terrorism

Oh, and you could have the opposite of terrorists, like funding independant science groups or other groups with worthy causes which would give you other gains and make you more good instead of evil. This way, any empire can fund independant organizations (which is a higher-level abstraction than just terrorists).

I remember reading examples of random events that involve terrorism somewhere. Since 9/11 though, there is a very stong stigma against terrorism even in games. Imagine the negative press: "And in GalCiv, you are even ENCOURAGED to commit acts of terrorism...".

I'm not saying I agree with the way the media tries to imply that things in games cause the same behaviors to manifest in real life, but I'm also not sure if it were MY company that I would want the kind of media attention a feature like that would be sure to attract. :notsure:

--Soulfire

Well, you could masquarade it somewhat.

"A small race of humunoids that believed their gods betrayed them to their rightful place as a major power. They seek 'justice' and funding to fuel their cause in abolishing galatic superpowers."

Or whatever.

It wouldn't be a 'terrorism' tab either. I'd create a new section for relationships with independant organizations (properly somewhere in the normal 'races' tab as a child-interface). Anyway, new organizations would to you throughout the game (something like leaders did in moo2) and you could choose to talk with them in the same way you could with the 5 other major powers, but you would have many of them and each game would present different choices, dialogs and things you could do with them (like technology, terrorism, whatever).

I think this would be a very powerful game mechanic and it's something I haven't seen before.

Sounds like a tech for evil races.


~SDC~

Well, that's just it - if you are evil or want to be evil, you choose them and influence them to do your work while at the same time achieving their own goals, serving both interests.

A good empire would obviously decline their offer and might even take them out before an evil empire decides to accept (so it doesn't become a problem).

You can also have other organizations. For instance, what if a group of scientists want to experiment on prolonging the average longspan. Now heres the catch, they want to take people (anyone) to experiment on them to accelerate their research (even if it is people who want to die). Now, if you fund their goals, you get the results of the research *but* this makes you more evil and if you do this to your own people, they could revolt.

You might also come across many neutral and good organizations too. There would have to be a good balance of alignments so they can work to towards or against what you stand for. "Terrorists" were just one of these organizations, but I'm sure creative minds can come up with tons of them.

It wouldn't really be a technology since I would hope that 24th century humans know about and could execute terrorism if they really wanted to considering it's been around for centuries.

24th century? This game starts in year 2178.

I don't see why an evil race couldn't research this as a tech. Or there could be a tech for how to influence independent groups to inflict terrorism on another race.


~SDC~

no, what i mean is we have terrorism in 2003 and we've probably had it since there were the 'invention' of two fueding, neighboring cities back before 0AD. So, you shouldn't have to research it - it just doesn't make sense.

As for 24th century, I think I read that somewhere in 'about the game' article and also read the 2178 too. I assumed they gave the warp drive to species in 2178 and then waited several hundred years in order for them to get better with the technology. Anyway, there is a mention of 24th century so I just took that as the date. Brad could have also been referring to star trek and I might have been really tired when I read it. The point is moot anyway - terrorism isn't a technology and it's really very simple. Perhaps you could research "advanced terrorist tactics" or something to improve it, but it should be usable through your own people immediately or, as I suggested, through another orgazation that aligns itself with your empire.

Point taken.

Just to get the centuries straightened out, the pregame story has the hyperdrive invented and disseminated by the terrans to the other races about eight to ten years before the game starts and the star gates suddenly self distruct about four years before the game starts. The game starts in the month of January, 2178. Also, I found a typo in one of the documents that does mention the 24th century and reported it.

~SDC~

Oh, and in C&C: Generals, you can play the GLA which *is* a terrorist group. They even ram trucks into buildings and deploy nuclear weapons - even toxic gases on civilizians. If that can pass, I'm sure helping out a disgruntle terrorist group with no where near the visual violence would not be accepted or even frowned upon.

From what I understand, you could pretty much add any of those things yourself as either random event or technology "mods"?

Using your evil scientist example:

Random event:

A group of "ambitious" scientists approach you about funding a promising research project that will yield technology to significantly extend the lifespan of humans, but which regrettably requires the extensive use of human "subjects" to test and perfect the technology. Most of the test subjects will not survive. What do you do?

1) Refuse the funding because it is unethical to sacrifice human lives for experimentation. (Shift towards good alignment)

2) Provide the funding, but pass legistlation that only allows criminals with confirmed death sentences beyond hope of appeal to be used as test subjects. (Slight population growth boost, no alignment shift)

3) Provide the funding and confiscate lots of "volunteers" of people I don't like to provide maximum support of this wonderful new technology! (Large population boost, moderate morale penalty, shift towards evil alignment)

Similarly, I think you could find ways to create anything else you envision as either a technology tied to a specific alignment and/or random event. From what I understand, you can already use diplomacy with the other major and minor races to get them to attack other civilizations, which is similar enough in effect to sponsoring a third party to terrorism.

You could also argue that the whole 9/11 terrorism incident (and resulting stock market slump that never seems to stop)was quite accurately modeled in an abstract manner by the "Destabilize" option of espionage.

--Soulfire

Brad hints in one of the documents in the encyclopedia that there may be terrorists in the game as one or more events.


~SDC~

There are terrorists in GalCiv already.

~SDC~

And the terrorists do not go by the same name everytime - as I just found out.

No matter how technologically advanced people pretend to be, whenever they find somewhere to expand to that they didn't know about before, they tend to regress. Pacifists seem to be 'pacified' by the fact that they're not fighting equals. Interstellar terror would need to be invented, just as interstellar diplomacy and trade did. Small scale stuff takes time to become large scale.

Is one called Len Baden? LOL

Jythier, your logic is flawed. Unlike diplomacy and trade, terrorism is even more fundamental. Diplomancy requires new research because the aliens you are dealing with are not the behaviours and attitudes you would expect from working with humans. Likewise, trade and economics don't follow the same models as capitalism does today. In fact, civilizations might not even require money at all like the Federation. These things really do need to be invented and improved upon.

However, the principles and models of terrorism aren't different at all. In fact, the only thing that changes is the technology that is used to carry out the terrorist acts, but these technologies can be used by non-terrorists as well. The actual use of terrorist just another form of military tactics and I don't see a difference from sending a american planet into a building from a starship into an space station.

I meant an american plane instead of planet - sorry for the typo.

There is a difference because in 9/11 you had terrorists living among us training in simulators for a time. Much like in intergalactic terrorism, you would have to train and learn about those you plan to terrorize. This would take the form as some advancement in intergalactic terrorism. After all, you have to be able to get close to your enemy without giving yourself away. Your own starship would get shot down if you used it to destroy a building so you have to use their own. The point is that you have to learn and advance in your terrorist methods if your going to get away with them without getting caught before the act actually happens.

and this intelligence is pretty well known to us now. Ask anyone on this board to 'think up' what you could do in this situation and after a day they would have tons. Now, how much would it cost to pay an average citizen to in 2003 to thinkup terrorist tactics? Not that much. In fact, nothing needs to be invented at all - all we need is the resources to do it.

it's not about thinking it up, it's about knowing how to implement it. for example, I want to assasinate the Drengin Emperor. Thinking it up is easy, but how do I implement it. I can't just go in with a rifle/ray gun and do it. I have to be able to get past the border and fit in with Drengin society (which means learning a lot about their culture and habits so I don't give myself away). How could I infiltrate an empire where I didn't even speak the language and always drew attention to myself, everyone would be watching me, especially a paranoid government. Every terrorist has to learn how to achieve their goals and there are new obstacles in dealing with new civilizations. So by requiring an intergalactic terrorism tech you would then be forced to learn how to blend in in an alien culture. Make no mistake, modern terrorist organizations do a lot of research on how to blend in and get away undetected. Once you've discovered an alien empire it would not be realistic to be able to easily get away with terrorism unless you did research about that society.

That's the thing. It's no different a US citizen trying to get into the palastine border and trying to blend in with palastinian society - it's just training (time) and money. It's not a technology.

The best way to implement terroism is to have a new user interface for it. In a way it's like spying, so it should be integrated into that. You could have technologies to improve it, but it should be a fundamental thing that your empire can do.

agreed, as long as training and funding can be implemented, which shouldn't be too hard.

I also like the idea of creating an alliance with an indepedant organization with its own cause (in this case, it would be a terrorist group). I've said a lot about this in other threads.