I have recognized and understand your issues with Diplomacy maps. My experience with Diplomacy is limited. I remember playing it once many years ago; I invaded and killed someone right away, then everyone got mad and left the game. They said things about needing to declare war and other stuff. But if I'm not supposed to just dominate them, why was it so damn easy?
So why am I posting here? Because what I have played extensively are Civilization 2 and 3 (the turn-based strategy games) and Civilization maps on StarCraft. Now, in the StarCraft maps, military power is still of utmost importance, but there were some other things to focus and spend resources on. There was where I found some of the depth that I couldn't see in Diplomacy maps.
Typical Civilization maps feature technology levels, where you invest your money in research and force players to strike a balance of more units versus better units. Some versions have World Wonders, where players spend (usually large) amounts of resources for assorted bonuses, which may or may not be military bonuses. Expansion is also still an important aspect, as in typical versions you will be doing at least some empire building before fighting any other players. The actual balance and full-empire management was done very well by the actual Civilization games; a lot of the concepts never quite made it into SC:BW very well. In multiplayer games or higher difficulty games against the AI, you will want to check every city every turn and optimize to make sure that you win.
When I set out to create my Civilization map (have I mentioned this topic might be used as inspiration?), I set out to address some of what we see are flaws:
- Adding at least one alternative victory condition, so that military victories are not the only focus. Civilization 2 and 3 (and probably others in series) had the "Space Race", which meant once you got the appropriate technologies, you could build a bunch of spaceship parts in your different cities and win the game upon launch or reaching Alpha Centauri, depending on the game. This is easy to mimic in SC:BW and was planned for my Civilization map.
Civilization 3 also had other victory conditions:
There are six ways to win a game of Civilization III. Depending on your play style, you may find some victories more suited to your strategy than others.
- The most traditional way to win, the conquest victory, is always available. Eliminate all the other Civs and victory is yours.
- The "space victory" ("Alpha Centauri victory") from Civilization II is back, but this time the goal of the space race is fulfilled when you complete and launch your spaceship. The spaceship is constructed of 10 parts, and completing it will require various strategic resources, including aluminum, rubber, and uranium. (note: Civ 3 also had strategic and luxury resources placed on the map, which meant you would most likely have to trade to get all of them unless your Civ was huge.)
- A new cultural victory can occur if one of your cities amasses 20,000 culture points, or if your entire empire amasses at least 80,000 culture points and no rival civ has more than half of your cultural value. (note: Culture also determined borders of an empire and when pushed up against other cities of empires with weaker culture, could cause the city to flip to your control. The culture system was a nice supplement and in some cases an alternative to military strength.)
- The diplomatic victory condition is enabled after the United Nations wonder has been built. Once built, the UN will meet periodically to vote on a leader. Any civ that receives a majority of votes from the U.N. council wins the game. The catch here is that in order to even be on the U.N. council (and thus eligible to be elected U.N. leader), you must either control 25% of the world's territory or population. The civilization who builds the United Nations wonder automatically gains a permanent council position.
- The domination victory occurs if you control a majority of the world's land surface within your borders. This can be achieved through various means, either by cultural tactics or military ones, or a combination of both. (note: This would most likely not mean much for SC:BW, as it is essentially another military victory.)
- Finally, if the game ends and no one is victorious by any of these, the game uses a "histograph" to determine the winner. The histograph averages the "score" of all the remaining civilizations, taking into account their score across the entire game. The civ with the best average "score" wins. Thus, your performance in ancient times is every bit as important as in the modern era.
- Government types adds a additional, though relatively small dimension to empire management. Ideally, they will each have pros and cons and be suited to different empire sizes and styles of play.
- Adding a war weariness mechanic to discourage straight offense. Also, adding a draft mechanic for Civilizations as an additional or last measure of defense. (There was one more modern Diploy map that I played with a nice "Garrison" system that discouraged offense nicely.)
- A corruption/waste mechanic, based primarily on empire size, can help to slow exponential growth. Of course, care must be taken to ensure that two Civilizations of different sizes that are otherwise equal will end up with some sort of advantage for the larger Civ, but not so much that the smaller Civ is blown out of the water.
- Requiring upkeep based on the size of your military forces.
- Requiring upkeep for technological buildings, intensifying the trade-off between better units and more units. Of course, higher tech must be useful and powerful enough to warrant this. If you want to rush tech, it should cost you and it should be worth it.
- Giving players a robust set of World Wonders, Small Wonders, and miscellaneous purchasables with varying effects, preferably non-military benefits, gives alternative spending options.
- Improvements such as Banks or Marketplaces that apply just to a local territory where built adds another a degree of empire management. It also creates a tradeoff of money and time -- banks and less military/tech now for cash later versus stay focused on military/tech.
...
I really should work on that map.
Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 10 2012, 7:50 pm by Mini Moose 2707.