[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Goals

[Reinier Post <rp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Jan 02, 2000 at 01:18:51AM -0500, Anecdoter@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Hello,
>     I defintly think that there should be a variety of different possible 
> endings.  While global domination may, at first, seem to be the key to the 
> most exciting games, other goals could make games more 
> challenging/interesting.

Recently somebody asked us whether organizing Freeciv tournaments would
be a good idea.  In the standard setup, Freeciv is too long for
tournaments.  One way to fix this is by creating very specific settings
designed for fast games, but another approach is to add more different
scores to the list that's already used in the demographics report, make
the computation of overall score a configurable formula, and allow
games to be ended automatically whenever a player reaches the target
score; then tournaments become feasible.  The problem that players
rarely see each other in the initial stage could be remedied by adding
an 'autofill' routine that sets up an initial empire and does so in
a way to balance the target score.

>     Global extinction - pollution and/or nuclear warefare has destroyed all 
> life on the entire planet.  Obviously, this is the worst possible ending.

I don't think this should be a new kind of ending.  Rather, pollution
should have much more devastating effects, actually poisoning nearby
cities and units.

>     Scientific challenges - An asteroid is about to hit the planet, or the 
> core is about to explode.  The civilizations must use their tech points to 
> research a solution.  If they fail, game over.

Too difficult to incorporate into the existing game, I think.

>     Economic victory - the civilization that controls over ninety percent of 
> the planet's GDP is declared the ruler of the planet.

Again, this should be 'automatic' by making it an option to let cities
defect to more prosperous neighbour civs.

>     1984 Ending -  Just like in George Orwell's book, the world is divided 
> into several super nations that are never able to achieve a victory against 
> one another.

This basically happens in many AI games - the game is drawn to a stalemate,
although not for the reason you mentioned.  But I think it's an eminent
idea to allow players to call a draw.  The draw criterion would be a
a configurable score formula, like the winning score, but not always the
same; the second server variable would be a pair of numbers, x:y, to
indicate that if the draw condition has been true at least x out of the
last y turns, players are allowed to call a draw.  The clients would
have autodraw options.

>     Global Peace - The game ends in perfect harmony.  This could only be 
> achieved if there are no conflicts for five hundred consecutive turns.

This can be incorporated by making 'recent conflicts' another demographic.

>     Revolution -  Distraught and bitter at their treatment, citizens around 
> the globe rise up against all the established power to form a new world 
> order.   This would happen if every civ had an extremely low happiness/morale 
> rating.

Again, this would be a side effect of allowing cities/units to defect
automatically.

>     Barbarian Horde - weakened by disasters and/or war, the players are faced 
> with a raging horde of heavily armed barbarians.  This ending should only be 
> possible after the following conditions have been met:  1). after year 1500 
> 2.)major disaster or conflicts for fifty consecutive turns 3.)25% of map is 
> uninhabited.

Maybe the frequency of barbarians could be made score dependent as well.

> Just some thoughts, tell me what you think,
> Steve

-- 
Reinier
a.k.a. <A HREF="http://www.win.tue.nl/~reinpost/";>me</A>
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