I'm posting in this thread, as it looks most recent and alive.
First of all, wish you all the best in developing the new game.
From what I have read, I imagine it a bit like modern
"Master of Orion" - which would be awesome.
Now, let me share some loose ideas about the overall "game feeling" that may be helpful. Or not.
Prologue
In my opinion the best part of many movies involving contact with alien civilization is the introduction, building the tension and waiting for the unknown. For example, beginning of the
"Contact", "Independence Day", "Stargate", even
"Deep Impact" prepares us for the mystery but does not reveal it.
So the in game equivalent would be in form of:
Earth observatories have detected strange activity from far regions of the Solar System, including artificial radio signals, large space objects not classified as comets or asteroids and lots of heat radiation. Some nations consider this as threat, some declare it a hoax.
What would player do:
- (scientific) - Try to decrypt and translate transmisions?
- (industrial) - Prepare and launch a probe to explore this phenomena?
- (military) - Develop advanced weapons and prepare for conflict?
- (diplomatic) - Influence other friendly countries to form alliance and act together?
The next decision would depend on the returned results.
Are we detecting Star Destroyers or Quarian Flotilla, is the race Klingon or Vulcan, do we have advisors, "mentats" (
"Dune") to analyze and predict the best move etc.
This would require some indicators of possible success/failure for each decision to be made, based on science, economy, industry and diplomacy factors.
Factions
I like the idea of balancing various interest groups that has been presented in
"Tropico" - the game, for example:
- Militarists - supporting them and making decisions in their favour would obviously increase offensive and defensive power, meaning progress in researching and building weaponry, recruiting soldiers and improving index of "feeling safe" for average citizen.
- Industrialists - increase building capabilities for facility, vehicles and ships, grant additional power plants, improve the employment index for people.
- Spiritualists - including religious and philosophical leaders, which may calm down general public, influence other factions or country leaders and try to change their opinion in your favor.
- Merchants/traders - buying and selling resources in better prices, and trading with other countries increase their "friendliness" which may be developed into some kind of alliance.
Depending on situation, supporters, opponents, isolationists, rioters or traitors would be also present.
Motivation
The "motivation" thread has not been used for a while but a lot of great ideas has been said and written there already.
In my opinion, player has to find out what is the purpose of aliens visiting the Solar System, and how to react, depending on their race, faction and behaviour (peaceful, pragmatic, aggresive), instead of: "invasion starts - kill the leader to stop it".
As with the human factions, I'm expecting various alien races and different factions within. Could be some of:
- Travellers from far way just passing through the system (Quarians from "Mass Effect").
- Traders selling all possible items and information but for an absurdly high price, for now.
- Representatives of Galactic Council that monitor activity on Earth from some time.
- Rebels, fugitives, dissidents escaping from the grasp of Empire ("Star Wars").
- Some non-humanoid civilization that seems very difficult to communicate with.
- Robot zombie ninja bandits from space!
Solving the mystery behind one group of aliens does not exclude that in a few years' time another contact will be made, with different adversary, decisions and consequences.
Choices
Let the player select from a variety of choices which are rather "gray" than usual "good and bad karma".
Short scenario for beginning of the first chapter:
After detecting the alien ships in prologue, the contact has been made and a group of aliens landed on Earth. They offered to share their science and technology in exchange for establishing a colony. Some countries agreed, eager to advance their research with alien tech, other remain skeptical.
The aliens build their colonies in remote locations, shielding themselves from sensors and satellites. From time to time they meet with human scientists and indeed delivered examples and schemas for advanced medical procedures, micro energy cells, nanomaterials and other marvels. But despite this, the unrest grew among general population and alien-friendly countries were met with suspicions by their neighbours. Rumors had been that aliens are constructing some kind of war machines (
"War of the Worlds" the book).
What would player do:
- Demand from aliens access to their colonies?
- Offer other countries to share alien research data in order to gain their trust?
- Send small team to infiltrate alien colony and find out what is going on inside?
- Begin preparations for military attack on aliens?
We have to know what consequences would have specific actions. Supporting other countries would raise their friendship level but decrease our technological advance. And if infiltration mission probability of success would be predicted as "moderate" and potential gain "unknown", is it worth to take?
Let's say that few years after establishing first contact with aliens and beginning of mutual cooperation, there has been another contact. Second group of aliens proclamed that they represent Galactic Council which coordinates trade and politics for all species able to space travel, now including humans. They also warn that there is open conflict between Council and the dangerous rebel groups who were pursued to this system recently.
What would player do:
- Switch sides and join the Council despite having good relations with alien colonies but for potential future gains?
- Warn alien colonies about the pursuit and risk being labelled as bandits?
- Secretly gather more intel on each side?
- Analyze military, diplomatic and economical effects of each decision?
- Can we trust the alien messenger - has it been Kenobi type or rather Palpatine type?
Other ideas
- Ability to make new pacts/alliances with friendly countries, or break them ("Master of Orion").
- Use of diplomacy, bribe, threats, sabotage and other means of politics.
- Public opinion and human resources are important factor while risking open conflict - instead of "building" troops and sending them to war, you need first to convince your country and allies about this neccessity, raise patriotic emotions, print propaganda pamphlets etc. Otherwise you risk low morale, anti-war riots and poor quality soldiers.
- Optional "black market" or specific missions to acquire rare components, items and informations - similar to country requests or council missions in XCOM, but this time you can initiate it as well. "I want to boost my nuclear energy research, so I'm offering advanced medikits instead, if some of friendly countries is interested." Also, it would sound reasonable, if special mission of eg. escorting the VIP scientist from observatory would result in gaining substantial benefit like "stealth satellites" or "UFO detection system" instead of just credits and XP.
- As someone mentioned before, tactical section could be simplified to troops of the same types containing more soldiers ("Heroes of Might and Magic 3"). Auto-combat option could just calculate offense and defence values of each sides and give result of battle with computed wins or losses, useful if someone wants to focus only on strategic side of the game.
- Replayable skirmish battles option is available for new maps after mastering previous tasks or advancing campaign ("Valkyria Chronicles")
- Arcade/trial section with various mission objectives separated from the campaign: unite 10 countries in 10 years, manufacture mobile power source at least of 1.21 GW, successfully launch interstellar probe before other countries, capture 10 enemy leaders of specified rank, defend Earth for 5 years etc. ("Battle for Wesnoth")
- Rare, one-time events, very beneficial to the main storyline: "Engineers from allied country shared their research documents concerning propulsion systems: now all your space crafts have increased speed and range" (random encounters in "Fallout 2")
- Minor events that occur 1-2 times a year, depending on the overall situation: "Scientists achieved a breakthrough in the experiments, research speed is increased by 50% until end of the month", "Street riots damaged one of the factories, production size for this month is halved" (astrologers' predictions in "Heroes of Might and Magic 3")
I think that would be all I can think of for now.