Darker futures

[Laozu]

Hi all, this thread is for a mod that I am working on called Darker Futures.
I always felt that this "future technologies" researches were a bit limitating... more happiness and health ? What about the darker visions of the future that you get in many science-fiction books ? What about mental control emitters, big brother's surveillance system, the nuclear holocaust and mutants, the domination of the world by robots ?

Well it all sounds very nice to me being of a more pessimistic nature and that is why I decided to integrate all of this in a mod. Now I have to warn you that it would be my first mod and moreover a quite ambitious one, but it is worth the try. ^^

The background :

The year is unknown; what was once the near future is now a forgotten past in the mind of the survivors, marked for life by the terrors of the great nuclear war that spelled the beginning of the Last Winter of Mankind. As resources started to become more and more difficult to gather, as the weather came on the verge of total chaos thanks to years of climate abuse, as people plundered each others' houses for the little food that was left, bombs started to fly. At that time, the few people that had witnessed the event and survived, predicted that the radioactive ashes would fall back from the sky after a 200-years-long nuclear winter.

Now everyone has forgotten about this countdown. Small groups of survivors all over the world started to gather for survival; scavenging the remnants of a forgotten world to survive the day; every plant, every animal have died or mutated to adapt to this hostile world. But as the ashes start to fall back from the sky, it is said that leaders will emerge. That they will secure the future of those who follow them, and that the Earth will once again be a home for man.

Special features :

- Changing terrain : the world starts covered with snow and ashes, to heat up gradually. Many places will still be radioactive or toxic, but can still be cleaned with the right technologies, opening new opportunities for resources.
- Explore the remnants of the past : ruins of what were once cities, military bases, research centers, or factories can be opened to scavenge the technology of the past they contain. However, they usually contain hostile creatures (similar to the explorable lairs of FFH). Exploring them will give the player a bonus in the corresponding researches, parts that can be used to rehabilitate an ancient unit, or prototypes.
Many different paths to take : there isn't one path of development, players will be able to chose to focus on different aspects of research to gain different advantages (again, similarly to the FFH tech tree).
- Singularities : in science-fiction, a singularity is a technological development that will radically change the life of the population. Singularities open the way to radical technological developments but will also cause chaos as the population struggles to adapt to change. Singularities in this mod can be started by particular great persons and open new branches of the tech tree that cannot be researched otherwise. Starting a singularity however will also cause chaos in all of the players' cities for a few turns, leaving him defenceless. Therefore they have to be timed and prepared well.
- A world on the verge of the apocalypse : there will be a counter similar to the one in FFH (I know, I copy a lot but there are so many good ideas in this mod...). This counter will represent the equilibrium between the planet's self-healing capacities and the environmental destruction created by man. Using polluting technologies, nuclear weapons, and generally treating the planet like a garbage dump will cause the counter to rise. The higher the counter, the more frequent the occurrence of natural disasters. Actions to clean the land and the atmosphere can lower the counter.
- New civilisations appearing during the game : similarly to FFH's infernals and mercurians, new civilisations can be created during the course of the game. There will be a civilisation of symbiotic parasites that can take control of people's minds (created through genetic engineering technologies), a civilisation of robots, if they rise against their owners (that can happen after the development of AI techs), and a civilisation called the global consciousness made of cybernetic humans in contact with beings from another dimension (that can happen after developing the positronic brains).
- Cultural trends as religions : cultural trends such as "worship of the past", "virtual entertainment", "punk rock" or "free-fighting" emerge in a city and propagate in the same way as religions. They bring cultural attraction to the civilisation at their origin and other benefits for the cities that create the appropriate building. For example, a "museum" which is the "temple" for "worship of the past" brings additional science to the city and let it build archaeologists that are better equipped to salvage lost technologies.
- more to come.

Civilisations :

- The Technocracy : scientists that were on the last spatial project created before the last winter, they survived the apocalypse by adapting to the conditions of life in space. However, the space station is now falling in pieces and they have no other choice but to come back on earth.
- The World Government : The representatives of the world's most powerful governments were already in a bunker when the bombs were launched. The whole bureaucracy escaped the apocalypse in an underground facility under the siege of the UN and planned their great comeback.
- The Corporation : with unlimited financial resources, it is not a surprise that the leaders of the corporation survived the winter. In their underground cities, they built temples to money and pushed the capitalist system to its paroxysm : a whole social system ruling the relations between people on the sole basis of money.
- The Children of the Revolution : Uprisings were already in the right way to overthrowing every government in the world before the apocalypse. They were not in time, but their dreams survived the last winter as they gathered in bunkers stolen to the government. They pushed their ideology to its summit as a mean of survival and a whole social organisation : the revolution would come, and would sweep away the remnants of the old powers.
- The Guardians of Eden : Isolated on the highest mountains, in the deepest forests, in the furthest islands, they were once members of mainly peasant communities. Their knowledge of nature helped them adapt to their new environment and find new ways to heal the land. They have sworn to give back to the planet its former beauty, by any means necessary, including violence. The Guardians' cities create zones of land clean of pollution and radioactivity, giving them a huge advantage in the beginning of the game. However, their use of polluting technologies and resources is limited.
- The Scars : the raiders assembled and organised under the banner of the scars : a diverse group of men ready for anything to survive, and especially to harm others. Scars are especially good at gathering resources from the dead as well as the living. They won't object at you using the worst civics in the game (pillage, slavery, cannibalism). However, they can be difficult to organise, as they will only follow a leader that shows them strength.

- Late game civilisations :
- The parasites : genetically engineered creatures able to attach to a victim's brain and transform it into a puppet. The parasites follow the Mother, blindly and without doubt. If not eradicated early, the parasites can very quickly change the world into a big human farm.
- The free androids : artificial intelligences that rebelled against their masters, the free androids follow HAL, the great AI. They will be hostile to any civilisation that owns robots until they give them their freedom.
- The global consciousness : People that got a positronic brain soon discovered that they shared thoughts in a strange way. But there was someone else in all this noise. An entity from another dimension that communicated through small variations in electronic signals in their brain. They decided to follow this voice and rise as a nation.

I'm still at the design stage, trying to put everything on paper. I will warmly welcome comments, advices, warnings, ideas, links and help.

 

[topsecret]

To get civs to appear in game through tech advancement use This Mod

 

[Laozu]

Thanks a lot ! That's exactly what I wanted.

Newly appearing civs will be treated more like "scientific catastrophes" and therefore function in a different way, therefore I will have to change a few bits but this mod will be very useful.

Tell me if you have any other useful tips, please

 

[topsecret]

Thanks a lot ! That's exactly what I wanted.

Newly appearing civs will be treated more like "scientific catastrophes" and therefore function in a different way, therefore I will have to change a few bits but this mod will be very useful.

Tell me if you have any other useful tips, please

Maybe you could tell me what other features you need ...

Maybe This?

Note: That nuke is KILLER

 

[Ajidica]

Interesting concept. However; I would reccomend thinking out the civs a bit more as they feel a bit too stereotypical and bland. Good starting point though.

 

[Laozu]

Topsecret :
What I will have the most trouble with I think is the changing terrain feature. I have a good idea on how it should happen in game but am not sure how to implement it. Do you have any idea, or know a mod that can do that ? Change a terrain depending on the turn number, its close tiles' terrains, the counter, and so on ?
The math would be that way : above 50 on the counter, the ecosystem gets destroyed. Desert spreads from desert tiles onto plains, forests and jungles die, a river on a plain tile becoming a desert is dried to a riverbed. Under 50, the reverse happens. It is a pretty straightforward thing when you think about it but I'm sure it will turn more complicated than that
I will certainly use this nuke by the way ^^ it looks fitting !

Ajidica :
Thanks ! Civilisations are more different in terms of gameplay and their different capacities. I have tried to keep it simple so that they don't imply a certain civic/culture or way of playing... but more background is possible. I will post a more complete explanation soon. I have only 6 regular civs now because I thought it would be easier to start with, but some others are also planned... tried to limit my ambitions a bit ^^

 

[topsecret]

Topsecret :
What I will have the most trouble with I think is the changing terrain feature. I have a good idea on how it should happen in game but am not sure how to implement it. Do you have any idea, or know a mod that can do that ? Change a terrain depending on the turn number, its close tiles' terrains, the counter, and so on ?
The math would be that way : above 50 on the counter, the ecosystem gets destroyed. Desert spreads from desert tiles onto plains, forests and jungles die, a river on a plain tile becoming a desert is dried to a riverbed. Under 50, the reverse happens. It is a pretty straightforward thing when you think about it but I'm sure it will turn more complicated than that
I will certainly use this nuke by the way ^^ it looks fitting !

I didn't make this Mod and I can't do Python
But to get help with making desert instead of coast, Post your problem in this thread

 

[Laozu]

Thanks ! I will have a look.

 

[Laozu]

As for the six basic civilisations :
- The technocracy will obviously get an advantage in science. Their disadvantage is for health, because they did not have to adapt to the new conditions as they were in orbit; plus, because of spending generations in a very light gravity environment, they became quite frail.
Their palace, the Sky Shuttle, will be a source of "ancient technologies" resources early in the game, which will enable them to access a significant bonus of science. However all new units created in the capital will also have the trait "spaceborn" that will give them strenght penalties. Workers also work slower. When they access their "revelation" stage by building their mausoleum to the founding father, they will be able to restart the shuttle which will be a powerful air unit.
- The world government will be the depositories of ancient powers and as such benefit from a certain legitimacy. However, they will be more vulnerable to political units that challenge this legitimacy; and as such have a penalty against spies and such.
In term of game, the world government starts with the United Nations Bunker as its palace, which will automatically found the religion/ideology "conservatism". Spies will get a bonus at all attempts against the WG, as it is so easy to remind them that they are responsible for the apocalypse.
- The corporation's complete society is based on the gain and exchange of money. The more money they have, the more they can play around with it, which translates into a social control/productivity bonus depending on the amount of money the player possesses. Their palace, the Underground Market, will generate more money for every civ with which the player has open borders. However, if at any point they should lose that money, the penalties would also be strong.
- The children of the revolution are based on political uprising as a way to push forward the limits of human capacities. It is what motivates them, what drives them forward. They will be much more vulnerable to unhappiness/uprisings. However, they also have access to a Unique Civic, the Permanent Revolution, that spawns partisan spies in enemy cities.
- The guardians of Eden based their entire civilisation on environmental preservation. They have the next-to-unique ability to plant crops from the pre-war period, thanks to their palace, the Seed Gene Bank. They also start with unique capacities for decontamination that translate into the six squares around the capital becoming clean, pure plains. The rest of the word is still covered in ashes and struggling for food, so that's a big head-start. Their responsibilities will not, however, let them use a large array of polluting technologies such as oil. And therefore all combustion-based vehicles.
- The Scars have an uneasy taste for violence of all sorts. When they first thought about regrouping, they did so around the Pit, an extreme arena where slaves fought for their lives against all sorts of mutants. This invention is what regrouped them, and it became their palace. The Pit gives every unit created in the city 6XP, representing the warrior culture of the Scars. However because they are so prone to violence, organising them can be a real pain. They have a higher maintenance cost then other civs considering the distance to the capital. They have slower research. They dislike so-called "democratic" sissy talks. They will probably start with a very bad penalty in terms of diplomacy. But who cares, since they are here to be plundered, anyway ?

I hope that these capacities would provide different gameplay for each civs, what do you think ?

 

[Randomness]

hmmm... Well, by the sounds of it, FfH has all the features you want. Add Fury Road's mapscript, revamp the tech tree, units, civics, civs, promos, and events, and you got your mod Kind of a Frankenstien solution but whatever works, right? Depending on how comfortable with DLL and Python, you could just take the parts you need and modify them as you need.

 

[Laozu]

Well, that was more or less the plan, really ^^
Since this is my first mod and I have no coding ability whatsoever, I thought I would use features that I knew already existed, to be sure they were even possible. Where I will spend most time would be the tech tree, units, civs, promos and events as you said !
I'm spending a lot of time trying to balance the tech tree, which isn't easy since it is already quite long. It should cover quite a long period of time, so...
Actually I got another civ-fanatic friend to help me on the graphic part, as the mod wouldn't feel the same without custom terrains. This is a huge relief