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[Chris Koźmik]

I look for feedback and ideas on this early concept.

Genre: turn based strategy, singleplayer (only)
Theme: space empire builder
Mechanic: assymetric gameplay (like in tower defence games), the player controls the empire and the AI controls invaders & problems (so it's not traditional  4X game, but it takes a lot of concepts from these too)
Scope & pace: I go for a feel of a mini empire builder, not an overbloated 4X game, I want to keep the most fun parts of 4X games and cut the traditional excessive fat


Overview
You start at the center of the map, you take a role of an emperor of the whole galaxy, your goal is to unify the galaxy (not that hard) and then defend the empire from various threats (hard). There are no other empires! You are the only empire that exists and everything (almost) you see on the map should belong to you before the mid game.

Threats & Challenges
* First you try to persuade neutral planets/races to join the empire (they will not create their own empires, just scattered lonely planets without imperial ambitions) and colonize the galaxy.
* Then you need to deal with regional threats (all threats target both empire and neutral planets) like pirates and parasitic symbiots that go every 100 turns on a destructive rampage.
* And the last one, you need to survive the invasion of aliens from another galaxy/dimension who are not to conquer but to annihilate (at that point all neutral planets will become quite eager to join the empire, so they can survive).
* There probably will be also internal rebelions (ungrateful planets trying to gain independence)
* And space plagues you need to quarantine, and big space monsters you need to hunt

Galaxy map
Made out or 100 planets (or systems, each system has just one planet for simplicity). At the very center is your home planet, the imperial throne and the government of the empire, if it falls it means instant game over. Then there are neutral planets (various races). There are also bases of pirates (they can spread on the map and build outpost and exort tribute from neutral planets or your planets). Also there is one special planet (somewhere at the outskirts of the galaxy - dependiong on difficulty level it can be more near the center) that is a home of parasitic symbiots, almost invincible defences on their home planet, they do nothing most of the time but once per 100 turns they wake up and start to colonize/conquer nearby planets, then after like 30 turns they go back to hibernation and retreat to their home planet (so they can't really conquer the galaxy but can wreak havock if not stopped). At the very outskirts of the galaxy is one or more warp gate via which aliens from another dimension/galaxy enter.

[Chris Koźmik]

Too complex question, always too complex :D

[Trash_Empire]

Is this explaining a campaign? The goal of the campaign to colonize the entirety of the galaxy. I like the idea of where you have to persuade other planets to join the empire. This persuasion, is it like a miniature game in itself, or is it as simple as trading resources, that you gather in like an ongoing agreement. I think a good resource system would be amazing for this.

[Chris Koźmik]

Yay! I got a reply

I like the idea of where you have to persuade other planets to join the empire.

Hmmm, you are the second person who liked that part. No, it would not be a minigame, just some politics/economy/diplomacy/culture thing. Maybe some negotiations (like we will join if we get special rights, exempt from taxes for 100 years and everyone else is the empire is declared our slaves ) Or just slowly being exposed the the culture of the empoire and to our merchants so the number of population that supports imperial ideas grows and one day the planetary government says they want to join.
Or we could just send our superior imperial fleet and conquer them if we got tired of waiting

Resources/products - yes... it might fit here.


Campaign - well, you could say it's the explanation of a campaign, but I was more thinking that the whole game is like that (like you get it similar eacxh game, just different placement of planets and big events at different times from diferent points of the map and maybe some excluded). I don't know, I was not thinking about the campaign part too much. But 4X games in general do not have any campaign thing just different settings to "generation of the galaxy"?

[Fatback]

What's the win state?

[Chris Koźmik]

What's the win state?

Probably victory over the last aliens (trans dimensional, the most dangerous ones). Or a mixture of conditions (like imperial stability (no rebelions) high enough for X turns + defeated all major threats already). And/or a construction of some sort of super portal. Or uncovering the secrets of remains of an ancient race.

[Muz]

Nice in concept, but almost all games are different to what I expected after implementation.

[Chris Koźmik]

BTW, I decided to go for this concept. Changed some things (added more various aliens you interact with), added Imperialish things (like audience) and various scenarios (in some you fight aliens, in some you just try to crush a rebellion).

Here is TIGs devlog:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=46247.0