Zany
Aug 11, 2006, 07:04 PM
- This mod takes inspiration from George Washington’s supposed prophetic visions from Valley Forge. Now, it doesn’t sound very believable that while at Valley Forge George Washington was getting messages from God about the future of the country and foretold WW3, but that’s beside the point, the goal here is to create an interesting and enjoyable scenario. The story to the scenario is going to be without a doubt outrageous and beyond unlikely, but again, that’s besides the point, it is meant to fun and interesting, not realistic. There is no need to debate politics or anything to do with George Washington, just don’t debate, okay? I just find the supposed visions of GW to be interesting, with no regard to logical merit, and thought a Civilization IV scenario based on them would be fun.
- The plot is going to be very political and probably offensive to some people. I don’t mean any personal offense to anyone’s viewpoints or by extension them, this is 100% fictional and has no bearings on the viewpoints of myself or anyone involved. Just because these supposed prophetic visions are rather nationalistic, and nationalism is generally associated with right-leaning individuals, the intended outcome (that is, if the player of the scenario wins) is that in some way right-wing resisters in America defeat the generally left-leaning invaders (because they would be the communist China, still rather socialist-oriented Russia, more-liberal-than-America European Union, and the like). But of course, while I do want this scenario to be heavily scripted and have a somewhat detailed plot, I would like to have alternate versions of the scenario sometime in the future, such as playing as the invaders or even Americans assisting the invasion. As you’ll read below, the invaders are supposed to be very brutal. Would France ever kill thousands of innocent civilians without a second thought? Never in a million years, but this is fiction that is not meant to be believable or a potential future, got it yet?
- Now, for those of you who aren’t familiar with these “visions”, if you just Google search you’ll find out everything I already know about them in just a few minutes. But to save you the effort, here is the summary of the part of the “prophecies” concerning the scenario. Basically armies from all areas of the world form some sort of coalition to attack America. They destroy most of America, burning cities and therefore, it is safe to assume killing lots of civilians, and the Americans are pretty much doomed and most of them lose hope. This next part actually reminds me of Omens from Warlords a bit (but I don’t have Warlords yet, but I know the basic plot of the scenario), and it claims that as the war is as good as lost, there is some kind of divine intervention, maybe even angels joining in on the war. Personally I don’t want that in the scenario, it just doesn’t sound like it would fit gameplay-wise. So instead after the invaders begin to dominate the scenario, there is some sort of inspiring event, like someone new comes to power or something, and for gameplay purposes a bunch of experience points are dropped on some of America’s surviving units. Even though I still want to follow the general mood of the “visions”, this part about “divine intervention” and the turning point of the war is open to suggestions for something suitable.
Now, to actually discussing the scenario. First, the most basic part of any scenario: the map. Simple enough I want all of North America, Central America, the Caribbean, and around the northern one third or one quarter of South America. Because of the dimensions here, I guess a small part of Africa, Europe, and Asia is bound to appear in the map. That would be good, so the invaders have safe haven bases instead of just a large invasion force and having to capture some American cities.
The civilizations should be Russia, China, the EU, Canada, the OIC, the SACN, maybe the AU or some amalgamated miscellaneous countries, and either Mexico and a fake Central American version of the EU or both those together. Feel free to suggest additions, substitutions, or removals from the list. The Caribbean should be held almost exclusively by the EU (except Cuba to the Central America and/or Mexican civ, or if Russia and China are merged into the SCO, then to the SCO and Puerto Rico obviously still held by the US) because of the overseas dependencies and former colonies there. Now I think perhaps instead of the player controlling all of America, they instead controlling a faction with no cities (but perhaps a unit similar to the camp one from the Genghis Khan Warlords scenario, or the ability to recruit units from American cities or something) that mostly conducts guerilla warfare. A bonus to that is that the fall of America can be scripted, so instead of just being at a severe disadvantage and the invaders easily conquering half of America, it can be plotted out and the player is powerless to stop it until the “divine intervention” event. Possibly some other dissident or resistance groups, in the same vein of the minor civs from Greek World in vanilla Civ IV, or those can simply be represented by barbarians.
To continue on with the subject of civilizations, I think it might be an okay idea to have the leadership of America change hands a few times. The actual “leader”, by Civ IV standards, shall remain the same because I think you can’t mod a change of leaders mid-game, but America’s attitude towards the player and its own strategy can change. But for the most part if the player is a faction loyal to America but separate from the US government, they should be in some sort of a locked alliance, though they shouldn’t be able to see what the other is doing and not share technologies, but cooperate militarily and not be allowed to go to war with each other. But at some point there might be a worsening of relations, like the US Federal government wants the player to return control of Denver, which it just liberated, but the player insists on keeping it.
Since there is a lot to mod (and I’m no good at modding), it would be a lot easier to simply ignore religion in the game. But if was to be included, it would be replaced by ideologies. They would be Conservatism, Liberalism, Socialism, Communism, if the player is to be a faction then an ideology representing that, and possibly some kind of reactionary or other ideology that springs up during America’s losses to counter the player’s. The ideologies would possibly be spread (or removed) by military units (though there would no doubt be secret police-type units that can remove ideologies from cities) and by broadcast towers/other media-related things. Conservatism and Liberalism would spread slowly because of their already prominence in America (I think they should end up being even, but Conservatism spreading just a little bit easier within America because America is under attack, and Liberalism being spread by the EU and the like), Communism a little bit better and by China, Socialism better than that by Russia and the EU, and the faction player’s ideology or other mid-war-created ideologies very quickly and easily.
Victory is another subject that I want lots of suggestions for. Like should it be that the player must regain 80% of America, or all of America, or regain all of America and 10 enemy cities? Or maybe, if we were to complicate things immensely, there are several civs within America and the player must win a diplomatic victory, thus uniting all the factions against the invaders. Let me stress again, I want to use this thread to toss around ideas and am fully open to all ideas and suggestions, as long as they remain true to a few principles of this scenario, such as America being pretty much doomed at first, and most of the world being united against America and the US having no allies to assist them, and recognizing this is a fictional scenario that does not mean to be believable and makes no actual opinions on any of the subjects involved.
Now, as for the actual plot and scripting. First off, the timeframe. The start and end year are pretty much irrelevant, the main issue to me is the number of turns, and then that can be worked out to a suitable number of years (around 5-6 years of fighting seems logical to me, though I need some feedback on that, and this is pretty much the only part of the mod where logic is involved). A good start year to me seems like 2020, but once again this is fiction so in 15 years the odds of America going to war with current allies is completely zero, but you can factor in logic with what seems far enough off. Now, the second part that involves logic, mostly geostrategy. There needs to be a few cities scripted to be razed, and a few scripted to be captured but have a large portion of the population killed. I think that in the first stages of the invasion, there shouldn’t be as much destruction. Heavy casualties, of course, but not so much pillaging and razing. Later on in the war, when things become more desperate for the Americans, I think the invaders should start razing cities and killing civilians. Like, just as a random example, let’s say via Cuba the coalition captures Miami. They progress north to Atlanta, but by the time they are going after Memphis, they start killing civilians back in Atlanta (so a scripted event like “The SCO has slaughtered civilians in Atlanta. Support for the SCO drops in the Southeast” which would mean the Socialist and Communist ideologies are removed from Miami and New Orleans and revolts start spawning rebels as either barbarians or new units for the player, but this is just a random example) and then they raze St. Louis. I’d like some suggestions of the plot of the early scenario like that, such as suggesting that Civ A captures City A, then razes City B, then captures City C but kills half the population in the process. Or Civ B razes City D then and City E, which is under Civ B control, revolts and the player gains X number of resister units. Or when player liberates City A it spawns X number of units outside of nearby City B, which can only be used to liberate City B and then disappear but City B provides some sort of resource or allows the production of some kind of airplane made at a factory City B possesses.
Basically I'm looking for ideas from other people and I need someone to become interesting in this and do most of the modding. I can do some of the XML grunt work and play-testing, but my knowledge of modding Civ IV is severely limited and I am unable to do anything with Python.
- The plot is going to be very political and probably offensive to some people. I don’t mean any personal offense to anyone’s viewpoints or by extension them, this is 100% fictional and has no bearings on the viewpoints of myself or anyone involved. Just because these supposed prophetic visions are rather nationalistic, and nationalism is generally associated with right-leaning individuals, the intended outcome (that is, if the player of the scenario wins) is that in some way right-wing resisters in America defeat the generally left-leaning invaders (because they would be the communist China, still rather socialist-oriented Russia, more-liberal-than-America European Union, and the like). But of course, while I do want this scenario to be heavily scripted and have a somewhat detailed plot, I would like to have alternate versions of the scenario sometime in the future, such as playing as the invaders or even Americans assisting the invasion. As you’ll read below, the invaders are supposed to be very brutal. Would France ever kill thousands of innocent civilians without a second thought? Never in a million years, but this is fiction that is not meant to be believable or a potential future, got it yet?
- Now, for those of you who aren’t familiar with these “visions”, if you just Google search you’ll find out everything I already know about them in just a few minutes. But to save you the effort, here is the summary of the part of the “prophecies” concerning the scenario. Basically armies from all areas of the world form some sort of coalition to attack America. They destroy most of America, burning cities and therefore, it is safe to assume killing lots of civilians, and the Americans are pretty much doomed and most of them lose hope. This next part actually reminds me of Omens from Warlords a bit (but I don’t have Warlords yet, but I know the basic plot of the scenario), and it claims that as the war is as good as lost, there is some kind of divine intervention, maybe even angels joining in on the war. Personally I don’t want that in the scenario, it just doesn’t sound like it would fit gameplay-wise. So instead after the invaders begin to dominate the scenario, there is some sort of inspiring event, like someone new comes to power or something, and for gameplay purposes a bunch of experience points are dropped on some of America’s surviving units. Even though I still want to follow the general mood of the “visions”, this part about “divine intervention” and the turning point of the war is open to suggestions for something suitable.
Now, to actually discussing the scenario. First, the most basic part of any scenario: the map. Simple enough I want all of North America, Central America, the Caribbean, and around the northern one third or one quarter of South America. Because of the dimensions here, I guess a small part of Africa, Europe, and Asia is bound to appear in the map. That would be good, so the invaders have safe haven bases instead of just a large invasion force and having to capture some American cities.
The civilizations should be Russia, China, the EU, Canada, the OIC, the SACN, maybe the AU or some amalgamated miscellaneous countries, and either Mexico and a fake Central American version of the EU or both those together. Feel free to suggest additions, substitutions, or removals from the list. The Caribbean should be held almost exclusively by the EU (except Cuba to the Central America and/or Mexican civ, or if Russia and China are merged into the SCO, then to the SCO and Puerto Rico obviously still held by the US) because of the overseas dependencies and former colonies there. Now I think perhaps instead of the player controlling all of America, they instead controlling a faction with no cities (but perhaps a unit similar to the camp one from the Genghis Khan Warlords scenario, or the ability to recruit units from American cities or something) that mostly conducts guerilla warfare. A bonus to that is that the fall of America can be scripted, so instead of just being at a severe disadvantage and the invaders easily conquering half of America, it can be plotted out and the player is powerless to stop it until the “divine intervention” event. Possibly some other dissident or resistance groups, in the same vein of the minor civs from Greek World in vanilla Civ IV, or those can simply be represented by barbarians.
To continue on with the subject of civilizations, I think it might be an okay idea to have the leadership of America change hands a few times. The actual “leader”, by Civ IV standards, shall remain the same because I think you can’t mod a change of leaders mid-game, but America’s attitude towards the player and its own strategy can change. But for the most part if the player is a faction loyal to America but separate from the US government, they should be in some sort of a locked alliance, though they shouldn’t be able to see what the other is doing and not share technologies, but cooperate militarily and not be allowed to go to war with each other. But at some point there might be a worsening of relations, like the US Federal government wants the player to return control of Denver, which it just liberated, but the player insists on keeping it.
Since there is a lot to mod (and I’m no good at modding), it would be a lot easier to simply ignore religion in the game. But if was to be included, it would be replaced by ideologies. They would be Conservatism, Liberalism, Socialism, Communism, if the player is to be a faction then an ideology representing that, and possibly some kind of reactionary or other ideology that springs up during America’s losses to counter the player’s. The ideologies would possibly be spread (or removed) by military units (though there would no doubt be secret police-type units that can remove ideologies from cities) and by broadcast towers/other media-related things. Conservatism and Liberalism would spread slowly because of their already prominence in America (I think they should end up being even, but Conservatism spreading just a little bit easier within America because America is under attack, and Liberalism being spread by the EU and the like), Communism a little bit better and by China, Socialism better than that by Russia and the EU, and the faction player’s ideology or other mid-war-created ideologies very quickly and easily.
Victory is another subject that I want lots of suggestions for. Like should it be that the player must regain 80% of America, or all of America, or regain all of America and 10 enemy cities? Or maybe, if we were to complicate things immensely, there are several civs within America and the player must win a diplomatic victory, thus uniting all the factions against the invaders. Let me stress again, I want to use this thread to toss around ideas and am fully open to all ideas and suggestions, as long as they remain true to a few principles of this scenario, such as America being pretty much doomed at first, and most of the world being united against America and the US having no allies to assist them, and recognizing this is a fictional scenario that does not mean to be believable and makes no actual opinions on any of the subjects involved.
Now, as for the actual plot and scripting. First off, the timeframe. The start and end year are pretty much irrelevant, the main issue to me is the number of turns, and then that can be worked out to a suitable number of years (around 5-6 years of fighting seems logical to me, though I need some feedback on that, and this is pretty much the only part of the mod where logic is involved). A good start year to me seems like 2020, but once again this is fiction so in 15 years the odds of America going to war with current allies is completely zero, but you can factor in logic with what seems far enough off. Now, the second part that involves logic, mostly geostrategy. There needs to be a few cities scripted to be razed, and a few scripted to be captured but have a large portion of the population killed. I think that in the first stages of the invasion, there shouldn’t be as much destruction. Heavy casualties, of course, but not so much pillaging and razing. Later on in the war, when things become more desperate for the Americans, I think the invaders should start razing cities and killing civilians. Like, just as a random example, let’s say via Cuba the coalition captures Miami. They progress north to Atlanta, but by the time they are going after Memphis, they start killing civilians back in Atlanta (so a scripted event like “The SCO has slaughtered civilians in Atlanta. Support for the SCO drops in the Southeast” which would mean the Socialist and Communist ideologies are removed from Miami and New Orleans and revolts start spawning rebels as either barbarians or new units for the player, but this is just a random example) and then they raze St. Louis. I’d like some suggestions of the plot of the early scenario like that, such as suggesting that Civ A captures City A, then razes City B, then captures City C but kills half the population in the process. Or Civ B razes City D then and City E, which is under Civ B control, revolts and the player gains X number of resister units. Or when player liberates City A it spawns X number of units outside of nearby City B, which can only be used to liberate City B and then disappear but City B provides some sort of resource or allows the production of some kind of airplane made at a factory City B possesses.
Basically I'm looking for ideas from other people and I need someone to become interesting in this and do most of the modding. I can do some of the XML grunt work and play-testing, but my knowledge of modding Civ IV is severely limited and I am unable to do anything with Python.