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Uncle Dead Bird
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The Crypt
Mar 2005
time: 22:18
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I've been gone a few monthes teaching English in rural Mozambique, where I had no access to an Internet-reliable computer. I see, reading the backlog of threads, this forum's crashed and been rebuilt while I've been gone.
Last I posted, I had a thread about an 80's fantasy movie-esque scenario with some funky ideas. However, on second thought, I don't think I'm good enough at this stage to compete with Curtsibling's Bitterfrost.
However, listening to African folk tales a lot inspired me; mythology! There's no big multi-mythological scenarios I'm aware of.
I envision a map of the Classical World, plus Atlantis, kind of like the one from that Atlantis scenario that comes with Fantastic Worlds. There'd not only be human units (most of which would be unique to one civ or another), there'd also be heroes and monsters. As well, events triggered by techs would represent the wrath of the gods!
There would be seven civilizations:
-Greeks
-Egyptians
-Babylonians
-Romans
-Celts
-Norse
-Atlanteans
Other cultures (Hittites, Persians, Scythians, Cimmerians, Bulgars, Nubians, Iberians, etc.) would be barbarians, and not made sedentary, either. They'd raid, pillage, and cause trouble.
I'm pretty excited about this scenario, so if anyone has any contributions, please post here.
UDB
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Uncle Dead Bird
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The Crypt
Mar 2005
time: 22:18
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Actually, jim panse, I went to Mozambique for a bit of an adventure in this short life; teaching English was my ticket, and the whole experience proved exceptionally rewarding. I was warned about guerillas, but they were a ways away from the province I was in.
Anyway, my plan is to largely allow the player(s) a lot of freedom in expansion, research, and diplomacy, much like vanilla civilization 2, but with each civilization having unique human, heroic, and monstrous units, but rough equivalents between civs being tied to the same advance, thus using the same broad tech tree (like in Test of Time's Midgard scenario; I do plan to use Test of Time, btw).
Intervention of the gods will happen by events when certain players research certain techs. Btw, can I have a tech give a different effect to each civ when they research it, all in the same game? I hope so, 'cause that's what I have in mind.
Atlantis will also sink on a random turn, so the Atlanteans will need to build and/or conquer cities on the mainland in a real hurray.
If the creator of those ripoff units from RTS games (or someone else with the talent) could rip off some Ensemble Studios Age of Mythology units for me, that'd be great.
UDB
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Uncle Dead Bird
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The Crypt
Mar 2005
time: 22:18
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I like your idea, Leonidas! I hope you do it someday!
As for my idea, I'm thinking a bit more multi-mythology; that is, each civ with their own religion, including unique human, heroic, and monstrous units. The only shared units would be a settler-type (slaves?) and a trade caravan unit. Barbarians would have a base infantry to defend their cities, foot raiders, and light cavalry, plus random events would generate the odd barbarian monster.
The tech tree would be broad in scope, with most improvements being available in some form or other (some will have to be supernatural).
I'm open to any more ideas.
UDB
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Uncle Dead Bird
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The Crypt
Mar 2005
time: 22:18
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Actually,  Smiley, I'd love to, save for a few major problems. I only heard a select number of that tribe's literally hundreds of stories, and I don't know all the gods, heroes, creatures, or even fully understand how these and the stories link together. Most of the words the village storytellers used I can barely pronounce and don't know how they're transliterated properly. And I only really dealt with one of 32 tribes native to Mozambique, and over 800 found in Subsaharan Africa. Each tribe's mythology is RADICALLY different from the others. And when I tried to fill the gaps at my local library, the reference material in any meaningful detail just wasn't there.
So it's not that I consider the idea unworthy, it's just that the scope of African, or even Mozambique, mythology is not fully within my grasp.
Sorry.
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Uncle Dead Bird
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The Crypt
Mar 2005
time: 22:18
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@Leonidas - Thanks! And Atlantis will be a full player complete with however many cities it builds and/or conquers.
@N35t0r - I am using Test of Time, and I'd already considered having an Underworld, possibly where dead human units could fight their way back to the surface to fight another day in the service of their gods.
I also like your idea of territorial bonuses; how to implement it though, I don't know.
I'd also considered a way to work monsters and heroes in a fashion similar to Age of Mythology, but I'm not certain about it.
You see, monsters would be air units with a range of 0, an attack role, high attack and moderate defend and the flag that makes them slowly run out of fuel disabled.
Human units would be land (or sea) units, and be incapable of attacking monsters (they could only defend, and usually not too well).
Heroes would also be land units, but would have high attack, hit points, and firepower, and the attack air units and AEGIS flags, and thus would be exceptional monster-killers.
This reflects that in most myths, heroes slew what armies couldn't.
As well, SAM Batteries would represent some sort of divinely-granted protection from monsters civs could research and build.
UDB
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Elok
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Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:18
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I don't see the point of the Atlanteans for this scenario; they don't really have a distinct mythology to take advantage of. I suppose that since Atlantis is ultimately derived from distorted accounts of the Minoan civilization of Crete, as in the FW scenario, you could just give them half of the Greeks' units. The Greek myths have a lot more well-known monsters and distinct cultural wotsits than most others you named. Try to list them:
Norse: Jotunn, Troll, Nicor, Valkyrie, Berserker, Dragon, Svartalf/Dwarf, Longboat
Egyptians: Devourer of Souls, Bennu Bird/Phoenix, Aphophis, Nile Bark, freaky winged serpent spirits, Sphinx/criosphinx...um, Court Magicians?
Babylonians: I don't know enough about them. The sirrush is all I know. And those winged bulls with human heads.
Celts: Firbolg, Fomorian, Danaan/Fairy, Pookas, Boggarts, etc.
Greeks: Centaur, Minotaur, Lamia, Gorgon, Griffin, Hippogriff, Hippocampus, Chimera, Siren, Harpy, Triton, Hydra, Fury, Cyclops, Satyr, Myrmidon, Trireme, Hoplite, Gigantes, Titan, Nymph, Phoenix, Sphinx, Amazon, Cerberus, Typhon.
The thing is, the Romans have relatively little of their own, they mostly ripped off Greek myth. The only distinctly Roman thing that comes to my mind is Legions. So you'd have to work with the same basic set of myths for three separate civs if you included Atlantis. I don't know how many units you can have in TOT, or how big of a map, but you might want to go with fewer civs and more detail for each. Just Babylon, the Celts, the Norse, Egypt, and an "Olympian" culture of Greece and Rome together would be my suggestion.
Also consider balance. The Celts are in the NW, the Norse in the North. The Babylonians are East, the Egyptians South, the Greeks and Romans around the middle. The Atlanteans might start on a doomed island, but they'll have a LOT more room to grow than any other civ. Most of the others are crammed right next to each other geographically, but none of them start near Spain or NW Africa. The Celts are kinda close, I guess, but they have the Norse to worry about. If Atlantis has any naval power, the loss of its continent won't be all that crippling.
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N35t0r
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( o Y o )
Jan 2000
time: 02:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Uncle Dead Bird I also like your idea of territorial bonuses; how to implement it though, I don't know. |
Well, you could give, for example, mostly fast units with a high attack and poor defense to the egyptians, and other dwellers of mostly flat places. This will make them rule flat lands, but make them gratly stall and have to be very careful wherever land is not flat, as their speed advantage would be cancelled and they'd be left as sitting ducks.
The norse would have amphibious units, which would be deadly when making amphibious assaults, but a low defense and low movement would mean that they are weak when attacking by land. They would also be able to traverse impassable mountins, allowing them to sneak atatck if not watched closely.
More rugged terrain dwellers would have units with a higher defense, which combined with some terrain bonuses would be able to defend against the other two, but they'd be quickly trampled over on flat terrain (no defense bonus) or suffering from an amphibious assault (cities built on flat land).
I'd guess that from that group, the romans would have an edge in attack power, whereas the greeks would benefir from better defensive units.
The atlanteans could, like in the game, have more powerful units but which cost more. (limited manpower, maybe making all their units settlers? won't work well with the AI though...)
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Uncle Dead Bird
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The Crypt
Mar 2005
time: 22:18
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Some good units, points, and ideas there, actually. I appreciate the help with this scenario.
Now, as for the Atlanteans, I do want to keep them as a civ, but they maybe hard to work, given, as Elok pointed out, their free range to roam and build at the start, moreso than any other civ. Not to mention the lack of their own monsters and gods.
I'd very much like to work around this problem, but I may need some advice. I'll consider it myself, but if anyone's got possible solutions (or even patchwork quick-fixes), please let me know.
UDB
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Elok
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Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:18
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Yes, yes, there can be disputes about the history of technology, but that's not my point. There are theories about fantastic scientific achievements among most of the peoples mentioned in this thread. Stonehenge was a remarkable work of astronomy and engineering built by the predecessors of the Celts, Archimedes built all sorts of insane engines, and the Egyptians managed to get the pyramids almost perfectly level and build the bloody things pretty huge to boot.
But it can be pretty confidently stated that the Atlantis myth, at least, was nothing more than garbled accounts of Minoan Crete, which was not very different from Greece, just slightly earlier. The tale was blown totally out of proportion-it was "nine thousand years ago" instead of about nine hundred. It was also fancifully transported to the other side of the pillars of Hercules for some reason, and the island of Crete inflated into a massive rectangular continent from a decent-sized rectangular island. There's also no evidence of a landmass of that size ever existing in the Atlantic; there is, however, good evidence that the Minoan civilization was ruined at least in part by the volcanic eruption at Thera, which sank a fairly advanced early city into the Mediterranean while an accompanying earthquake levelled Knossos.
Atlantis never existed in the proper sense of the word. Even the muddled accounts in Plato aren't nearly rich enough to provide a background comparable to the rich heritages of Greece, Rome, Babylon, the Vikings, or Egypt. If you include Atlantis, it will literally have to be mostly modern invention, tacked on to some scant ancient exaggerations. It is not a culture with myths of its own, just a particularly compelling myth from another culture. Plus, given that Atlantis is a land of hyperbolic proportions more than anything else, in order to be "true" to your source you'll have to make it so that they predominate the scenario. It will no longer be a battle of ancient cultures and myths brought to life, just the FW Atlantis scenario with some myths given to the other guys too. I don't see the point, or indeed the charm.
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Elok
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Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:18
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The guy who looked at the Sphinx and said it was thousands of years older than Egypt based on water damage has been proven wrong; he took way too much license with guesses. I heard as much in my archeo class last semester.
I repeat, I don't care about other ancient civilizations. I am aware that geological catastrophes happen, and have happened, many times. I am also aware that the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean shows no trace of ever having a big fat continent thrusting out of it. I know about the coelecanth, but fish, unlike gigantic islands, are mobile and elusive. If there were the remains of a massive rectangular landform covered with highly advanced cities down there, it stands to reason that they would stay put. Now look at the third link you provided me with, the one whose URL starts with "abc.se." It links to the exact theory I have given you, though it doesn't go into as much detail as some accounts I've read. The legend of Atlantis is pretty obviously based on distorted accounts of the Minoans. Like many tall tales, it has a basis in truth, but it's still made up.
Note that the eruption of Thera which destroyed the Minoans is mentioned on that site as the largest event of its kind on geological record. If Atlantis had been wrecked by an eruption, it would have to be about ten times more massive. Such an enormous eruption around the time of the end of the ice age would have had drastic repercussions for the environment, throwing the entire world's climate out of whack. Guess what, the biggest event from that period is the drought of the Younger Dryas, caused by the interruption of the Gulf Stream by melting waters running down from America. That was so bloody big it affected the climate halfway across the world. If Atlantis had existed its fall would have been a lot more drastic...but there's no evidence of it whatsoever. Thinking about it, the mere existence of Atlantis would have altered climate patterns around the world considerably, seeing as it would screw up the circulation of currents for the entire Atlantic. Nope, no trace of that either. Then there's the question of how a civilization more advanced than that of Plato's time came to emerge in the middle of the ice age while the rest of humanity was still hunting and gathering. Get the picture? There is no possible way such a thing could have existed.
And whether it did or not, it left behind no substantial body of myths to base a scenario on. It will by definition have to be made up, in contrast to the existing folklore of every other civ.
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02-06-2005 15:26
Attachment: 
I was kind of thinking you could have the single city and if conquered it would represent either the end of a great quest or contact with another unplayable civ and a cash bonus could represent opened trade routes. For the quest part you could receive knowledge or specialized units.
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