[Suggestion] New game mode

from Elemental Forums

 

Premise:

If I try to win a research victory in Gal Civ 2, everyone tries to obliterate me right before I achieve it. Why? Because as soon as I win, everyone else loses. So a research victory is really a research/military victory. It never comes down to a pure research race.

But the game doesn't need to immediately end, does it? What if everyone else didn't lose as soon as I won my research victory? What if only other people shooting for a research victory were defeated? Things could get a lot more interesting. I could try to placate the Yor with treaties and free technologies right until the end of the game. It is no longer a certainty that they will try to destroy me.  Possibilities for cooperation would be much enhanced.

In this post, I'm going to put forward a design for a new game mode that presents some interesting game play possibilities by creating assymetric winning conditions.

Design:

1. In the game lobby, allow players to choose objectives from a list. If two or more players choose the same objective, they are pitted against each other (only one may win out of that group). 

2. Each objective has its own defeat criteria. While any player will clearly lose when all of his her or cities/units are destroyed, there may be additional criteria as well. For example, in an Economic victory, a player may lose at any time if their gold reserves fall to 0. If you were pitted against this player for an economic victory, you could defeat them by bankrupting them.

3. When a player completes his objective, all other players with the same objective are defeated, but players with other objectives keep playing.

4. Sample objectives: 
a. Economic - Build income of x per turn, collect reserves of x gold
b. Diplomatic - Collect x vassals, collect x treaties
c. Conquest - Control x cities, control x earth nodes, allied victory
d. Research - Discover technology X
e. Quest - Complete the quest for x, defeat x monster

5. The problem with this game mode as I have currently conceived it is that players that have won or lost will then leave the game. The question is, what do you do then do with their empire? And how do you keep the game interesting with fewer players? I have a few draft solutions, but this issue will definitely require more thought.

a. The most obvious solution is to have the AI take over for each of these players (if the AI is less than superb, this will make the game less interesting after someone has won).

b. The winning player has already "won," but can stay in the game to try to influence the outcome of he rest of the players, perhaps with new powers.

c. A massive random event occurs that eats up the players that have left (e.g. for research victory, defeated players' cities become undead, winning player's cities become enlightened). However, the random nature of this has the potential to just become a RNG...)

d. Transfer the assets of the losing players to the winning player and give him a new objective. 

To avoid enlarging this wall of text, I'm going to avoid delving into all the gameplay possibilities that this game mode would present. Rather, I will conclude by asking a question: what kind of gameplay possibilities do YOU see this game mode creating? Fire away. :)

 

6,343 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Perhaps have more than one 'condition' possibly selected at once?  For example, you choose two objectives and must achieve both to win, but if someone else achieves one of them first you can still win by being the first to achieve all your chosen conditions.  Multiplayer games could require each player to choose two or more but the choices could be either hidden or public.

Good idea.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

The only real probablem i see with this plan is that most of the proposed vicotry conditions are exponetial. meaning as you get closer to achiving them you get more powerful exponentially, and those that don't are setup as game breakers.

that being said multiplayer could have a set of non game breaking victory conditions, like the card game risk, hold all of asia for 10 turns, defeat yellow,  control Austraila and Africa at the start of your turn. . .

These lesser victories are not mutualy exclusive. like concur the world and research and cast the spell of making. By thier very nature it is implied that these victories exclude any future victories. If somebody concurs the world somebody else can't later cast the spell of making, if somebody casts the spell of making they control all magic and crush thier oppoents with a mear though, armies are of no concequence.

If such a multi-victory model were desirable, things like 'control 2/3rds of the iron on the map - by direct control or trade'.  ' be the only team in the game to have bear Calvary in play 40 consequitive turns.'  'form a perminent aliance with Elfonre the White Dragon' would be the way to go.  So one person can 'Win' but the victory conditons do not explicately, or at least are not by nessesity, mutually exclusive (somebody could have 'Slay Elfonre the White Dragon' ofcourse...).  

Just my thoughts

 Robbie Price

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Great comments and ideas, guys. :)

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Hrm. I'm not so sure what I can add to this. But it does give me a slightly different idea - you could avoid having players eliminated from the game with a continuous 'historical' mode with a scoring system that's a variant on King of the Hill.

You wouldn't win the game instantly, instead you'd try and maintain your position as the dominat economic, military, technological power, and so on. You'd get points either for being the 'best', having the biggest empire, the most money, etc, or simply based on your overall the size, wealth, technological advancement of your empire. The person with the biggest score at the end, wins.

I particularly think there would be some potential with Quests and Artifacts, creating a sort of Lord of the Rings situation where you gain victory points for having an artifact, but other players want to steal it away or destroy it.