Note: This is not a wip. It is just a game idea that I plan to save until I have the skill to complete it.

----- TimeWars -----

Introduction Here is an idea that I've been working on for a while. The base for this game is a standard strategy war game like Warcraft, C&C, Red Alert etc. Basicly it is the same system of using buildings to train units, research upgrades or process neccesary supplies. But it also has an extra feature which further expands the posibilities of strategy. [EDIT] Decided to leave out the story since it really isn't that important. The basics I have tried to make an if not realistic then at least plausible base for the game. It is in a futuristic setting so there will probably be some obscure technology. An example of the realistic setup is the supplies: Water - The main currency. The nuclear war poisoned most of the earth's water supply and have because of that become very valuable. Gold did not seem very realistic considering the futuristic setting. Metalls - Wood has long since been replaced by metalls when it comes to manufacture buildings among other things. Oil - Despite the advanced technology oil is still very much needed to make some of the more usefull and complicated substances. I haven't worked out that many details yet because I like to focus on what is unique: The twist Yes, you guessed right. The twist is Time Travel. The majority of this will be carried out by one building: Time Conductor This is the building in charge of time travel. After being built it will steadilly charge. After that it will be able to carry a number of units (and possibly buildings) within its range forward a certain measure of time. The range, possible number of units and the maximum amount of time shift should increase with the charge. When the time travel is engaged the units will disappear and be invisible to all players and will at the end of the time travel simply reappear at the spot they where in when the time travel started. When units are in time travel the player will have lost control over them until they reappear and time will progress as usual for all other units.    A possible upgrade might be the ability to transport the units to another location as well as time. In order to maintain a game balance I have also added this: Time Shield This building creates a shield over a certain area that protects it from being invaded by enemy units coming out of time travel. The HQ should have one of these built in to protect the base camp. New tactics There are two new main advantages that I can see at the moment though there ought to be more. 1. Suprise attack When in time travel the units are invisible and therefor in a perfect position for a suprise attack. The downside is that you have to know where the enemy will be at a certain point in time. 2. More thurough tactics A Time Conductor gives the player a much bigger control of where and when a certain unit will be at a certain point in the game. The Time Conductor allows a safe setup of a large army by simply moving small groups of units to the place they ought to be in and send them to a specific time. The army will then reappear as a whole at that specific point in time. But you have to make very sure that there is not a Time Shield at that location. There it is. What do you think? I am focusing mostly on the time travel part of the game for now but any comments are welcome. One of my main concerns is the game balance and how to maintain it. I am also wondering what should happen if one or more units tries to exit time travel on top of a Time Shield or in a spot already occupied. As a side track I am also a bit curious as to what other advantages time travel will have besides the two I mentioned above.

Thanks for posting :)

Quote:Original post by doctorsixstring
What would be the benefit of the player sending units into the future? I can see the value of teleporting them to a different location on the map, but a "time-warp into the future" feature is basically just preventing the player from using the units for a period of time. When the units become available again, the tech level of the player and his opponent(s) may have advanced, rendering the time-traveling army obsolete. At best, the units may surprise an enemy who underestimated the player's strength.

The advantage that I was thinking of is that if you want to create a large group of units in a normal war game you would have to create each unit separetly and because of that there will be a delay between each unit. But mainly the point is that the enemy will know what is going on. With a Time Conductor this problem will have been completely removed. You simply send the first unit to the point in time when the last unit is done. You then have an army in an instant that could strike at the enemy without warning.
But you are right about it not being usefull without the possiblily of moving to another location. My solution is that I swap the features like this:
1. Time Conductor becomes SpaceTime Conductor (and Time Shield becomes SpaceTime Shield)
2. It has the power to move a unit to another location on the map.
3. It can upgrade into moving a unit forward in time as well.

Quote:Original post by doctorsixstring
Perhaps the player could request reinforcements form the future, via the Time Conductor building. The player could request more advanced units by upgrading the Time Conductor, or performing research in other buildings. When the player requests a unit, it instantly becomes available. At a certain point in the future, the player would be required to build the actual unit and send it back in time. If he fails to send the unit back in time, some sort of dire punishment would be in order. The subspace continuum could rupture and destroy a building, or something to that effect. Maybe the player's bank account would simply be deducted the cost of the unit, possibly pushing his finances into the red.

Now this is a very interesting idea. Keeping the game balanced might be tricky but it definetly increases the usability of the Time Conductor.
The only problem that I see is that a when a player thinks he or she is loosing the player can request more troops that he or she can afford. That player then maybe beats the other player but has such a large "bill" that both player loses. This can of course be solved by using a limit but I want to have has few restrictions as possible. Hmmmm....

That might be nice addition to the game. Maybe I could add a unit that does something like that. Hmmm...

I was thinking of a time based war game a few years back, in it I had special ore with unique properties that was the basis of all time travel technology.

Some of the ideas I had where:

Cartographer - a unit that is able to change the terrian in the a local area. Causing forests to appear, or raising/lowering a hill.

Temporal rift generator - open rift in space time somewhere on the map that release hostle neutral units from a random point in history. Open the gate in an enemy base and t-rex might charge, or a horde mongolian soldiers.

Temporal Assassin - Send an assassin back in time to eliminate a person crucial to the technological development of another faction. Could be used to deprive members of that faction from having a certain type of technology.

Relativity field generator. - Increase or decrease the speed at which time passes within the field. Nothing can pass into or out of a relativity field while its active.

1000 years gun - A weapon that ages its targets by a 1000 years in an instant.

A time based war game could be a lot of fun the trick is making use of the time aspect effectivly.

Now I really like that Temporal Rift Generator. It would be lots of fun to bring back a dinosaur inside the enemy camp :)