Okay, well then...fanmade campaign currently being built. Need help!

I've been most surprised that, since Altarian Prophecy's release, absolutely no fanmade campaigns have been released that I know of. As such, I have taken it upon myself to construct a campaign -- I already have some scenarios for it finished. Actually, I've had the story in my head for a while, but not had to will to finish it until recently. With my free time for playing full GalCiv games being eaten away by school and scifi writing, I figure that what little free time I have left should be used in the making of something that GalCiv fans in the community will enjoy, as I cannot do so. I'll be providing story details and information on what the three main races involved are, as well as some minor information on other civilizations.

First off, the title of the campaign is "Yor Mainframe" and is the first of three stories I have planned out in my head. The other two will likely be made when GalCiv 2 is released. The story's main antagonists are, as the title suggests, the Yor Collective. The young Terran Alliance has begun expanding its power in surrounding sectors in an attempt to protect itself from the other great powers in the galaxy. In the process, they end up inciting the wrath of the Yor leading to a massive war which is essentially the entirity of the story.

You are, of course, the Terran Alliance. Though tiny, weak, and new compared to giants such as the Drengin or the Yor, the Alliance is determined to not be destroyed and to influence the galaxy. After all, humans made hyperdrive, which is what is allowing this whole thing to occur! Though contact with other civilizations is non-existant at the moment, they are surely nearby.

A minor race that lives in a sector somewhat near the Sol Sector is among the first to be contacted. This race actually intercepted an Earth-Arcea signal detailing the hyperdrive design, by pure accident! Though they didn't grasp what they had at first, they soon developed their own small starships and started their own empire. This race is known as the Korx, and they are a friendly species with almost genetically-honed skills in merchant and bartering skills. They are also rather friendly, rarely if ever making an unfair deal. [as contrasted to the default Pure Evil alignment]

The Yor Collective are a brutal mechanical race which have been gobbling up minor race planets like a plague as of hyperdrive's development. Their power is growing rapidly, much more so than the organic races, and this is greatly alarming. Upon contacting the weak Terran Alliance and Dominion of Korx, the Collective put pressure on them to surrender systems, resources, and ships. However, the pure logic of the Yor processing didn't anticipate the two races allying to fight them off! But can two minor empires really stand up to the mighty Yor Collective? Of course, with Arcea pounding Yor territory, it's not likely that there'll be any major reprisal...immediately, anyway.

All other races make appearances. It should be noted that the Torian Confederation is a REAL Confederation here, and that its alignments will shift based on the most influential leaders within it. Altaria is currently in the midst of a civil war with the rebelling Drath [ala Altarian Prophecy], and it appears that the rebels have the upper hand.

This campaign will basically be a war campaign, with the exception of a few scenarios that are different. Since I myself am not a war gamer in GalCiv [just look at most of my wins], I need some assistance from you warriors to help make it balanced. Tomorrow, I shall upload what I have after tweaking it somewhat. I really need some help with making it challenging for the average war player, without unbalancing it. Heck, I can barely win some of them myself because I'm not so good at fighting.

Honestly...I'm unsure if this should be here. But I am at the end of my rope as far as development goes. There's no way I'll manage to make a good campaign without input. I need suggestions on improving scenario descriptions and story, winning details, and other such things. And there's the problem with getting all the lines to match up. Map details need tweaked -- where to put resources, where to put systems, where do I put what planets, etc.? Heck, is the idea even good? I mean, there's more than just "the Yor plan on dominating the galaxy through military might", but still.

If this is in the wrong place, or I should set up a site or something for this, please tell me.
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Reply #1 Top
If this is in the wrong place, or I should set up a site or something for this, please tell me.
End of quote


I think that this forum is the right place for your topic. If you would like I do not mind play testing your campaign. I am sure that there are several other people willing to give you advice.
Reply #2 Top
I think you will find interest in your campaign ?
Reply #3 Top
Well, life screwed up my chances of getting this out on time. However, I have managed to finish my tweaks and have a Beta campaign of five scenarios uploaded to some webspace. I don't really want to send it in to the Library yet, as it's not even half finished, so I'll put up a link to it if there isn't a problem with it. *waits*
Reply #4 Top
Uhm...well, I woke up this morning and realized how stupid my above post sounds. I suppose...well...anyone who wants to test the Beta campaign [version .1 at the moment] and provide constructive criticism, please IM me on AIM. My screenname is GennaRueben. If you don't have AIM, well...provide me an e-mail and I'll send you a link to the download. It's a .ZIP, so you'll have to extract everything to the Campaign folder.

I just realized I forgot to provide a Readme, too...oh well, I'll make one for the next release...
Reply #5 Top
I started making a B5 mod... it was looking really cool... then I got busy with school, and some other things...

I have time now(ironicaly when i get to college I have MORE free time...), and still want to do it, but I am just going to be collecting content, see what happens with galciv2.

GL with your project, I never did much with the AP editors, but if you need any help I can try.

~SDC~
Reply #6 Top
Thanks. It's nice to see that someone's willing to help. ^^;

This is confusing, since I don't know what to do here...I don't want to send it to the Library because it's a Beta, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post a link to it or not...

*sigh* Oh well. Forget the IM and e-mail stuff. If anyone wants to play the Beta and offer me hints, tell me how to improve maps, what to do to make it less/more difficult, etc. If I get in trouble for linking to the Beta, guess I just do. I honestly hate being confused...

http://www.geocities.com/globalnexus13/YOR_MAINFRAME.zip
Reply #7 Top
It's ok to post links, as long as you don't have any adult content in there or stuff like that.
Reply #8 Top
Okay...^^; Thanks, and sorry about all the, uh, indecision. I'm overly cautious about everything else in my life as well...

...so, is anyone interested at all...? ^^;;
Reply #9 Top
I'll examine and perhaps try your campaign scenarios sometime this week (time permitting). :)
Reply #10 Top
Hmmm...I loaded your campaign and it loads the first scenario correctly. However, I might have uncovered a possible flaw in the save campaign routine. I saved the first turn and the game autosaved the next turn. I went to the load game menu and each save had two entries. One entry was "Altarian Prophecy/YorMStart" and the second was YOR MAINFRAME/YorMStart". The first entry loads parts of the game and then crashes, the second one loads the game correctly. The Autosaves also have double entries too. This could really lead to confusion if you had several saved campaigns.
:notsure:
Reply #11 Top
Just checking in to let you know that I've been playing your campaign. So far I'm in the middle of scenario 3. My first observation is that the starting cash prbbably needs to be reduced in scenarios 2 and 3 by at least 30-40% (perhaps more). The descriptions are all in good shape. They might require a little tweaking but not much.

So far the map size seems to be pretty good. I would think about adding a few more star sytems that have under 10 PQ planets and/or no planets. It might also be nice to add a few low PQ planets to the star sytems that have the 15+ PQ planets for purely "artistic" reasons. For the first go through I'm playing at normal and then I'll probably try it at maso to get an idea of overall balance of the scenarios. I hope to finish up this weekend.
:)
Reply #12 Top
^_^ Okay, I was just trying to make sure you didn't go bankrupt right away [just in case ship-costs overruled income]. I'll be sure to do that. Also, I did make sure to added some low-class planets to habitable systems and otherwise. Thus far, I'm just setting the foundation, and intended to do add "art systems" later on after some playing. Glad to see someone is playing. ^^

Oh, and if Scenario 4 seems odd, it's a "breather" scenario. ^^; I'm still unsure as to whether I should use it in the final campaign. Thank you very much for being a, uh, "Beta" player. :)
Reply #13 Top
Oh, and if Scenario 4 seems odd, it's a "breather" scenario.
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Yup, I think that I won scenario 4 in less 2 dozen turns. I little to fast to be fun. Maybe changing the win condition to "close" relations from "friendly" might work better. :notsure:

Scenario 5 is very interesting. On the surface it seems simple, but after playing it with my normal combo of party and picks, I got "crushed". After adjusting my party and picks, I was able with some effort to win on normal. I like this scenario because it forces one to use alternate strategies to win. :)

One final note: The campaign has no apparent bugs that I could find. :D
Reply #14 Top
^_^ Right, I thought Scenario 4 might not be taken too well. I'm editing it to try and enhance the challenge.

And "Enter the Drengin" is the real big start of the game, the first three being "set-up" scenarios and the fourth being a breather from combat. Each scenario from then on will have its little quirks [which can make a major difference, as you found] as far as available technologies and other things. So expect differing battle strategies for added thinking, though there are limits to the number of differences that can be made. :D I'm trying to make it a little more than the simplistic "take/destroy x or y and you win", which is what most missions will appear to be from then on.

And I'm relieved to see nothing has gone wrong in the design. ^^ This is great news. Can't wait to see your "maso" report on it. I'll begin working on tidying up some things I might've missed initially [like Mega Phasers not being unresearchable in Mission 5]. Again, your help is greatly appreciated! ^^