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Goodmorning all
That, I could go for. If you win in such a way that enemies (or even any other players at all) are still around, being able to continue playing after the victory screen with some insanely huge bonus appropriate to your victory type would be lots of fun.
Ideally, for me, this wouldn't actually be a game ender, or a post game cleanup (yes i said that, but I've given it more thought)
I'm now thinking two 'win by magic' things. the first 'spell of Making' is as advertised, Huge spell, Huge research, learn it cast it, win. (play after the fact with some completely over the top bonuses if you want, for no score, just to clean up and for fun! >:- D)
A second, 'Process of Transcendence' like the researching /casting of the spell of making you opponents would be warned when you begin this process. The process is as I described above, leading slowly to a all powerful bonused to the 9's wizard, but leaves you in the game for a while before you really start to become overpowered. If the price of each additional skill point remained a constant, or dropped only very slowly, at the start. Your opponents would have time to muster themselves and declare you a true threat. and act appropriately. The great thing being that if you start the 'process of Transcendence' and then a second enemy does you'll be in for a very long very epic ride to a cataclysmic victor condition [or mutual lost, if you and your foe manage to trigger a global meltdown say by using too much combined spell power in one turn/or over a few turns, burning out the world]. The point being that 'response time' is always retained.
Oh and to make it sane starting the process to transcendence would prevent you from researching and casting the 'spell of making' 2/3'rs of the way into the process.
[it could even work out that somebody is just coming into the truly exponential phase of the process of transcendence and somebody finishes the spell of making, heading them off at the pass.]
You then have a choice, learn and cast the spell that leaves my channeler paralyzed for several turns, but win sooner, hoping to finish before they can crush me. . . or follow the path that pays of in strength incrementally so i can build strength and still use my wizard to defend myself until I'm stronger then all the weaklings who dare to challenge me?
Personally, I think that any sort of research victory should take a huge amount of time to complete, no matter how much +research speed ability you have. What I didn't like about the technological victory in GalCivII was that by the time anyone started researching it, they probably have very fast research, so you would get the warning that they started, then 30 turns later they won, and there was nothing you could to to stop it because it took 28 turns to get to their planets.
I think the key factor should be that the spell(s) size(s) should take longer to research and cast, proportional to the size of the map. Casting a global spell on a small map takes a small(er) amount of time/ energy, then weaving that same spell over a world map of 10 times the surface area. calibrated against the length of time a typical endgame unit takes to run across the map corner to corner, unaided. The spell of mending would take less, 3 or 4 times the crossing time, the possess of transcendence would take about 8 times the crossing time to research the second 10 picks [or however many is needed that you start to see overwhelming raw magical power to the degree that any non transcending faction just can't keep up. ]
I totally disagree. I love non-conquest victory conditions and I'll be extraordinarily disappointed if they just become the hated step-children of victory conditions compared to conquest. I don't want to always be forced to destroy all my opponents - be that their entire kingdoms or just their channeler. I want to be able to win be forming a universal alliance, by researching the Spell of Making and thus gain total control of the world, etc.
I, for one, and not arguing against the existence of non-conquest victories, winning by alliance, winning by council, winning by artifact/quest, 'ell give me a winning by espionage. I'll take them all.
My idea is that at least ONE of the ways of winning should be 'win by transcendence' where you actually play out the processes of becoming truly transcendent. including the having fun playing god part just before the credits.
A corollary to that is that all the other ways of winning should have the option of returning to the map post victory to clear up loose ends [if there are any]. Preferably where each type of victory came with a unique and concrete bonus that rendered the steamrolling phase quick (~10 turns) and a whole lot of fun.
ex. win by quest, top hero gets an artifact that grants
1. Nearly unlimited teleportation /turn
2. Any and all damage inflicted on this hero reduced to 0, regardless of form or cause, Total immunity to all forms of paralysis,sudden death, assorted negative afflictions.
3. Unreasonable buff to damage.
4. total and unquestioning servitude to controlling channeler [no chance that this newly formed god of war will betray you]
Each win has such a post victory cleanup bonus.
That's my view,
Best wishes all, take care.
Robbie Price