Need scenario ideas
 

I am trying to put together some new scenarios and need some ideas. You don't have to give me a bunch of details. You can if you want. Be as brief or verbose as you would like. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Just tell me what kind of scenario you would like to see.

I am just working on single player scenarios right now.

Geoschmo

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

Civil war scenerio.. I may do a Version of this for TechMod myself.

Pre-game setup, you need to save the map and edit it a bit. Add a single star system not connected to the others, and put two empires in it. One should be research-focused, the other a copy (with a suitable "rebelish" name) of the empire you'll play in the galaxy proper.

Anyway, you play against the AI to the point where you're really dominating the game, get a lull in the action, and turn off all the AIs. Then research stellar manipulation with the high-tech empire, and establish contact with the main empire.

Now you give away half (more or less, affects the challenge of the scenerio) to the "rebel" empire, then blow up the dummy star system, taking the high-tech empire (and the rebel "homeworld") with it. Advance one or two more turns so the explosion/death message is past, and turn the AI's back on for everyone except the player.

That sets up the scenerio. Who you have the player play is up to you. The splinted empire? The rebels? Or maybe one of the beat-down AIs, capitalizing on the chaos..

Phoenix-D

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

A ruins empire!

The ruins of your planet are uncovered by an alien race, but this time, not everything is dead.

You start with all of the ruins techs, including an operational Planetary Shield, and some weapon platforms. On your very first turn your planet is being attacked by an AI (who is fended off due to the platforms, shield and racial ships, but try to make it a big battle)

The survivors of your race awaken, and must rebuild. They start with very little technology, though possibly a few medium/high areas (soft techs, such as psychology, military science, etc)
There are a handful of powerful, no-maintenance multi-racial tech frigates/destroyers at your spaceyard, but your race has lost the racial abilities long ago. (so you can't deconstruct & analyse, except for ship construction tech)

You were discovered by a long range expedition, so you still have some time to secure your system before the aliens show up in force, but when they do, your recovering civilization will still be far behind in normal technology. The few ships leftover from the fall will be your flagships for many years to come.

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

S-J, I like the sound of that

My suggestion would be for a 'empire raid' scenario

You would need to use an islands or clusters style galaxy for this one.

The idea is you start off as normal. In one of the clusters is the remains of a highly technically advanced empire that has been ravaged by civil war. Lots of techs to purloin, lots of advanced ships to salvage, every world is a veritable feast of advanced technologies to wet any new races' appetite etc

The flip side is that there are still a lot of automated defensive systems active on the ravaged worlds, weapons platforms, bases, satellites, mines etc.

The second flip side is that this cluster is actually just a sector of a large empire that has been through a devastating civil war. The civil war has finished and the empire wants its turf back, and particularily doesnt like a lot of upstart new races (especially those bloody Phong)
plonking around in its backyard. The empire is big, resourceful and higher tech than the players (save what they have nicked) which means the players will have to band together before the juggernaut takes them out

I have no idea how this could be set up but there you go

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

Those are very original. Good ideas. I will have to work on those.

Any others? Don't be shy. Here's your opportunity to contribute to the SEIV community, and not do any real work. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Geoschmo

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

Geoschmo

The other idea I have tried successfully on board games is what we called the 'Kentish standoff'

again the cluster set-out might suit this. The idea is that each player gets say 100 turns to build up their empire.

They have no contact with the other empires but there are certain systems they cannont enter which form neutral ground. Each side fortifies the warp points to that neutral ground and on turn 101, all hell breaks loose.

This is a particularily tough game and the fleet battles on the Starfire game I ran it on were massive

Its tough cos by turn 100, you have quite high tech and a lot of ships and player's individual styles really come to the fore.

Again, no idea how you could set this out but could be worth a go

Blimey, how did I get to a first class private?

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Blimey, how did I get to a first class private?<hr></blockquote>Rank here is based on number of Posts. The more one Posts, the faster one gets promoted, which proves that hot air rises. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Growltigga:
The other idea I have tried successfully on board games is what we called the 'Kentish standoff'

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

Again, no idea how you could set this out but could be worth a go
<hr></blockquote>

We did something like this as a multiplayer setup on PBW. Just modified a map and starting positions so each player only have one front door to their cluster. Didn't really set a rule about 100 turns, but with only one way in it wasn't hard to defend you space until people developed wapr point manipulation.

That was quite the game I tell you. One of the most fun SEIV games I've been in.

What I am trying to do though is create some single player scenarios. This idea would be kind of tough to implement with a single player against AI. Can't really control the ai, and they can tend to be daft at times when you start putting them into unusual situations like this. In our PBW game a couple guys dropped out and the AI's that took over didn't have a good time of it.

Geoschmo

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

Noted. It is 23.10 here in England and I am two bottles of Chateauneuf du pape southward of being sober.

Will put my thinking cap on for some suitable scenarios

Regards

(PS If you get any more Posts from me tonight, especially if they involve cunning plans to make an SEIV gamebased on Kylie Minougue's cleavage - ignore me as you will know I got to bottle number 3 on my own)

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

Puke, Are you reading my mind? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I was thinking exactly along those lines when the dead empire was suggested. I was thinking about leaving damaged ships laying around. But mothballed ones might be better because they wouldn't be a maintenance drain.

I'll have to work on that a little.

Geoschmo

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

to add fuel to the empire raid idea (a great idea there) you might want to throw in some fleets of mothballed ships. in order to acquire them, you would have to either capture them with bording parties (never actually tried fighting against a mothball fleet, so i dont know how it works.. have to try it.. do they get shields?) or force the owner to surrender (neutral empire starting on one world somewhere).

you could make it trickier by putting the neutral empire off in one corner of the map, and stashing their mothball fleets in a nebula somewhere else. you would have to race around with a construction ship to unmothball them inorder to build up your numbers, and you would have to do it before your competition found them.

this could even be done in the same vein as the old Andromeda or Voyager scenarios that were written earlier. you start with one ship, and you start acquiring more as you progress. let conquest be the goal, but let the starting ship be sucky instead of mighty. sneak around capturing and refitting mothball ships untill you have enough remote miners to sustain an income, and enough warships to form a fleet.

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by geoschmo:
Puke, Are you reading my mind? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I was thinking exactly along those lines when the dead empire was suggested. I was thinking about leaving damaged ships laying around. But mothballed ones might be better because they wouldn't be a maintenance drain.

I'll have to work on that a little.

Geoschmo<hr></blockquote>

Better yet - do both! Mothball some heavily damaged ships, so they have to be unmothballed and then repaired.

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

for that to work, you would have to have the technology to build them in the first place. you can only repair components that you have researched. if you just mothball them, they can be ships of any technology level.

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

Can you analyze damaged ships & get tech advances from the damaged components? If you can, then with a big enough fleet of mothballed ships, you could analyze some ships to get the tech, then repair the rest.

Or maybe you should just be forced to protect the mothballed fleet until you could research enough tech to repair it (providing a bit more interest to the scenario).

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

Nope, you can't analyze damaged components.

Btw, I will be posting my new sceario along these lines later today. Hope it's a good one. It was fun setting it up.

Geoschmo

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

Hey! I've seen that scenario! It was called "Barbarian Wars" in the old Nexus Magazine for Starfire Empires. It is an excellent game, using a 'closed' Warp Point to section off the "Dead Sector" of the Empire from the "Live" one. and now that you've brought up the idea, does anybody know if it is possible to create "closed" Warp Points, which are not immediately detectable?

Your defensive strategy can go up in smoke when you see the Bugs pouring into your Main Construction yards that you thought were safe...

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

"know if it is possible to create "closed" Warp Points, which are not immediately detectable?"

Sorta. You can do this in the map editor (Last time I checked anyway, a few patches ago) BUT the warp-point that results is one-way only.

In other words, if you can't see it, you can't use it. So you can warp into a system with no way back to where you came..

Phoenix-D

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

or you could make one with the sector cloak ability.

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Puke:
or you could make one with the sector cloak ability.<hr></blockquote>Actually I tried this a few patches ago and it didn't work. I haven't checked recently, but don't think it's been changed.

The problem is you can't mask stellar objects (Stars, warp points, storms) only planets and asteroids.

You miight be able to do a mod with a blank bitmap as a warp point picture. Then you wouldn't be able to see it until you went through it, or at least clicked on it. I think the AI would probably know it's there though.

Geoschmo

[ 27 December 2001: Message edited by: geoschmo ]</p>

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

For the ruins empire idea you could have the few old ships be like the voyager scenario where they have way more components than it is possible to have (don't know how he did that) and then these ships are there for you until they die, never to be built like that ever agian.

also the civil war thing sounds really cool. I don't get how you plan on setting it up, even though im sure it makes sense, but you might have a system where some people would be rebels and some not, even same sector. and the empire (non-rebel) headquarters could be a planet type that is cloaked to full level sensors (you need highest level to see or...you can't ever see it, you need to do intel operations to get it, or use a partnership from another race that you control (you could have multiple races under your control representing the multiple rebel forces that are seperated (couldn't communicate at start) but all have same ideals, when you meet hte weaker coudl surrender to stronger or stay separate)).

For PBW you could do the same thing. wiht cooperative players (there are a few a-holes out there even on PBW) you could have a civil war operation that costs intel points that are spent somehow out of game and then there are parameters as to what revolts and what doesn't and these would be gifted to one of several'rebel' factions waiting to take over from some homeworld on the side of the galaxy.

And the one way warp piont woudl be going to the ancient race, that way you coudl go and see them (and probably die) but they couldn't come get you until much later.

great ideas everyone.

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

"I don't get how you plan on setting it up, even though im sure it makes sense,"

I described exactly how to do it! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif It's not something that can be set up on the spur of the moment unfortuntely..you have to do a little pre-planning OR some creative work with puppet political parties.

Phoenix-D

Re: Need scenario ideas
 

Setting one up right now, standard SE4. It'll probably require the TDM-Modpack races though.

Phoenix-D