Conquer Club

A popular theory for how the earth was made involves it being at one point being molten. Putting this as the setting for a map is my idea for a map, which if done right could look totally wicked. The game play would go something along these lines:

The cooling continents (or pangea, whichever) are the bonus areas, and the rest of the earth is molten (auto-decay territs). Each player starts out with two territs, one on the main mass of connected continents, and one which consists of one of 8 islands around the board. If a player loses his island, the player is eliminated, thus providing diverse strategies for either gathering lots of bonuses, or maybe just taking one and then striking out for another player's island.

Some details on the islands: Islands are auto-decay: they are kept at one troop, but they are protected by some decent sized neutrals, along with the auto-decay that occurs once a player takes the territ.

Now, I'm not sure what the background for this map would be: who are the troops representing; what is the importance of the islands? Perhaps the troops represent some early life forms (bacteria?) that are isolated on their own island, and are now trying to spread to the main lands so as to spread their species. (please note that I am not endorsing evolution with this map, I am in fact against evolution, but that doesn't mean all life got here at the same time)

With this map having cooling continents, some may argue that the earth was covered in water first, and therefor this map doesn't work; with this map, we can either a. ignore that and realize that it's a cool map even if it isn't totally correct, or b. just use that fact to give more freedom in creating what the continents look like.

In creating this map, if people show interest, I'm going to need someone to take over graphics.

I am in fact against evolution

What did evolution ever do to you?

Why do you want to combine bacteria with islands? There are theories about first bacteria which may have been formed in between mica layers - a great idea. These bacteria still evolved in sea water not onto the land. Maybe you wanna use flooded parts of the first existing continents as passables and the deeper ocean with some special attributes. It's up to you but it would benefit your map not being just continents, sea routes, etc - same as modern world maps.

You're better off with a dragon themed map. rivers of lava, fire.... that sort of thing.

I get bored of unpassable borders being a river. (get a frickin boat FFS) but lava - I'd have trouble crossing lava....

natty_dread wrote:

I am in fact against evolution

What did evolution ever do to you?

Not the place, natty. Bring it to SIB, mmkay?

Sounds like a cool idea, Nova. I suggest you post a draft so we can get a better understanding of your concept.

-Sully

Permafrost wrote:Why do you want to combine bacteria with islands? There are theories about first bacteria which may have been formed in between mica layers - a great idea. These bacteria still evolved in sea water not onto the land. Maybe you wanna use flooded parts of the first existing continents as passables and the deeper ocean with some special attributes. It's up to you but it would benefit your map not being just continents, sea routes, etc - same as modern world maps.

All though this may be a good idea for a different map, there aren't really much of seas yet in this time period. I can see your point with the bacteria from seas though, but as I said

we can either a. ignore that and realize it's a cool map even if it isn't totally correct, or b...

Anyways the background for this map I'm not really concerned about, the bacteria thing really isn't that important.

Victor Sullivan wrote:

natty_dread wrote:

I am in fact against evolution

What did evolution ever do to you?

Not the place, natty. Bring it to SIB, mmkay?

Sounds like a cool idea, Nova. I suggest you post a draft so we can get a better understanding of your concept.

-Sully

Thanks Sully,

I don't have any graphic software, but I'll see if I can find a decent picture of the time period of the earth I have in mind.

You can always download GIMP or paint.net for free, too.

Okay, I found something that I think would work well for a base on this map.


For storyline on this map, forget the bacteria, I have a better idea. Basically, the ozone got burned off, and the earth became a lot more subject to the sun's radiation. Consequently, the rest of the atmosphere burned off, and the fact that the magnetic field of the earth was transitioning didn't help either. This is the present state of the world. There are still 8 small colonies that have bases that protect from the radiation, but the islands are melting fast. However, there is hope. There is a spot on earth that due to the earths magnetic field is semi protected from the radiation, and volcanic activity is helping to block the sun. In order to win, you have to battle across the lava to the protected area, conquer the whole thing (it's made up a lot of territories, since there are so few people left, a small area can seem a lot bigger), and hold it for one turn.

Comments?

Yeah? Well, sounds somewhat interesting. But almost every map idea sounds interesting until I can see it on a real gameboard designed.


--Andy

Basically, the ozone got burned off, and the earth became a lot more subject to the sun's radiation. Consequently, the rest of the atmosphere burned off

Umm... that wouldn't happen. We'd just get a shitload more UV radiation. It would cause cancer and mutations and possibly end all life in a few decades, but the atmosphere would not "burn off" because of it.

natty_dread wrote:

Basically, the ozone got burned off, and the earth became a lot more subject to the sun's radiation. Consequently, the rest of the atmosphere burned off

Umm... that wouldn't happen. We'd just get a shitload more UV radiation. It would cause cancer and mutations and possibly end all life in a few decades, but the atmosphere would not "burn off" because of it.

So pretend it's a fantasy world and a fantasy universe. It's not like it isn't going to fit in our scheme of maps if it ever gets made.


--Andy

But if we pretend it's a "fantasy universe" it takes away a lot of appeal from the theme, IMO. It's kind of a cop out... I'm just saying, I would find the map more interesting if it had a background story that makes some sense.


I mean, for the thing I pointed out to make sense we'd have to make so many "excuses" that it just gets... well, stupid. Again it's just my opinion... but if we have to bend the rules of the universe just to make the story work then I feel it's lazy storywriting.

I guess my point is: Sure, you can make up an alternate universe that has slightly different rules than our universe, but those rules should be internally consistent and make sense within the context.

natty_dread wrote:

Basically, the ozone got burned off, and the earth became a lot more subject to the sun's radiation. Consequently, the rest of the atmosphere burned off

Umm... that wouldn't happen. We'd just get a shitload more UV radiation. It would cause cancer and mutations and possibly end all life in a few decades, but the atmosphere would not "burn off" because of it.

So perhaps there was a large solar flare. Since you seem to have a deeper understanding of how something like this would happen (It can, it did 4. something billion years ago) maybe you would like to write out how it would happen.

Natural 'plausible' doomsday scenarios are actually hard to contrive and still leave survivors. A solar flare that was massive enough to cause the kind of ecological damage you're talking about would more likely just fry everything at once right down to the soil bacteria, and that would be that. Earth becomes a lifeless orb.

Still, there should be ways to come up with some sort of disaster scenario that could be fun.

Man-made doomsday is much easier to use and still suspend disbelief. Like, "Greedy corporations developed this new form of exciting geothermal activity and then would profit from 'mining' the energy. Improper testing failed to reveal that supposedly local effects in fact disturbed the entire realm of volcanic activity and ultimately caused a massive series of eruptions. Ash and sulfur damaged the atmosphere, acid rain, nuclear winter, etc..." Or just irresponsible use of an untested military weapon- not at all farfetched when you consider that the original team behind the A-bomb had no real clue what could happen when the first bomb was dropped.

Anyway, human stupidity is far more credible than natural chaos. Earth really is quite the durable ecosystem; nature tends to balance and compensate and adapt unless some really huge 'foreign' element (like A-bombs) gets introduced.

There's always the meteor strike, but that's kind of a cliché by now...

How about something to do with the theorethical binary star of our sun, Nemesis?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_%28star%29

Thats kinda cool. When the actual map comes out, we could use that on it.

Well, we have a scenario for the map, I have a pretty good idea of what the game play should be, now I just need someone to partner up with to work on the graphics. (I'm unable to use gimp or something like that, because not only would I be terrible with it, I can't download it.)