TAM-Specific Events + Quests

[Shqype]

With BTS we gain the Events and Quests mechanic, which can be used to greatly improve the versatility, replayability, and flavor of The Ancient Mediterranean.

This thread will be kept as a testament to the events and quests that go into TAM once they're fleshed out, but it will also remain as a brainstorm and discussion thread to come up with the ideas for this new mechanic.

Do you have any ideas for what you'd like to see in TAM? Let us know what events, triggers, and effects you feel would make TAM more interesting.

 

[Marmoteo]

That pretty much answers my question from the other day .

Well, what about using some of the events from Vanilla? Like the ones that encourages you to get a certain resource from your opponent, or the one that gives your troops certain benefits? There's many from Vanilla that could be changed a bit to fit the TAM flavour.

For a quest involving building X slave markets could end up giving you 1.- Without spending any gold an extra hammer produced by the slave markets.
2.- By spending a reasonable amount of gold you could maybe add +3 free worker 'specialist' in your capital.

Or a random event like... 'Our local high priest had a vision, and now encourages the people of X city to improve our Holy Site"

- Holy Site in X city gives an extra +1
- (Paying a reasonable amount of gold) Let the city become a major destination for pilgrims! (Holy Site gives +1 )

I dunno, I'm just taking ideas from vanilla but using them for TAM. Would have to think more for something a lot more original, hah.

 

[GoodGame]

A Bread and Circuses type event.

Basically a class war between poor/landless farmers and aristocratic farmers.
To be handled similar to the standard slavery event where you can suppress the rioting to some degree, crush it completely, or ignore it.

Trigger: city that is both sick and unhappy. And perhaps also civic choice.

Event text:
"Sir, the peons are angry that your aristocrats are buying up all the good farm land and charging outrageous prices. The small farmers can't compete, and many citizens are landless and poor because of it. A young politician is trying to make a public outrage of it".
Responses:
1. Have the 'politician' put to death. [+1 unhappiness for 20 turns and a revolt in the city (units injured). Event won't be triggered again in that city. ]
2. Nominate the politician to a minor post where he can oversee free grants of food to the people. [+1 happiness 10 turns, all stored food is removed from granary. Event may be triggered again in that city. ]
3. Institute a tradition of Bread and Circuses to keep the people happy and amused. [ subtract 100 gold once, granary is drained once, +6 culture per city permanently, +1 happiness in city permanently, -2 food in city permanently. Event won't be triggered again in that city].


some background:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_supply_to_the_city_of_Rome#Grain_supply_and_Roman_politics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracchus

 

[GoodGame]

How about a Helen of Troy type event to replace one of the bad marriage events?

One of our young men has kidnapped the beautiful daughter of <insert civ>. Her parents demand her return as she was not rightfully bethroted.
Shall we:
Return her with apologies (-100 gold, -1 rep with the civ).
Return her and allow <insert civ> to punish the prince? (-1 happy in all your cities, -100 gold, no rep change with civ).
Refuse, as the glory of her beauty is your civ's alone (automatic declaration of war).


Flipside, have your civ's princess be captured, and declare war, else lose honor with all leaders (-1 rep). Cool if the princess is a capturable object that can be returned to your civ (+1 rep with all leaders if you do return her to your capital).

 

[GoodGame]

and one for The Trial of the Philosopher?
(inspired by Socrates).

Trigger: discover Philosophy, lagging in the tech race.

"An old man is accused of corrupting the young of our city of <city name>, and encouraging atheism. Worse he has established a school for his teachings. We have seized him, but what should we do?"

1. Put him to death (+1 happiness, -3 lightbulbs in that city for 10 turns).

2. Let him go, he is a moron (+2 culture in city permanently).

3. Glorify his teachings (cost 100 gold, free Academy in that city (+50% lightbulbs, etc..).

 

[primordial stew]

How about something with the Sea People http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_peoples? "The ends of several civilizations around 1175 BC have instigated a theory that the Sea Peoples may have caused the collapse of the Hittite, Mycenaean and Mitanni kingdoms."

I suppose it could be made more generic by just having some "mass migration" event. Another historical example is the westward expansion of tribes through the steppes that caused the Goths/etc.. to push into the Roman empire.

 

[primordial stew]

I'd like to see an event linked to the death of a great leader (GG maybe). Consider what happened when Alexander the Great died. His massive empire was split amongst his generals. The Roman Empire occasionally went through temporary splits, except for the final split into the Eastern and Western Empires.

 

[Breunor]

How about something with the Sea People http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_peoples? "The ends of several civilizations around 1175 BC have instigated a theory that the Sea Peoples may have caused the collapse of the Hittite, Mycenaean and Mitanni kingdoms."

I suppose it could be made more generic by just having some "mass migration" event. Another historical example is the westward expansion of tribes through the steppes that caused the Goths/etc.. to push into the Roman empire.

Ive always viewed these as essentially a 'barbarians' (or as you said, 'mass migrations)' event. Obviously, there were a lot in the period covered in TAM and many (like the Sea Peoples) were devastating. I usually think of two 'kinds' of barbarians, nomadic tribes usually from the steppes specializing in horse based warfare, and land based armies.

Technically, I wouldn't coniosder the Sea Peoples invasion genrally as a migration, but it certianly can be argued (for example, the Philistines) but I veiw it more in a raiding context. But many were migrations, like the Cimmerians and many of the Celtic invasions.

Of course, one era's barbarians are another's civilization. Generally, the Scythains were considered 'barbarians', as were the Sarmatians, but we have kingdoms like the Parthains. To the Romans, the Ostrogoths were barbarians, but they created a stable kingdom in Italy. The Celts and Slavs formed stable civilizations.

I agree that random events are suitable for some of these types of movements. I think the big question is, from a game standpoint, should we would allow a random force to cause the kind of devastation they did historically? If we do, it can 'undo' the players' skill up to that point.


Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[GoodGame]

It would be interesting if the Sea Peoples were something more. If nothing else they were pretty well organized "barbs" with a definite strategy of destroying government centers, but not razing the 'cottages' according to this article: http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199503/who.were.the.sea.people..htm.

If the article is right there's more interesting tie-ins with a fall into anarchy as a result of the Trojan war exhausting both sides thoroughly. So the Sea Peoples might represent a temporary "Robber Baron Knights" period, with the event working like Rhye's of Civilization does when a brand new civ enters----military units and cities in the neighborhood switch sides and start wars.

Just a thought. They'd at least represent a severe barb uprising, perhaps running off of a kind of armageddon counter (from FFH2).

 

[Breunor]

It would be interesting if the Sea Peoples were something more. If nothing else they were pretty well organized "barbs" with a definite strategy of destroying government centers, but not razing the 'cottages' according to this article: http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199503/who.were.the.sea.people..htm.

If the article is right there's more interesting tie-ins with a fall into anarchy as a result of the Trojan war exhausting both sides thoroughly. So the Sea Peoples might represent a temporary "Robber Baron Knights" period, with the event working like Rhye's of Civilization does when a brand new civ enters----military units and cities in the neighborhood switch sides and start wars.

Just a thought. They'd at least represent a severe barb uprising, perhaps running off of a kind of armageddon counter (from FFH2).

I don't want to disparage the sea peoples, but there really were quite a lot of really important 'barbarian' invasions that I don't know if I would favor treating them specially. We have the Hyksos, the Gutians, the Kassites, and many Sarmatian groups.

There is no question that the Dark Ages came soon after the Sea Peoples, so some sort of Armageddon counter type rule could be neat.

Best wishes,

Breunor