Master of Magic and Sandbox games

I have been hearing the idea a couple of times that some people would like to play master of magic as a sandbox game. I don't know much about sandbox games, I know that mine craft is such type of game and there is a huge fad around it. There is also project spark demoed at e3 that could be a kind of sand box game. I trying to see if the concept of sand box could be applied to a master of magic video game and/or board game.

Sandbox games seems to fit more for the wanderer type of players that will play games with a lot of freedom and lack of objectives. Those kind of games would like games like The Sims, Grand Theft Auto.

The main element of a sandox game could be the lack of objectives, since the players define their own, and the fact the gae never ends. Personally, I don't really like games that never end, I prefer have an ending and start again, that play indefinitely.

So an idea could be to have a MOM game with no objectives but that would feel flat. So I was thinking more about a game where you do have objectives, but you have no competing players. So only the real player can "Finish" the game, the other factions are only there to entertain the player. That could be something interesting, because sometimes I hate racing against the computer. (In my current game, I have "Nodemastery" (power x 2) and some AI manage to have 5 times more power than I do).

One of the interest of the sand box games is the lack of artificial intellegence. In fact, there will be an AI, but it would be more a minimalist AI which would be more event based, a bit like an RPG, rather than a strategic AI that needs to know how to win the game. I was thinking lately about the kind of strategy video game I could make that have little AI, and it used a more RPG random encounter structure, rather than a strategic structure. So in this case, the same concept could be applied of MOM.

The concept of sandbox could also be used to playtest my board game in design as a single player game Since I was thinking to use non player puttet factions in my game.

So besides the non-competitive objectives and the advantages of a thin AI. So you have any other ideas that could be imported from a sandbox game and implemented into master of magic without breaking too much the master of magic experience?

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I really like the idea of Turn thresholds. For example, at turns 200 and 400, major events that press a storyarc occur, applying pressure to the player to address the issues that arise.

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Like I implied in the other Master of Magic thread, a sandbox experience does not means that you have no objectives at all.

I could image a MoM that could work with or without AI players, with the main objective being you against the map, playing until you fulfill one of several winning condition.

Exemple of possible objectives:
- cast the spell of Mastery
- finish some sort of utimate quest
- survive until turn XXX
- if you add AI players you can then add the usual domination victory where you win if you are the last survivor, or maybe a diplomatic victory if you canbuild a strong alliance with all surviving factions.

If you want to press the player to act to prevent excessive turtling, there are several solutions :
- AI players coming against you could wel be replaced by monsters and minor factions, with dungeons, nodes and other special location acting as spawn points for appropriate monsters or armies, giving another reason to clear them and a source of constant ennemis as you expend.

- like suggested by GfireflyE, random or semi-random events when scertain conditions are met could also be a way to do it.

You ignored a certain quest to destroy an evil cult for too long ? Too bad now they have summoned a major demon and are gaining stregnth. Their lair has now gone from a low level one that a small army or hero could clear to something that will be much harder to do, and it is spawning minor daemons and fanatics stacks harder to ignore.

You didn't kill the dragon whelp when you got the chance ? Now he has grown bigger and started devouring your peoples and asking tributes or else ...

The bandic camp that you ignored near your frontier has now grown into a small independant citie over the years, and is blocking your access to local ressources and land.

etc ...

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That is somewhat what I am aiming for.

There are objectives, but only the player can achieve them to end the game. Or try to do them all.

The AI factions are basically there to give trouble to the player, but they are not there to win the game.

AI would be controled by random events that determines their action rather than making them plan a strategy to win the game.

I am currently exploring how an event system could be used in a board game thought the use of a deck of cards. I made a thread about on other forums.

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