Campaign tree instead of linear?

[Dagoth Ur]

It would be cool if the campaign was a tree instead of being linear.

What I mean is that the things you do on one map will affect what happens in the next.

So for example, say you are playing a scenario where you have to defend Rome from the armys of Alaric. Now, it is known that Alaric did not really want to destroy the empire, he only wanted the empire to grant his tribesmen citizenship and give them some land to settle on in Pannonia. The Emperor Honorius refused, and Alaric attacked Rome with the sole intent of capturing Honorius and killing him.

So you will be given a choice. If you choose to reject his offer, you will be attacked by his large army sometime during the game. If you want to give him the land he wants, he goes away and you only face attacks from rebels and small barbarian bands.

However, if you choose to give him the land, some of the Roman generals are displeased with you and think you are weak. So in the next map, you have to face revolting legionarres as well as the standard enemy, and your people's respect for you would be lower.

Perhaps some of your actions could open up new map choices, such as funding an optional invasion of Gaul in one scenario will give you a choice of ruling a city there in the next that would not normally be available.

Or make new technologies available. So in one map, you could fund an invasion of Syracuse. If you order your troops to "be restrained" in their plundering of the city, they will have lower morale and have less chance of succeeding in the siege because of less motivation, but then the Syracusaen inventor Archimedes would be captured instead of killed during the looting. Then you would be able to build advanced siege equipment earlier in the campaign than you normally would.

[sitearm]

Ooh.. good idea.

Is it OK though if you can still pick out certain chapters and play them standalone?

Sometimes I don't like to play campaigns, or maybe I want to go back and play a chapter that didn't come up the way I played the tree last time.

It would be cool if the campaign was a tree instead of being linear.

[Schmophit]

Sometimes I don't like to play campaigns, or maybe I want to go back and play a chapter that didn't come up the way I played the tree last time.Oohoo, good call Sitearm, lots of different ways to complete the game, how could it ever be the same twice? :)

[Keith]

Sounds like a interesting idea, but consider the amount of events programming that would entail to cover all the possibilities.

[Baba Hotep]

It would be cool if the campaign was a tree instead of being linear.

That already exists in Zeus and Emperor. You have missions with episodes, and if the first is on the same map than the second, then on this second map the city would be exactly as you left it. You could also have an episode between them, and still your city would be the same. And in Zeus, you had colonies and could choose to which one you want to go (play), and then return to the parent city.

[Keith]

That already exists in Zeus and Emperor.

Not quite. I belive he's looking for a branching system that would not repeat itself so reliably. The system used in Zeus was pretty predictable once you had played either possibility through. It never changed after that. It would require many many more branching possibilities than any of the previous games have provided.

[Baba Hotep]

I suppose this would require a lot more of Megabytes for each campaign. But i must admit that it would increase playability:You play a campaign one way, then you play it back another way, and again, and again...pretty nice! (Is this what you are talking about? I'm a bit lost...)

[Keith]

I believe that is what he is going for. Each time you play the same scenario it would playout differently up to a finite point, of course, but with enough variability that all the possibilities would not be exhausted for a very very long time.

Instead of just two branch events, there might be ten, then ten more after that on each of those new branches and so on.

[wodinoneeye]

It would be cool if the campaign was a tree instead of being linear.

What I mean is that the things you do on one map will affect what happens in the next.

So for example, say you are playing a scenario where you have to defend Rome from the armys of Alaric. Now, it is known that Alaric did not really want to destroy the empire, he only wanted the empire to grant his tribesmen citizenship and give them some land to settle on in Pannonia. The Emperor Honorius refused, and Alaric attacked Rome with the sole intent of capturing Honorius and killing him.

So you will be given a choice. If you choose to reject his offer, you will be attacked by his large army sometime during the game. If you want to give him the land he wants, he goes away and you only face attacks from rebels and small barbarian bands.

However, if you choose to give him the land, some of the Roman generals are displeased with you and think you are weak. So in the next map, you have to face revolting legionarres as well as the standard enemy, and your people's respect for you would be lower.

Perhaps some of your actions could open up new map choices, such as funding an optional invasion of Gaul in one scenario will give you a choice of ruling a city there in the next that would not normally be available.

Or make new technologies available. So in one map, you could fund an invasion of Syracuse. If you order your troops to "be restrained" in their plundering of the city, they will have lower morale and have less chance of succeeding in the siege because of less motivation, but then the Syracusaen inventor Archimedes would be captured instead of killed during the looting. Then you would be able to build advanced siege equipment earlier in the campaign than you normally would.



That sounds more like something that could be implemented within a scenario (one map) via a more elaborate (than what CotN had) set of abstract 'world' map events. Hopefully TM will use a script system this time, as the precanned menu option trigger method is incredibly tedious to create any complex interactions.

[T7nowhere]

A branching campaign would be pretty fun and greatly increase the replayability. Having your decisions you make from city to city matter would be much more interesting than just choosing between a military or peacefull maps.

[MarkDuffy]

I love your idea, Dagoth Ur !!! :)

If it was hard for the developers to implement, tough. :eek:

[Keith]

Tough, eh? Ok, the game will be out the summer of 2007 in that case. ;)

[Paradine_mikey]

Sounds like a interesting idea, but consider the amount of events programming that would entail to cover all the possibilities.

awww. come on Keith, if the people who made HOI and HOI2 can do super "events" for those games then why shouldn't the crew doing Caesar IV be able to do the same thing. If the engine they are constructing for this new game is so good, then it should be more than able to include MANY MANY events to keep all enthralled and it woudl be more historical for the historical buffs and it could be more a-historical for those that like history but might wnat to change some item and see how the "time-line" progresses in the new direction! :D

[Shadow-Imperator]

I wonder if they could ever make a truely dynamic campaign in which scenarios are uniquely generated based on results of the player and the level of difficulty....

[wodinoneeye]

I wonder if they could ever make a truely dynamic campaign in which scenarios are uniquely generated based on results of the player and the level of difficulty....


Unfortunately a tall order for a game that is to be primarily a 'city builder'.

If they do include an extensive military mechanism tied to the 'city builder' part, then at least the people who create scenarios will be able to turn out multitudes of battle variants (some maybe even historic).

Actually anything that could be done across a campaign could also be done within one scenario (the military sub game almost required a seperate battle map -- it would be pathetic to be limited to only the 'city' map no matter how large they think they can make them).

Auto-building battle maps wouldnt be near as hard and auto-generating a city scenario (no coordinating resource placement etc.. and the 'world' events would be a horror).