Epopea: A mod to make the world come alive.
Elemental Forums
Epopea:
A mod to make the world come alive
So I have really enjoyed the game since 1.1 and have been thinking of unique ways to mod things, ways that don't encroach on other modder's territory. One idea I have is to make a map that has a story behind it. We all know the lore of the official game, but since the campaign didn't really come through as something useful in sandbox, no that it was intended to, I want to make a map that uses specific locations and quests to add lore to places and make the world seem asleep rather than dead. What is the difference you ask?
A dead world must be filled with new life from the Sovereigns, while a sleeping world may be slowly woken from its slumber, allowing for incremental, but effective storytelling, arising from the world itself. I want to make a map that has a specific player start. I want there to be quests nearby that hint at a previous, but ancient, civilization. I want mysteries to unfold from these quests. As one works his or less likely her way across the map, there will be more and more dungeons that unearth an epic tale of pre-cataclysmic intrigue. One will find ancient tomes, describing great riches and magic below the marshmallow earth of the Realm of Epopea. As the game progresses global events will wreak havoc on the balance of power in Epopea. Anything, from a horde of the undead to a race across the world will ignite new rivalry and ensure that mere resources can never mean total victory. As the seasons pass into the thousands, truly great beasts will emerge, either woken by one's explorations into the perilous depths below, or perhaps an ancient enemy of the once powerful Kingdom that ruled Epopea, flown here over vast distances from a far off realm. The game will finish with a 100 turn battle for supremacy of the Deus Ex Machina, the very machine that was meant to save Epopea from the Cataclysm so long ago.
This is the kind of depth I want to add to a map. A story spanning thousands of seasons. Enemies that seem to be conquered, only to reappear stronger than ever. Further than all this, I want to use the tile editor to actually design every single tile so as to create a lucid environment, rather than the minutia of random pieces, stapled together with totally illogical resource placement. I want to make a valid effort at convincing people that the potential of map modding goes far beyond mere assurance of uniform play and strategic map locations.
This endeavor will take not only my knowledge of storytelling and fantasy aesthetic, but certainly help and borrowing and in most cases outright stealing from the modders in the community. All of you will of course credited for any contribution, but I like to use other people's mod files to save time, if they give me permission first. 
Here is what I will need from Stardock:
-The ability to cause global events
-The ability to make the AI aware of events (AI triggers and creature or army spawning)
-A good quest editor
-A good army/creature editor
-Advice on how to implement things I want to do without premium skills in writing code
-Updates to the editors to facilitate complex creations i.e. a search function or the ability to put icons on each tile in the list that I have created.
Here is what I will need from the Mod Community:
-Filling in of the gaps that Stardock is too busy to handle
-Permission to use your mod files as needed (assuming you will be duly acredited)
-Feedback
-Mod compatibility discussion
-Suggestions on what kind of content could be added to such a project
-A little bit of xml checking should I need to troubleshoot problems
-Troubleshooting
My first project is going to be making the world, which I will post as it develops, and assigning locations for storytelling. I am really excited to see how detailed I can make the map with the assortment of eye candy that is available through the tile editor.
Will post more as it develops...
