Got a heads-up about this from the Fury Road mod. I've made numerous comments already in that forum that you might find interesting (or not)...
First impressions:
1. When the game came up, I got the new BTS header and not the one you have at the beginning of the forum? I've noticed that happens a lot now after the BTS_3.17 upgrade.
2. My biggest thought is, where are the zombies? I was expecting HORDES of zombies, I was expecting my living units, when damaged might turn into zombies. I was expecting the 'moaning' shuffling swarms from World War Z: Oral History of the Zombie wars...and except for one now and again, none to be seen.
3. Zombie cities? I was thinking that like in WW Z, non-player cities would be 'barbarian' cities filled with cranky Warlords that would send out raiders like you might find in the Fury Road mod. Any cities razed by zombies should, I think, become like the Lairs in Fall from Heaven (FfH) where they'd spawn more zombies.
4. Since I never saw many zombies, and didn't lose a unit to one, are they diseased as many of the critters are in FfH?
5. Not sure if it's possible, but in WW Z, zombies could walk on the bottom of the ocean; making zombies able do that would be awesome. Of course I'm sure it would be some programming trick to have them under the water, but not seen by the player till they come up on a beach.
6. Why where so many resources like crabs taken out?
7. As I mentioned in the Fury Road leaderhead forum, a scenario or alternative set of leaders would be some of the factions from Alpha Centauri to represent that as the world was plunged into war that spawned the Walking Dead, the factions trying to get onto the UNS Unity where a bit more organized (especially doctrinally) so they survived.
8. I think beyond the Fury Road 'barbarians' the zombies should spawn almost anywhere, even in your own territory.
9. The Zombie moan: Also from WW-Z: I think the long a zombie is with a hex or 2 of a live unit, it would cause (if programmingly possible) a larger chance of more zombies being created to represent the 'chain swarm'.
10. Maybe when under Response to Undead: Terror, the undead would cause fear like the Dragons do in FfF so that there would be a decent chance that units would refuse to attack. A 'discipline' promotion would negate this.
11. I think even a unsuccessful attack under Response to Undead: Terror against a city would cause unhappiness.
Again, in the Fury Road mod, I suggested that a tweak on that mod's "Safety" instead of culture might also be the addition of a variant of the Armageddon Counter from FfH. Now in FfH the AC unlock bad things as the counter goes up. I was thinking that perhaps this could be switched to something like the 'Civilization Counter' to represent how much people feel about the world in general. After 9-11, we saw here in America the attitude of "These are dark times and we need to protect ourselves" and so we allowed ourselves to junk a lot of our freedoms. After the Apocalypse, I would think that there would be people who would think we can't "afford" civilized things like "law, order, trail by jury" et al and so some Civ's would regress pretty badly. So instead of civilization growing back, it falls further into Warlordism and Tyranny. In the World War Z, we saw a lot of this.
So (sorry for long post) you could have the 'CC' that would start either in the negatives or at 0 and certain actions by the different Civ's would lower, or raise the CC. I was thinking that certain Civics like slavery would lower the CC as well as raising cities, raiding towns and other 'evil' acts. In most mods, captured slaves can be used as workers, disbanded for hammers toward a project or sold like in FfH for gold. Maybe you could also have them eaten for a boast in happiness for a city, which would lower the CC as cannibalism is usually rather frowned upon. I mean if the world is going to hell, a lot of people would look the other way just as long as they were clothed, fed and happy, no matter that their leader is a a crazy despot.
However, certain things might raise the CC and if the CC got higher, it would cause more unhappiness in 'evil' cultures sort of like Republic does. I think no matter how bad things get, if one Civ is that "Shining City on the Hill" it gives ideas to the downtrodden. Perhaps it would also unlock certain buildings or units and maybe even Wonders like the New League of Nations or something that would allow a Diplomatic victory or maybe something like the Overcouncil in FfH. Plus, I think a lot of the 'pro-zombie' civics you have would cause negative affects to the CC.
I'm sure this might be a lot of work, but it would also allow a bit of "Law" versus "Chaos" in the game and might also be used to unlock events depending on how things go. Sure in a game like this, it can be easy to run your Civ like a bastard, throwing enemies into the fire and the like, but there should be a penalty. Maybe you could have units defect (moral leaders) or units go barbarian, (I should be leader, not him!) and obviously if the CC gets high, the citizens will want more comforts, less war
Anyway, this mod has much promise! My only REAL gripe is that I couldn't upgrade my Survivalist later in the game.
