Aliens in the outback: Brainstorming/help wanted

[Random Passerby]

There's a scenario I've been wanting to make for a while now, but I'm only kinda half-into Civ right now so I probably wouldn't bother unless I had help.

The setting of the scenario is simple: at some point late in Victorian times, an alien (I've got a wicked hankering to say Martian) ship crashes in some remote locality (I'm thinking the Australian outback, hence the title). This is neither a historically oriented (duh) or true sci-fi scenario. Rather, the true premise is based in the gameplay: one civ starts out with a massive tech lead and nothing else, facing a number of hostile enemy civs who have huge, well-developed empires with crushing industrial capacity and massive, although comparitively dated, armies.

The main problem here is that this scenario would require considerably large amounts of new unit artwork, and while I can draw well enough to do still frames I tend to do very poorly when it comes to animating. Granted, there are plenty of freely available futuristic unit icons, some of which could mesh pretty well with the ideas I have, but I'd still like to have custom animations. I'm not much of an optomist, though, and I realize my odds of getting a full animated set are slim, so I'd probably go with still frames anyway and point users to potential alternate graphics. If anyone could potentially contribute artwork, I'd appreciate it, although it's probably not necessary.

The other, lesser problem is that I don't have much detailed knowledge of the political and military landscape at any point in the possible window I'm looking at setting this in (1870-1900), nor am I firmly steeped in sci-fi lore, so if anyone has any pointers on setting up the map to start (including civ distribution) or any ideas for a future era that they've been mulling over, I'd be very appreciative of any brainstorming you could contribute. For the tech tree, I'm looking for something halfway between realistic present assumptions of future technology and sci-fi fantasy; I'm not going to let the need for realism get in the way of having interesting units, but at the same time I still want to be able to work things out in a tech tree that you can follow without needing huge feats in suspension of disbelief.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Random,
This sounds like a fabulous idea!!
Though I can't help you with artwork, you might want to look at either the "X-Com" and/or the "Alien Apocolypse" scenarios from Civ2 as a starting point!
As far as the historical/political side of things, you could look at the
"World of Jules Verne" scenario, again from Civ2. A read of the novels of HG Wells and Jules Verne would also be an excellent primer for such a scenario.
Needless to say, however, that Britain was the single biggest Empire on the Planet at the time, with outposts in Australia, New Zealand, India, Burma and many parts of Africa and the Middle East. Britain also had a large stake in both Argentina and Bermuda (I think?)
Spain controlled most of the Carribean states, particularly Haiti and Cuba, and also had a colony in the Philipines.
In Europe, the major powers were Austro-Hungary and Prussia. Prussia had colonies in Africa and the Middle East. France had colonies in Africa, French Indochina (Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam) and and the Pacific Islands. Portugal controlled East Timor, whilst the Dutch controlled the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia).
Anyway, that should be enough to get you started. Good luck and I look forward to seeing the final product.

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Random Passerby]

Oh, doy. I never got into Civ2 much, but completely forgot it as a source of inspiration; it would definitely be useful to look at what's already there. Can't believe I overlooked that.

Thanks for the geographic primer, although I plan on hunting for more specific references and maps anyways. I just realized that 1870 would be too early; I'd probably want to start after the Franco-Prussian war, I think. One comment though: you say that Austro-Hungary was one of the two greatest European powers of the time. While it did have comparatively large European holdings, it's been my understanding that it was really declining at this point--it was without the lucrative overseas empires that other European powers possessed, not a major industrial power, and not nearly so strongly united as the other European nations.

Of course, it would still hardly be a pushover; it just probably wouldn't rank #1 in the list of "Major European powers that the aliens do not want to tick off."

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Actually, you are quite correct that Austro-Hungary was beginning to decline at that point, but you could almost say that for the British Empire! If anything, most European powers were heading into their twilight age, wheras it was America's star which was about to rise, as this time was just prior to the Spanish-American war-the crucible of the new American Empire.
Another reference which would provide inspiration is the PC CD-ROM game based on Jeff Wayne's version of "War of the Worlds" It's an excellent thinking man's RTS. You play either the martians or the humans, and is based on the premise that the original attack at Horsell Common was repulsed, so they set up a base of operations in Northern Scotland. You then have to perform research, manage resources and build sufficient units to defeat the enemy-it's REALLY COOL!
Based on this, I'd make the aliens start units a Drone, a Queen and a Warrior (I think a Hive type structure would be cool).
Some possible resources might be:
"Human Habitation"-Food, Production (Blood and Slaves).
"Geothermal Vents"-Production.
"Heavy Metals"- Strategic Resource; Production, Commerce.
"Copper"- Stragegic Resource; Production, Commerce.
"Tidal Flows"-Sea resource; production.

Some cool Alien techs might be:
Extraterrestrial Ground Vehicles: Allows Scouts and War Machines
Plasma Technology: Allows Power Plant and Plasma Fencing
Energy Weapons: Allows Advanced War Machines and Defensive energy weapons
Human physiology: Allows Chemical weapons.
Anti-Gravity: Allows Flying Machines.
Telepathic Warfare: Allows... (not sure)

Anyway, I hope that all of that helps!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Random Passerby]

Mmm... interesting suggestions! I hadn't given much thought to strategic resources... I like the power source ideas a lot, although the "human habitation" idea is a bit much (the idea is that this is an isolated ship accidentally crashing, not an invasion of any scale). But the more strategic resources involved, the more the balance shifts to the humans... sure, the aliens have the technology to build futuristic weapons capable of cutting through infantry like butter, but they start out with neither the production capacity nor resources to produce any.

I had been toying with the idea of giving the aliens a "hive mind" government type which would be pretty mediocre but would have an (expensive) special government-only wonder which would give something incredibly powerful (like a palace in every city, if that still works). Corruption would be at a low setting in general for this mod; while I think the default corruption setting is an accurate and balanced representation of the difficulty of maintaining huge empires in earlier ages, by this point in time communications and transport are a bit faster, so those sprawling European empires should probably be able to get more than 1 gold and 1 shield out of their colonies, but obviously having no corruption anywhere would still be a pretty sweet advantage if the aliens managed to get it built.

[Random Passerby]

OK, I've located a pretty good map and started working on laying out starting cities... no improvements, though, since those will be revamped extensively along with the tech tree. I want the European nations to be real powerhouses despite having a VERY crowded area, and one of the most logical ways to do that seems to be adding lots and lots of extra city improvements. Hopefully the editor allows you to give improvements that a civ doesn't have the tech or resources to build, because for balance reasons I'd prefer to assign some extra improvements at the start which cannot be otherwise built, so that the existing European cities with 3-4 tiles to work can churn out appreciable production numbers but no one can build a huge super-metropolis with a full 21 tiles to work that can output 1000 shields, for example.

This is the civ list I'm working with:

Germany
Austria-Hungary
France
Spain ( / Portugal)
Russia
Ottoman Empire
Great Britain
United States
Netherlands ( / Belgium [Luxembourg too, but it's too small to even represent at all])
Assorted European (Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, Balkans)
Italy
Japan
Assorted Asian (predominately China)
Assorted Mideastern
Assorted Central/South American (plus Mexico)
Martians

If anyone can think of better names for the "catch-all" civs I'd be glad to hear them. For the most part I'm satisfied with this list, although the lack of a catch-all African civ is bugging me somewhat; granted, if I end up setting this around 1900 (or even a decade earlier) there will be some pretty sizeable European claims there and most of uncolonized Africa could be represented reasonably well by barbarians... but eventually Africa DID become independant, which can't happen if there's not some sort of civ in place to begin with; maybe I could lump the Low Countries in with the assorted other minor powers, or (if it's a later starting date) the Ottoman Empire with the Mideast. I'm counting on culture flipping to "indigenous" civs to represent eventual de-colonization, although other than that I'd really kinda prefer to somehow minimize the impact of culture.

I've got a preliminary tech list with three eras (Industrial, Modern, Future); although I haven't fully fleshed out the unit/resources/improvements corresponding it, I think I have all the hooks built into the tech tree I'll need, although a few techs might end up being filler, and there are some techs I'm still considering adding and there might be some I haven't thought of yet. Largely the Industrial and Modern eras remain reinterpretations of the Firaxis versions, although the Industrial era leaves out most of the early techs (it might seem that the Industrial era is still the largest of the three, but keep in mind that most of the major European powers are already on the second "tier" of Industrial techs at the start. Most pre-existing wonders will probably be there for flavor only, or at best, culture, and the space race is gone entirely. This could serve fairly well for any sort of generic future tech tree as well, though I'd really like input on it and certainly wouldn't go so far as to call it at all definitive. There are a few tech goals which are somewhat emphasized due to the nature of this mod; the "Duplication" tech represents the ability to "manufacture" fully developed organisms with a predetermined mentality (hence the prereqs), and is significant because it's the only way the aliens can get hidden nationality land units (the human civs can get hidden nationality units vastly earlier in the tech tree, but when Martians invade it doesn't matter HOW stealthy they are, it's gonna be pretty obvious which civ they're coming from!), and the "Hive Brain" tech represents the ability to create a centralized communal intelligence through science; i.e., the Martian hive mind is technological, not biological, in nature. To represent this, it would give a government that would be thoroughly mediocre but which would allow the building of VERY powerful improvements that would give tremendous boosts.

One problem I'm having, though, is where to place these eras. If I start the tech tree out in the Ancient or Medieval era, for example, then all the human nations will start out with these little stone-age villages or quaint medieval towns. One idea I've actually been toying with is keeping the Industrial and Modern eras where they appear, and making the Future era be BEFORE them, with every single tech marked as optional, but with a single root tech called "Alien Technology" or something which would be ridiculously hard to research, and then use the fourth era (which would, again, actually be the first or second era) to represent technologies specific to earthly living, which for example would be required to see and use luxuries and probably some improvements as well; the aliens could concievably adapt to human lifestyle with time, after all, and definitely wouldn't have any use for the luxuries at the point of the crash. In my experience the AI loves to go for the easiest research path available, so hopefully the costly root tech on the future era would stop the human civs from researching it right off the bat; as an added bonus, if the aliens decided to play favorites and give some future tech to one civ, it would be more unlikely that the AI would then trade their advantage away (since they would have a hard time finding anyone who could afford the tech as they valued it). Lowering the AI to AI trade rate to minimum would also help here; although I don't mind the AI trade rate in principle ("tech whoring" originated as a HUMAN tactic anyways), the nature of this scenario would make it desireable to have the AI civs be as greedy and selfish with their tech as possible.

Anyways, any comments on the civ list or tech tree (posted below, hopefully) or suggestions on an exact start date (mostly it doesn't matter to me, but changing imperial boundaries could concievably simplify things)?