Community Campaign (Dow 1)

[SteviEboY]

The Paragus campaign had an awesome storyline so I'm pretty sure I could better that. I always have a few ideas, if not much else, floating around in the old noggin'.

This is only DoW though so I think we should keep it basic. There isn't much out side of the box you can do with it. You can't really make it rpg style.

I think the way to do it is to have a start and two outcomes determined the good guys or the bad guys win. It all depends on whether or not the teams are going to be built into say all xenos are bad or if the tau and imperium are allies etc and what the actually teams are going to be, teams of 2 teams of 4 etc

I still don't see why we would need to make more maps, can't we just use existing one?

The way in which Paragus was going to advance was that each victory would move the story on for the winning team up until the last defence of the losing teams capital. I'll see if I can find my notes.

[Redeemed74]

That does sound like it would fit fairly nicely, and sure would keep things a lot simpler! I have seen a number of great ideas get mired down when the work it takes to bring them into reality gets to be too much. As Dark Angel said before, the good thing about using stock maps is that you are sure of balance. If people don't have to do any downloading at all it can also make a difference, especially if we want to make the replays themselves available. In this way it becomes a lot more like a tournament series with an overall objective. That might be just fine for everyone, and I would say all power to ya. I don't think that has been done before, and sounds like a cool idea.

I guess my own nature is to keep throwing something new into the mix to give a sense of unpredictability and keep it from ever becoming monotonous. I will just throw in these thoughts for what they might be worth. As I've been getting into working with scripted maps (Bloody Corner, Titan Gunship, etc) I have found more and more possibilities for variations in scenarios. Many scripts are surprisingly easy to create, at least by using "EZScar". The outcome can take you deep into the realm of chance, though, since balance becomes rather hard to predict. For instance, imagine we wanted to go with the Ork uprising idea which starts, say, by a nuclear driven fertilizer facility going haywire and blowing up, making a big cloud of radioactive gas which greatly affects an unorganized Ork colony. The scenario could be any given large map, even an unmodified stock map (SoulStorm fliers work so much better on them). Even if we didn't have an even number of people on teams, one or two players could be orks against the other four, having their caps adjusted by the script to compensate. After one minute or so of prep time the orks are granted the "free slugga" research but can't build mek shops, preventing them from reaching tier two. Every five minutes the cap on the number of sluggas goes up by another 20 so the orks would eventually win by shear numbers unless the allies manage to wipe out all the boyz huts that get scattered around the map. The next scenario could be determined by the outcome; if the orks get plastered the allies are reconvening to launch an assault on the main ork base, hoping to eradicate them from the jungles before they are affected by the gas. If the Orks won with the sluggas, now the Green Tide rises and endangers an important resource area that needs to be protected. If in the second scenario the Orks get wiped out, then perhaps Chaos enters the equation having taken the opportunity to snatch some valued relics while the Imperials have been distracted with orks. They now have 6 BT's but can't make any other squads but cultists and no vehicles... or whatever. The different scenarios could just set the stage to try some new sort of imbal - rebal.

Once you get familiar with the way the code works it doesn't take long to write scripts like this, especially since we have a bank of previous code we can copy and paste from, and I would be happy to show anyone how to do it. The big difference clearly is that we are just guessing as to balance and the conflicts could really turn out to be one-sided. Wars often are that way anyway, but that is what makes outcomes all the more interesting! The real wildcard is the ingeniousness of the players involved to adapt new strategies to their unique surroundings. So there is a trade off as to how standardized or creative you want it to be. Again, from my standpoint a simple, straightforward series of balanced matches isn't bad but I'm just saying you could consider other options and I would help with it. I will warn, though, that what really makes a scenario more complicated is if it is trying to follow a storyline that involves various stages within it (first they take the outer court, then an Avatar comes out you have to fight... etc). The idea would be to set it up with rules that are consistent all through it, and step back and see what happens!

[KeNDaLL2000]

I'm so overwhelmed I'm just not sure where start. There is so much that needs to be done - prepping maps, story writing

I guess first thing we need to do is create a general outline of the story and maps needed for it. I preferably want something with space marines or imperial guard as they will probably be the easiest to start out with, unless someone can think of something better...

[ForgeFather]

For maps why not just download the SS community map pack 1-4? it doesnt take very long and has a ton of maps. Marinus, fort atlanties, ect. alot of good maps

[Redeemed74]

Originally Posted by KeNDaLL2000

I'm so overwhelmed I'm just not sure where start. There is so much that needs to be done - prepping maps, story writing

I guess first thing we need to do is create a general outline of the story and maps needed for it. I preferably want something with space marines or imperial guard as they will probably be the easiest to start out with, unless someone can think of something better...

Yes Sir, Commander KeNDall Sir! Just tell us how we can best help. You are commander in chief - we make suggestions and you make decisions!

It sounded like Stevieboy has already made some significant progress in laying out a campaign structure like you are after,

Originally Posted by SteviEboY

The Paragus campaign had an awesome storyline so I'm pretty sure I could better that. I always have a few ideas, if not much else, floating around in the old noggin'...

The way in which Paragus was going to advance was that each victory would move the story on for the winning team up until the last defense of the losing teams capital. I'll see if I can find my notes.

If he can get his notes and you like it, then just make a list of what needs to get done and start dishing out the responsibilities for this to take off the ground!

[SteviEboY]

Well I can't find the specific notes that I was looking for on my PC. I think I know where they might be, so will check later tonight.

The structure was summed up here Paragus VII Online Campaign

I didn't give all the details away as I wanted he story to pan out and be revealed over a period of time rather than you just know what happens.

One idea of using the Star map could be a Black Crusade of sorts.

You could start off at the Eye of Terror, on Medrengard say, and see if the Forces of Chaos can break through the Cadian Gate and work their way to Terra where the final battle could be held.

If there are other Xenos races involved we could say that the Imperium faces it's darkest hours since the Horus Heresy and is beset on all sides by foul Xenos and Traitors.

Waaagh Grabnuts rampages through Segmentum Tempestus as Warsmith Hienrich Blach launches an attack from Medrengard etc etc

For some maps we could use the already available Survival Mod, this would be good for some defensive games.

I don't think that there is any reason we would need to make anymore maps. I'm sure that there are plenty out there that could be used.

Just throwing out some ideas.

[Redeemed74]

It sounds pretty good to me! Looks like you got a lot of great ideas together, how did it work out? The way the forum thread ends it is hard to tell what happened. If it fizzled, what happened and how do you think we can make it work this time? A comment on the survival mod, I love it but it is set up for players against computer, not PvP, at least the one from Argonaut.

Regarding maps, there sure are a lot of them out there! I don't think we should make any new ones either, that's a lot of hard work! I get the idea that KenDaLL just intends to modify them a little bit to fit the particular event in the campaign. It is fairly easy to add "honor guard" units through the map maker, and I was mentioning that changing certain gameplay rules isn't that hard as well - all depending on how far players want to move from balance to novelty. Either way, though, using the stock and community maps would be a fine way to go in my pov.

[SteviEboY]

Well we tried to make it interesting by adding restrictions to each battle like only tier 1 infantry would be used and then as the battles progressed you were able to add say Plasma pistols and then a couple of Heavy Bolters etc. The only problem was balance. It was nigh on impossible to get a good balance for each race. That's why if we do this I think it's best to just to a straight battle Or if restrictions are imposed to have say no vehicles or vehicles only.

It indeed fizzled out. The problem so many times was people not showing up and making excuses as to why they couldn't make it and in the end I gave up trying to manage it. You really need reliable people, something that these forums have suffered from when doing stuff like this. The first tournament that we did was a great success with very few instances of people not showing up, but as more of the games got released people seemed to lose interest. We did try to get this going again but no one took the hook.

I know the Survival mod is PvC, I have it myself, I just think that certain games could use it to give it a bit more variety.

Adding honour guard could be a cool idea, sort of a bonus for each win ...

[Junk angel]

The problems with these restrictions, as was mentioned a few times, is that it's impossible to get some balance.

I also played a few games which had starting infantry only tags.

Orks are strong but beatable. They can't do much than spam giant loads of boys come the upgrade.

Chaos was probably the strongest with infiltrating cultists.
Ig after that, followed by scouts with snipers.

Necrons don't really have a starting infantry. And while guardians are strong at first, they just don't have the slightest chance once the heavy weapons hit the field.

And Tau have stealthsuits :~

[Redeemed74]

That's some very helpful information, there, SteviEboy. If this was going to really make it there would have to be something that kept people's interest. Avoiding the imbalance caused by extra rules sounds like it would really be important. It also sounds like JL's advice is right on, then, about making a storyline and periferal data (web page perhaps) that really grips people's interest. Ok, then, here's an idea:

The game is set up with a "MetaMap" of various planets, or one planet in regions like Kronus in DC. Every planet or region provides "honor guard", and these units can be "garrisoned" in any region of choice. There is a turn-by-turn setup where one team decides to attack from one region to a bordering region. All the "honor guard" units in the regions the attacker is attacking from will appear in the region attacked, and of course the defenders will have the units available that they garrisoned there. A team should be very careful when they form, since if a player doesn't show up his/her friends will either have to fight without them at a major disadvantage or just forfeit the match and loose the honor guard units from that world/region. At the end of the match, the attacker could re-organize their garrisoned units anticipating retaliation.

If we liked this idea there would be some questions:

1. How should honor guard units be managed? They could follow the same rules as the DC and SS campaign, with "planetary requisition" and a cost to restore units lost in battle, with a max based on the actual number of planets owned. Or they could be a lot simpler: you have this many planets, these are your honor guard (this way it wouldn't matter who lived or died in battle). Or it could be a "Risk" style system where every turn you get more based on your number of areas, and they continue to build up (there really isn't a limit to how many you can have, but at a point it gets really laggy!)

2. Should you allow for "forward bases"? Since each map will be dressed up in the map editor before the match, it would be quite easy to add generators, squad or research buildings just like the campaigns do. This, of course, could greatly turn the tide of battle from the very start of the game, unless the opposite team has units to match. If we wanted it, I can only guess that the "planetary requisition" idea would be the only way to make it work.

3. Headquarters: The last battle should be epic, of course, and not an easy win even though the opposing team will own the entire system by that point. Why not let the defending team fix up their own map, with the placement of x number of turrets, production buildings and HQ's? Of course the Game Master (sorry to use an oldie term, what do you call that in modern gamerese?) would have to pose limits on how close defending positions could be placed and such.

Anyway, it doesn't sound that hard to me, but will take some "secretarial" work keeping track of everything. With this kind of idea I could see the possibility to have more than two teams. I think it might be smart to start off small, with just two teams, but if it really works perhaps enough people would be interested in having a map that allowed for perhaps 4 teams or more, with the option of specializing in races (two Eldar as a team for example) and such. Anyway, I'm probably getting ahead of myself again - sorry about that! What does everyone think of at least the basic idea of the turn based starmap with options as to who attacks from where to where?