I have been intending to get into modding with the community for some time, but thus far, I haven't quite found my niche. After much consideration, I finally decided I would rather attempt to produce a project of my own.
I, as well as many of you, no doubt, have fond memories of Zombie Island from Civ 3. Recently, I searched in hopes that this fun little mod had made the jump to Civ 4, only to be disappointed. However, I ran across the one zombie mod for Civ 4, which seems to have recently shut down and, frankly, gone in a completely different direction that I would like. So, I am left with an urge to produce a mod involving zombies.
There are many decisions that have to be made with zombies. For instance, what is their source? Are they intelligent or capable of becoming intelligent? Etc. In the end, I think the idea of a zombie virus is overdone and I'd rather just default to Romero's conception. This means we're dealing with unexplained shamblers whose bite is 100% fatal and whom anyone who dies becomes. Though in several Romero movies we see tool users, I'm not certain I'm willing to go there just yet. However, it seems some sort of zombie advancement will be necessary. so either mutations or tool use will probably have to occur.
Another important consideration is scale. Do I want to map out several city blocks and deal with individual zombies and survivors or do I want to deal with a large area, such as the Eastern/Western US, Eastern Asia, etc. This will affect MANY things depending on which way it goes. I find myself very undecided on this.
Handling death can go two ways, or perhaps more if someone else has an idea I have not thought of. If the mod is large scale, zombies should probably be grouped in hordes that can grow by damaging other units (effectively killing off some of the men in the unit who grow to bolster the zombie's ranks). Thus, zombies would start out with some some fraction of their total possible power, and be unable to heal any damage, but slowly regain life through battle. If two living units fight, they generate a zombie horde nearby based on damage dealt/taken on either side, or perhaps for simplicity's sake, a new zombie unit is only created when one is killed.
On a smaller level, we are looking at a more specific result of anything killed simply becoming a zombie unit. Infection would be more devastating to a single character rather than an army, so some sort of mechanism would have to be made to determine if a character engaged in combat with a zombie was bitten. Allowing a medic to hack off a limb might be an interesting way to remove infection.
Scavaging is important to most zombie scenarios. Food is an impetuous to keep risking ones neck when they could be sitting on their butt contentedly in a safehouse. Something similar to pillage will no doubt be necessary. No matter the scale, armies will have to have some sort of carry limit to make decisions intersting. Still, I'm not sure what resources are important for the survival outside of ammo, fuel and food.
Tech Trees and Units are going to vary quite a bit depending on the size. If we are dealing with individual survivors, they will probably learn important skills that allow them to hotwire cars and the like. Perhaps particular professions exist that give bonus promotions to the particular survivors, but these promotions can be given to other units after skills are gained. Thus a soldier may be gifted at sharpshooting and a medic at healing, but once first aid is learned, the soldier could gain the medic promotion.
A larger scale mod would probably offer something more similar to Civ techs. Learning more about zombies, various interesting survival techniques and the like. This is a bit less fleshed out in my mind, or perhaps its similarity to the base Civ makes it feel needless to flesh it out in any meaningful way.
Gaining units I think is something that should be more interesting than just building them. Perhaps it is possible to scrounge up people that are hiding in various buildings and the like, but I think actually chasing after a set of neutral people and convincing them to join you would be interesting, if a bit complex. Certainly there should be a large number of factors involved and I think events should lean heavily on this. Perhaps approaching an old water tower results in getting shot at by a group that's claimed it as their own, for instance.
Objectives should probably be scenario based. Since zombies are generally a matter of survival, I think simply living a certain number of turns with the highest score is always a valid choice for a win condition. Perhaps if we follow the World War Z novel, the reclaimation of the US from zombie forces would be a goal. Still, winning against zombies is hard. Perhaps a tech and a subsequent project that creates a cure of some sort would work as well.
Religion/Corporations? I'm not sure they're relevant in this mod and probably should simply be removed, unless a use is found.
Thoughts, comments, concerns, offers to help are all welcome.
Also, I have pie and it is delicious.
I, as well as many of you, no doubt, have fond memories of Zombie Island from Civ 3. Recently, I searched in hopes that this fun little mod had made the jump to Civ 4, only to be disappointed. However, I ran across the one zombie mod for Civ 4, which seems to have recently shut down and, frankly, gone in a completely different direction that I would like. So, I am left with an urge to produce a mod involving zombies.
There are many decisions that have to be made with zombies. For instance, what is their source? Are they intelligent or capable of becoming intelligent? Etc. In the end, I think the idea of a zombie virus is overdone and I'd rather just default to Romero's conception. This means we're dealing with unexplained shamblers whose bite is 100% fatal and whom anyone who dies becomes. Though in several Romero movies we see tool users, I'm not certain I'm willing to go there just yet. However, it seems some sort of zombie advancement will be necessary. so either mutations or tool use will probably have to occur.
Another important consideration is scale. Do I want to map out several city blocks and deal with individual zombies and survivors or do I want to deal with a large area, such as the Eastern/Western US, Eastern Asia, etc. This will affect MANY things depending on which way it goes. I find myself very undecided on this.
Handling death can go two ways, or perhaps more if someone else has an idea I have not thought of. If the mod is large scale, zombies should probably be grouped in hordes that can grow by damaging other units (effectively killing off some of the men in the unit who grow to bolster the zombie's ranks). Thus, zombies would start out with some some fraction of their total possible power, and be unable to heal any damage, but slowly regain life through battle. If two living units fight, they generate a zombie horde nearby based on damage dealt/taken on either side, or perhaps for simplicity's sake, a new zombie unit is only created when one is killed.
On a smaller level, we are looking at a more specific result of anything killed simply becoming a zombie unit. Infection would be more devastating to a single character rather than an army, so some sort of mechanism would have to be made to determine if a character engaged in combat with a zombie was bitten. Allowing a medic to hack off a limb might be an interesting way to remove infection.
Scavaging is important to most zombie scenarios. Food is an impetuous to keep risking ones neck when they could be sitting on their butt contentedly in a safehouse. Something similar to pillage will no doubt be necessary. No matter the scale, armies will have to have some sort of carry limit to make decisions intersting. Still, I'm not sure what resources are important for the survival outside of ammo, fuel and food.
Tech Trees and Units are going to vary quite a bit depending on the size. If we are dealing with individual survivors, they will probably learn important skills that allow them to hotwire cars and the like. Perhaps particular professions exist that give bonus promotions to the particular survivors, but these promotions can be given to other units after skills are gained. Thus a soldier may be gifted at sharpshooting and a medic at healing, but once first aid is learned, the soldier could gain the medic promotion.
A larger scale mod would probably offer something more similar to Civ techs. Learning more about zombies, various interesting survival techniques and the like. This is a bit less fleshed out in my mind, or perhaps its similarity to the base Civ makes it feel needless to flesh it out in any meaningful way.
Gaining units I think is something that should be more interesting than just building them. Perhaps it is possible to scrounge up people that are hiding in various buildings and the like, but I think actually chasing after a set of neutral people and convincing them to join you would be interesting, if a bit complex. Certainly there should be a large number of factors involved and I think events should lean heavily on this. Perhaps approaching an old water tower results in getting shot at by a group that's claimed it as their own, for instance.
Objectives should probably be scenario based. Since zombies are generally a matter of survival, I think simply living a certain number of turns with the highest score is always a valid choice for a win condition. Perhaps if we follow the World War Z novel, the reclaimation of the US from zombie forces would be a goal. Still, winning against zombies is hard. Perhaps a tech and a subsequent project that creates a cure of some sort would work as well.
Religion/Corporations? I'm not sure they're relevant in this mod and probably should simply be removed, unless a use is found.
Thoughts, comments, concerns, offers to help are all welcome.
Also, I have pie and it is delicious.
