07-09-2017, 12:35 AM
Would anyone be interested in an Alamaze campaign for The Choosing?
Some time ago, I mentioned having campaigns for 2nd Cycle (Resurgent) and 3rd Cycle (The Choosing) with teams like Good vs Evil teams pitted against each other for the best out of five games. Back then (both times), some players were interested but not enough to warrant the code change. So while I'm waiting for Rick to get back to me about the new Maelstrom design, it may be possible to introduce the campaign concept for The Choosing's release if there's enough of interest in it.
I was thinking of a mini-campaign of three games but on different maps: Resurgent for the first game, Classic map for the 2nd game, and the new Maelstrom map for the 3rd game.
The first game will be a normal game on the familiar Resurgent map just to get things started.
The second game will run on the original Classic map. To make things interesting, the second game will have an everlasting Ice Age where there's only one season (winter) throughout the entire game! The map will be completely frozen over with the following effects: x1.5 terrain movement costs, low food/gold production (as now with winter), and water areas are completely frozen over where troops may travel across without ships! In fact, ships won't be able to move at all on the frozen water so don't bother building them!
The reason for having an Ice Age effect in the game is to simply have something different for the campaign! Like with Game of Thrones' "winter is coming" phrase, well with Alamaze, winter is here! Wizard kingdoms which will have an advantage in this format (just with their teleport spells alone) will be countered by banning all troop summoning spells (applies for all kingdoms and will be code-enforced). The only exception will be the Demon Princes' ability to summon skeletons since that is a special ability of demonic nature and not a magical spell.
With the restriction of not being able to summon troops, that should slow down wizard kingdoms to a certain degree. Also, it'll bring up an interesting consideration of the Raise Zombie spell where this effect is based on the conversion of the number of troops killed in the battle (so the spell will be permitted). Also, zombies brigades grow all by themselves by feeding off the dead so this should become a favorite spell and troop type in the frozen lands of the Ice Age. Zombies aren't that popular in Alamaze games anymore but in this frozen campaign, they should be. And it'll be kind of like being in Game of Thrones a little (whose new season starts July 16 I think) where undead zombie troops rule the frozen lands!
So an ever-present winter type of game will mean smaller militaries for everyone (due to the lack of food) and the additional terrain costs will slow down the pace of the game which some players have requested in wanting a longer game.
For the third game, I would like to use the new Maelstrom map (Centauria is too small for 10-12 players). Incorporating a new map into The Choosing shouldn't be a problem code-wise and this will give players an early peek at the new Maelstrom release. Though personally, I feel that a new map is just a minor add-on to the game. The main interest that I personally have in a new expansion pack are the new kingdoms, new troop types, new spells, and new game mechanics (from military tactics to pc improvements). I guess I'm that way due to playing a lot of fantasy turn-based strategy pc games like Age of Empires or Age of Wonders.
In such games, the map is just a randomly generated add-on to the game and has little importance to the actual game itself. I feel the same way with Alamaze. The map doesn't really interest me but rather Rick's ingenuity of creating distinct kingdoms, abilities, troop types, etc. for us to enjoy. So introducing players to the Maelstrom map now before the official version is released is fine with me. However, if Rick says otherwise and wants to wait on the new map until all of Maelstrom is released together (maybe 4-6 months from now), I could randomly generate new maps for us to use for the campaign.
So before I go any further designing the code, how many people would be interested in something like this where you would sign up to play a mini-campaign of 3 games strung together? As I mentioned earlier, I've suggested this idea back when 2nd Cycle was undergoing its Resurgent transformation but I'm still interested in doing something like this today.
To keep things simple for the mini-campaign, I was thinking of not having team games but rather three separate Steel games that are anonymous and kingdoms are randomly selected for the players (Draft B). I don't want to do teams now because if you get stuck on a team that doesn't play well together, you're screwed for the rest of the campaign so let's keep it single player. Random kingdom selection with Draft B will allow everyone to have a fair chance instead of having people play the same kingdoms repeatedly and winning because of it. The anonymous version of play is necessary to prevent collusion with others or that would end up badly in a mini-campaign of three games strung together.
For incentive (other than all of this sounds interesting to play) is that the winner of a previous game will be awarded in the next game. I was thinking of first place being awarded with a Superior class artifact on turn 0 (that's actual possession of the artifact, not the location to pick up later). Second place will get an Excellent class artifact. Third place receives a Fine artifact. These prizes will be random so you won't know what you're getting but it's still a cool concept to start the game with an artifact in your kingdom. To help players who are falling behind the others, we could give the last three kingdoms a chivalry bonus in the following game to help them stay competitive. Heck, we could give them a double chivalry bonus -- that's 50,000 gold on turn 0!
Sound good with anyone? I'm excited about having a campaign for Alamaze. Share your opinion below. In the future, we could expand the concept to allow team games and such.
Some time ago, I mentioned having campaigns for 2nd Cycle (Resurgent) and 3rd Cycle (The Choosing) with teams like Good vs Evil teams pitted against each other for the best out of five games. Back then (both times), some players were interested but not enough to warrant the code change. So while I'm waiting for Rick to get back to me about the new Maelstrom design, it may be possible to introduce the campaign concept for The Choosing's release if there's enough of interest in it.
I was thinking of a mini-campaign of three games but on different maps: Resurgent for the first game, Classic map for the 2nd game, and the new Maelstrom map for the 3rd game.
The first game will be a normal game on the familiar Resurgent map just to get things started.
The second game will run on the original Classic map. To make things interesting, the second game will have an everlasting Ice Age where there's only one season (winter) throughout the entire game! The map will be completely frozen over with the following effects: x1.5 terrain movement costs, low food/gold production (as now with winter), and water areas are completely frozen over where troops may travel across without ships! In fact, ships won't be able to move at all on the frozen water so don't bother building them!
The reason for having an Ice Age effect in the game is to simply have something different for the campaign! Like with Game of Thrones' "winter is coming" phrase, well with Alamaze, winter is here! Wizard kingdoms which will have an advantage in this format (just with their teleport spells alone) will be countered by banning all troop summoning spells (applies for all kingdoms and will be code-enforced). The only exception will be the Demon Princes' ability to summon skeletons since that is a special ability of demonic nature and not a magical spell.
With the restriction of not being able to summon troops, that should slow down wizard kingdoms to a certain degree. Also, it'll bring up an interesting consideration of the Raise Zombie spell where this effect is based on the conversion of the number of troops killed in the battle (so the spell will be permitted). Also, zombies brigades grow all by themselves by feeding off the dead so this should become a favorite spell and troop type in the frozen lands of the Ice Age. Zombies aren't that popular in Alamaze games anymore but in this frozen campaign, they should be. And it'll be kind of like being in Game of Thrones a little (whose new season starts July 16 I think) where undead zombie troops rule the frozen lands!
So an ever-present winter type of game will mean smaller militaries for everyone (due to the lack of food) and the additional terrain costs will slow down the pace of the game which some players have requested in wanting a longer game.
For the third game, I would like to use the new Maelstrom map (Centauria is too small for 10-12 players). Incorporating a new map into The Choosing shouldn't be a problem code-wise and this will give players an early peek at the new Maelstrom release. Though personally, I feel that a new map is just a minor add-on to the game. The main interest that I personally have in a new expansion pack are the new kingdoms, new troop types, new spells, and new game mechanics (from military tactics to pc improvements). I guess I'm that way due to playing a lot of fantasy turn-based strategy pc games like Age of Empires or Age of Wonders.
In such games, the map is just a randomly generated add-on to the game and has little importance to the actual game itself. I feel the same way with Alamaze. The map doesn't really interest me but rather Rick's ingenuity of creating distinct kingdoms, abilities, troop types, etc. for us to enjoy. So introducing players to the Maelstrom map now before the official version is released is fine with me. However, if Rick says otherwise and wants to wait on the new map until all of Maelstrom is released together (maybe 4-6 months from now), I could randomly generate new maps for us to use for the campaign.
So before I go any further designing the code, how many people would be interested in something like this where you would sign up to play a mini-campaign of 3 games strung together? As I mentioned earlier, I've suggested this idea back when 2nd Cycle was undergoing its Resurgent transformation but I'm still interested in doing something like this today.
To keep things simple for the mini-campaign, I was thinking of not having team games but rather three separate Steel games that are anonymous and kingdoms are randomly selected for the players (Draft B). I don't want to do teams now because if you get stuck on a team that doesn't play well together, you're screwed for the rest of the campaign so let's keep it single player. Random kingdom selection with Draft B will allow everyone to have a fair chance instead of having people play the same kingdoms repeatedly and winning because of it. The anonymous version of play is necessary to prevent collusion with others or that would end up badly in a mini-campaign of three games strung together.
For incentive (other than all of this sounds interesting to play) is that the winner of a previous game will be awarded in the next game. I was thinking of first place being awarded with a Superior class artifact on turn 0 (that's actual possession of the artifact, not the location to pick up later). Second place will get an Excellent class artifact. Third place receives a Fine artifact. These prizes will be random so you won't know what you're getting but it's still a cool concept to start the game with an artifact in your kingdom. To help players who are falling behind the others, we could give the last three kingdoms a chivalry bonus in the following game to help them stay competitive. Heck, we could give them a double chivalry bonus -- that's 50,000 gold on turn 0!
Sound good with anyone? I'm excited about having a campaign for Alamaze. Share your opinion below. In the future, we could expand the concept to allow team games and such.
