alibenbaba

Join Date 01/2008

Armageddon

End-Game Idea

Hiho,

You did promise spells of great effect that will alter the world itself, here's what I consider strong magic
- and, I find - an elegant solution to end game: Armageddon.

I'd like to see such a mechanism in the game - but not in the likes of archon II, populous, MoM (Spell of Mastery) or GalCiv (Research Victory)

I would prefer a way that makes endgame armageddon a goal to base one's strategy around during the game, and to make it not a one shot game winner but only nearly so. And to have a variety of.

Examples:
Base your nation (or whatever) around animating the dead. Become independent of living population. Reach armageddon through a plague killing all the living, creating dead to strengthen you even more. This will greatly harm anyone depending on the living, but not other necromants or others using inanimates as their backbone.

Become a nation living in the seas. Reach armageddon by flooding the land. This will strengthen you greatly and remove land dwellers from the game, but will also strengthen others living in the seas.

One single armageddon spell can therefore be enough to instantly win the game - But it doesn't have to. It's effects still would be very helpful - but will also help some enemies, maybe to a degree you don't want armageddon because it would help a secific enemy even more than yourself. (You are the weaker one of two underwater players)

And it should be obvious what you're trying to do, so players on the receiving end have a chance to stop you.

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Interesting take I wonder what would be the armaggedon spell for regular land based humans? Or would they be considered too good and thus would not be able to have access to the armmeggedon spell?

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Something like that would be nice, but it would have to be restricted in some way. For example:
If you start a game on the largest map possible, wanting to play a VERY long game, then an armageddon spell such as the flooding spell would be incredibly overpowered and ending the game sooner than you want to. Sure, you could disable armageddon spells for that particular game, but on the other hand, you might want to cast one of those spells yourself. Let's say you play as an undead kind of kingdom. Now, if you would use an armageddon spell which simply kills every living thing, I think it should be limited to, say, half the map. With a spell like flooding, this wouldn't really be possible.

But I think it's a great idea nonetheless, I just don't think the spells should affect the whole map.

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@Leinad) Several possibilities for land based humans. First - what can they base their strategy around? E.g. strict non magic users, only regular troops. Armageddon - Void magic, magic is impossible. Kills all magic creatues. Other idea: Holy fanatics - Armageddon Wrath of 'Supernatural Being' will smite the souls of nonbelievers (e.g. those following pagan nature magic, but not those having no soul)

I'm just brainstorming not actually balancing all available strategies against each other, as I can not know the full game design.

@Zamul) The armageddon would be end game only, casted when ordinarily someone would cast the spell of mastery and just win said very large game. If you are the only undead and kill all others, the effect is the same, so no harm done. If you are not, you will at least have to verify your position will be better after casting the spell. You could as well end up outnumbered by another player.

The basic idea is to end an already won game quickly, but at least ease up the game if you have not alreay won. You kill off 5 minor empires and can concentrate on the only real enemy left in the game.

Part of that is that said 5 minors have not been able to stop you from casting the spell that will kill them, hence they were only a nuisance preventing the resolution of a game they had already lost.

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The idea sounds interesting but I can't help but fear that alot of Uber players would quickly dispatch their less than "experienced" enemies taking a lot of fun out of the game. Since fun is kind of the point, it sounds like it is something that could be abused or over used.

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I loved flooding the world in Alpha Centauri. I guess it could start as an effect restricted to your territory, but there could be a more expensive way to make it start spreading out. On a related note, Stardock's races all appear to be land based. I'd love to have some option to build, fight and explore stuff underwater, even if the specifics are something we have to mod in.

Also, building inside mountains, so I can make some sort of hellish tribute to Dwarf Fortress, with a magma chamber, warriors carrying their children into battle, and rows of elf skull totems lining the roads. Urist McMithrillar has cancelled casting Spell of Mastery: throwing tantrum.

Edit: I should add that all powerful finishing spells would probably fit well into the Stardock tradition of alternative game endings. Your empire has reached critical mass, you've effectively won. You want your score, but can't be bothered to clean up every last enemy town. Solution? Burn the world!

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Hmm Im just thinking that maybe adding a little backfiring effect in the actual spell itself. Say you can do armagedon spell "tear the fabric of the universe apart" "flood the planet" "meteor bombardment" ,hehe or what have you, but you can only set a starting location of the spell (so that village, town, castle or capital city definetly gets it) and then it goes out of control and starts affecting everything in a more or less random way. Hence the armagedon, "the end of the world" and all that. So you might want to think twice before using the spell...

As per previous poster just brainstorming

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+153

In his great big details post today, Brad said: "The spells are going to be intentionally de-balancing in late game. I.e. by late game, you'll be able to do Populous level damage to the world. A lot of the reason we had to create a new engine was because we needed one where the world could be truly wrecked."

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