Evolution

[whiskeybar]

Hello!

This is my first post - but I've been downloading scenarios and playing them for a while. Techumseh's Red October scenario, for example, (when read in concert with some books about the Russian civil war) really helped to give me an understanding of the politics, timeline and geography of that conflict. Fantastic stuff!

Anyway - I'm interested in working with the community here and helping others with their scenarios if possible. My artistic "skills" are limited to minor alterations of existing work, but I write well and can just about find my way around an events.txt file. Also - I have a broad knowledge of history and conflict (with equally broad gaps, of course).

I'm not sure if there's room for another scenario at the moment - but I'd like to propose one and see if people would be willing to help me design and build it.

It would be based on the Theory of Evolution - and would have civilizations beginning as organic soup and slowly evolving into single-celled organisms, microscopic multi-celled organisms, aquatic lifeforms, becoming amphibious (and therefore able to transfer from the "undersea" map to the fertile "land" map).

Changing terrain bmps and using the events file to transform the map could allow for changes in geography, geology and climate (e.g. continents shifting apart, volcanoes, ice-ages, etc).

It's very ambitious - and I could never do it by myself. I want to know if there is enthusiasm for it in the community and if anybody would be willing to help.

If you are: the first way you could help is with the planning and design. I've never made a scenario, but some of the people here have a lot of experience and will be able to give advice (I imagine "keep it simple" would be the first piece of advice).

Some thoughts:

What should be the time-frame (should it run all the way to early tool-using hominids?)

How long should one turn represent?

Should the scenario allow players to customise their species or should it be a linear progression following the evolution of humanity?

I only have a copy of ToT - so it'll probably be for ToT only.

How should the tech-tree be handled?

How should cities be handled? Initially, perhaps city sprites could be transparent so they could be placed over resources (i.e. deep-sea vents, mountain caves providing shelter from the elements, etc) - and the renaissance, industrial revolution and modern era city sprites could represent advancing forms of shelter. However, would this create problems if there were multiple maps (e.g. with undersea villages appearing)?

Anyway - I've typed enough. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

[techumseh]

It's nice to see some new faces around here. Welcome! I hope you will join in the discussions on the various threads as well.

Your project sounds quite interesting, though perhaps somewhat ambitious. Fortunately, there is an old scenario along these lines, so you don't have to start completely from scratch. It's called "Bio" and it's included in the Bestonet 2 that came with FW and MGE.

It's a bit crude, but it might be helpful in making a tech tree. Also included with those games was the scenario "Dinosaur", which might be of some use as well. Good luck with your scenario.

[whiskeybar]

Hello, Techumseh - thanks for replying. I'm playing through Warlords of China at the moment. To be honest: I had no idea that period of history even existed before I started WoC (I always thought in terms of Communists, Nationalists and Japanese... I think I mentioned big gaps in my knowledge of history). Children should be playing Civ II in classrooms, IMO!

I take your point that my scenario idea sounds very ambitious. I need to scale back the complexity dramatically. To be honest: it'll probably never see the light of day (especially as it's my first scenario). But I'll see what kind of interest it generates and maybe I'll get round to releasing it.

I guess my first step should be designing a map, and maybe some units and a tech-tree... Are the scenarios "Bio" or "Dinosaur" available (legally) online anywhere?

[fairline]

Welcome to the SL - always nice to see a new face

Interesting idea for a scenario. If you keep at it and ask for help, people are always willing to lend a hand here.

[Harry Tuttle]

Yes, welcome to the forums Good to see some new people around here.

I like the idea also. Some suggestions:

I would tone down the plate tectonics as they would require a large amount of event space.

The time frame could probably extend to the point where the unit slots are used up.

I like the idea of an open ended speciation with the player choosing some specialized traits to rely on.

I like your city idea. I don't think a structure would personify the idea of evolution. Maybe just some sort of stylized graphic to represent a breeding ground or something.

[techumseh]

One thing you might not know is that all units and cities within the area affected by a ChangeTerrain event are lost. So it might be a good way of simulating an asteroid strike, similar to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.

[Patine]

This scen sounds neat; a good, original idea. I'd have city improvements be species group benefits, like pack hunting (barracks), fecundity (factory), evolutionary edge (science improvements), hive culture (courthouse), group hierarchy (happiness improvements), etc. Wonders would be unique 'super-traits.'

[whiskeybar]

Thanks for the ideas - I've been researching the scenario. I think I'll try and get out a beta version with graphics all by me (so... lots of paintbrush blobs) - and if people like it then they can help me improve the graphics (and if they don't like it: I'll try and improve the game!).

The most important thing is to make it fun - so I second the idea that people can personalise their species through the tech tree. Which means I'm going to have to really plan it and look at how units become obsolete.

Techumseh: I really like the idea of an asteroid strike - maybe a special avi or wav file, a huge amount of land transformed to the "burning magma" terrain - and maybe a ton of "poisonous cloud" units created. Can you survive extinction?

Fairline: Thanks for the hello! I hope I actually get something released now, but I'm encouraged by the friendly community here.

Harry Tuttle: Yeah, I think having continents drift apart is out now. But instead, I'm becoming interested in the idea of a food-chain.

Tell me what you think: some units (the more advanced units) can only be gifted by events, and never built otherwise. At the same time, there are some extremely low-level barbarian beasties floating around the map as well, and they can never be built either.

The player is only gifted more of their advanced units if they kill a barbarian beasty, but once all the beasties are dead - they have no way of making more advanced units. Therefore, they have to produce (via a city) an even weaker level creature than the barbarian beasty (BB) and make sure it is attacked and killed by a BB - which will then spawn more BBs. I don't know if that's clear - but do people think it's too cumbersome? You'd have to manage the population of BBs to some extent, making sure your more advanced units don't kill them accidently.

EDIT: I've just read over this again and it's really not very clear. Basically: I want to simulate a food chain. The player cannot build the strong "Dinosaur" unit in her cities, but she can build the weak "Worm" unit. There is a population of AI-controlled "Moles" on the map. The player has to build Worms to feed the Mole population, which grows, which then feeds the Dinosaur population, which also grows, so the player can fight enemy Dinosaurs. The Worm units could also be engineers or explorers, so that the player doesn't feel like they're building totally useless units.

Patine: Hello! Looking forward to your Korea scenario, btw. I like your suggestions. I agree that the advances and improvements should be fun (rather than things like hydro-ameno-chromosonal string development vs. meiotic recombination or something... hmmm).

I like the idea of researching "knees", "wings", "extra limbs", "psychic abilitie", etc.

One thing I'm thinking about is plant-life. If the player is going to begin undersea and slowly emerge onto land - should the land map already be populated with lush, plant terrain? I was going to have it spread, but if the "change terrain" action kills units, then maybe I should have plants as immobile, low-strength barbarian units which respawn occasionally and give a bonus if they're eaten (attacked).

Finally - I'm currently designing a pangea map - unless anybody knows of one already?

[AGRICOLA]

Originally posted by whiskeybar
The player is only gifted more of their advanced units if they kill a barbarian beasty, but once all the beasties are dead - they have no way of making more advanced units. Therefore, they have to produce (via a city) an even weaker level creature than the barbarian beasty (BB) and make sure it is attacked and killed by a BB - which will then spawn more BBs. I don't know if that's clear - but do people think it's too cumbersome? You'd have to manage the population of BBs to some extent, making sure your more advanced units don't kill them accidently.

That's a great idea if you can keep players from abusing it in some unexpected fashion.

Something very similar was used by Captain Nemo in his classic Red Front 1.4 . It worked as follows:

1. During the winter of 1941-42, if a Red Army unit is killed by the Germans, 2 Partisan units are spawned in the Pripet Marshes, far behind the German lines.

2. The exchange is highly favourable for players because they can build a cheap, slow-moving RA units with no special abilities

Red Army, nil, 0, 1.,0, 4a,5d, 1h,1f, 1,0, 1, Ind, 000000001000000

at a cost of 10 shields and exchange them for 2

Partisans, nil, 0, 1.,0, 6a,5d, 2h,2f, 6,0, 1, no, 000001001000010

which treat all terrain as roads and ignore ZOC's.


3. Here's where the abuse comes in. Some smarta** did figure out that if he built 100+ next to useless RA and stacked them in front of the Soviet defence line to ensure that they were promptly killed, come spring he will have 200+ good units in the German rear. The Partisans are powerful enough to capture cities, build airfields and get armor, howies, etc flown in. The Partisan force is strong enough to turn the scen upside down.

4. However, if you can keep the exchange from being too favourable for players, it certainly sounds like a great idea.

[whiskeybar]

Hmmm... good point. If the Worms are engineers, however, they will require food for upkeep - which means that stacking 100+ of them will be a bad idea. Especially with the ice-ages I have planned (I'm thinking of using a system similar to Red Front's Summer-Winter system).

Also - the pangea map is out. Either I'm going to make up a map - or, because the scenario is going to start with the Cambrian Explosion, I'm going to make the map of the world as it was there.