RoC-Unleashed! Development Thread

I'd like a roundtable discussion about the future era. I'm going to field some ideas, and I'd like some brainstorming and suggestions. A few of my original ideas aren't working out as well as I had hoped, and I'd like to have the future era work as well as the rest of the game.

Originally, I planned to make some special governments in the future era, and make units for those factions require the governments associated with them. There was a Holy Empire (using Warhammer 40K Space Marines), Technocracy (with robot units including the T-800 and Star Wars mechanical units) and a Mutant Nation (using the Ork units for WH40K). I had decided to drop the insurgency government. The problem is, units can't be tied to a government, only to techs and/or resources. The biggest problem with having all these different flavors of units in the game is figuring out how to make upgrade paths that make sense. If someone has a Mutant Nation government, and is building Slugga Boyz and Sooside Bommas, I don't want them also building Imperial Marines. I've tried putting all the Mutants first in each given upgrade path (such as infantry, paratrooper, etc.), then Robots, then Space Marines. That way, if someone has access to the Robot or Space Marine techs and resources, then they wouldn't be able to build Mutants, etc. I'm wondering though if there is a better way.

Here are a few of my options.

1. Drop all these extras, and just use "generic" futuristic units. I was using them already, as a default units (before the extras) for players who didn't research the optional government techs. This would work fine. But I'd be quite sad to see the WH40K Space Marines go. They are my favorite.

2a. Keep only the Space Marines, and get rid of the Robots and Mutants.

2b. Keep the Space Marines as regular units, and maybe only have a few Robot and Mutant "specialty" units stay in the game.

3. Keep all three, and just find a good way to manage the upgrade relationships between their units.

4. Semi-arbitrarily assign different civs to be Mutant, Robot, Space Marine, or generic civs in the future era. Then only give them access to these varieties of units for the future era. For example, I could have the Iroquois become a technocracy, the Americans a Mutant Nation, and the Aztecs as Space Marine faction. Then I wouldn't have to worry about figuring out the upgrade relationship between the factions. But it would also take the fun out of choosing which faction you would research and become, since it would be decided for you.

5. Remove two civs from the game, and make them, respectively, Mutant (Ork) and Robot sleeper civs. They could be positioned on the edge of the map in space, and would only come into play when humans made it to the space age. A Great Library-type of wonder could bring them up to speed technologically when contact is made. Only these two civs would have access to mutant and robot units. If I were to go this route, I would probably choose Netherlands and Ottomans (or Byzantines) to remove, since they are perhaps the most crowded on the map.

I'm open to thoughts and suggestions.
 
Dead Thread ? :(
 
Well, not exactly dead. But on hold. I have a section of my dissertation to work on between now and September, so it has first priority. When I didn't get any replies about the round table discussion I proposed, I figured that a project with little or no current support was not going to make me late on finishing my research project. Sorry....

I ended up going with option 2B, iirc. I got pretty far in adding the units before the pressures of writing my paper crowded it out of my schedule. Thanks for expressing some interest. I may be able to revive the project in the fall.
 
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