I previously put up a post with my reasons against AI Transcendance and i proposed that instead of them winning they should get a bonus to show how advanced they are. I have since continued reading posts and have come up with some more thoughts on the issue.

First i have an additional gripe which requires comparing the victory conditions (which may or may not be a valid comparison in your oppinion, but bear with me). For military and cultural victories (consider alliance tied in with military), there is always some way to combat it. If your opponent, weather the AI from your perspective or you from the AI's perspective, Is trying to slash the other races to pieces you have many viable ways to repond: you can beef up your military, ally yourself with others, make peace then eliminate a minor race to gain an advantage, etc. Similarly with a cultural powerhouse there are options: Build up your starbases, go to war with them, research and build cultural enhancments.

With Technology, there is a problem: There is no effective way to stop someone from dominating technologically. There is no way to sabotage research attempts aside from indirectly by going to war with them and diverting their funds. If your AI opponents are quickly progressing towards transcendance, building starbases and beefing your military will do you little no good.

My point with this is that, since there is no convenient way to combat an attempt at technological victory, it would by more of a nuisance than anything else if the computer could win in this fasion. I would feel that my hands were tied and i could do nothing but sit and wait for the inevitable "You lose". Which makes me think of another thing: Why does their transcendance make you lose? I can see it being a win from their perspective but unless the transcendant race is bent on destroying everyone and everything, why should them being allpowerful mean the end of humanity? Surely, the human race would continue on.

Personally, i think the situation is fine as it is and it is unecessary to change the way the technological victories are handled but I will again state the proposal i previously made. Instead of an end game, when an AI player reaches transcendance that race should get significant bonusses which would make it more difficult for the human player to win. This would make it undesireable to let a computer player transcend but would not mean a sudden and uncontrollable loss to a game you have committed much time to. At the very least, there should be an option to disable AI Transcendance.

Feel free to tell me im completely wrong.
Nick

I voted against it, given the choice presented in the poll. I'm concerned because at higher level games, playing as a research-oriented race I've found the AI is often very adept at research and even with my advantages usually can get their first. I can only imagine the AI would win this way a lot. Strictly speaking I'd like to see something inbetween. I'd convert the tech victory into something ala SMAC... researching Final Frontier allows construction of some super-duper expensive social project called "Enlightenment" or whatever. Complete the project and you win. All players are notified when the project is started and where.

What's the difference? Giving the player notice that a race is close to researching Final Frontier doesn't give the player much to respond to. If a race is powerful enough that they're at that point, you're probably looking at a major power with relatively lots of planets. Just stepping up the war effort in the hope of removing them before they finish is too iffy IMO.

BUT... a project on a single planet gives the player (and the AIs) a specific target to strike to prevent that victory condition. It's something they'll have to repeat (I'd make it so only 1 planet can work on it at a time) over and over until that race is out of the game (or they win the game through other means) but it's more preventable.

Vorlin: I agree that metaverse score should have nothing to do with the decision. I might differ about tech victory being fun, if implemented.

I agree with Solitare that the Tech victory is not an exclusive victory. If someone disables tech victory at the start- then they can't win a tech victory. If they enable that, and win, then we know they have won a competitive exclusive tech victory by achieving it before the AI. I think it adds some stress and strategy to a tech victory that is currently lacking.

I think there are definitely games where I would turn off a tech victory condition if I didn't want to play that style of game.

My opinion:

I'm in support of the AI tech victory, but I do have a few problems with the final techs:

- The total cost of Beyond Human + Final Frontier (total: 111,100) is barely above Galactic Creation (94,200). While this might disrupt the game balance of Tech victory, I could suggest increasing to 75000 (from 51,100) and 100000 (from 50,000) respectivly.
- As some other posters said, there should be a warning when an AI player is reaching the final stage. There are three possible warning levels: When research commences, when the research is 50% complete, and when the research will be complete next turn.
- There should be a minor counter to the Tech victory, such as destabilization act as slow down the research for the final tech. "Our intelligence agents are reporting that an unknown race are feeding false information into the research labs. This has proven to be a significant delay for our transendence."
- Implement a counter to this counter.

Naturally, comment #25 puts it best. Why bother about Tech victory if the others will do...

I agree with the idea of Final Frontier giving some sort of bonuses to whoever researches it.

All I have to say further is *if* it is added, and I'm personally against it, it should be separate toggle from the regular tech victory, sort of added challenge for the masochists.

If not for the presence of the option of winning by Tech I have had a number of games that would not have been won otherwise. The AIs had beaten me in planets, production, etc., and it was only through diplomacy, payoffs, and just turtling like a fiend that I was able to squeak across the tech line and win. I'd have lost every one of those games without the *exclusive* tech win option. This game is supposed to be fun, not just an exercise for bean counters.

I would wager amongst the casual player crowd that removal of the tech victory's human exclusive status would be seen as awful and unfun. For the guy who is just surviving in the game it's nice to know you still won in the end even if some of you think it's a cheap win.

On second examination, there are a couple of really good points herein regarding tech victories. Firstly, any attempt to militarily derail an imminent tech victory is probably doomed to failure due to the advanced capabilities of any nation attempting to reach FF. This makes any 'countdown' pretty much pointless. Secondly, it would be pretty damned annoying for the AI to use the same trick, just by dint of the tactic being unstoppable once an empire is properly set up for it. A couple of good reasons not to allow tech victory for all players, I'd say.

I still stand by my suggestion that there should be a countdown or additional research goal in order for the human player to win by tech victory. In addition to having the science to pull it off, the human player should have to be prepared to defend himself from a computer opponent that is actively trying to thwart him; just like every other victory gambit.

I haven't been an avid Civilization player, but were AI civs in Civilization able to persue the 'Alpha Centauri victory'? Cause that's about the same as the GalCiv techvictory.

Not allowing the AI to go for techvictory is basically handicapping the AI. So even though we now have this great AI, people want it handicapped???

I DO understand though that it can be a major letdown if you all of a sudden get the 'game over' message while you are in the middle of a tight game. But it's not a problem for me if I lose the game to an AI techvictory when I've had numerous warnings to see where the AI is going to (e.g. everytime when an AI researches a 4D tech).

Maybe it would be a good idea to disable techvictory after an AI has outrun you. That way the game continues but the techvictory isn't an option anymore. How about that? Wouldn't that make everybody happy.

That way you can:
- Still win a techvictory, but you have to outsmart the AI for it.
- Continue playing after an AI has reached "Beyond Yor/Arcean/Torian/Altarian/Drengin", but without the techvictory as an option for you anymore. You would have to go for another victory then. I think that would make the techrace interesting.

You do have a good point, Code Monkey. With most of the other victory conditions, you have to be a dominant force in the galaxy. With a tech victory you can 'turtle', which I've done and still pull out a victory.

Many time reader, first time poster.

I tend to favour the modification that in order to go for a Tech Victory, you need to research the tech, then build the tech device that completes the transcendence. An analogous example was the old game Master of Magic -- where you not only had to reasearch the 'Master of Magic' spell (or whatever it's called, it's been many years ), then you had to cast the damn thing, and while you were casting it, everybody was out to get you. It seemed to work perfectly fine then, and led to some really exciting endgames; I think it would work really well here. Besides, if there's ever a multiplayer version of GalCiv, it doesn't make sense for one 'human' player to have a victory option that none of the other 'human' players have, regardless of race.

And remember, if an AI is going for a tech victory (which I think should be allowed), and the countdown begins, ALL the AIs should be taking that into consideration, and the AI going for the tech victory should become the target of everybody on the board. So, you should be fighting the tech victory AI in alliance with all the other AIs.

Just some thoughts.

JGH

For those saying that an AI tech path can't be countered, I would disagree- isn't this what destabalization is meant to do ? by upsetting their systems and hopefully getting them to revolt, you're grinding down their tech base- mixed with a militarty attack, you can slow down their rate of ascension almost completely.

SMAC ascension involved a building, you could invade that city and destroy it if needed without having to destroy the entire civ (like in Civ where you could invade the enemy capital to recall the starship). That doesn't apply here, only by eliminated a civ's research capability can you stop it from continuing to tech up, and you can only do that by wiping it out completely.

Destabilization only works if the victim is teetering on the edge of collapse (which, IMO, is the way it should work), it does squat against healthy civs as far as I can tell.

One thing that I think people are missing from my p.o.v. is the stuff about how a countdown should have all the other players trying to stop the ascender - that's completely against my impression of how the game was designed. The AI was designed to, yes, sort of mimic a human player, but it's designed moreso to mimic an actual nation.

It's goal is not to stop you from winning, but to win itself if possible, and if not, survive til the end. That's why they surrender and ally - it lets them survive longterm.

The humans transcending just takes them out of the normal 3D galaxy - the other races don't lose by virtue of it, the humans get a non-violent, non-intrusive way of "winning".

Changing the game around to let the AIs win by tech victory and then changing things for players to start backstabbing by virtue that someone is nearing the finish line changes both the flavor and the basic design of the game. I have no interest in playing an AI that makes choices based upon the old "let's screw the human" algorithm.

There needs to be some kind of competition with the AI for the tech victory, otherwise it's kind of hollow. Far too many games can be won by turtling and teching.

Option 1: any AI who transcendes should leave the game, all their planets become empty, and the remaining races scramble to get them. However there should be a big cut in the metaverse score. I don't like this option as much, because the metaverse is not the be all and end all of the game.

Option 2: any AI who transcends gets a bonus, and tech victory is no longer possible for the human, although the game is not over and other methods of victory are possible. This seems reasonable to me, there's now an incentive to get up the tech tree fast to get the easy win, but you're not totally screwed if you don't get it.

Totally agree with Daetrinn on this topic. The techvictory is just that, hollow.

Option 2 would be an easy and very fair solution to this problem.

Having a device would allow you to target a single planet and attempt to take it out.

In Civ, you could also use espionage to target project completions.

I don't know if I agree with you there, Code Monkey- it seems to me the AI turns violent and exploitative as soon as they have an edge. I feel like they play to win and exterminate me if they can.

Perhaps I'm just paranoid.

Anyone who thinks the tech victory is 'hollow' must be playing on too easy a level. Sometimes it's the best you can do.

I'm playing on intelligent Vorlin, the level that puts me on equal with the AI.

The tech victory is the easy (and I don't mean really easy on the hardest level, but the least hard) way out. If you're out of ideas or the AI has the advantage, tech victory will save you.

I bet that it's by far the most common victory on bigger galaxies and by far the most common victory among topplayers, check the top 25 metaverse, so many Beyond Human victories. Just because it's the 'easy' way out. And that is because a human player has a HUGE advantage over the AI.

Vorlin,

Look at your own games. 6/7 of your latest games are techvictories...

I agree with you, Vorlin.

If it's hollow for you, then disable it and stop trying to hose the game for the rest of the people.

It's great that some of you are so good at this game that Incredible AIs have you yawning as you hit the 'enter' key once more to advance the turns on the way to your inevitable Tech victory, but I'm willing to bet that is hardly representative of the majority of people playing this game. I'm no slouch as these sorts of games, but with the amount of attention I'm willing to devote to a *fun* past time I can only beat 5 Int AIs about 1 out of 5 games at this point.

One of the things that Brad and Co. have to balance out is the appeal to the hardcore gamer and the casual gamer. Leave the Tech victory as it is and the hardcore gamers - which represent a fraction of the sales - can disable it if it's too wimpy for them. But turn it into a race where you have to stay ahead of every AI in every way every game to win and you will ruin it for a lot of people.

It is a *game* and I like the idea that I can squeak by the finish line no matter how long the odds. I had a game that I lost two nights ago that was one of the best games I'd played. Everything had gone horribly wrong and my once huge empire was being systematically taken apart by the Arceans. But, I was on Final Frontier and it became a race to see if I could finish it before they wiped me out. Now, they wiped me out, but it was a lot of fun trying to win - if it had been available to the AIs as well, I might as well have shut the game off a few hours before that point.

Code Monkey you haven't read the thread good enough.

Not at all, am I trying to 'hose the game for other people'. I'm also not saying that I can easily beat incredible AI, cause I can't, in fact I've never tried.

If you read my suggestion earlier in this thread I think that solution could appeal to both casual and hardcore players. I consider myself in between casual and hardcore.

I just feel that is a game that finally has an AI worthy of taking on a human, but it's handicapped by the fact that it cannot persue a techvictory (again the suggestion I gave in this thread is a compromise).

So instead of giving the AI rediculous bonuses (like in Civ3) we want to handicap it?

It's just like saying to Deep Blue, hey you cannot pull off a checkmate using your Queen.

I really cannot understand why the AI should not be able to get a tech win. If the AI beats you militarily, you lose. If the AI beats you culturally, you lose. If the AI beats you in an alliance, you lose. Why should tech be any different? What's the point of a tech "win" if the AI has already gotten that far?

jason

~SDC~

LordTheRon, I rarely go for a tech victory, the metaverse is misleading. My main victory method is to tech up, culture flip the galaxy, then hit the Final Frontier to cap it off when all the galaxy except for about 1% is mine. So almost all my games are actually cultural conquest, they just don't end with that actual victory condition because I have it turned off (kept ending my games before I was ready).

I've also never won a military victory, the one that shows that way was also a cultural victory, but when you culture flip the last planet it registers as 'military' to the metaverse.

Sometimes I'll take a tech victory when I've had enough of a game and don't want to spend the time flipping everyone. But only twice that I can recall have I sat down and gone for a tech victory on purpose. I like ending with the galaxy under my control.

My comment about playing a harder game was meant more along these lines: if you play at a difficulty level that challenges you then you might often find yourself -having- to win by a tech victory, which hardly makes it cheap. As Code Monkey mentioned above, it's actually even more exciting than a military/cultural victory because you won't know until the end whether you'll make it.

And I still say the proponents of this issue aren't thinking it through to what the game will really be like if it ever gets implemented. I posted about 6 points regarding this in the other thread, let me add elaborate on one here: if tech victory for the AI is implemented then any game played on a larger sized map will then become a tech race for -everyone-.

Why? Because it's faster to get to Final Frontier than it is to conquer the galaxy, or culture flip all of it. And if this idea is imped then every game of GalCiv from now on would be a race. No more exploring options, no more taking your time, no more leisurely conquest, because the clock is ticking: in XX turns the computer will win. Take the Luck pick for fun? Don't you dare, you need that research bonus! Forget all the combat bonuses, you don't have time for combat, while you have your sliders set to produce military units your opponents are cranking out research. And remember, it only takes one of them to beat you, conquering 4 of 5 won't cut it when the 5th one goes Final on you, you lose.

Everything the propoents of this idea think it will do, it will do the reverse. You think (incorrectly, IMO) that you have a lot of tech victories now? You won't have anything -but- tech victories on big maps after this. You think the human win with tech victory is cheese? What about when the AI is doing the same thing as mentioned above, pulling out a tech victory when you have an armada that could conquer the whole map, if you just had time?

The only way I'd support a computer tech victory condition is if a tech victory depended on building an item that had a huge cost, like 10000 or so (or more). That way if the human player actually had a dominant position then they could go wreck the project (or vice versa, the comp AI could wreck the human one). But I'd be against this to at this time, GalCiv just has so many other better things the coders could spend their time on, like an espionage system with meat instead of the current bare-bones one.

Jason, the AI can't get a culture victory per se (they can eliminate you by flipping all your planets, but not by cultural domination in the 90% sense), and they can't get an alliance victory, so your point isn't valid.

And as noted other places, a tech win does not give you a scoring bonus, it's just a game-ending condition. So there is no reason why it should still be a game ending condition when it's reached regardless of whether you reached it first or not.