Demo Version Idea

[Marius]

In the DEMO version I have an idea for the final (Third) scenario.

Trainers for the first two.

Pompeii/Herculaneum for a scenario example in the third.

A beautiful roman city built to remarkably similar layout to the actual city that has been dug up for the past forty years. The demo player gets to tinker with it for about fifteen minutes at normal game play speed. A few mild but increasing earthquakes. Some light damage that the player repairs... THEN ... Vesuvius awakens....
.
.
.
dramatic pause
.
.
.
as the player tries to do something a beautifully rendered animation of the last moments of Pompeii comes up on the screen. The glowing highspeed ash flows come rapidly down the mountain engulfing the city.

A few boats already leaving the harbor escape to tell the story.

Beautiful somber music in the background with a young couple comforting each other as the ash covers them... their movements slowly ceasing.

Fade to the city covered by ash only recognizable by the landmarks around it.

Then lead to a dignified Caeser IV splash screen suggesting you get your ass out there to buy the best game you'll ever play.

A somber scene that leaves the potential player in tears ... can REALLY work. If you can affect the player emotionally you've made them a junkie for the game... An expansion pack with scenarios, new objects/buildings ... and a few great trailers will become a no brainer for the fans ...

[Merino]

Somehow I dont think that the image of 7000 poeple suffocating slowly via a mixture of volcanic ash & water - cement - in the lungs, made excruciatingly painful by the sulphuric acid that also forms in the lungs from the sulphure dioxide + trioxide, that were carried by the first pyroclastic flow, is going to make anyone buy CIV.

I should also point out that your scenario does quite fit the picture. As awsome as it would be to reconstruct pompeii and/or herculaneum, due to the large amount of information available on the cities - unless the developers spend an extra 3 months creating buildings to match the ones in pompeii as they were discovered, I think alot of people will just be angry that its not similar enough. As for the actual game scenario,

On February 5, A.D. 62, Pompeii was at the epicenter of a severe earthquake that caused considerable structural damage to buildings and the infrastructure of the city. It is clear that the process of repair and redevelopment was slow and extensive. It involved projects such as the embellishment of the Forum and the rebuilding of the Temple of Isis, and also attempts to re-establish the city's water supply, which had been severely disrupted.

Pompeii, at the time of the 79AD vesuvian eruption, was still undergoing major repairs from the earthquake which hit 17 years previous! HELLO the city was thoroughly structurally buggered! stuff 'minor repairs' each time an earthquake hits. I have stated in other posts that Roman structures were particularly vulnerable to seismic activity, in terms of the volcanic eruption the city was practically destroyed already. Game wise, earthquakes would be nice for realism... But in terms of pompeii - repairng an entire city from the aftermath of multiple higher magnitude earthquakes would be impossible....

Not to mention that no-one escaped the volcanic eruption by boat. Pliny the elder tried this...and failed. Even if the boats did manage to escape the prevailing winds, the Large lateral blast that originated from final collapse of the magma champer + destruction of the volcano, cross THE ENTIRE BAY!!! Pyroclastic surges incinerate everything they touch, remember st helens?
Oh yeah I forgot to mention that everyone who ran down to the beach for rescue were ALSO incinerated. There bodies were instantly turned to charcol....

The only people who escape pompeii explicitly left days before, or had manged to hide in the hills (aka like Pliny the younger).