Alternative modes of gameplay

from Sins Forums
I know there was another thread about it, search function, yada yada, but I'm making a fresh one anyhow:

so, one of the gameplay styles I think would translate extremely well would be phantom from supcom.

heres how it goes: there is one or two people (depending on the number of people participating) who is the "phantom", the "phantom" has double resource production (and other such advantages) that cause him/er to be quite powerful, as a drawback the game is practically a 1vall, thing is that nobody knows who the phantom is...

so essentially its a massive espionage game where you win by fooling everyone (if your the "phantom") or by sniffing out the phantom

the only real thing that would get in the way here would be sharing of intelligence data, one could easily use that to predict how much you're making, and if thats more than you should be.

one of the keys to this would be having one unit (homeworld/flagship)of which you need to kill in order to reveal whether that player is innocent or phantom (and kill him in the process) this would make the gameplay much quicker and faster than simply stomping the enemy out.
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Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
sounds interesting.

what are the phantom's obectives? kill everyone?

hehe, a nice mode would also be something the reminds me of age of kings.

basically you get some sort of ship, artifact, item, whatever. while its in your possession you gain points and maybe extra ressources, but players have a means to find out who has it and everyone tries to get it for himself. so its all about surving as long as you can and in order to get it, betray your "allies" at the right time.

ah, you could also make it a king of the hill type of game. like a uber good terran planet (like the best of all planet types put into one), but its in the middle of the map, so everyone can get to it quickly. hm, maybe thats less a game mode than a theme for a map or a series of maps.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
what are the phantom's obectives? kill everyone?
End of quote

yes, but if he reveals himself he can get pummeled
basically you get some sort of ship, artifact, item, whatever. while its in your possession you gain points and maybe extra ressources, but players have a means to find out who has it and everyone tries to get it for himself. so its all about surving as long as you can and in order to get it, betray your "allies" at the right time.
End of quote

I like, would have to be a serious bonus though, like an uber-cap ship or somesuch.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
the "last man standing" idea from the other thread inspired me to this, however that could happen.

basically something somewhat similar to gateway. i.e. you have one big system which is entirely player free and then one or more others, depending on game size, with the players. now, the trick is, we simulate the campaign and after a certain amount of time elapsed all the original sytems are wiped out. maybe make this mode available after you play through the campaign and then have after an hour or two a huge fleet of whatever killed off the vasari empire. better make the ships strong than numerous, otherwise it will kill performance, so sth like capships with 20.000 hull and 7.000 shield.

the point is that everyone will be in an extreme rush to get to the other galaxy and get as much territory there, but still needs to defend the home ground, as this is where his economic base is, so if you commit all of your fleet in the new system, someone might take advantage of it and wipe you out and then pursue you to the new system. obviously for the idea to work, every starting system must have at least 2 players, better more and alliances should not be allowed.

definately something different though it can probably be done just as well with a series of scenarios.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Ilike that, i've done board game versions of it with Twilight Imperium. Always fun, even with alliances.

Just have a big ticking clock lol! Who gets left behind!

I would have 3 systems each for 3 players. and one big star as the 'safe' zone... where there would be 1 player for you 10 player game nuts.

The 1 player would have an advantage in immediate territory, but he is going to be attacked by 9 people eventually!! Unless he is lucky and they whittle themselves down enough that he can beat them back!

Would be very cool.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
How about an assult mode ala World in Conflict for multiplayer?


This would make game play go ALOT faster and allow for more ship on ship action.

Lets say you have 2 teams.

Team 1 would be the defenders.
They would start as a joint fleet (one capital) and several planets.
Their job would be to hold the planets inorder to prevent the other team from attacking the capital. Planets would be maxed out on tatical slots and already have logistic structures in place around the planet(for nastalgic perpuses only). The tech tree would be totaly unlocked and they could purchase and build defensive structures. Lets say they'd have a 5 min. window were the structures are build instantly, after that they are built at normal speed. The only Ship yards would be at the capital world. And like with the structures, they would have 5 min. where their ships are build instantly.

After the initial cash is spent, the only way to get money to build more ships would be to destroy the attacking ships. There would be no way to re-colonize a planet once it is lost.


Team 2 would be the attackers.
They would start at another star with ship yards orbiting the star. Agian they would have 5 min to instantly build their fleets. After the 5 min has passed they will be able to jump from their star to the star of the other team to begin the assult. Like with team 1, the only way to get more money would be to destroy and enemy planet. (This way if the attackers can't kill an enemy planet, they run out of ships and they loose. Also the defenders could have a timer so that if their capital is not destroyed in X amount of time they can jump to team 2's star and destory their ship yards, also winning the game).

Balancing the game would also be fairly easy. Lets say that each player can only have a certian amount of ships. This allows for people to specialize. (one guy only attacking the planet, one guy attacking the enemy ships).

Maps would take on a pyrimid type lay out. Have to take out multiple planets to get to the capital. Since the plaets are connected by multiple phase lanes the attackers would need to be on guard form defenders attacking the rear of their fleets and cutting them off.