Brainstorm: Cyberpunk Mod

[LefferDP]

While in a state of euphoria induced by entirely too much turkey, mashed potatoes, yams and green bean casserole (no room for pie...) I had the idea of creating a mod for CIV that would have a cyberpunk atmosphere. The player would take control of a megacorp and found corporate towers in place of cities. terrain would be reduced to urban, suburban and rural with working a tile causing it to progressively grow. Ideally the time would cove a time period from the birth of the megacorps to some later period. A lot of my ideas come from a combination of Shadowrun and William Gibson novels.

More specific thoughts follow:

RESOURCES

-Standard oil, uranium, aluminum, gems (diamonds?), and iron all seem appropriate in rural areas.
-Perhaps certain building types in rural or suburban areas like universities/schools and casinos? Any better ideas for this?

IMPROVEMENTS (zoning?)
-Replace with Industrial, Commercial, and Residental zoning for areas. Gain benefits from oil via Industrial zoning, etc.
-Roads?

UNITS

Three primary unit types:
Drones, Humans, Psychic

Drones start as weak reconissance drones but become powerhouses and are strong against psychic types, but some humans have advantages against them. Drones recieve no defense bonuses. Drones can be outfitted with a variety of "parts" but gain nothing on leveling up. (if possible, allow them to be refitted at cities somehow?)

Humans are divided into security and runners. Security serve similar functions to archers/infantry. Runners have a small bonus vs Drones plus a withdrawl chance, eventually become invisible and can detect invisible units. (via either leveling up and/or research) Advances in Cyberwear provide more advanced human troops.

Psychic units are strong vs humans but weak vs drones. They tend to be weaker than the other two but can level up to cause good collateral damage as well as detect invisible units. (Special abilities avaiable via upgrade? Maybe possible, if so, there are some interesting possibiliteis here.)

Additionally Hacker units serve as a bombard similar to how bombers do. Perhaps countered by ICE (ala Shadowrun) experts that can kill them similar to interceptors.

BUILDINGS (Rooms)
-Limit the number of rooms for the corporate tower until after new techs have been researched as there is only so much "room".

-R&D department (+research) -> Laboratory (+research) -> Hot Lab (small chance to melt down but significant research boost)
-Finances Department (+gold) -> Accounting Department (-maintainence) ->
-Information Systems Deparment (Small +production) -> Electronic Security (-hacker bombardment) -> Matrix Hub (+research, +gold)
-Sales Deparment (+gold) ->
-Human Resources Department (granary) -> Security (+human unit production)
-Manufacturing Department (+production) -> Heavy Industries (+drone/mech unit production)
-Legal Affairs (?)

-Turrets -> Laser turrets / Back Up Generators -> Corporate Housing (+defense %)

Nation Wonders
-Head offices for each department requiring 6 of each department type?

Wonders (Secret Projects)
-First Cyberdeck (Allows early hacker production)
-Genome Patent (-cheaper human production)
-Cold Fusion Patent (+gold per plant)
-A Transendence victory like Alpha Centauri?

TECHNOLOGIES
-Cold Fusion
-Genetics
-Net Matrix
-Iterations of Cyberdecks for hackers/ICE
-Heavy Arms for the drones
-Cyberwear for the humans
-Paranormal for the psychics
-Crossover between these all, but general paths

CIVICS
-Corporate strategies? Very fuzzy here. National Affiliation and Brand Strategy perhaps?

RELIGION
-Considering replacing religion with state affiliations and having similiar effects. State religion would be where your megacorp incorporates.
-Unsure how to incoporate them via the tech tree.

It's a start, anyway. At any rate, any ideas to help out would be lovely, even if they don't really apply at all to anything I've already mentioned. Right now I'm more interested in ideas than implementation.

 

[Optimizer]

Nice idea.

Adding one or two mineral resources - say Titanium - feels appropriate.

The mod should have sea colonization too. Some suggestions for improvements:

Food: Fishing Boats -> Fish Farm -> Marine Nutrition Factory
Production: Drilling Platform -> Undersea Mine -> Undersea Mantle Drill
Commerce: Merchant Ships -> Habitation Platform -> Seatown

We could also add Algae forests as a growing terrain feature in coastal squares.

 

[LefferDP]

Yes, that's a really good idea. Perhaps also lead and tungsten, almost as good as lead at stoping radiation. Also, I realized that it would probably be useful to have some of the farm/pasture resources as a means of balancing the unhealthiness the cities will have with some health resources.

A key idea I forgot to leave out in the first post was replacing food with housing, making urban centers more ideal to having a lot of corporate workers. This would mean health resources would not really provide much growth but primarily provide their health benefit.

So, let's talk starting technologies. Each corp will get two ala the normal game, ideally, with each providing some definitive benefit. They really represent more general corporate focuses, admittedly, but that doesn't seem a bad thing.

• Agritech = All you need to know to build pastures and farms, etc. Leads to Genetics
• Mass Media = An early way to spread influence via broadcast towers, similar to mysticism. Leads to Consumer Analysis.
• Fiber Optics = Provides access to R&D department and Information Systems Deparment.
• Mineral Processing = Mines + Oil Wells, leads to Heavy Industry
• Corporate Theory = Finances Department, Legal Affairs Department
• Residential Planning = Enables Residental zones. HR Department too?

Other techs close to the start:

• Heavy Industry = Allow creation of Industrial zones and Manufacturing Department
• Genetics = Secret Project: Genome Patent, access to first human defender.
• Consumer Analysis = Commerical zoning, Sales department

Perhaps I should have a contractor unit to take the place of a worker?