"Occupy" MOD for CIV III PTW or Conquests

ReindeerThistle

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I am interested in helping to develop a MOD based on the Occupy movements worldwide. Say, based on El Mencey's Giga map with 512 cities placed, modern start, with various modifications to the techs and units, improvements, et al. Since it was such a spontaneous, fast-growing movement, there seems to be a lot to work off of.

I am an experienced grass roots organizer with 20 years under my belt (as of July 2012) and could offer much in the way of ideas, but I am no good at MODDING.

Please post if you want to start something. I think it's topical and represents a new kind of warfare.

"An army of deer lead by a lion is more fearsome than an army of lion led by a deer" -- Alexander the Great
 
Fascinating idea ... tell me more.

What are the tribes/civilzations? I could imagine several tribes which have some cities, made up of the 1%, e.g., "EuroZone", "USA", "Japan", "China". Then there would be enclaves/outposts from the Occupy folks which produce ... what? Maybe spies, that could conduct actions that encourage the realignment of economies, or for cities to break away from their home civ?

Would there be one "Occupy" tribe/civ, or several spread across the world?

Maybe use the culture game mechanic as a way to influence the 512 cities to break away and join the "Occupy" movement.

Would the human player be running a larger civ, battling the Occupiers?
Or would the human always play "Occupy", and the AIs try to win by building stock exchanges and theatres/movies/TV stations?
 
Give me strength!

Perhaps you didn't notice that we already have communism in the game.
 
Why are we seeing all these mod posts in the General forum? It belongs in the creation forum. Using El Mency's map would be the kiss of death to any mod. It is just too large for nearly everyone to want to mess with.
 
NB: my intention is not to diminish the importance of the occupy movement by "MODDING" it, but, as with the CIV MOD tradition, to enahnce and make more interesting a popular game, while adding factual, educatiyonal and topical elements that enlighten and hopefully agitate.

Maybe the Occupy thing would not be a whole world map, I'm not sure. It could be a city/ nation. I don't know, yet.

But let's brainstorm:

Let's say that there could be an Occupy Tribe. The other tribes could be, as you say Eurozone, USA, Japan, etc.

I would leave it to the player to choose which side they are on -- like with Lord of the MODS, you can be Isengard, Mordor, Angmar, etc.

Many occupy groups sought out alliances with other grass roots groups, which is how I got involved. So, other tribes could be labor unions, grassroots organizations, associations of doctors and lawyers, etc. They could be in goody huts, maybe, or players could play them, too.

Spies are not exactly the Occupy way.

The leader or "King" unit would be the GA or General Assembly. No leaderheads needed in a leaderless movement -- unless you agree with me that there can be a representative spokeperson, or an upgrade to government type like direct democracy. GAs are consensus-only.

Units would be the Working Groups (WGs): Education, Media, outreach, food, communications, maintenance (clean-up), publicity. direct action.

Direct action and outreach working groups would be like combat units, able to take cities or city improvements.

Education, Media and publicity WGs add culture towards conversion, or stabilize aginast spies and Political Police from the other side.

Improvements would be (as they all appreciated in the Occupy movement) things like food booths, housing resources, sanitation, port-a-johns -- the Occupy SF people really appreciated that -- or other things, like a press/ publishing facilities which add to the influence.

The Tribes of the 1% would have units like spies, as well as police of all sorts, Pinkertons, Attorneys General, bankers, reporters (yes, reporters -- CBS news showed a near-empty park on a day where 27,000 people marched on Foley Square in NYC).

1% tribes could build things like banks, stock exchanges, police stations as improvement.

This is a start. I'll come up with more later.

As soon as I get it together, we can move to the mod creation forum.
 
When I first read the OP, I thought "this will just be a blood bath". But there may be a way to bring your game to fruition. I'm just not sure how.

Some other people got me thinking about the '80's novel "Dune" the other day. I remember playing a PC game called "Dune". Not "Dune 2", but the original game. That game is the format your Mod needs to follow, as it is basically compatible with what you've described. Unfortunately, that game is on 3.5 inch disks, so good luck getting ideas from it. But the game stressed hard work and national pride ln achieving victory. Weapons didn't hurt either. :)

I'll watch your thread, see what you come up with. If I can help, I will.
 
When I first read the OP, I thought "this will just be a blood bath". But there may be a way to bring your game to fruition. I'm just not sure how.

Some other people got me thinking about the '80's novel "Dune" the other day. I remember playing a PC game called "Dune". Not "Dune 2", but the original game. That game is the format your Mod needs to follow, as it is basically compatible with what you've described. Unfortunately, that game is on 3.5 inch disks, so good luck getting ideas from it. But the game stressed hard work and national pride ln achieving victory. Weapons didn't hurt either. :)

I'll watch your thread, see what you come up with. If I can help, I will.

Thank you, Cyc, for the encouragement.

As for the 1.5" disk question. The answer is DOSBox -- that's how I got Leather Goddesses of Phobos II to play on Ubuntu 11.10. (It's not what you think, I only have the game because I was a featured voice for three characters!) So, maybe someone on eBay will have the old Dune game and I can scoop it up cheap and get ideas.

Anyway, for the occupy mod, perhaps the AI for the 1% would not start out aggressive -- but would progress as Occupy units and improvements gained more influence.

I'll keep working on it (late nights and weekends).
 
NB: my intention is not to diminish the importance of the occupy movement by "MODDING" it, but, as with the CIV MOD tradition, to enahnce and make more interesting a popular game, while adding factual, educatiyonal and topical elements that enlighten and hopefully agitate.

Maybe the Occupy thing would not be a whole world map, I'm not sure. It could be a city/ nation. I don't know, yet.

But let's brainstorm:

Let's say that there could be an Occupy Tribe. The other tribes could be, as you say Eurozone, USA, Japan, etc.

I would leave it to the player to choose which side they are on -- like with Lord of the MODS, you can be Isengard, Mordor, Angmar, etc.

Many occupy groups sought out alliances with other grass roots groups, which is how I got involved. So, other tribes could be labor unions, grassroots organizations, associations of doctors and lawyers, etc. They could be in goody huts, maybe, or players could play them, too.

Spies are not exactly the Occupy way.

The leader or "King" unit would be the GA or General Assembly. No leaderheads needed in a leaderless movement -- unless you agree with me that there can be a representative spokeperson, or an upgrade to government type like direct democracy. GAs are consensus-only.
.... snip, snip ...
This is a start. I'll come up with more later.

As soon as I get it together, we can move to the mod creation forum.

You'll definitely want to talk with the folks in the creation forum(s). The main point I wanted to make was to think within the framework of the existing Civ3 game mechanics. Unlike Civ4, where significant portions of the game are coded in Python and are thus accessible, Civ3 / PTW / C3C has some built-in limitations.

You may need to use the espionage game mechanic, but in a different way. Specifically, you could re-purpose the "Initiate Propaganda" mission to be something like, "Call Demonstration" with some probability of affecting a city in one of the 1% tribes.

The core game is based on cities, and what they produce, so you'll have to work out what the Occupy tribe would do with its cities. You will have to work out the victory conditions, and whether you make use of Victory Points or Princess/King unit capabilities in C3C. How does the Occupy tribe win the game? How does one of the 1% tribes win the game? If the human player selects one of the 1% tribes, does the game end when the AI-played Occupy tribe is defeated?

You could add wonders that auto-produce units, similar to the C3C Statue of Zeus or Knights Templar. Of course, you would have to decide what those units do.
 
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