11-01-2001 07:50									#1
	A real "Test of Time" mission Full PM-box? Change here!

I'm new to TOT, but like the idea of multiple maps. Today, I was driving a long haul and a thought struck me. I figure this would have to be done in the game engine itself, but I'll post my idea just for fun.

In the new TOT, the idea is to win - get to AC, conquer everyone, etc, etc. But there is another victory. If you force your way through the tech tree, you eventually discover time travel.

Imagine that as you play, the autosave feature saves each turn of the game. It also keeps an special save. Every so often, the current turn is "special saved", overwriting the last one. The player never knows when this is happening.

At the end of the teck tree, there are a number of components for building a time machine. In each game, the Time Travel goal and mechanics change (they are randomly set). Different components reveil differernt mechanics/goals. When all are learned, the time-travel wonder can be built. Some components:

Temperal Apature: Determines how much can be shifted through time. One of the following will be in effect...
1)Keyhole - only one man can go back, then the time travel portal colapses.
2)Door - The portal is only up long enough for a single unit to go back. No more units can ever be shipped.
3)Swinging door - Like a door, but a unit can be shipped each time the wonder is built.
4)Portal - Stays open. Units can flood through.

Temperal Stratagy: This determines the best way "time" can be used (i.e. what the time victory goal is).
1) Chronokrieg: The goal is to take over the world "downtime". What happens to the current world is unimportant.
2) Early Escape: The sun is going nova soon, and the solar flares are too bad to work on an AC ship in our time. Go back and build a ship before the sun activity started.
3) MrBig: In a randomly determined city is a man who must be killed/elevated/reviered/sainted. The city can only be searched by the nation that owns it, and the success ratio is based on the firepower of the units against the size of the city (ie more modern units search better. Bigger cities make it tougher). Take that one city and locate this man to win.

Going back - when time travel occures, the computer immediatly brings up the saved map (from some random point in history). The units drop downtime to their capital city in that time frame. The chrononauts take control of the government, and instant anarchy occures. The player may immediatly start playing on the downtime map at this point. Special rules:

Your time travelers go back with all the knowledge of your race. That means you can start building tanks or whatever.

The knowledge of the map layout (i.e. the known squares) are applied to the downtime map. I.e. your ancestors might be looking for the north-west passage, but you have satilite mapping photos for the entire world.

Any race that has not sent representatives downtime do not operate any differently on the downtime map. I.e. until the chinese punch someone through time to advise their ancestors, the computer controls them in normal day-to-day empire mode. No searching for special individuals, no building tanks. If the computer gets downtime before the player, the players downtime units are controlled by the AI until he can get downtime to direct things.

Anyway, the thought of going back into to face Alexander's army with a unit of future armor is appealing. The different endgame goals and methods of going back would make each game different.

Anyway, I'm just shooting out thoughts.


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Bluevoss-