New Game Concept

[Keith]

How about having a series of games that would be based on rival empires?

Each empire would have essentially it's own citybuilder that could be played individually versus the AI, but then could be played on-line against a rival game citybuilder. With all the things we've come to expect from city builders and with as much of the technology and skill of each individual culture as possible.

Example:

Step 1 A citybuilder about the Athens (Now there's an original idea! ;) ) They would have excellent leadership and trade. Atheneans would excell at naval warfare.

Step 2. A citybuilder based on Sparta. Spartans would be fearsome warriors on land and hard to beat.

Step 3. A citybuilder based on the Persian Empire. The Persians would have huge armies and large amounts of territory.

Step 4. When played online players would use all the means of their respecitive citystates or empires against each other. The Persians could compete against either the Athenians or Spartans or both, if the two ally to oppose the Persians. Troops could be dispatched to a commn map for battle and either programmed for certain manuevers beforehand or controlled live online by the player from that culture.

The Athenians and Spartans could choose to fight alone or join forces to oppose a Persian invader in a online game. A opportunistic player from one culture could use a conflict between the other two as a chance to sneak attack one of the parties to gain some territory or wealth, etc.

Each game would be a stand alone AI game, but online you could all do battle against each other on common maps of each others' territory and cities. Otherwise online play could follow a more peaceful route of cooperation with trade and mutual aid.

You could build your city off-line and then take it to battle or trade in online play.

Another set of games could be based on Rome, Carthage, Celts, and Germans, etc.

Egypt, Hittites, Nubia, Ku****es, "Sea People", etc.

It would be a sneaky way to sell more than one game. If you wanted to be the Spartans you'd have to by the Spartan game, or to be the Atheneans you have to buy the Athenean game, etc. You would have people that would probably buy them all so they could play any one of the cultures.

There would have to be room limits but you could have several Spartan and several Athenean players join in a battle against several Persian players with each player controlling his own troops on the battlefield and/or cooperating in trade. Strategy meetings before battles would be a must to get the troops properly arrayed against the enemy and what tactics to use and when.

One can dream....

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Keith Heitmann
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[EmperorJay]

I think they should not be seperate games. (Using your example) I would like to play as the Athenians as well as the Spartans and Persians. But I'm not going to pay $60 for each game.

Instead I would suggest that a core game is created based on the earliest civilizations. Perhaps starting with the Egyptians and Hittites in one game, cost: $60. Each civilization has it's own campaign. Then, each 6 months or so, a new civilization is released, based on when they appeared. So, the next expansion in this case would be Phoenicians/Persians and Greece. Those to come at $30 each. Then you can release Carthage and Rome and Celts, at $30 each etc.

On the net, you can have rooms which will be sorted by time frame. Players who don't have all expansion packs can only start at a certain period and/or must stop at a certain period. For the die-hard fans there will be rooms where there is time to progress through history beginning as the Egyptians and then on and on. F.e. when they get conquered by Romans, they won't fail the game, instead they will have new options and you can really see your city progress through the ages.

I love the basics of your idea, I think it has crossed my mind in the past as well. There're just certain things I would want to see diffirently :) .

[Rachelc258]

<<Rome, Carthage>>

Oooh,,, carthago delenda est! Really, the roman republic (or the mediterranean during that era) would be cool.

Yes, I want to refuse to fight Hannibal and then send a force to cartharage while he's wandering around italy. I also want to decide to beat Carthrage using superior naval force before I actually have a navy (they went and found a beached carthragian vessel and copied it).

God, I love the romans.

[Keith]

<<Rome, Carthage>>

Oooh,,, carthago delenda est! Really, the roman republic (or the mediterranean during that era) would be cool.

Yes, I want to refuse to fight Hannibal and then send a force to cartharage while he's wandering around italy. I also want to decide to beat Carthrage using superior naval force before I actually have a navy (they went and found a beached carthragian vessel and copied it).

God, I love the romans.
The Romans knew a good thing when they saw it. They were well known for incorporating technology from conquered areas and their enemies, and not bad at coming up with a few of their own.
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[Son of Moose]

Here is an edited copy of a post that I made earlier to the Supreme Ruler 2010 webpage (forum: "Off Topic Comments"; "Games you dream of, that CAN be made now"). I hope that it might prove relevant to this particular thread as it (at least) partially reflects the earlier posts of this particular thread. [Indeed, I really hope that it is more successful in this forum than it was in the SR2010 forum!!

Posted: Wed May 19, 2004 2:14 pm Post subject: Age of Empires (and Rise of Rome) without limits

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My introduction to computer games was Age of Empires (AOE) and its expansion pack Rise of Rome (RoR). I still have a soft spot for AOE and its expansion pack (the RoR graphics - although somewhat stylised - are still extremely aesthetically pleasing) but developments over the last 5+ years have caused them to become completely obsolete.

Therefore I would love to see the release of a completely updated version of AOE/RoR with the following features:
# 2D maps (they are less memory-intensive than their 3D counterparts) that are unlimited in size --- as they are purported to be in SR2010. Imagine being able to play single (or multi) player in a truly massive (MMORTS sized) environment featuring many challenges (including up to 32 players) and employing 1000's of troops to fight and (if necessary) 1000's of villagers to collect, gather and build. (Refer below for further details).
# The same type of scenario editor where one can use prebuilt cliffs and easily arrange them into tactical formations and mountains (perhaps it might be possible to "correct" the North and West perspectives to more closely resemble the more appropriate South and East perspectives.
# A dramatic increase in the miserable 50 population cap appearing in AOE ans RoR --- subsequently increased to 300 in Age of Mythology (although this is somewhat fallacious as myth ynits count for 2 or 3!!). Imagine being able to play with 1000's of troops (as in Rome: Total War).
# A corresponding increase in the number of possible player slots --- up to (at least) 32.
# Perhaps some form of City Building could be introduced to AOE2 --- such as appears in Caesar3, Pharaoh/Cleopatra, Zeus, Emperor in order to correspondingly increase the range of available buildings. Perhaps new strategies could be adopted if aesthetics (linked to City Building) could enhance troop, villager and building hit points. [There would have to be a compelling reason to improve the aesthetics of ones cities --- this would appear to be a central weakness in the City Buildre genre. After all, there must surely be an over arching purpose for creating attractive cities].

etc....

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Obviously (in this forum) my third suggestion regarding the City Builder function (which was less relevant in the SR2010 forum --- as this is a RTS and/or TBS genre game) is more important.

I was wondering whether I am totally alone in desiring to see some sort of cretive (and meaningful) union between Age of Empires (and Rise of Rome) and the now defunct Classic City Builder games. I really think that they could be combined to create an EXTREMELY interesting new genre of game.

I really really hope that someone will be inclined to respond to this (my third)posting!!

With kindest regards

[Azeem]

In a way, that's already been done. The "Settlers" and "Cultures" series has you build up a settlement (with all sorts of micromanagement) and lead armies as well.

Personally, I would not want a city-builder too focused on military matters. Complex military strategy is best left for games like the Total War series.

[Son of Moose]

Dear Azeem

Many thanks for your reply!! I must admit that I have tried fairly hard to find some schematic representations of your renowned garden creations. :D

Without trying to unnecessarily "blow my own trumpet", have you had chance to visit the Heavens Games --- Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom webpage; Downloads; Miscellaneous downloads; Incomplete City (or something to that effect)? .

This is the scale of city (complete with military defences --- more later on this topic) that I would have loved to have been able to create in Emperor. However, the ridiculously small maps (usually interrupted by rivers) certainly would not have enabled me to come even close with this concept. :mad: [I really hope that CoN might enable one to be able to create [I]REALLYlarge cities --- in order to permit this type of creative output. I am convinced that others could do a far better job than me!!].

To be absolutely honest, I am certainly not a great military strategist. The building aspect of most RTS games is my favourite part. Rome: Total War does not seem to have a conventional scenario editor and does not seem to have a fairly large selection of building types --- therefore it does not particularly interest me even though I might be able to assemble an army of 10000+. However, it might be good to be able to have some more active military model --- especially where it might be appropriate to build defensive structures to protect your city against invaders (Emperor did seem to feature some fairly minor skirmishes in some of its scenarios).

Perhaps my point is that some of the scenarios (or the scenario builder itself) should offer the player the option of greater military involvement. In this way the city building function would have a slight edge (surely some folk would like to build the equivalent of Troy and hold out the enemy? However, beware of suprise gifts). It would just seem to make the city builder genre more complete --- especially as the vast majority of RTS and TBS games seem to have very little building involved. [I must admit that I am not particularly well aquainted with either "Settlers" or "Cultures" --- as they do not appear to be freely available here in South Africa. Nevertheless, although interesting, they do no appear to be as realistic (the characters appear somewhat cartoon-like) as either the classical city builder or established RTS games. Forgive me if I am dreadfully ignorant. 1503 AD, in my humble opinion, would appear to represent the closest to a crossover between the city builder and RTS genres --- but it does not have a scenario editor. This seems to represent an unacceptable omission as virtually all RTS games have their own scenario editors].

I really don't know if anyone will agree with me --- especially the game developers. Please let me know.

With kindest regards