Meta Game: Civ Customization

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

When messing around with Delenda Est, I've managed to add special starting units, special starting structures, and other things for most of the civs. And then it dawned on me watching Wow Jr. playing LoL and AC: Odyssey: Perhaps we can allow players to adjust/customize their civs within defined parameters? This would add meta to the game where it is sorely lacking. We could have a civ customization page in the game, accessible from the main menu, and then add an option to the gamesetup for the host to enable or disable Customized Civs (default is enabled).

Let's look at Sparta

Choose between 3 Starting Heroes.

• Every player starts a standard match with 1 hero, in their "infantry" or "foot" state. Later, in City Phase, they can be upgraded to a mount or other state. If customized civs are disabled, this hero would be randomly chosen, but the player can choose which hero they want for their customized version of the Spartans.

Choose a Starting Structure.

• Every Hellenic/Hellenistic civ gets the Stoa as an option, which has the Greek Architecture aura (All Structures +20% health, +10% build time)
• or a free Cult Statue of Apollo or Leonidas (if he is not the chosen starting hero) with some kind of bonus.

Choose a Special Starting Unit.

• A Spartiate Hoplite champion. A free Champion so can help in defending the base in early game.
• A Skiritai Runner, elite spearman. Not quite as strong as a champion, but can help build structures and scout.
• 2 free Helot Peasants, who cannot build or fight, but are very good gatherers.

Choose a Special Technology.

• Have 3 or 4 historical technologies from which the player can choose to unlock.
  • Hellenistic Reforms (Unlocks the Spartan Pikeman and Syntagma formation)
  • The Agoge (Hoplites +15% health, +10% train time)
  • Olympic Champions (unlocks the ability to upgrade 2 of your Spartiates to Olympic Champion bodyguards, as in Delenda Est)
  • Krypteia Secret Police (unlocks an aura for Champions and Heroes that boosts the performance of Helot units)

You'd have these kinds of options for every civ.

The GUI would be rather simple. Just have these slots that you can fill in by choosing from the available customizations. You'd need a civ drop down or dialog to choose the civ to customize. Initially, there would just be the option to customize a civ once, so this becomes your 1 customized version of the Spartans, for example, and you can customize each civ once.  But later, perhaps you can have up to 3 customizations for each civ and you can save each one with an annotated name.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Basically some idea i have to implemented the selector screen. But there are four.

Additional thing...

In EE you have a some minutes to take or grab a  civ, can be nice have some. That give some bonus.

Edited September 9, 2019 by Lion.Kanzen

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

I wonder if a lot of these options are truly worth making an option to customise at the beginning.  The most justifiable one would be the hero.  Apart from that, I would leave it down to build orders.  If the enemy player doesn't know the choices another has done, it would greatly hamper their ability to understand the strategy that would be the inevitable best option of some option taken.  

Meta that the game misses is primarily due to adherence to a strict formula based upon Age of Empires without attempting to bring any of the depth with it.  The civilisations definitely have historicity in mind with their rosters, but I have yet to see any serious attempts to sit down and think about at how a faction would feel to play at each stage of the game.  

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

5 minutes ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

 If the enemy player doesn't know the choices another has done, it would greatly hamper their ability to understand the strategy that would be the inevitable best option of some option taken.  

I don't see this as a bad thing. You're supposed to scout your enemy and learn his strategy that way, not automatically know what strategy they're going to pull based on the civ they pick in game setup. 

 

6 minutes ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

I wonder if a lot of these options are truly worth making an option to customise at the beginning.

Options and choices made at the beginning of a match have knock-on effects that resonate throughout the match.

 

7 minutes ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

 The most justifiable one would be the hero.

Indeed that's where my thoughts first started formulating. 

 

7 minutes ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

Meta that the game misses is primarily due to adherence to a strict formula based upon Age of Empires without attempting to bring any of the depth with it.  The civilisations definitely have historicity in mind with their rosters, but I have yet to see any serious attempts to sit down and think about at how a faction would feel to play at each stage of the game.  

Each civ can have its "default" play style, but meta customizations made by the player can add additional dynamism and choice. 

[azayrahmad]

I think having to decide four different aspects at the beginning of the battle is too much for an RTS. Even in MOBA games you only get to choose your hero, with other customization comes later during the match. 

How about only choosing one hero at the beginning of the match, but each hero has their own set of starting structure, units and technologies? Although the negatives of this is once enemy has taken a look at your hero they could immediately know your entire starting sets.

What I'm developing in my current mod is to have starting generic leader unit that can be promoted after several kills to General, at which point can manually be upgraded to any hero of your choosing, each with different auras and unlocked technologies and buildings.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

4 minutes ago, azayrahmad said:

I think having to decide four different aspects at the beginning of the battle is too much for an RTS.

I don't see why. In many RPGs you customize 10 different things about your character. 

[av93]

Aoe 3 kinda did this with homecities

[Lion.Kanzen]

3 hours ago, azayrahmad said:

What I'm developing in my current mod is to have starting generic leader unit that can be promoted after several kills to General, at which point can manually be upgraded to any hero of your choosing, each with different auras and unlocked technologies and buildings.

Like mini heroe, Empire Earth 2. That was great stuff.

Quote

soldiers to become heroes if they get a certain amount of kills.  Probably from AoM.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

3 hours ago, azayrahmad said:

I think having to decide four different aspects at the beginning of the battle is too much for an RTS. Even in MOBA games you only get to choose your hero, with other customization comes later during the match. 

How about only choosing one hero at the beginning of the match, but each hero has their own set of starting structure, units and technologies? Although the negatives of this is once enemy has taken a look at your hero they could immediately know your entire starting sets.

What I'm developing in my current mod is to have starting generic leader unit that can be promoted after several kills to General, at which point can manually be upgraded to any hero of your choosing, each with different auras and unlocked technologies and buildings.

Each by phase can be quickly interesting for me.

[Nescio]

Age of Mythology had three civilizations with three starting gods each, and every age advance players had to choose between two different minor gods; effectively this meant 2^3=8 combination for each starting god, thus 3×3×8=72 combinations in total.

0 A.D. is a different game, of course. However, something similar could work for a few (though not all) civilizations. E.g. have a Greeks starting civilization, then choose between Central Greece and the Peloponnese upon advancing to the town phase; if Central Greece, then choose between Athens and Thebes upon advancing to the city phase; if Peloponnese, choose between Corinth and Sparta upon advancing to the city phase.

Having multiple faction choices could also be interesting for tribal civilizations such as Gauls or Thracians.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Political party.

[Stan`]

12 minutes ago, Nescio said:

Age of Mythology had three civilizations with three starting gods each, and every age advance players had to choose between two different minor gods; effectively this meant 2^3=8 combination for each starting god, thus 3×3×8=72 combinations in total.

0 A.D. is a different game, of course. However, something similar could work for a few (though not all) civilizations. E.g. have a Greeks starting civilization, then choose between Central Greece and the Peloponnese upon advancing to the town phase; if Central Greece, then choose between Athens and Thebes upon advancing to the city phase; if Peloponnese, choose between Corinth and Sparta upon advancing to the city phase.

Having multiple faction choices could also be interesting for tribal civilizations such as Gauls or Thracians.

How would the art follow ?

[Nescio]

5 minutes ago, Stan` said:

How would the art follow ?

No additional art is required, all sub-factions share the same architecture set, so basically the Spartan set becomes the Greek set (right now Athenians don't have their own structures and use Macedonian actors instead). Each final choice (Thebes, Athens, Corinth, Sparta) would give you one or two unique structures (Prytaneion, Syssition, etc.), three heroes, one or two champions (we already have a Theban Sacred Band), one or two unique technologies, and perhaps an autoresearched bonus.

[Stan`]

1 minute ago, Nescio said:

No additional art is required, all sub-factions share the same architecture set, so basically the Spartan set becomes the Greek set (right now Athenians don't have their own structures and use Macedonian actors instead). Each final choice (Thebes, Athens, Corinth, Sparta) would give you one or two unique structures (Prytaneion, Syssition, etc.), three heroes, one or two champions (we already have a Theban Sacred Band), one or two unique technologies, and perhaps an autoresearched bonus.

Yeah so we'd use the same set and style for all greek factions correct ?

[Nescio]

Just now, Stan` said:

Yeah so we'd use the same set and style for all greek factions correct ?

Yes. Maybe a different emblem/flag/shield for each, if that's possible, but that's something to figure out later.

[Stan`]

It's not possible ^^"

Would be a waste of the current art though then

[Nescio]

1 minute ago, Stan` said:

It's not possible ^^"

Would be a waste of the current art though then

How come? Athenians and Thebans don't have their own architecture set at the moment, only Spartans do. And Macedon, Ptolemies, Seleucids, etc. would still remain separate civilizations.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

6 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I don't see why. In many RPGs you customize 10 different things about your character. 

One of the central reasons is balance for multiplayer purposes.  This would be a fun choice if the emphasis was on single player modes, but for multiplayer, the number of options available to one single faction would be staggering.  We're talking about 108 possibilities based on the variables for one single faction.  I would personally that's too much especially when there are so many factions.  A while ago I posted a topic about a much more in depth idea of how Sparta could function at all stages of the game, allowing for offensive and defensive play based on strategic in game options.  It's hardly perfect I'm sure, but the point is that I'd say it's better to make these decisions in game more than anything else.  

[Stan`]

1 hour ago, Nescio said:

How come? Athenians and Thebans don't have their own architecture set at the moment, only Spartans do. And Macedon, Ptolemies, Seleucids, etc. would still remain separate civilizations.

Ah I thought you wanted to merge back all greek civs into a hellenic one.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

11 hours ago, av93 said:

Aoe 3 kinda did this with homecities

Right. What I'm proposing isn't much different, in magnitude, from AOE3's home cities and shipment decks.

[Lion.Kanzen]

16 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Each civ can have its "default" play style, but meta customizations made by the player can add additional dynamism and choice. 

Enjoy the choice, that the final spirit of free will with the History.

That was the goal mechanic with strategy.

Spoiler

 

The goal is the friendship.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

14 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I don't see why. In many RPGs you customize 10 different things about your character. 

Cof cof skills in path of exile....

Very extensive customization.

[Barbarossa41]

An Empire Earth style customization system would be awesome! 

[AeternaTristitia]

I truly enjoyed AoE3's Home city customization, and It would be cool to have new models to keep the game fresh.

[Dakara]

 

Why not make a principle of choice of religion, politics or influence on a single civil society? one already in play or one future