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Reverse Dungeon! or, PBEM Dungeon Keeper?
DrakeRunner
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Okay, so, long time lurker, first-in-a-long-time-poster. So I have this idea for a game. A game where each player sets themselves up a dungeon, protecting and guarding it from the predations of random encounters and other PCs, and setting up raids on other players. Its not an RPG, its more of a long term multiboard board game. People have likened it to Dwarf Fortress, Dungeon Keeper, and Diggers.
Still interested? Hot damn.
I'm not sure wether I want it to go Grim and Dark or Lighthearted, but basically, Longe Longe Ago, the Ancient Gods of Olde left the lands of Men And Othere Assortede Creatures, leaving behind Darke And Terrible Items Of Unfathomable Powere. Legend holds that whom ever shall be found holding the Darke Items in the Valley of the Gods shall be granted a Golden Age of power and yadda yadda. You get the idea. How? The time honored method of taking your Darke Item and digging deep into the Valley of the Gods with it.
Basically there will be the GM and several players. Each player chooses a faction, and is given a grid map. Save for a single tunnel, the map is unexplored. The players start out with a group of workers, a few defensive units, and the Darke Item. Their goal? Use the workers to carve out more of the tunnel, reinforcing and turning it into an honest to god dungeon to protect the Item with, building barracks, storerooms, traps, while hiring or taming guards and monsters,
As long as you maintain control over your Darke Item, you will be granted a tithe of workers and gold based on your current dungeon size(Your faction doesn't exactly want you to FAIL at your task, after all). You can earn more gold on things you find in the dungeon, like precious metals, in addition to putting them to use, like Iron, magic artifacts, and things unique to the fantasy world. You can use the gold to buy plans for better rooms, which in turn let you hire better minions, or buy special resources, buy monster eggs, and of course, buy food for your current stable of minions and workers.
Once you think you have your dungeon fairly stable, you can get together your minions and send them out on exploration and raiding sorties to probe the other players's dungeons. Then so it escalates, until either a set time limit is reached, or over half the players lose their Items.
Thats the general gist of the game. I have a lot more info, including a tenative system to run it on, but after I see some interest, y'know?
Currently, for Factions I have Kobolds, inspiried heavily from D&D, being a near-comically-luckless race with lots of cheap low quality units, who use swarm tactics for just about everything, including mining. Dwarves, with expensive, high quality workers and fighters. Plant-people, who don't have workers so much as seeds which are grown into their work. Haven't thought of much of a gimmick for them aside from Alternative. Undead, who have cheap dedicated units bolstered with a few powerful units, as well as a host of immunities.
I've been looking for more faction ideas, as well as specific unit ideas. Undead need controlling necromancers, etc. Does this sound interesting to you guys? I'll post more if it does.
Still interested? Hot damn.
I'm not sure wether I want it to go Grim and Dark or Lighthearted, but basically, Longe Longe Ago, the Ancient Gods of Olde left the lands of Men And Othere Assortede Creatures, leaving behind Darke And Terrible Items Of Unfathomable Powere. Legend holds that whom ever shall be found holding the Darke Items in the Valley of the Gods shall be granted a Golden Age of power and yadda yadda. You get the idea. How? The time honored method of taking your Darke Item and digging deep into the Valley of the Gods with it.
Basically there will be the GM and several players. Each player chooses a faction, and is given a grid map. Save for a single tunnel, the map is unexplored. The players start out with a group of workers, a few defensive units, and the Darke Item. Their goal? Use the workers to carve out more of the tunnel, reinforcing and turning it into an honest to god dungeon to protect the Item with, building barracks, storerooms, traps, while hiring or taming guards and monsters,
As long as you maintain control over your Darke Item, you will be granted a tithe of workers and gold based on your current dungeon size(Your faction doesn't exactly want you to FAIL at your task, after all). You can earn more gold on things you find in the dungeon, like precious metals, in addition to putting them to use, like Iron, magic artifacts, and things unique to the fantasy world. You can use the gold to buy plans for better rooms, which in turn let you hire better minions, or buy special resources, buy monster eggs, and of course, buy food for your current stable of minions and workers.
Once you think you have your dungeon fairly stable, you can get together your minions and send them out on exploration and raiding sorties to probe the other players's dungeons. Then so it escalates, until either a set time limit is reached, or over half the players lose their Items.
Thats the general gist of the game. I have a lot more info, including a tenative system to run it on, but after I see some interest, y'know?
Currently, for Factions I have Kobolds, inspiried heavily from D&D, being a near-comically-luckless race with lots of cheap low quality units, who use swarm tactics for just about everything, including mining. Dwarves, with expensive, high quality workers and fighters. Plant-people, who don't have workers so much as seeds which are grown into their work. Haven't thought of much of a gimmick for them aside from Alternative. Undead, who have cheap dedicated units bolstered with a few powerful units, as well as a host of immunities.
I've been looking for more faction ideas, as well as specific unit ideas. Undead need controlling necromancers, etc. Does this sound interesting to you guys? I'll post more if it does.
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "This taste funny to you?"
DrakeRunner on
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Wow. I'm dumb. Thought I was in G&T. >.<
You might find some help here.
I.. would find more conceptual ideas for fantasy factions and units, then eventually starting to add rules for and tweak them in G&T than here?
Well, its not a complicated system. 5 stats so far, and Survivability(HP, basically), Attack, Defense, Speed, and Work Points. Every point in a stat gives you a die to roll when you need to. ie, Attack 5 vs Defense 3 = 5d6 vs 3d6. Whoever wins takes down a point of Survivability.
This game, I love you for it.
I think I love you.
I misunderstood what you were getting at. G&T is our resident video game forum, and once I saw Dungeon Keeper, the G&T light started blinking. We are notorious for never ever getting our fancy video game projects done.
But this, after re-reading it, seems to be a tabletop idea. I wholeheartedly support this.
Does each player control their own dungeon area? Or all they all thrown in to one little patch of under-land, making for a lot of squabbling between the factions?
so what are you so afraid of
I'm afraid that I'm not so sure...
But regardless, major kudos here. It sounds pretty epic.
What are you looking for, other than our unbridled praise?
so basically, you have one dungeon keeper, (or maybe, to avoid copyright issues, a Dungeon Master?) as well as a number of players, or more appropriately, heroes...
As for the system, I've already given a brief look at it, but each unit will have several stats. Survivability (I hate the term HP), Attack, Defense, Speed, Work Points, Luck, Morale. Most units only have the first four. Worker units have Work Points as well, and the last two are randomly decided when a unit is sent out to lead a group of soldiers.
The first 3 are crucial for combat, obviously. Speed is used mostly for how far a unit moves to intercept attackers or how far the attackers get before being intercepted. Also useful for ranged attackers to not get brutally murdered in melee. Work Points are a measure of how effective a worker is. If mining a square of rock away takes 5 WP, and your Kobold Miners have 3 WP, you'll need two per wall. Or if you have, say, a Mining Golem with 10 WP, bam, two squares. Luck is mostly, your raid comes to a fork in the dungeon, a luck check determines which one is more beneficial (Debating on hiding luck). Morale is a matter of knowing when to retreat. Too low, and you'll run away after a few losses. Too high, and every attack is a suicide march.
Sorry I haven't posted more. I'm too used to 4chan, I can't just crap out posts as I feel like it to add to something. What I want, aside from your praise (And I greedily accept it like a lost puppy accepts love and meat) right now are ideas for additional factions and unit types. Even just the fluff is good right now.
I already listed the 4 factions I have now (Kobolds, Dwarves, Plants, and Undead). For unit types, every faction needs:
Several offensive units, defensive units, mixed units, workers, "hero" units, and utility units. Several tiers of the first two. Also "Utility" units that grant bonuses based on their presence.
S'all for tonight.
Personally I think you should flesh out a resource system first and foremost. I'm thinking only a few things like food, gold/ore and mana. Then you should build the races around this so they get to be unique.
In general I belive in keeping any type of board game as simple as possible though. Are you going for a card based approach for your units with stats or how would that work?
I also think that you should be able to hire thiefs that try to steal or sabotage enemy things.
Factions:
Kwama (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Kwama) or other similar insectoidly/animalistic faction)
Cons: Higher prices in gold for stuff, limited unit production, reliance on food.
Pro's: Cheap/Free low tier units, upgradable units, good morale
Units:
Queen: [Unit production/ultimate unit] Large starting creature. Immobile (moving her takes workpoints). Lays eggs x3/round. Can permanently detach from eggsack to assume powerfull combat form.
Requires: Inner sanctum (one per queen).
Egg: [Immobile resource] Eggs can be moved by workers to different hatching chambers and then be feed different resources to produce various kinds of creatures.
Tier 1: [Requires: Nothing] These creatures can be birthed anywhere, even on hard and cold rock. This makes it ideal for a small and underdeveloped hive, but on the other hand it also makes them small and not very effective workers or figthers.
Forager: [Small food gathering worker]
Cost: None.
A forager is a small creature that looks like a cross between a larva and a spider. It crawls around outside the dungeon eating organic materials and small creatures which it then turns to a sweet tasting iccor that it can feed other creatures in the hive. It can also be used to dig out tunnels, but not very effectivly.
Abilities: Forage, 1 food/turn or 1 wp/turn.
Scrib[Small utility creature] This a larval stage of development for many other creatures. The scrib can be used to scout for the hive, provide some menial labour like tending eggs or be left to wander around the hive to act as a limited form of protection for the hive.
Abilities: Cocon.
Scrab [Small warrior creature] This creature is similar to the scrib but it's growth have been stunted by more specialisation. It has a marginally harder skin, larger fangs and a much keener sensory system. It's also much more aggresive and will recklessly attack anything that doesn't have the smell of a fellow hive creature.
Abilities: None.
Tier 2 [Requires Hatching chamber]
Worker [Basic worker] The drone is an effective sterile male worker. It works tirelessly and effectivly and has an astounding capacity of learning things considering how simple this creature really is.
Requires: [Hatching chamber]
Cost [One scrib, low ammount of food].
Abilities [Work]
Warrior [Basic figther] A sterile male breed from a scrib that is given more food and care. It's larger and more dangerous than a worker but also more aggresive, dumber and has larger tendrils and claws making it unsuited for any kind of real work. It mostly idles around the hive looking for figths with other warriors.
Requires [Hatching chamber]
Cost [Medium ammount of food]
Scribling [Medium larval stage] A scribling is considerably larger and more intelligent than it's smaller cousins due to the increased care and food it got while hatching. It's still inferior to either the warrior or worker in their respective domain but it tries it's best to tend to the hives needs.
Requires [Hatching chamber]
Cost [Low or medium ammount of food].
Tier 3.
Herder [Scout, herds foragers and scribs, scriblings]
Requires [Enclosure]
Brute
Requires [Figthing pit]
Cribling [Final larval stage/Coddled favourites]
Requires [Hatching nest]
Tier 4
Maiden
Prince
Tier 5
Queen
If you like the general idea I could finish up the higher tier units later.
Earthen (Name negotiable)
Essentially, elementals of Earth and perhaps at high levels Fire, who rather than carving rooms in the earth, carve natural caverns. So instead of building a "dungeon" per se, they revert the underworld more back to its natural state, and thus would oppose all oher factions. This might be the only faction that doesn't start with any Darke items, but rather steals them from others to keep them from being used.
Khthonitaa
A series of various underworld "beasties", who unlike the other factions, are less organized, and thus might suffer Morale issues, but have a greater variety of unit types, and perhaps a few interesting unique powers. If this were D&D, this might include your Illithids and Beholders. IN this game, it can include really, anything that might be found in this underworld. This faction would likely revolve around one central "leader" figure, a sort of messianic monster who held one of the Darke items and leveraged that into banding together all this disparate beasties.
Sons of the Dark
A mixed faction of humans and "dark" Elves, who have forsaken the surface for the greater riches and powers below. They've got a religious attraction to gathering the Darke items, because they believe they can use the collective powers of all of these items to overtake the entire underworld and all the magic and riches therein.
If you like any or all of these, let me know. Take them, use them, I'll try to work up descriptions for some of their units later, if you like 'em.
A few days ago, I would say about a week, I just finished stomping through Dungeon Keeper again. A couple of people may know that it sits upon the pedestal of being My personal best game of all time.
I am a mighty bit interested in anything to do with that
Count me in for better or for worse
Every player does the following:
Create a 'Boss' character of level X.
Choose 5-10 monsters out of the monster's manual as their army. Bonus points if they're all of the same type.
Each turn, every player gets Y amount of experience points. You can buy monsters with those XP, or buy special 'mining' monsters.
Mining monsters 'mine.' 25 XP mining minions mine 2 squares, 100xp mining workers mine 1d6 squares, 200xp elite miners mine 2d6 squares, and 500xp mining robots mine 6d6 squares. Place dice, face-up, next to spots that are being mined. When you have enough you're happy with, grab a dungeon tile with total squares equal to the mining on that spot, and put it on the map, adjacent to the dice. Remove the dice. You can 'save up' mining this way until you have enough for a big chamber. But be careful, someone can come in and kill your miners, then finish off the room themselves.
Move your monsters, take your attacks. Save the XP you've gained.
Maybe have some way to gain extra XP for mining you've done.
Next player up.
Simple ruleset everyone's already comfortable with, with balanced rules and pre-genned monsters, with a delicious adversarial twist!
CuddlyCuteKitten: Gawd I hated those things. Ugly multi-eyed maggot worm things. *shudder*
As for a resource system, I have one of those in place. As I said, you get a tithe of gold and workers every turn. Gold can be spent to hire new minions/ monster eggs, buy plans for new rooms, and pay for food. Food will be a mostly simple affair, with most units simply requiring 1 gold's worth of food per turn, etc. Gold income can be supplemented by mining valuable things found in the rock and selling them, also raiding other players. Food can be supplemented by farms and whatnot.
Mojo: Stronghold Builder's Guide. However, I don't want to use the D&D rules because they're too specific for such a broad approach.
KrataLightblade: I like the ideas, but too much going against the grain. One faction that doesn't have anything to do with the items, one that is not really a faction so much as your standard fucked up dungeon ecology, and sort of drow? I mean, we're talking when the Ancient Gods of Olde come back, great power is showered down on those with their Crappe. Thats kind of everyone's motivation. I do like the thought thats gone into it, and the angle of thought.
Legionnaired: I very strongly didn't want to use the D&D rules, and 4e isn't even out yet, technically, nevermind everyone being comfortable with it.
Back with content tonight. Sorry that it seems like I'm parcelling it out.
So have a bunch of stuff you can spend gold on
-mining creatures (more miners = more gold = bigger/better monsters... I hope your opposition didn't buy all creatures to rush over and kill all those miners you bought!)
-fighting creatures (versatile, can be used for attack or defence)
-Traps (static defences- either one-use (boulder trap) or continuous use (arrow shooting out of the walls when you step on x square)
-Rogue-type units: When they trigger a trap, they either a) disable it, b) ignore it (trap is still active), c) trip it as usual.
-New Rooms (might allow for better creatures, to feed more creatures, make existing creatures better etc).
Mechanics should exist to upgrade existing heroes/bosses and/or creatures as well, either through rooms (You spend 500 gold and build an armoury- all your creatures have +1 to some stat!), or equipment (You buy lockpicks for your rogues! They now get +1d6 to their disarm trap rolls!).
This all seems vaguely like a card game I played recently at a friends' house- Dungeoneer. Dungeoneer has a randomly generated dungeon, though, and I like the idea of having a devious mastermind building the dungeon I have to beat personally.
What is this, are we going down to Evil-Mart to buy us some sweet evil?
One of the many thousands of charms about Dungeon keeper is that your task is to build Dungeons. Creatures come to you looking for work. Creatures leave you if you can't afford their salary. The odd rogue reaper will start slicing and dicing on the way to your heart. If you buy creatures then its just another run of the mill build up an army game, but with the odd smell of evil.
Or hell, maybe it differs between factions- some are like the above, others rely entirely on mercenary labour, others manufacture their critters, others summon them from transdimensional hellholes... all sorts.
Because honestly, other than adding some randomization to the game ("I got ANOTHER of those frikking lard ass demon? I need more dark mistresses, dammit!"), choosing to buy the room or buy the monsters really amounts to the same thing. It's actually a neat idea to have the method of buying differ from side to side, but if the methods start differing too much, you can get into some balance issues (especially with many different races to choose from).
Mage
Yes. Mage. Not Mages. Mage.
Every so often a given wizard pisses everyone off on the surface, and has to go someplace. Namely, underground.
Unfortunately for him, he doesn't have any clout to bring workers into his service. But, he can conjure up entities to do his work for him. At the start, he can only summon the most basic of entities, as he has no laboratory or library. But, as he digs out his cavern, he could set up labs and such to begin tapping into the power of the Darke Item, and using that power, summon stronger entities to do his bidding.
Essentially, really really weak at the start, and then becoming very powerful as the Mage begins to understand how to use the Darke Item.
Someone hasn't trained up a force of 10 or so high level Bile demons, dropped them on an enemy party and watched everything die from the gas.
Dark mistresses really can't compare in a fight
If this is played, I would love to play test it. Just send me a PM or something.
The player is always the heart of the Dungeon. Edcrab came up with a sweet idea (This player constant could be one of many things to give the Dungeon a unique feel.) but if its Dungeon Keeper the Players avatar is not a fighter, but an architect. A powerful summoner, a necromancer, some sort of "Standard", an industrialist, a goblin king...
I will think on this.
The idea behind the Mage faction is that it is one person. Every one else hates him SO MUCH that they are unwilling to serve him.
At least that's what I think the idea behind it is. Drake has the final say, I guess. :P
EDIT: I'll raise your swarm of level 10 bile demons and raise you three level 10 Hornys.
Utter. Fucking. DESTRUCTION.
And I know what you meant about the mage, I was using the plural purely because I'm imagining a sprawl with 10+ players, and you can bet there'd be more than one mage on the gamefield :P
I think I've managed to make them fairly unique and not just "the insect race" though. At least I hope so. You'll see the trend as the tiers increase.
My primary inspirations
These guys (Kwama) http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Kwama and these guys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenomorph_(Alien))
Units:
Tier 0:
Egg: [Immobile resource] Eggs can be moved by workers to different hatching chambers and then be feed different resources to produce various kinds of creatures.
Tier 1: [Requires: Nothing] These creatures can be birthed anywhere, even on hard and cold rock. This makes it ideal for a small and underdeveloped hive, but on the other hand it also makes them small and not very effective workers or fighters.
Forager: [Small food gathering worker]
A forager is a small creature that looks like a cross between a larva and a spider. It crawls around outside the dungeon eating organic materials and small creatures which it then turns to a sweet tasting iccor that it can feed other creatures in the hive. It can also be used to dig out tunnels, but not very effectivly.
Cost: None.
Abilities: Forage, 1 food/turn or 1 wp/turn.
Scrib [Small utility creature] This a larval stage of development for many other creatures. The scrib can be used to scout for the hive, provide some menial labour like tending eggs or be left to wander around the hive to act as a limited form of protection for the hive.
Cost: [Low amounts of food/free]
Abilities: [Cocoon tier 2 creatures]
Scrab [Small warrior creature] This creature is similar to the scrib but it's growth have been stunted by more specialisation. It has a marginally harder skin, larger fangs and a much keener sensory system. It's also much more aggressive and will recklessly attack anything that doesn't have the smell of a fellow hive creature.
Cost: Low amounts of food
Abilities: None.
Tier 2 [Requires Hatching chamber]
Worker [Basic worker] The drone is an effective sterile male worker. It works tirelessly and effectivly and has an astounding capacity of learning things considering how simple this creature really is.
Requires: [Hatching chamber]
Cost [Scrib, low amount of food].
Abilities [Work]
Warrior [Basic fighter] A sterile male breed from a scrib that is given more food and care. It's larger and more dangerous than a worker but also more aggressive, dumber and has larger tendrils and claws making it unsuited for any kind of real work. It mostly idles around the hive looking for figths with other warriors.
Requires [Hatching chamber]
Cost [Scrib, Medium amount of food]
Scribling [Medium larval stage] A scribling is considerably larger and more intelligent than it's smaller cousins due to the increased care and food it got while hatching. It's still inferior to either the warrior or worker in their respective domain but it tries it's best to tend to the hives needs.
Requires [Hatching chamber]
Cost [Low or medium amount of food].
Abilities [Cocoon tier 3 creatures]
Tier 3 [Requires Hatching nest, Enclosure or Fighting pit]
Herder [Scout, herds foragers and scribs, scriblings] A herder is a sterile female breed which is quite intelligent, almost as smart as your average human. It’s rather small but its stealth and cunning makes it about as strong as a warrior. Its usual role is to oversee up to five of the lesser creatures like foragers in order to make them work more efficiently.
Requires [Enclosure]
Cost [Scribling + Large amounts of food or perhaps medium amounts of food and low amounts of gold?]
Abilities [Herd critters to increase efficiency, scout]
Hulk [Heavy warrior] By building a fighting pit and pitting scriblings against each other the hive can select the strongest and most ferocious and then breed them into brutes. As for all male Kwamas the more food and the bigger they get the less intelligent they are. Brutes are hulking behemoths with a hard shell and vicious claws. Fortunately they are quite docile when they aren’t aggravated and seldom cause any trouble for a hive.
Requires [Fighting pit]
Cost [Very large ammonts of food]
Cribling [Final larval stage/Coddled favourites/Final utility unit] Criblings are the highest form of Kwama larvas and quite intelligent. They know they are destined for great things and generally look down on the lesser creatures of the hive as they consider themselves nobility. They are about as big as a warrior and while not quite as tough they make up for it in intelligence. While they consider themselves above menial labour they realise they aren’t the top kwamas in the hive (yet!) and will grudgingly work on any task they are instructed too.
Requires [Hatching nest]
Cost [Medium amounts of food, medium amounts of gold]
Tier 4 [Temple of the great Mother, Hive court]
Maiden [Master worker] Maidens are fertile kwama females and are at the top of the food chain in Kwama society. The dream of every Kwama Maiden is to be granted the right to start her own brood and thus she works tirelessly to impress the queen and further her goals. Kwama Maidens are very intelligent (at least as smart as humans) and able craftsmen and traders and can defeat most lower level foes in combat if they are pressed.
Requires [Temple of the great Mother]
Cost [Cribling, Medium amounts of food, large amounts of gold]
Abilites [Worker]
Prince [Elite warriors] Princes are fertile Kwama males. They are about the size of brutes but weigh a bit less and are very smart for their size, but still dumber than your average human. Their cunning and exceptionally well developed body makes them able leaders and fearsome foes. Princes spend most of their time organising the hives defences and use their size to keep smaller warrior creatures in check (brutes are to dumb to object). While not tending to their duties they use all of their available time trying to impress the Maidens since they know that if one of them gets the boon of starting a new brood she will choose her mate carefully.
Requires [Hive court]
Cost [Cribling, Large amounts of food, large amounts of gold]
Tier 5
Queen [Produces eggs, Hero unit]
A queen can be birthed in two ways. Either a dead queen can be used to feed an egg placed inside an inner sanctum, or a Maiden can be given the blessing to mate with one of the hives princes. The first option requires considerably less resources but is only available if a proper inner sanctum already exist.
The second option will kill the selected prince (mating is a one way ticket to glory in Kwama society) and kill, or transform depending on how you look at it, the lucky Maiden as well. The process requires the perfect conditions of an inner Sanctum and considerable amounts of resources.
A queen is the center of the hive (and you start out with/as one). While most queens would not willingly shed their eggsack and destroy their destiny and the future of their personal brood a queen migth feel that it's the only choice, either to protect a greater hive or to avenger her own. A queen which makes this ultimate sacrifice is a truly fearsome warrior with her huge mass and almost indestructeble shell. A queen hellbent on revenge is a match for any hero, monster or even demon and she can slaugther legions of lesser troops in her cold, calculating freenzy.
Abilities [Produces 3 eggs per day, Immobile. Can shed eggsack to become a fearsome warrior]
Do you remember that level in DK1 where you start off with two low level horned reapers, a dungeon of doors and traps, and a fully developed enemy keeper already attacking?
I transferred a level 10 horny into that level
So I had three of them at the start
and oh god all the blood what a quick victory.
Horny is simply so iconic.
Gumpy: More like buying cubs/eggs and taming the monster. I also have plans for subduing/capturing wild monsters, or just having the possibility to allow a monster to live in the dungeon, assuming its not particularly hostile towards you. Most of the units you buy are your faction's units, that you have to have rooms to accomodate. Barracks for troops, barracks/armory for better equipped troops, barracks/alchemy lab for poisoners/grenadiers, etc. Monsters are a seperate entity, but not one that you can't take advantage of.
Edcrab: Semantics, mostly. The point was more that factions will have two sources for units. Faction-specific minions which are hired as above, when you have the appropriate facilities, and Tamed/Captured/Raised units that your troops have to go to significant effort to obtain. Raising an egg/Taming a captured monster, or just plunking the monster in your dungeon and trying to wall it off from the rest of the dungeon.
MechMantis: The only problem I have with that is that I intend the Darke Items to be entirely Macguffins. They are the motivation and means to an end. Nobody is really allied with each other on this, its a mad scramble to claim the God's favor. Otherwise it would make a good faction, say, Demonologists.
Ryadic: Its long-turn based PBEM. Nowhere near an RTS.
Gumpy: Think of the player more as a visiting foreman. He shows up (I'mthinking once a week, or every 3 days or something) to the dungeon, assesses what happened last week, and give out the orders for the next week. Otherwise the whole PBEM thing just gets aggravating because you think "GUH!? I WOULDN'T HAVE DONE THAT!"
Cuddly: Well fuck, now I feel bad because you went to all that trouble. I don't LIKE Kwama >.< I also feel really bad because in a lot of ways, its similar to what I had going on for the Plant People.
For plant people, I was thinking several things. For one, every turn they would get Gold and Seeds. They would start out with a hero, some defensive units, and a Shaper. Shapers would have low Work Points, but the ability to spend Work Points to Shape the seeds, "spawning" an immobile worker unit that dies at the complettion of its task. For instance, a vine that grows into the rock, busting it up as it grows. A heavy thorned bush that grows up to be a defensive barricade. A plant that grows into a venom needle trap. Etc. Their units would be heavily biased between defense or offense, with very little speed. Defense-oriented units would look like stumpy treants, while attack oriented ones would look like vine-tentacle monsters with mouths and needles.
Also: Going off some of your suggestions for what raiders can do, I've figured out this for raiding.
When raiding, the player selects all the troops that will be on Raiding Duty. These are considered unavailable for the duration of the next turn, in case your base is attacked. One of the units must be made the Leader. Should the leader die, the Raid retreats. I always listed the Luck and Morale part, which is generated during the raid. Once you have your raid together, you assign two goals, one primary, one secondary. The difference should be obvious, I hope. The goals I've come up with so far:
Scout for Player dungeon (Cannot launch raids until you find someone!)
Scout for Lairs (Random monsters, small NPC dungeons with no Item, basically)
Scout Player dungeon (Basically a skirmish to test defenses and see what you can see)
Kill Workers
Kill Attack-oriented units
Kill Defense-oriented units
Destroy Traps
Destroy Fortifications
Destroy Special Rooms
Steal Gold
Steal Artifacts
Steal Darke Item (Well DUH)
Patrol for Raiders (Go hunting for other raiders, basically)
Patrol for Monsters (Intercept wandering monsters before they get to your dungeon, also good if you want to tame some, since you are LOOKING for them)
Defenders have the following goals, which each unit is given of:
Defend Room (Stays near specified room/area)
Defend Workers (Stays near workers, defending them)
Defend Attackers (Stays near attack-oriented units, defending them.)
Defend Darke Item. (Stays near the Item)
General Defense. (Goes where the fighting is heaviest)
When a raid DOES hit home, the Leader, depending on his Morale (Maybe I should change that to Intelligence or Tactics...) sets up the formation/order and gets into the dungeon. Assuming they encounter defenders, they go into combat, ATK vs DEF until one side loses. Then they will progress into the dungeon, encountering defenders. After a while of this (Not sure how I'd set it up right off hand), the resident troops without defense orders launch a Counter Attack, where they assemble and march on the Raid, using THEIR ATK vs the Raiders DEF (Better mix them up then!). If the Raiders win that as well, they complete their objectives, and go home.
Of course at any time, the Leader may call off the raid due to Morale/Tactics/Intelligence, or be defeated.
Idea I'm considering: Should the Darke Item be stolen, the player who had it stoled gets a one-time burst of gold influx the turn AFTER he finds its been stolen, as a sign of his faction giving him one last chance. If he doesn't have a darke item in 5 turns, game over.
Idea I'm also considering: To reduce the impact of multiple raids on one player in one turn, raids will battle each other before reaching the dungeon in question, with penalties to Morale/whatever.
You have the right idea with the players being some kind of foreman, so they just give orders and you can deal with any minor problems that arrive.
Another source of fun will be the stuff in the rock itself. Seeing as how this is the magical valley of the gods and whatnot, I can get away with cramming this chock full of stuff that would make a geologist shit... well, a geologist crapping bricks doesn't seem that amusing. Hmm.
Anyway, Here's some of the stuff I thought that might be found deep in the gooey center of the earth's crust:
Rock: Basic nondescript rock. Its basically there to be cleared away so you have room.
Iron: More difficult to mine, can be refined into Steel to make better gear.
Diamond: Much more difficult to mine, very difficult to refine, can be sold for a quite a lot.
Granite: More difficult to mine, more an annoyance than useful.
Various Gemstones:like a lesser diamond, thinking about adding some effects.
Open Chambers: "Bubbles" in the rock, natural caverns. Can be filled with just about anything, usually hostile to the workers.
Artifacts: Found in other things, are magic items which can be researched to give bonuses or curses, and of course, sold.
Noxsteel: A venomous metal that kills the workers who mine or refine it, costly in casualties, but can produce naturally envenomed weapons or traps.
Kophate: A rock that requires the utmost care to mine, or else it detonates in a wild explosion, killing all units working within several squares of it, also blowing out nearby sections of wall or rock. Can be sold, or used to make extremely powerful traps or special units.
Tombs: Small chambers sealed within the rock, with a combination of undead monsters, treasure, and traps.
Definitely want more ideas on this.
Gold: Rock, only better. Yellow and shiny and shit.
Oil Deposit: You come across a lake of oil in the dark. Can be used for stuffâ„¢. Recommend not lighting it on fire.
Ruin: The ruins of a former Keepers work. There might be stuff here to salvage, and even if not, a nice area to expand into.
River: You've found an underground river. Swimming in it might be a bad idea, but a nice way to get somewhere fast.
The Pit: You've found a pit, but not just any pit. It's the Bottomless Pitâ„¢. You threw a coin down and heard it hit bottom 3 weeks later when you walked by.
Magma: A magma flow interupts your path. All kinds of warm and painful.
Also going to work on a Deamonic faction later today.
Perhaps the mushrooms ARE hostile beasties? Which you can then eat!
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Also, Plants? If by plants you mean myconids, then yes, we will rock this.