Alternate Game Modes

[arxarts]

Will there be alternate game modes?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I get sick and tired of the RTS games where it takes 500 arrows to kill a bloody hopolite. Similarly the games where an 'army' of 12 lance throwers beat the crap out of my fortresses, or when hero units end up having more hitpoints than most of my buildings.

Could there perhaps be a game mode in which all unit hitpoints are severely decreased, or perhaps an tickable option to play a game like this with other modes? In such scenarios normal troops should die with one or two blows, elites with three or four, even in the latest of game stages. In addition only siege units can destroy buildings, with normal troops only being able to hurt them a little, (note LITTLE DAMAGE BY INFANTRY!).

Also, will there be a limit to houses, or can we build as many as possible to make very big armies (à la American Conquest)? I'm not saying an army of tens of thousands is necessary but having a few hundred of each troop type would be nice AND realistic, which everybody here seems to be very hyped up about. BFMEII had a nice easy solution where you could choose the maximum army size, from 0.5% of original all the way up to 10000% (100x).

Finally for heroes, will they have leadership effects for units near them, or just be behemoths on two legs? As with most options, it'd be great if you can fine tune them in the set up window, perhaps even save game styles.

[Mythos_Ruler]

I'd like to see an RTS that uses RTT battle calculations.

[darthturtle]

As far as I know, heroes have leadership auras. I remember reading about it somewhere on the site.....

[oshron]

you mean like the characteristic heroic glow in AOM? that would be good

[feneur]

In this case the word "aura" refers to an area around the hero where a certain effect will take place, for example all infantry units within this area could be 10% stronger or similar.

[oshron]

but visually will it be similar to AOM's heroic glow?

[feneur]

No, there will be no such effect. If we find during playtesting that people really can't tell heroes from other units we might have to include something like that, but hopefully it will be easy enough without it.

[oshron]

for me its not so much that they cant be identified without the heroic glow, but i think that it helps, especially if theyre in a crowd of units similar to them, like boudicca among a bunch of celtic chariots. if possible, maybe it could be programmed so that only the player controlling them can see the heroic glow so that they can more quickly pick their heroes out of a crowd?

[benhubel]

I must support the idea of alternate game modes. It would be nice to be able to add one or more additional game modes that have never shown up in other games before. Here are some suggestions that may or may not have been seen before:

Zombie survival mode:

Zombies are continually coming from all over the map, and your goal is to last as long as you can. The zombies get more numerous as time goes by. This might be combined with multiplayer play to either hold out longer or to combine forces.

Autonomous mode:

The units move on their own and the player just gives general commands. This idea is based off of the Globulation style gameplay. Creating the AI could be done essentially by pulling it directly from Globulation with the necessary tweaks.

Speed edit mode:

You are able to increase or decrease the game speed during multiplayer by either earning bonuses in game or using resources. For example, if you want to increase game speed, you pay perhaps 500 gold to increase speed one level. This could be used to throw off the other players tactics.

Decay mode:

Everything is continually losing hp and for buildings you have to continually repair them, and units have to hunt, farm, or some other method to restore health. This would take a lot of micromanagement, so it might be part of Autonomous mode.

Extermination:

One player is the hunter, and can build anything. The other is the rats, and they can only build economic stuff. The hunters job is obviously to exterminate the rat, and the rats job is survive by massive numbers alone.

CTF:

Simple capture the flag. I don't remember any other RTS game with this.

Tower defense:

Self explanatory, build towers and defend from waves of enemies like any other tower defense game. Perhaps there can be additional towers in this mode that don't show up in the actual game.

I'm running out of ideas, but it would be cool to see some of these implemented. I personally am not a programmer, so I am unable to do the coding part, but I am a 3d modeler, so if any of them require additional art, I could probably help with that.

[Sophokles]

0AD with Globulation sounds cool, but it would require a radically different engine (unlike the other modes you mentioned), so it has no chance of being in the core game. Also, you would have to reduce the variety of units to make it feasible, like in Globulation. The computer might send archers and javileneers into the front lines simply because they were spawned before the melee units.

[benhubel]

Perhaps it could be done by using a standard AI script that has been edited to take general commands from the player. This way there is no major change in the game engine, and it would solve the part about sending archers to the front lines, since the AI would handle that part. In fact, if we really wanted to dumb it down, we could let the AI handle which types of units to build unless otherwise specified by the player.

[chisle]

I am all for other modes, but lets let them finish the core game first. i dont want to be waiting longer than we have to because they are adding other game modes. if someone else mods these modes after the game is released officially then more power to them. but other wise, i'd be happy just playing the core game

[oshron]

i think a good alternate mode (kind of) would be to have "random" maps that simulate a real location like in AOK, preferrably one for each civilization:

Maghreb (Carthaginians)

Britannia (Britons)

Western Europe (Gauls)

Near East (Macedonians)

Aegean (Poleis)

Iberian Peninsula (Iberians)

Persia (Persians)

Mediterranean (Romans)

a "hunger" mode would probably be pretty good: triggers slowly reduce your stores of food (say, ten units of it every minute) so that you not only have to keep gathering food but also need to be careful how you use it

[SMST]

You are aware that RMS scripts for 0 AD are already based on real locations?

[oshron]

well i understand that, but i imagine they dont match the real geography of those locations; there were such random maps in AOK, too, and some in AOM, but they didnt match actual geography

EDIT: here's an idea for a game mode. this would probably only work as a multiplayer game mode, though: Empire or Dependency. players decide before teh game begins which two players will be the major powers of the game. this would kind of depend on how many players can be in a game at a time. at the moment, im gonna assume the maximum is 12 just for this example and that theres 12 players in the game

okay, before the game starts, the players decide that players 1 and 12 will be the major powers of the game. theyll automatically start off in the city phase (or maybe the town phase) and be on opposite sides of the map. the other players are all in the area between them and in the village phase. the "middle players" then either decide to join one side or the other, to remain neutral, or to just go on the offensive. you could say that these middle players are barbarian tribes. the barbarians basically become allies or, maybe more appropriately, puppet or client states of the empire players (players 1 and 12). then, basically, all hell would break loose and the two major players and their allies go to war. the empire players are at a huge advantage against the barbarians and can force tribute out of them at the point of a sword. this could result in some ofthe other players deciding to join forces with one empire or the other, or scare some into going neutral or joining forces with the threatening empire. basically, one of the empires just marches into their town with a huge army while the barbarians are still foraging and force the barbarians to join forces with them and pay tribute or face total destruction. and the game wouldnt end when one or both of the empires are gone; thered still be rogue barbarians out there, or the remaining empire could rally the remaining tribes under one flag and call an allied victory, or the barbarians could units themselves and rise up against the remaining empire, either destroying it or being destroyed themselves

Edited June 10, 2010 by oshron

[darthturtle]

Personally, I think that mode will be pretty hard to balance, with the power difference between players. But if someone can pull this off, it will be an unique game mode, and should be pretty awesome IMO

[oshron]

in retrospect, it would probably work best only as a multiplayer scenario. in any case, another idea has come to mind: the same scenario as before, but set in a geographically accurate map of teh world, so a roman empire in europe could be fighting a persian empire in china while some barbarian tribes out in africa, eurasia, and the americas watch, and possibly achieve first contact with the other civilizations

[oshron]

oh! idea! perhaps taking a page out of AOE's book, the second expansion could possibly include minor tribes that dont have enough going for them to warrant a full civilization for themselves! they could be enabled or disabled like they could be in the EE2 expansion, but there could also be specifications as to which civilizations could be on each map type. perhaps the maps could be programmed to have one particular civilization as the "gaia" player. for instance, if a map simulated a french countryside, the "gaia" player would be the celts and the native tribes on that map would be celts aside from the britons or gauls, whoever those may be. on a "roman" map, on the other hand, one of the native tribes could possibly be the etruscans, and a tribe on a hellenistic map could be the thracians. like in AOE3, befriending a tribe could grant unique technologies and possibly units to you (for example, befriending some kind of frankish tribe could give you some unique throwing-axeman-type unit) and they could possibly send you some kind of tribute, giving incentive for the player to befriend them. or, a given tribe could be hostile to certain peoples (kind of like the minor peoples that are/were planned for The Last Alliance) and would therefore not join forces with them, like a greek people could be friendly to the romans and greeks but not to the persians

[SMST]

I like the idea of "minor", non playable factions. That would be great to include in a mod.

*takes note*

[jomas]

would be cool to make the mode where health is reduced, even if it makes games incredibly short. it sounds like something quite creatable in editor or mods or whatever. also other game modes can be created with tweaking like king of the hill and such.

would be pretty fun.

[oshron]

heres an idea: how bout a Capture the Flag(s) mode? i came up with this not too long ago. there could possibly be special Standard Bearer units in later releases that grant morale bonuses to nearby allied units (who wouldnt be inspired when they see the flag of their homeland flying on the battlefield?), but then there could be a special editor-only version of the Standard Bearer that cant be killed and must be captured (more maybe converted, if Priest-type units like in other RTSs are brought into play) so that only one player controls all of the flags on the map, and once that happens, a timer similar to how it goes with wonder victories starts up

alternatively, it could be that each player has their own standard bearer that they must protect, because if he's killed or captured, they lose

....wait, thats exactly like the Regicide game mode in AOK maybe a regicide something or other would be a good game mode?

[Aldandil]

Actual capture-the flag, with immoble flags that stay in one hidden place and only move if an opponent grabs them and runs with them, would also be cool.

The main difficulty is that several civilizations, such as Greeks, Celts, and Iberians, don't have a flag because there was no political unity. But if everyone just had a solid color flag of their player color, that problem is avoided.

Edited June 24, 2010 by Aldandil

[jomas]

I like the idea of a special editor unit for capture the flag(if ever made) because I could just see someone taking the fastest units possible and blitzing the bejesus out of the opponent. the bearer could be faster then infantry at first but under the weight of the flag he is just reg infantry speed(no running possible) so it becomes more difficult to protect, making a longer game?

just my two cents.

[oshron]

The main difficulty is that several civilizations, such as Greeks, Celts, and Iberians, don't have a flag because there was no political unity. But if everyone just had a solid color flag of their player color, that problem is avoided.

well that could easily be remedied: for regular games, those factions that didnt have a singular unity simply woldnt have the Standard Bearer unit, but for the scenario editor, it would be okay to just bullshit our way through that because it would only be brought into play for a random map that is made just for fun and not accuracy, like the inclusion of a dragon as a nonconsumable animal in the game or being able to play a map that simulates the north pole. in that case, we could maybe be a bit creative and just use flags from different tribes/groups/states that fall into that faction as variants, so, say, if you played as the Hellenes, you could possibly get the flag (or a rough equivalent) of Sparta, Athens, or Macedon, even if you dont play with those elements of that faction.

[Aldandil]

Yeah you're right, there's no need for accuracy with a capture-the-flag game.

Solid player-color flags would work, but they'd look less interesting than faction-specific flags. What could you use for the made-up flags? Maybe you could pick images that cities in different civilizations put on their coins, but I don't know if the Iberians ever minted coins. Another option would be flags with small, stylized images of the front facades of very iconic and recognizable buildings: a Greek temple, for example. The Iberian tower is pretty distinctive, and if the Persians don't have a historical flag their Ishtar Gate would be a recognizable image.