Final Frontier (Civ4)

Final Frontier's main menu

Final Frontier is one of three mods that come with the Beyond the Sword expansion pack. It takes place in the future on an intergalactic map, with very little left unchanged from the standard game. It was designed by Jon Shafer.

The player takes the role of leader of one of humanity's colonies at the beginning of the 24th century. Earth has mysteriously disappeared without warning, throwing her interstellar colonies into chaos and forcing them to survive for themselves.

Civilizations

Final Frontier contains eight civilizations:

Civilization	Leader	Starting Technologies
AstroTech Corporation	Raul Colombo	Gravity Training, Military Academies
Avowers of Knowledge	Lu Tianqu	Radar Polymers
Halis Planned State	Kanji Takeno	Space Exploration
New Earth	Hector Alvarez	Radar Polymers
Paradise	Leonard Pritchard	Space Exploration
Red Syndicate	Vladimir Korovin	Radar Polymers
The Brotherhood	Lukas von Reuther	Gravity Training
The Forge	John Richards	Gravity Training

Tech Tree

Final Frontier has its own tech tree with 38 new technologies.

Units

Main article: Final Frontier (Civ4)/Units

Final Frontier provides 16 completely new units, most of which come with upgraded delta (Δ) and omega (Ω) versions for a total of 44. The combat units all have their own unique qualities: stealth ships are fairly weak but have hidden nationality, destroyers are cheap, expendable and weak but can defend against enemy squadrons (the equivalent of vanilla's fighters and bombers), cruisers are moderate strength and can carry missiles, battleships are slow, expensive and heavy, while carriers are equally slow but can carry squadrons into battle. Starbases are the strongest unit in the game, but require the sacrifice of a Construction Ship, a hefty gold investment and are immobile. However, they have a powerful long-range attack ability, spread a civilization's borders, can be used as bases for squadrons and automatically manufacture anti-ship missiles.

Unit promotions

Main article: Final Frontier (Civ4)/List of unit promotions

Buildings

Main article: Final Frontier (Civ4)/List of buildings

Civics

Main article: Final Frontier (Civ4)/List of civics

Solar Systems

Players can found new cities only on select solar system tiles, which are strewn across the map. Each system has a preset number of planets with their own individual yields, which can be improved through certain buildings. Rather than directly work plot tiles, players instead assign population points to a planet; each planet can also only be worked by a limited number of population points, although certain buildings can increase this limit.

Terrain

The terrain system has been more or less completely revamped. The base tile is simple space, which all units can move through. Strewn throughout are features such as asteroids (which provide defense bonuses, resources and movement penalties), nebulas (impassable), black holes, radiation clouds and supernovae. The last three are all dangerous and can damage or potentially kill units.

Resources

• Crystals - +3 (with Extraction Facility)
• Gold - +3 (with Extraction Facility)
• Hydrogen - Speeds construction of Destroyers and Planetary Defense Ships by 20%
• Iron - Speeds construction of Cruisers and Invasion Ships by 20%
• Oil - Speeds construction of Fighter Squadrons, Bomber Squadrons and Anti-Ship Missiles by 20%
• Oxygen - +3 (with Extraction Facility)
• Titanium - Speeds construction of Carriers and Battleships by 20%
• Uranium - Required to build Doomsday Missiles and speeds construction of Astral Gate Pieces by 20%
• Water - +3 (with Extraction Facility)

Values

Values act as the religions of Final Frontier and are spread by Advocate units. Each value also has a corresponding special building. In addition to the usual happiness bonus of possessing a state religion in a city, each value provides its own special benefits when present in a solar system and its building is built. Final Frontier contains five values:

• Knowledge, which increases the science output of a solar system
• Power, which increases the prestige points of units built in a solar system
• Religion, which provides a happiness bonus to a solar system
• Survival, which provides a healthy bonus to a solar system
• Wealth, which increases the direct income of a solar system

Victory

The United Nations wonder has been replaced by "the United Planets," by which players can pursue the traditional Diplomatic Victory. A new victory condition replacing the Space Race, the Ascendancy Victory, requires the construction of 5 Astral Gate Pieces in the late game which would theoretically allow the player's civilization to transcend to a higher plane of existence. (It is heavily implied that the Earth was trying to do this itself, but a miscalculation caused its destruction and thus the entire scenario.)