Zombie Mod Proposal

[Calak]

Hey everyone. Sorry if this has been suggested already (I didn't see anything) but I think a zombie mod would be awesome. The idea is kind of like raging barbarians, but with zombies! So I could see this working one of two ways:
1) Zombies pop up like (and instead of) barbarians
2) A civ (or all civs) start having outbreaks at a random part of the game, maybe converting all population in a few cities to zombies (1 zombie unit per pop?) and then they spread like wildfire across the world

I think choice 1 would be easier to implement although 2 would be more interesting. There's a couple of things that I think would need to be in place for either version:
-Zombies should be able to win a fight against the current-tech melee unit, but should fall when softened by ranged attacks. They shouldn't be unstoppable, but 1v1 I think the zombie should be able to win or else an outbreak would be near impossible
-Units that lose a fight to zombies should instead of dying become a zombie unit of equivalent strength
-If the zombies manage to take a city than the city should be razed and produce more zombies as a result
-Down the road, new unit graphics would be crazy (I was thinking about proposing this for Civ IV b/c of the included zombie models from BtS but I think the ranged combat is a necessary component of the zombie experience) but for the time being if there was some fog/smoke effect (like unhealthiness from IV) that could be put over the units that would get the job done. Or at least give them a bio-hazard nationality flag
-If the zombies are too powerful maybe there could be a starvation mechanic - zombies start off way stronger than normal units but constantly lose health and can only replenish it through combat victories. I'd only suggest implementing this if the zombies consistently win.

Wouldn't that be interesting on a continents map, to conquer your continent and sail to the new world only to find it covered in zombies? Anyway I thought I would put the idea out there, maybe somebody could make this. I know I would play it.

 

[Abremms]

i would play this mod. a lot.

I think it would cool if it was a random event that may or may not happen in any given game. that way you can't plan for the zombie Apocalypse from turn one, you have to play the game against other civs like normal in case it doesn't come. that way when the zombie apocalypse DOES happen, it can catch the player off guard. that sounds like fun to me, anyways.

 

[Omega124]

For the combat aspect on the mod, Zombies should heal proportionate to how much damage they cause, not for killing a unit. This way they're much more stronger. Observe.

Say I have a Spearman attacking a Zombie, both at 10. I do 5 damage to it, but it does 4 to me. Well, immediately afterwards, it heals by 2 damage, so I have a 5 Spear against an 8 Zombie, and then it attacks. Conclusion: The Spearman is screwed.

Of course, to help the plucky humans to survive, it will always round down. 5 damage would heal by 2, 7 by 3, 9 by 4, etc. You also can't heal yourself if you're dead, meaning if I would kill the zombie in the attack, it doesn't get healed, it dies. Finally zombies wouldn't heal naturally, which means a smart player can easily kill them.

A city shouldn't be razed if captured (How can the zombies destroy the city?). Instead, the population should go to 1, some of the buildings destroyed from the riots (Since these are zombies, it wouldn't necessarily be militaristic building), and zombies proportion to the amount of population lost become zombies. Obviously, the city can't grow if controlled, as there's no one living in it that can breed. Since these guys aren't sapient, building that survive give no effect, and they can only build more zombies. Finally, if you take an infected city, you should have the option of giving it back to the owner, if they're still around.

I'm in support of this mod, and I think combining this with World 2010 would be the best thing since sliced bread.

 

[EmperorFool]

This was something I had hoped to do in Civ4 had I had free time outside of BUG. One idea I liked was to make health more important so the likelihood of a zombie outbreak would rise as the overall health dropped. Plus you have trade routes with other nations in 4 that would allow for an outbreak to travel.

All good stuff, and I think it would be really fun in 5 with the more interesting combat.

I agree that zombies should heal as they do damage, and any unit involved in melee combat with a zombie unit--even if it didn't lose--should either have a chance of becoming a zombie itself. Have another meter for each unit that is its "infection rate" which determines the amount of infection carried by that otherwise normal unit. This way it might become a zombie later, after you've already moved it to your city to heal.

Infection rate should spread to adjacent units as well. This forces you to spread your units out to avoid spreading the infection and move them close to defeat the zombies.

 

[Emerald_Knight]

I like the idea, I was thinking about a Zombie Mod too; go for it!

 

[TheCaptn]

Awesome... A zombie mod is also high on my wishlist, but I have a slightly different take on it. A more complicated one, but it's really intended as a post-apocalyptic scenario rather than zombies simply replacing barbarians... Picture this:

- Seed the map with a bunch of sprawling Modern Era city-like tiles. They'll actually act more like barbarian camps than true cities though.
- These cities spawn zombies. Fast.
- Zombies wander around for a certain number of turns until they starve. When they feed it sustains them for longer.
- Zombies give chase (seems like there's already a game mechanic for that) and also call in other zombies within a certain range.
- Player units become zombies when killed.
- Players start in the Industrial Age, with a settler and two military units.
- Military units can transform into workers and back again, but it takes a turn (like with upgrades)
- Player towns can be razed for an instant settler (i.e. you can pull up stakes and move camp).
- Resources slowly build up, the 'richness' is a measure of how frequently this happens.
- Resources, once harvested, remain in the 'pool' even if you move the town that harvested them.
- The infested cities offer abundant resources but are hard to hold, since zombies continually spawn around them.
- Infested cities must be OBLITERATED BY NUKES to clear them off the map.
- Barbarians and barbarian camps become 'gangs'. May be converted when killed, or else contribute some resources to the pool.

So then you start a game and see if you can restore order to the world... Yes, you just trade a zombie apocalypse for a nuclear wasteland in the end, but then you can play your next game in a Fallout mod or something.

[edit]
I picture that as the starting point rather than the final goal. Once it's playable like that we could worry about modding unit graphics, cleaning up the tech tree, and generally pinning more bells and whistles on.

[edit2]
I completely agree with the zombie healing method already mentioned. I kinda took that as a given within my scenario too... You gotta shoot 'em in the head, or else they'll just keep coming back.

 

[Opera]

I have this mod has a project as well though, again, with a different take.

Basically you would control a small group of survivors trying to reestablish society in a world completely infested by zombies.

Every resource would be strategic in nature and their gestion would be a key component of the game. Developping innovations (be them political, social, military, etc.) would require resources; construction structures would too; training (and especially equipping) units would too.

Culture would be very less sprawling and certainly renamed to "Control" or similar. Basically, a tile under culture would be controlled by survivors and free of zombies. If a zombie pass a turn on a culture tile however, it recedes immediately, being no more under control.

Most of the tile you'd have to create "Forts" rather than cities. They would pop some control (1 tile) and allow you to gather nearby resources. Founding new cities would be a hard and dangerous task: if it gets overwhelmed by zombies, it becomes a zombies nest, which spawn a lot of zombies and extend their influence ('control' for zombies) quickly.

Something like that.

 

[TheCaptn]

I have this mod has a project as well though, again, with a different take.

I like the way you think.

Do you see any need for mobility in a zombie mod though? It seems to me that from movies, comics and books, the groups who try to maintain control of 'their place' at all costs are the ones doomed to failure. No matter what precautions they take, the zombies eventually find a way in.
It's the groups who're prepared to cut their losses and move on that survive, if they can avoid attrition.

Maybe that should be a leader/faction thing?

Also what about terrain? I'd favor the Max Brooks approach of making colder climates safer somehow, but with less resources. I'm just concerned that would lead to the same scenario playing out over and over though: Start at the poles and expand toward the tropics as circumstances allow.

 

[Opera]

Well maybe that could be a gameplay mechanic: try to settle down your camps and hold them or wander to increase survival.

As for climate, I don't know. I didn't think about it... Hmmm. Not sure!

One thing I forgot: food resources would be very important, allowing your cities to grow: ie, to support 2 cities of 5 pop, you'd need 10 food resources (each tile would be able to hold more than 1, like strategic resources).

 

[TheCaptn]

I'm still thinking about this kind of mod a lot, so I'll keep bumping it from time to time when a new idea occurs to me.

Eventually I guess we'll need to separate ideas into the immediate get something out the door to encourage participation ones, or the more long-term goals of an ideal zombie apocalypse mod... What follows is more long-term:

Civ is generally about manufacturing, but a post-apocalyptic scenario is often more about scavenging and recovering the artifacts of the old world. Rather than making new things from scratch presumably you'd be making do with what you can find, turning a schoolbus into an armored juggernaut, a weed sprayer into a flamethrower, or of course the humble chainsaw into a decapitator.

How can we take that and make it a fun part of the game? Some 'resources' like food and simpler weapons should probably be both manufacturable and scavengable, but I think others like the more advanced weapons (firearms, modded melee, vehicles) should only be scavengable, while a top tier (modded firearms, armored vehicles) should require a small collection of resources, all brought back to a town or camp and combined in some way.

Also I'm rethinking my worker/warrior switching system for the long-term view... What if instead of that we had the different stereotypes of survivors, like Policemen, Farmers, Students, Rednecks, Medics, Accountants, Mechanics, Lunatics/Eccentrics, Housewives, and Bimbos. Each would have different strengths and weaknesses and unique upgrade trees, while a second linear upgrade path would exist for weapons.
So you might equip a couple of Farmers and a Student with machetes and send them out into the nearby fields to harvest food, while at the same time you equip a Policeman and a Redneck with a shotgun and chainsaw respectively and send them out in an old jalopy to some further resource (like a small town, or gas station/garage, or prison) on a scavenging mission.

 

[Darsnan]

I have this mod has a project as well though, again, with a different take.

Ditto, only with a sci-fi twist. I used to play a sci-fi game called Cyberstorm 2 which for a villain had the remnants of an invasion by a type of Von Neuman machines which set up bases and sent out units to kill your bases and units. So my thoughts are that the Barbarian units are called Wraith because they kill your military units, and capture your civilian units. Barbarian Camps are Wraith Processing Centers. And what do they process? Because the Wraith Attack Units need a biological element, they take the captured civilian workers and settlers and "process" them for incorporation into their attack vehicles (I'm thinking the perfect graphic for the Processing Centers would be the Arcology Ruins from BtS Next War, if your familiar with this). So when you rescue the civilian units from the Processing Centers your actually saving those people from a fate worse than death (i.e. being turned into mindless automaton).

D

 

[magzhi]

Nice idea I am starting doing it. But I have a problem that I can't do artwork(icons, animations, etc.) at all so I need someone to help me with artwork