¶ title: RFI: Charlemagne (Working Title)
description: A multi-faction RTS telling the story of the last war.
published: true
date: 2024-05-20T15:13:21.362Z
tags: game, rts
editor: markdown
dateCreated: 2024-01-02T01:48:49.206Z
¶ RFI: Charlemagne
¶ Description
An RTS-ish game where you play as League, Terrans, Confed or Privateer (initial early-access would be 1 faction... or even maybe others are DLC later on... dunno. Easy place to cut scope.) and the campaign is basically, playing through the last war up till Charlemagne. Could have special hero characters/ships (Liz instantly comes to mind) with fun bonuses, but at the end of the day, it's basically a territory planet control game where you're fighting against an AI opponent (or even a human one; the networking aspect of that isn't terrible).
Each campaign could be telling a different side of the events of what happened at Charlemagne. I'd want the full story to only become clear once you played all of them. (They'd definitely be interlinked, not unlike original starcraft)
¶ Details
Inspirations:
- Starcraft
- Star Wars: Empire at War
¶ Game Outline
The game will have the following game modes:
- Campaign
- Faction Selection
- Free Play (Single level or Conquest mode, with optional scenarios)
- Single Level
- Secenario Battle
- Conquest
- Scenario Battle (maybe?)
- Single Level
- Multiplayer VS Mode (optional)
- Single Level (1v1)
- Conquest (Up to 4 players)
The "Conquest" modes mentioned will be the full galactic campaign, vs a single system map. Campaign mode is only "Conquest" style. Some features and gameplay will only be available in Conquest (or Campaign) modes.
Players will have the ability to select a faction from the following list:
- League of United Worlds (initial campaign)
- People's Republic of Terra
- The Confederacy of Freelance States
- Privateer (optional? DLC?)
- Zealots (optional? DLC?)
Each of the factions will have their own story lines in Campaign mode. They will also have unique units, unique heros, and slightly different styles/gameplay mechanics. Initially, we will develop the League campaign before working on the others.
- DLC delivery idea: base game comes with the three government campaigns. The Zealot campaign is technically packaged in alongside them but is inaccessible (or at least not easily so). Down the road, release a DLC that adds the Privateer campaign, some other small additions (ships, scenarios, alternate colors, whatever), and also adds in some hints and guidance on how to open the Zealot campaign. To open the Zealot campaign, you would have to replay the three main campaigns and activate certain triggers in a handful of missions. For instance, as the League, you would fail to save the Admiral's flagship in a mission, or as the Confederation you would allow pirates to capture a certain number of transport ships. The idea being that you need to do very Zealot actions (destabilizing and sneaky) to unlock their campaign which has been there the whole time.
¶ Campaign / Conquest Mode
This game mode has two primary sub-modes. The first is what we will call "Galactic Mode" which is a map of available star systems. (This mode is unique to Campaign/Conquest mode.) The second is what we will call the "Fleet Battle Mode", which is a map of the given Star System with hazards, stations, defenses, planets, etc.
Campaign mode will have missions and goals that the player is given to complete. As they achieve their goals, a story will be played out by dialog between various characters and logs/text entries the player can collect. Some of these should be optional, but hint at some of the events of the other campaigns and the manipulations going on behind the scenes.
These campaigns should play out like the campaigns in Empire at War and Starcraft. We don't need large, animated cut scenes to tell a compelling story, and a simple UI plus some voice acting can go a long way.
¶ Galactic Mode
Empire at War Galaxy Map
The Galactic Mode is a turn-based mode where the player has the ability to manage their systems, queue up unit production, recruit/train Heros and (most importantly) move units between systems. They will be able to plan routes for their units, and it will tell them how many turns before they make it there. Some routes will be faster than others, so there may be an optimal way to move units; that is up for the player to determine.
If there are any player units in an enemy controlled system and/or player units in a system with other units, the player is given the chance to choose to attack / start a battle. If a battle is started, they can either auto-resolve it, or play through it.
¶ Fleet Battle Mode
This Fleet Battle Mode will be a mostly traditional RTS. You start in subspace (generally, things like interdiction fields, gravity wells, etc can block this) and give your ships their initial orders and pick where you will be dropping out of subspace on the map. Some stations/ships/hazards will have a radius where if you move into it, you're pulled out of subspace and you take a bit of damage.
Once your ships are in normal space (on the map) play proceeds like a normal RTS. Your can give individual (or grouped) units orders like the following:
- Move (to location)
- Attack (target)
- Protect/Guard (target)
- Use Special (on location/target)
- Defense Postures
- Nominal (~25% soak, 90% weapon damage)
- Offensive (~10% soak, 100% weapon damage)
- Defensive (~50% soak, but only ~70% weapon damage)
- Full Defensive (~90% damage soak, only special weapons can fire)
Unlike traditional RTS games, resource gathering and building will be limited (or non-existent) in most maps. The focus will be much more on either assaulting an enemy fleet and/or station, or defending the station/system/colony. Generally battles would be two sided, but there's no actual limitation (either in the map or required by the game mechanics).
The battle ends when one side flees, or surrenders, or is destroyed. Large stations or other costly resources may choose to surrender with the hopes of reclaiming those units/installations in the future.
Idea: Some factions, like the Terrans or the League might have an ability to convert units into equivalent faction units. They would disallow the usage of captured faction units. However the Confeds or Privateers would just use the captures units.