Introduction:
For about a month or so I've been working on a mod, dedicating 2-3 days a week and I think I've reached a stage in which I can show my progress to other people, mainly for three reasons:
- I want to gauge if people would actually be interested in this idea
- I can always use input regarding ideas or alternatives, but especially regarding balance, etc.
- if people want to cooperate the better, there are tons of assets that already exist and that could complement this mod perfectly and even though I plan to ask several creators directly if this thread can speed that process up great. and everything will be credited.
Objective: (added 16/06/21)
In order to keep this thread focused I would like to expand upon the reason that I want to make this mod in the form of objectives:
1- Campaign Feel
1850-2000 should feel like a longer time:
- Line Evolution: Some lines that were extremely profitable at 1860 might be completely abandoned mid game, some other lines might become much more important by 1970, quickly expanding their infrastructure around them, some rails might be rebuilt with better standards at other dates, etc.
- Planning: planning ahead should of course be important, but with some randomization along the way to force the player to pay attention. Short, medium and long term plans should always be needed.
- Game Speed: the game has 2 independent, controllable speeds: the animation and the calendar, and while I won't fix any of those speeds (everybody choose what they want) the idea is to more or less think of how this could be played at a slower calendar speed.
- Using Civilization as an example: it would be like if every time you sat down you only played an era, at marathon speed, next day you play another era, etc.
- Map Size: just like with game speed everybody choose what they want, but personally I prefer large maps with low industries and medium cities and that's more or less the mapsize-city-industry ratio with which work for this mod was started on.
2- Versatility and Complexity:
Solving puzzles is fun, but when there is only one solution for any given problem, or when the problems that you have to solve are mostly independent, 1-2 step operations with little variables, it eventually becomes boring: doing the same thing each time you start a new game and in the same order, over and over again. Usually when I figure out "the meta" of these types of games I either ignore it completely or stop playing altogether. So:
- through versatility the idea is to allow more options, which depending on the random elements will be more or less viable;
- through complexity the idea is to create the need for planning ahead: if you don't you will have problems further on, regardless of the versatility;
4- Difficulty
if easy = 0% and hard = 100%, then in an average hard game set on a temperate map:
- Early Game (1850-1890) ≈ 80%
- Mid Game (1890-1960) ≈100%
- Late Game (1960-2000) ≈120%