Idea: Scenario maps

[Jp]

Was musing on MI the other day, had an idea for something you might add - the ability to specify that some planets should belong to a player at game-start. That would allow people to construct scenario-style maps - say, one where there's an empire that starts off rather large, and a bunch of smaller ones, so you can play greeks vs persians. You'd also have to be able to specify the number of ships at each planet, too.

You'd need to add a few extra parameters to the map files, though. Perhaps a 'player' parameter for planets, that takes an integer. The idea is that all planets with the same player number belong to the same player at startup - not necessarily player 1, mind, it's just for the map file. Some sort of 'ships' setting would also be useful here.

People would probably want to select which map-player they were, so a [players] section that specifies a description for each player would be useful, so in-game combo boxes and the like can tell you which one is the persians and which ones are the greek city-states.

Obviously if you start off with some planets, you wouldn't be given a starting planet via startpriority.

[opethian_days]

scenario maps would be fun, what about some other objectives for winning? maybe an "arms race" mode, the first person to a certain number of ships wins? something like that? or maybe a risk style, random conquering objective planets that give you a bonus?

[Chris]

I do like the idea of scenario maps, and it's something that I've contemplated before. Being able to set alternate win conditions is also a great related idea. There could be "race to conquer X planet" maps, "king of the hill"-style modes (control Planet X for *this many* turns)... that's just off the top of my head. It would also be nice to have additional presets besides "Quick Start", so that you don't have to set up a dozen different parameters to get into other kinds of game, and so that I can "recommend" some different combinations of settings I've found which are fun. This is all related functionality.

All of this is pie-in-the-sky stuff, and don't count on any of it coming in the near future. but I'd definitely like to look at it if I get the opportunity. I do have several other significant Mayhem Intergalactic mini-projects I want to attend to, so we'll see where it ends up in the list of priorities.