7 Days to the Wolves

I've been thinking allot about scenarios lately. I've started a few and play tested them. One in particular I may have mentioned. My first version was essentially the Crusades. Not a whole game but instead units ready to march to Jerusalem and meet other oppositions on the way. At first I was very interested in fine tuning this but realized, to make it very challenging you would need to play as your own opposition or require another player. I then realized at that point most would not find this as interesting and making the AI do this job was impossible because they immediately withdrew from where they were placed and protected their standing cities. So I dropped this idea.


So I thought about it for a while and eventually broke the game down in my head and this is what I came up with.

The first thing I came up with that I enjoy is the initial planning, from there developing a goal then achieving the goal, and we do it over and over and we stay content with the game. Win or loose we are happy because we are in control. But the hard fact is that its going to take many long hours(SP) or years(PBEM) to achieve the ultimate result.

When I look at all these ideas I realized it is just a matter of imagination because the editor gives you a very serious ability to be creative.

So all of that just to get to this part


Consider an Earth map with all the nations placed accordingly. Take from all civs their starting techs and all the units they could build (completely stripped). The AI would do nothing but build wealth because this option can not be removed. At this point you completely know what the civs of the world is doing. Right?

Now remove the entire tech tree and create 10 or 20 new techs and one exclusively for the human player (I get to this in a minute).
These new techs are non-linear so the AI would simply choose something else based on the benefits attached to it. In this tech and all the others would be a "Wonder" but different from the ones we are used to, generally a positive. (The Great Lighthouse = Extended Range for example)

This new wonder is substantially cheaper and has a positive attribute attached to it but it has been renamed with a negative title (the AI would not be concerned with its title). Lets name the first Wonder "A Nuclear Bomb" another one 'A new strain of "Anthrax",
another "Global economic crash". So these titles are world changing or world ending and have a different degree of urgency if you the player needed to stop it from being completed.

If all techs are relatively equal in cost, the variance would be in the city's’s terrain and shield output.

Let say this is put together well enough that a few would be completed in a single turn and a few more the following turn.

This new wonder gives the builder 20,000VP and the win condition 20,000VP, that would have been the bomb and game over! So he might be building/researching this particular thing several times but none are equal because every city is different, and add to that all the cities throughout the map from all the other civs. You as a player being able to reach and attack multiple cities in a single turn.



Your tech does nothing, its picture is replace with a leader and a message or mission to you that the world is in chaos and your tasked to straighten it out!


You have all the gold you need, and an Embassy in every capitol.

Espionage will be one of your best assets.

ICBMs, Tactical Nukes, you have a Carrier, a Helo and a Jet can be loaded on it and your main unit(s). This might be a guerrilla, the guerrilla can load on the jet but can not be unloaded unless in a city or airfield you control. The Helo would look like a Helo but act like a transport and the Guerrilla could unload anywhere it needs to. The Carrier, Helo and Jet would have maybe 6 attacks per turn(rate of fire) but the guerrilla has the “Blitz” ability, meaning he has as many attacks as he has movement points (or the maximum attacks he can have).


So you have many major tools on your side but you have a great deal happening everywhere all on its own timing and location and the “End Turn” and the load/unload “turn complete” (if your in Europe and you need to go to England this turn, you would fail). Now give all civs a group of units to protect their cities.

Your Guerrilla (Master) has 10/10/15, he has Battlefield Medicine”, he could potentially engage any number of units and could die. Your (Apprentice) is similar, can be controlled by you or a 2nd Player either MP or PBEM.

The next level of difficulty would be to have each civ able to make trades and have a few civs able to produce workers and these workers tradeable, this could add effect if the build time of a mine was reduced to a single turn.

Very random, very unpredictable all in a single turn or 2 or 3. You will receive VP for controlling cities that you have disarmed but you could loose them because you can not stay around to defended them(victory point scoring must be completely overhauled and values set on how devastating the wonder would be.

If what you controlled would be duplicated to challenge 2 players, the discussion would be a big deal to coordinate your efforts. The cool thing is when having an embassy with everyone you would be alerted on every one of those wonders being built, it is up to you to figure out the puzzle of getting it all done, and it is relatively short in real time, perhaps 7 turns we will call Days.

So what do you think?