21-01-2005 21:11									#31
	Inflate your Upload Space

I meant using Darwin, Musketeers, and Knights to allow a branching upgrade all at once as soon as you get to a certain point. Since Darwin gives you exactly two advances, the player can choose one of two techs for the first upgrade (one that makes the car obsolete normally, one that allows a more powerful unit in the Musketeer slot, hence forcing "obsolescence"), then another choice for one of the options, working on the same general principles only using the Knight slot instead of the Musketeer. You'd only have whichever intermediate model you chose for a half-turn, before the second Darwin discovery was granted and you got upgraded again. The new techs would become available by normal techtree mechanics-normally "speed" or "defense" would be available, "speed" would lead to "superspeed" or "Phantom," whereas "defense" just leads to "hulk."

So maybe Darwin isn't ideal for this specifically. I initially thought of the plan for a more general idea, where the player was forced to pick any two of a multitude of possible improvements. The branching upgrades thing was tacked on just for a lark.

WRT Mysticism, I meant that under fundamentalism temples produce revenue equal to the number of citizens they would ordinarily pacify. Mysticism increases that number by one each. So if you had a temple in every pit stop you'd captured, Mysticism would net you an extra (number of cities) gold every turn. I think so, at least. Most of my ideas are theoretical.

With the sea units I was thinking of the mission as being to drag a ground unit there and just use naval cars as the most efficient vehicle for covering ground. Hence the diplomat would be useful for "taxis," or you could have him stomp through a muddy offroad shortcut to gain some ground without using a car at all for a short distance. I think GTA works kinda like that?

The idea of Civ-Battleship was to have mobile but non-attacking ships that can only see each other at very close distances, combined with a paradropping "attack" unit that you get one of each turn, which was an air unit with a move and range of one. Each of the ships had a different strength compared to the others; the patrol boat ignored "shallow water" terrain (alpine), the submarine was invisible, the destroyer could see subs, the battleship ignored ZOC and the carrier had double sight range. And of course some of them could take more hits before dying. Similar to Battleship in many ways, but not identical.

	21-01-2005 22:23									#32
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: So maybe Darwin isn't ideal for this specifically. I initially thought of the plan for a more general idea, where the player was forced to pick any two of a multitude of possible improvements. The branching upgrades thing was tacked on just for a lark.

This is close to what I originally wanted, too - I was thinking of Fallout, where you choose a perk every 3 levels. You choose any combination that strikes your fancy. By the time of the last perk you've completely customized your character.

Ideally, abilities like Alpine movement and ignoring ZOC would be chosen independently of the car's basic theme of defense or speed, from among a set of tempting upgrades. But in order to do that I'd have to create about a dozen car units, one to represent each possible choice by the player. Then I'd have to make sure that the progression of obsolescence worked as expected. This being my first scenario I think it's probably better to keep things simple. That way it's more likely I'll finish it.

quote: WRT Mysticism, I meant that under fundamentalism temples produce revenue equal to the number of citizens they would ordinarily pacify. Mysticism increases that number by one each. So if you had a temple in every pit stop you'd captured, Mysticism would net you an extra (number of cities) gold every turn. I think so, at least. Most of my ideas are theoretical.

Duh! I didn't think of this. Actually doesn't it work the same for any happiness improvement?

I wanted to give fundamentalizm to the Monster tribe, so that there can be zombies (fanatics) in abundance.

quote: With the sea units I was thinking of the mission as being to drag a ground unit there and just use naval cars as the most efficient vehicle for covering ground. Hence the diplomat would be useful for "taxis," or you could have him stomp through a muddy offroad shortcut to gain some ground without using a car at all for a short distance. I think GTA works kinda like that?

But how could you make sure there would be a taxi where you need it? Yeah, in GTA you can leave your car at any time, but that works because at any given time there are hundreds of cars around and you can just grab one.

quote: The idea of Civ-Battleship was to have mobile but non-attacking ships that can only see each other at very close distances, combined with a paradropping "attack" unit that you get one of each turn, which was an air unit with a move and range of one. Each of the ships had a different strength compared to the others; the patrol boat ignored "shallow water" terrain (alpine), the submarine was invisible, the destroyer could see subs, the battleship ignored ZOC and the carrier had double sight range. And of course some of them could take more hits before dying. Similar to Battleship in many ways, but not identical.

Well this sounds fun. You should do it!