OT: idea for a new game

[Gandalf Parker]

I will flag this with the "recycled" icon.

It struck me that an interesting game could be created using almost all of "Space Empires IV" as a base, and maybe adding some of the better parts of "Dominions 2"

Ocean Empires and Domination
The theme would be "we moved to the oceans and took our territorial baggage with us". With a futuristic ocean-colonies theme most of what is in SEIV would work really well. The map might be abit more Dominions-like with provinces but other than that the colonizing, the combat, the resources, the modding, and most importantly the ships (I think we could keep ALL of the ships) would all port over nicely. If most of the base of the game were SEIV its something I would buy.

Id rather see a deeper dominions style of balance (rock-paper-scissors at a national level instead of unit level) which is very hard to do but makes for an excellent game. Also, the major reliance that dominions has on "summoned" (in this case capture/train) creatures as a base to equip into a unique unit could be added. Different creatures with different capabilities (dolphin, seal, killer whale, squid) boosted by the players choice of equipment add-ons to build off of the creatures natural combat or speed or stealth

Gandalf Parker

[NullAshton]

Just mod SE4...

[Suicide Junkie]

So, if we start with SE4, and start going nuts on the modding...

- You'd change all the system backgrounds into grasslands/desert/etc terrain. Storms would be dangerous mountains (damage), or magical dead zones (shield depletion), or whatever.
Planets would become cities. Probably to represent the capital of a province, so when you capture that, you get all of the production & bonuses.

- Ships would probably be used for commanders, while units would be the regular troops. The commanders would thus carry the troops through the warppoints and be required to move units between territories.
Designs would have to be restricted a lot, but that's ok.
One-per-vehicle of a commander component, with various base speed ability, hitpoints, attack/defense values, etc.
Similar for armor, shield, weapon.
Magical items could provide bonus move, shield regen, etc.

- There wouldn't be any defensive spell casting, and offense spells would target only one enemy at a time. Combat-wide effect spells would end up as sector-effect abilities and be on all the time. The commander would have the option of using the more obscure and powerful damage types, though.

- Summoned units...
You could potentially create a scenario where there are a set of neutral races scattered about... they would be given special techs allowing them to build unique units.
The player would then have to trade with them to get the units. Balancing the AI files so that they will build transports full of units and charge a reasonable price while not also giving away the homeworld would be a challenge.
Also, any player who has met them would be able to arrange a trade deal. If they're lucky and have troops in a nearby system, they may even be able to sneak out of enemy territory.

- The lack of resource types may be the biggest hurdle. Production is equivalent to SY rate, and money will match up with one of the resources, leaving only two magic gem types... both of which will likely be found in a majority of territories.
Adjusting the facility extraction rates way down to perhaps 10 resources per month, and scaling the dominions costs up to match could work for those two at least.

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On an alternative track, you could also stick with the SE theme, and simply restrict race design.

Take the characteristics modifiers, and severely limit the maximum change to 5% or so on most.
Then you can use the cultures settings to make big adjustments in groups as the modder sees fit. Each culture would have an advantage over some of the others, as in your race-level RPS feature.

Racial techs are optional, but you could add a restriction saying "only take this if you picked culture Y" and thus match up restricted tech with your balanced race-culture setup.

[Gandalf Parker]

I didnt see any spell casting really. More of a SciFi future ocean colony thing. Just SEIV in the oceans with all human races. But the ships, colonizing, combat, etc would all be SEIV needing very few changes

The only reason I mention Dominions is that the maps and use of "creatures" seemed to fit. Not really "summoned" but caught and trained. They could probably be done as a basic-ship style then equiped

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Or drones... so that they disappear (i.e. escape) after a while. Also, you wouldn't be able to control them during combat, which is more realistic. ROVs could take the place of fighters.

In fact I'm doing something reminiscent of what I'm saying above. In my Realism mod you start out with SLVs (drones) for single-use orbital work, then RLVs (fighters). Both can't jump. Later, solar sail ships and sleeper ships.

Read the Capship/Realism Construction thread for more info. It's just that the "creature drone" idea above reminded me of Realism SLVs.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

You could then (with regards to the first paragraph of my previous post) mod the drone/fighter launch comps so that they could only launch during battle. Makes sense, releasing trained animals during battle. Also, you can control drones out of battle, but you can't control creatures. Makes sense, no? And as for fighters (ROVs), well, they don't have that big an operational range, so launching them during combat makes sense.

You could also mod in something like "depth charges" which would function as fully controllable PD (since all "units" are underwater vehicles) for short range, with low accuracy but high attack. Also, torpedoes should be able to hit units. You could mod in subs that have innate clokaing capability.

But indeed this would make an excellent new game. You could then also create actual fighters, bomber, fighterbombers, helicopters, cruise missiles and such. Also, boarding combat would be executed by marines/commandos who would also be able to fight to conquer cities (or whatever it is that are your economic bases).

You could also make it possible to create a "choice" in the game setup screen, whether you would choose to play in, say, a WWII era, a modern-day era, or a sci-fi futuristic era. Each would have similar possibilities but different types of gameplay. Im WWII, "human torpedoes" were used. You could use those in the game. In the modern-day era, you would have access to massive aircraft carriers, AWACS, cruise missiles, trained animals, commandos boarding ships via helicopters, CHARCs, etc. The sci-fi futuristic era would have other ship types, perhaps with types like "plasma carrier" as being a fairly large ship with a heavy plasma cannon, interceptor firgates with medium-range lasers, swarm missiles, robotic units, perhaps even orbital lasers.

edit: Sorry, I forgot to say it, but I didn't think that this would fit between the first and second paragraphs of my previous post. I mean in a textual structural kind of way. I'm not post padding.

(I've got the 1k posts thread for that... ghegheghegheghe! No, just kidding)

[NullAshton]

Don't double post!

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Twenty minutes is enough that someone might miss it if he edited.