No final frontier for the AI?

We had it in at one point, but found it cheesy to suddenly have the game spit out "Game Over" just because another civ researched the game winning tech. That was, however, before victory conditions could be turned out. If implemented correctly, this could be put back into the game (Where you're warned that they'll be comleting the tech in x years and need to stop them). I guess the whole idea of a "Technology Victory" is that you trancend a mortal existance, so perhaps the race would be simply removed from the game. :notsure:

Thoughts?

~SDC~

I think the AI should be able to win thru the techrace also.

Some topplayers on the metaverse have won the game on a very high difficulty level, but mostly because of a research victory.

So either the AI should try to hinder a Human research victory more or the AI should be able to win like that too, although the tech should be called different for them.

*before victory conditions could be turned off.

~SDC~

Was posting when Boogiebac posted, so I hadn't read that post yet.

Mostly I'll stick to my earlier post though. A sudden "game over" is cheesy, but if you get a fair warning there's still time to attack that AI and thus preventing its techvictory.

Most important though is how the other AI's react to this. They should at least try to hinder the human and other AI players for reaching that 'research victory' goal. Something they obviously don't do at the moment.

I agree that the AI should be able to win through tech victory (with adequate warning). Perhaps also allow the player the option of continuing to play but with no more score tracking.

Also, how about (for the long term) enhancing Espionage a lot to deal with this? You could (spending HUGE amounts of cash) sabotage research (making it require additional turns to complete) or even, if the espionage diff is high enough, allowing the "unlearning" of a tech if discovered only a few game turns earlier (for example, destroying a research center and killing scientists before the papers with the results could be published to the rest of the scientific community)

Anyone like these ideas?

~SDC~

@Astromarine
This are indeed very interesting ideas. I think they would make Espionage even more nescessary. Furthermore it would provide new strategies to counter far superior ship technology, say if someone has Overlords and no one else has, you had a chance to destroy it's ability to build new ones. And of course to prevent this, it has to put money into espionage, which would hinder it's technological lead.

Only problem, this maybe would take to much time to implement... :notsure:

For a "quick" solution, I'd recommend to remove the entire AI Empire which was able to reach the final froniter from the game, while reducing the Score (game and metaverse) by 50% (cumulative).

I dunno... I think military and cultural victories are enough for the AI. There's not enough direct action that I as a player can do to stop technology other than stay ahead myself and/or beat down the AIs so the don't get that advanced. Suppose it's late game and I get a message that they're X many turns away from learning Final Frontier... what am I supposed to do about it at that point? If I'm close myself increase my research? If it's a small map go wild eyed crazy and hope to conquer all their planets?

Now if Final Frontier lets you build a "transcendence" wonder (ala SMAC) that's a great big project, and everyone is notified which planet is doing it... that might be a more attractive target and something I might be able to prevent. Possibly even for the AI to target if it looks like the player is going to win that way?

Oops... didn't specify that building the "transcendence" wonder is what would actually "win" the game for you as opposed to researching Final Frontier in this idea.

The A.I that reaches it first should be removed from the game leaving all their planets ripe for colonization. This would create a late game colonization race. Once you research it, then game over. If you weren't the first to research it then the game could lower your score for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th accordingly. But each A.I. that researches that tech should disappear from the game. You could have a cutscene that says x achieved final frontier or what ever. If other races research the tech befor you and everyone left over starts colonizing those planets you could put in special events that have something to do with the previous race that transended reality. Like you find money or ships or excavate buildings or something. In fact I think since they are merely leaving this reality that all their planets should keep their buildings already built intact. It's not like they would destroy their homes before they left. Most races would want to leave things behind so that they would never be forgot. I would however, get rid of all their ships and starbases. Perhaps their ships and starbases could break up and fall apart due to lack of maitenance and become anomalies for us to explore.

~SDC~

I like the idea of having each AI who reaches the final frontier lowering your score. That might be enough to balance the game without having to make major changes.

That way only those who are aggressive and really control the game well will get high scores from a research victory.

The devs probably need to add a warning that the AI is getting close to the final frontier however, so you can slow them down if you need to.

Yeah add it back in but with a warning that it may be coming up.

I'd like to have the possibility of losing that way- makes tech trading that much more dangerous.

~SDC~

I like that 'transcendance' idea. This gives the AI (or the player) a target to aim for. Currently the tech victory is the most easy victory (for an experienced player). The metaverse stats show it. The only painful victories I can track on the Metaverse have been 'beyond human' wins.

Though there are probably too few games to draw big conclusions like this, I DO think that the AI needs a fighting chance here. If they win by techvictory they outplayed the player, so they deserve to win.

~SDC~

i agree, the AI should be able to win via tech victory. you got outplayed, plain and simple. better luck next time.

but the player should get a significant warning when the AI is getting close - like when the AI starts researching near-omniscience.

cheers

h

Well, I do not agree - it's embarrassing (to me), when you play 10 hours and then: Game Over, try it again.

Just decrease the score by a reasonable amount wouldn't make it that easy to make huge scores in Metaverse, while giving you a chance to finish the game.

Furthermore, If the "winning" AI get's removed from the game, late game colonization takes place, which makes it even more interesting and possibly harder to finish it at all.

but that's of course just my opinion.

Well, if we are really going to be "gung ho" about the AI playing by the same rules, then we should take the bad with the good.

I vote for allowing the AI a straightforward tech victory. You snooze, you lose.

However, a startup option to disable this victory condition would be nice as well.

you can already enable/disable the different types of player victory. it should be extended to also affect the AI.

so if you're worried about an AI tech victory you should just be able to turn it off - with the price being that you can't win that way either.

cheers

h

What about an option to either disable, reduce score by 50% and youwin/you lose-mode?

~SDC~