is the standard for miltiplayer games. Anyone will be able to make any scenario they want, using the same tools that we used to make the default game. Scenario and modpack possibilities are unlimited.

But to multiplay those new scenarios, you will have to get others to download them. The basic multiplayer game cannot be too varied and customizable, or people could get their strategy messed up when playing. Too much variation in the default multiplayer would eliminate the possibly of a fair ladder or ranking system.

	17-12-2000 02:27									#41
	Remove this text

Ah, I see. While that sounds like a good idea, I think whatever you choose should be default (Will include global conquest, for sure, not sure what else), but some of the other seperate scenarios shouldnt be as seperate as you imply. A lot of these possible endings were good ideas, and more than just the defualt should be implemented in the basic game (For a simple, not so good comparison-In Civ, you could start a random world, do earth, or customize the world, which were all different ways to play)

quote: But to multiplay those new scenarios, you will have to get others to download them. The basic multiplayer game cannot be too varied and customizable, or people could get their strategy messed up when playing. Too much variation in the default multiplayer would eliminate the possibly of a fair ladder or ranking system.

The default doesnt exactly need to be varied so much, but as I said earlier there should be other "already included" kinds of scenarios. That way, the players would decide before the game begins what kind of game they would play, what map, etc.
This could also go back to my suggestion of a few basic "sets" of winning conditions, where each set contains, say, 1-4 different ways to win, and theres a total of maybe 5 sets. If you wanted ladder games, you could have a ladder devoted to each set.

quote: Why must Saturday come so many times a week??

	17-12-2000 04:12									#42
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I've bumped up a recent thread about game options. It was designed more for the startup than the ending, but it lets you see the kinds of things we were planning on. There will be selectable variation in a lot of things built in.

	17-12-2000 06:53									#43
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In short: That's my kind of game!
I've always found most commercial games lacked customization. Goldeneye for N64 was a great game, but not enough customization IN what weapons for multiplayer, time/etc limits. Perfect Dark is pretty much the same but with a lot of great customization and other features. The only real thing I'd add would be (more customization) a level editor & weapon editor =)
Same for most commercial games, just not enough you can change to make the game more tailored and fun for the user. Hope it comes out good.

	28-05-2002 07:04									#44
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Well, it's been a year or more, and I've returned (perhaps temporarily, perhaps not)

Thought I'd start at the old threads I had posted in and work my way up =)

A few new thoughts/review of the subject(s):
There is such a thing as being realistic and also setting it too much "in stone". If you think about it, if n early any important advance or event was discovered or happened at a different time, the future differentations would be exponential. It'd be interesting if the tech chart could be dynamic, to some extent, and you don't always need certain % of tech A to get tech B.
Hard to implement though, and Might add too much confusion.

A "Hapiness" Ending might be another idea. The general populace loves you and your ruling styles so much that foriegn civilizations start uprising, migrating, or whatever else to be under your prosperous rule.

I'd also like to see more peacetime than in the Civ games. (I think your already planning this but IU'll mention it anyway) I mean, in most of the Civ games I'd spend maybe 1 turn at peace for every 10 turns at war (not including the time before I met anyone, of course) partially due to the easilly pissed AI and partially because of the game design.

quote: Well i never liked the endgames, but if we have them, there should the the possibility of many types for many types of players, not all are wanting to take over the world or be the most technological advanced so we should consider that.

Exactly. I still like the idea of Sets or checkboxes where you basically turn on what can end the game and such. You can just decide on one signle goal to work towords, a ton of goals that can be achieved for perhaps a quicker game, or (for most players) somewhere in between. Ending could include bloodlust, peace, exceptional government, happiness, alpha centauri, auto-ending at a specific date, transcendence, sea colonization, solving energy crisis (fusion, solar, anti-particles, etc) Or a combination of mroe than 1. for example, you'd have to be both peaceful and transcend (makes sense) or perhaps you'd have to solve both energy crisis, food crisis, etc. Even a MOO style ending might work if optional. Some single player games could act more like Sim scenarios, where if you dont do X thing by Y time you lose the scenario.

quote: I don’t think the game should end at a set year, only at a set technology-level

Another thing best left to user-choice =) Set technology would be better IMO, but I'm sure some people would like to end at a year at least some of the time.

quote: Or we could institute arbitrary catastrophes that send people back to the stone ages when tech gets to a certain point. That could make things go forever, but it could seem like a cheap trick and annoy players.

As always, a middle ground or balance is needed. Another user option, perhaps =) In a "hard" level game, this could be set high and have, say, a whopping 0.4% chance of happening each turn after the 50th or something like that. Certainly an option though; possible global disasters in every game would be lame.

quote: The future development of mankind is limitless

Perhaps I personally think mankind will kill itself off within, say, 1000-2000 years.
Human's development could have given so many different things in different orders too. Electricity could have been discovered in the 1600s, if conditions were right. Very hard to add that kind of complexity in any game though, even Clash.

Some people mention the "perpetual" style of game, but that could NOT be standard. Many players wouldn't want to play a single game for such a massive amount of time. It would be a nice option tho, but I think the Clash group should focus on a more standard style (it can end in a "reasonable" amount of time, say 8-36 hours) Ideally, both options would be in.

quote: i hope that space conquest will be triggered by the need for ICBMs, like in reality.

There are many ways to the same end. A more peacful society might simply go into space for the basic human curiosity. A lot of ways to look at things. If everything technology-wise in the game always happens like it happened in our world, it would get boring quicker than if it were more dynamic. As always, a middle ground here would be ideal. Options are good again as well =)

quote: I personally think that there will have to be a cut-off somewhere, so the balance between past, present and future won’t become distorted.

Quite true. Probably another user option =) It would be interesting if you could go deep enough to go in a week-by-week basis, for example, in a WWI scenario or something.

It's all about user choice =)
I don't remeber what was in that "game options" thread, so I'll have to go reread that one too eventually.
Some of this is repetitious but this post hasn't been touched since I left so it's probably about time for it to resurface anyway

	28-05-2002 15:03									#45
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The end of the game should be the point where there is no longer a 'clash of civilizations', at which moment the game becomes pointless. Also, the main focus of the game should stay on earth.

You have three categories of endings:
Domination: One civ dominates the world or an aspect of it so totally that opposition has no reasonable chance.
Cooperation: All civs work together, which eliminates the importance of relative power.
Destruction: The end of humankind

Domination goals include: world conquest, monopolizing trade, energy, diplomacy, religion, etc.
Cooperation goals include: world peace, a UN type institution controlling trade, energy, etc.
Destruction includes natural and artificial disasters.

Achievements do not end the game but give you points. Expeditions, buildings, science, etc. are all achievements. These include space stations, satellites, etc. They can provide a significant boost towards a domination, however. If there was only one colonizable planet nearby, the civ to colonize it would probably gain space dominance.

Transcendence can be seen as a destruction, since enlightened beings are not really basic, greedy, mortal, imperfect humans.. It also seems strange to me that an enlightened civilization will deny its elated state to other civs. So i propose that transcendence is either for all civs or none, which implies that transcendence would also be cooperation. And if other civs do cooperate, thereby acknowledging your superiority in culture, science etc. it certainly also is a domination. Transcendence thus is the ultimate goal, since it is unlikely to achieve it without achieving a rist of other goals. (Transcendence is, I suppose, the absence of all material needs.)

Now, how do these end the game? I think that a player should be able to choose to end his game when one or more goals are achieved. You could manipulate the minimum, type and specific goals needed, but the decision when to stop exactly should be one the player makes. The scenario designer decides when the player can stop, but should not forbid him/her(/it) to do better than required.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The points:

Every turn basic indicators of a civs power (population, trade, military, ..) are converted to points and recorded. That's a power graph. To calculate the final score you sum up all points, for every [I]year[I/], not for every turn. That's it. A thousand-year empire in the bronze age will roughly be worth as much as a century of dominance in the modern world, though it took less turns. But farther on the tech tree, points are easier to achieve, so it encourages the player to stay.
Goals and achievements that are of timeless value and prestige give the civilization a fixed point bonus every year until the end of time, i.e. the end of the game. Even if the civ becomes eliminated afterwards, it still gets points. This encourages the player to do well early in the game.

	28-05-2002 17:09									#46
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Hi Twinge:

Well, that was quite a blast from the past! Both you and the thread!

These days I'm trying to confine my discussion mostly to the next demo or two worth of material. That is one of the mistakes I made way back when, getting into all the details discussing everything. That resulted in little coding getting done

If you want to contribute to our progress, probably the most important way is by trying out demo6, and commenting on it, both good and bad. Also your thoughts on the things that we're in the throes of imlementing now are of value. Its not that discussions like this won't be valuable in the long run, but we need to Get to the "long run" before they become really relevant.

Hey Simon:

The points for achievements sounds good! Maybe we could even get something like that into demo 8. The more things that can pull the player into a race the better .

I think transcendance is a bit far for the core game which only goes into the near future. But certainly something like that could work in a farther-future variant that several team members are keen to see.

	28-05-2002 23:35									#47
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Ah I suppose that would make the most sense certainly I just thought I'd start back at the posts that I at least kind of remember rather than dive head first into a whole mess of stuff I can hardly recognize

First try on Demo 6... wouldn't let me end turns after I had played a few. I was just kinda messing around before reading the manual and After a few (3-4 or so) turns, it just kept saying in the info pane that The turn couldn't end because the current one was still in progress. When I start trying it out a little more seriously (and have read the other bug reports to make sure I'm not just repeating someone, as I may be here =) I'll post more in depth stuff in the appropriate threads.

Another small comment: I'd like to see (maybe Demo7 or 8) it a little easier to just kinda figure out what to do without reading anything. Even if the commercial games are complex (like the various Civs) I can usually figure out 95% of what I'm doing after playing it for a little while. Demo 6 failed in that respect to some degree. Btw, can you cancel road build orders?

	02-06-2002 17:20									#48
	Remove this text

Well i think the endgames should be dependant on what year the players want to end at also, but I do have some ideas:

Terraforming Mars: This is a long-term project and would be for a future based one (it'd take several thoisand years our scientist say, that could improve slightly with better genetic engineering, but its not for a standard game that ends in 2100).
Warp Speed Trave:l Actually this is something that people at NASA have been working slowly towards on their own time for years (just recently became offically endorsed)
Universal Force:Scientists would have combined all the different forces: gravity, electricity, magnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces and discovered a practical use for this.
Dimensional Travel:Again, for games that plan to go beyond the 2100 standard timeline.
Matter-Energy Conversion:People can now convert matter into energy and vise-versa.
Transcendance:For single players i think we should change this as there could be more than one type of transcendance. Transcendance is simply a self-inflicted evolutionary change and could be gentic enhancements, cybernetic enhancements that people are born with, evolving into life-entity (which is what is now), some other catestrophic evolution, such as on an aquatic world becoming aquotic humanoids (got that last one after reading book 5 in foundation quintiolgy...which reminds me...)
Universal Will:The planet as a whole (or perhaps the solar system) becomes like a huge organism to help self preservation where although humans retain most of their indivisuality, they subconsciously with everything else work together for self preservation of the whole.