War of the Worlds Scenario/Mod

[Yuri2356]

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

Let the great dissilusionment begin.



Planning on making a few different scenarios based on that classic work of Sci-Fi, and its various incarnations. In addition to the scens. , thw work done here could lead to a larger mod in which you act out the potential aftermaths of the war:
-human survivors vs the newly settled in Martian populace. (Supposing bacteria don't kill them off)
-The empires of man racing to rebuild after the destruction, and be the first to unlock the secrets left behind by the fallen invaders, but with the eyes of the invaders still glaring at our beloved home.

================News:================​

Update: 11/26/05
Units list for Martians begun.

Major choices that need to be made here include:

=========== Scenario ===========​

Setting:
-C. 1900, Time of the original novel.
----Scen. would be set in Southern England, with possible inclusion of the rest of the UK.
----Would use the units of the Era for man, and the original style Fighting machines for the Martians. (Though many versions of the old machine exist, so one would need to be chosen for this project)
- 1953 Time of the movie released by Paramount the same year.
----Scen. Would have global scale, with players able to choose between various major powers of the 50's weilding the weapons of the day. Martians would posess the '53 movie's war machines.
- 2005 Take on the Modern setting of the newest film.
----Another World-spanning scenario, With modern weapons for man and Paramount's new version of the Tripods.

Martians:​

Building/advancement:
-Can settle down and build new Units from landing sites, and limited tech advancement/terrain improvements availible as time goes on. (Matches up with the book's events, where they manage to set up a bit of a presence on Earth before going down, and somewhat fits with '53 movie as well)
-Only recieve fixed number of starting units, with possible event-triggered reinforcements. (Works if we try the 2005 version, since they just pop up from the ground instead of landing in meteors)

Power:
-How much shall they outclass human units? In the novel, we managed to take a few of them out early on, until they adapted and started to employ more effective tactics/weapons, at which point England was more or less pwned. However, for gameplay reasons the Martian advance can't be too one-sided, so how far ahead should they be? Really important for '53 and '05, where the machine's energy shields make them more or less invincible. (The '53s took a direct hit an atom bomb without even being scratched)

Economy:
-Ties in with building, will they have any major uses for wealth/resources pilliaged from Earth? If so, how much of an effect should they have?


Unit List:
Excavator
Strength - N/A Movement - 2 Cost - ?
Requirements:

Boni:
[Worker Unit]


Promotions:
N/A

A simple automated device used to flatten out land and clear debris. Well suited to manual labour which is below the surpreme minds of the invaders from Mars.​

Heat Ray Turret
Strength - ? Movement - 0 Cost - ?
Requirements: None
Boni:
+% Vs Gunpoder
+% Vs Melee

Promotions:
Combat
City Defense
(First strikes?)

Stationary defence unit consisting of a single heat ray projector on a pivoting mount. A Line of Sight weapon which can effectively lay down fire in all directions over great distance, though it is incapable of shooting arround obstacles. Used early on to defend opened cylinders until Fighting Machines can be assembled.​

Fighting Machine (Unarmed)
Strength - ? Movement - 2 Cost - ?
Requirements:
Boni:
+% vs Gunpowder
+% vs Cavalry

-% vs Artilery
-% vs Ships

Promotions:
Combat
(Melee unit promotions)

Fearsome weapons of chaos and destruction, evcen without armament the Martian tripod is deadly when pitted against the forces of Earth. With it's powerfull leg, armoured body, and great sweeping tentacles it can rip through infantry lines and toss men about like playthings. However, in spite of its fearsome stature, the Tripod can be felled by heavy cannon fire if hit squarely and caught off guard.​

Fighting Machine (Heat Ray)
Strength - ? Movement - 2 Cost - ?
Requirements:
Boni:
+% vs Gunpowder
+% vs Cavalry
+% vs Ships

-% vs Artilery

Promotions:
Comabt
(First strikes?)

A towering engine of destruction, with the merciless main weapon of the Martian invasion clutched in its grasp. Togeather the two are marridge made in in the lowest pits of hell, and with its nimble limbs the machine can turn the weapon any way it desires and carry its destructive power across the battlefield. Truly a thing to be feared, though well hidden cannons still stand a chance against it in an ambush.​

Fighting Machine (Black Smoke)
Strength - ? Movement - 2 Cost -?
Requirements:
Boni:
+% vs Artilery
+% vs Infanty

-% vs Ships

*Can bombard cities
*Behaves as Artilery

Lobbing shells, which in turn spew forth a foul and noxious gas, few things can hide from the power of the Martian's chemical arsenal. The low-hanging clouds seep into every ditch and trench and dugout, choking all who lie within with its icy grasp. Devastating when used against citys, but useless against the armoured hulls of ironclads.​

Fighting Machine (Heat Ray & Black Smoke)
Strength - ? Movement - 2 Cost - ?
Requirements:
Boni:
+% vs Gunpowder
+% vs Cavalry
+% vs Ships
+% vs Artilery

Promotions:
Comabt
(First strikes?)

*Can bombard Cities
*Behaves as normal unit

With its full arsenal brought to bear, little can stand against the diverse armament of this great Behemoth.​

Human​

Building/advancement:
The book takes place over a fairly brief timespan, as do the other invasions, so how much chance should humanity have to build and develop over the course of the War?

Power:
Same question as with the Martians, How week should our forces be? Should we get the odd lucky kill, or are our efforts little more than a diversionary tactic, delaying the inevitable?

Economy:
-Clearly a biggie for humans. If we're letting the war drag out long enough for industry to factor in, then the element of defending one's resources for as long as possible, at any cost, would be crucial to the human side, as would protecting your roads, towns, and other imrovements before the advancing armies.

=========== Mod ===========​

One of two possible variants, breifly mentioned before:

"Empire of Man" - The Martians were faught off in the original war, so man must now rebuild in the wake of the destruction. But can the feuding nations of Earth keep their differences aside in fear of annother attack, or will the lure of conquest with back-engineered martian weapons be too great?

"Earth Under the Martians" - Mars Kicked us 'ol school, and has now settles down on our lovely blue sphere. Human survivors try to hold out in the ruins as our home is stolen from us, and the Martian's unity starts to fracture with the crisis of departing their homeworld now a fading memory...



A lot of this will need to wait until we get full support for building Unit models, but for now we can at least lay out the concepts of it.

 

[Kissamies]

The 1938 radio broadcast is also one possible base for a setting. Early WW2 vs Martians seems to make good match. Personally I would prefer "the last years of 19th century" and it is not totally impossible to make it global like in "Global Dispatches".

For tech advancement, I think the Martian advancements would be various adaptations and new doctrines that makes their units and other stuff work better, but not give them new units or buildings much, except for flying machine, of course. For example in the book the Martians learned to efficiently dispatch the artillery from distance with their black smoke later on and stopped suffering losses. Humans would be the exact opposite, madly scrambling to develop all sorts of steampunk and other weird science contraptions to match the invaders, assuming they don't get squashed right away, of course.

"Empire of Man" mod sounds interesting too. Could make Martians barbarians that could still be there in the beginning and perhaps periodically appear to menace mankind once more. Reverse-engineered Martian stuff would lead all sort of interesting hybrid units and buildings.

 

[Yuri2356]

Ok, more Ideas of how to make this work.


First off, because of the brief time in which the war takes place, turns need to represent very short periods of time. Days at the minimum, though preferably fractions of days- Morning/Afternon/Evening/Night, or just Day/Night. (At least, for the England Scenario. In the global war, or the greater mod, would work better in months or years.) To the more experienced modders here, how difficult would it be to create cosmetic differences on the map between day/night times? Or add unit features which only operate at certain times of day?


Next, the Martians cities present a bit of an issue. The creatures themselves are practicaly paralysed by Earth's gravity, so they arren't able to do much in the way of working the land, or even moving until after they get their machines up and running. To reflect this, I propose that all normal tiles on Earth have a Health penalty which applies only to the Martians (If this is possible. If not, they could just start with a huge -ive for Health as part of their traits) This penalty would remain until you manage to get worker units out to start seeding the terrain with Red Weed. The RW would give a health + to the city for each tile present, as well as offering extra food, and probably a small defense bonus for martian units ('bout 10-15%) since they're more familiar with it than human soldiers would be. Early growth would be highly limited for the Martians and they'd only have access to the units given at the begining, giving the humans a chance to try and wear them down. This helps represent the time needed for the Martians to 'unpack' after landing.

Next, with the FMs, I see a fairly simple system to represent them-
First off there are four styles of near-identical FM, separated only by their armament.
You have the basic, unarmed machine. (Engages in Melee using tentacles and brute strength. Also scares the crap out of anyone they charge. Great vs infantry, not as much against artilery, and would have trouble with any air/armour deployed)
Machine W/Heatray (Attacks from distance, could get first strikes and bonus vs armoured and ships)
Machine W/Poison Gas (Completely Pwnz foot soldiers, Cavalry, and arty, but lacks a serious punch against hard targets. Could be used as artilery in city assaults, able to weaken defences/defenders and possibly kill of population.)
Fully armed Machine (Has the advantages of both HR and Gas, but the most expensive of the four.)

While one could build any of these straight from the base. They would be quite expensive and, only become a viable option later in the game due to the early growth penalty. So instead, to represent the Martians building weapons and distributing them to the FMs already in service, you can upgrade the unarmed unit to the HR, Gas, or Full units, and upgrade HR or Gas to a complete unit. At the same time, you could also downgrade units to lower levels and get money back from them, the re-arm them with something else.

Each unit would have access to a different set of promotions though, so the things your best FM picked up as an HR unit might become worthless if you switched him to Gas, and vice-versa.



Now, with these features rate in mind, the Martian deployment would go something like this:

Over each of the first 10 days, a new cylinder would arrive, founding a city at its crash site. The first would instantly recieve a free defensive unit. ("Heat ray turret") but the rest would need to build their own. This would give the humans a chance to try to destroy the new arrivals before they get up and running, and force the Martians to divert units to defend their reinforcements instead of just plain rushing the humans.

At arround Day 3, the first cylinder would start to recieve its First FMs, one per turn over the next five turns, and each unarmed. Each additional cylinder would recieve smaller numbers of machines (perhaps 2 or 3) three days after landing, to show the machines which were brought in pieces and assembles after landing. Further units would need to be built by the player, and would have to wait until workers could be deployed to start laying down the RW.

Mid game would then consist of the Human/Martian warfare.


To spice up the ending of the game, it takes more than just surviving for the humans to win. When there are only 10-5 days left before the end of the scenario, the Martians will have a technology unlocked for research which, if completed before the end of the game, would give them immunity to Earthly bacteria and hand them victory over we lowly humans. This means that only do the humans need to keep alive, they must ensure that the Martians can't secure enough of a power base to devise the cure. (A feat which would require a fair deal of effort on the Martian's part)

 

[Red Door]

I would certainly play/help work on this mod/scenario.
Is there a civ where there is no War of the Worlds, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars mods out there?