Post nuclear strategy

[Chris]

What would you put in post nuclear/apocalyptic strategy? By strategy I mean strategy, not RPG or tactical wargame. Things like being a leader of a settlement, fighting for domination in a postnuclear world, management of some pre war underground shelter/vault. No things like lone warrior with a dog shooting at raiders, but a gang leader, builder of a society or someone like that.

[Topazan]

One thing I think is unique about the post apocalyptic setting is the whole "scavenger civilization" concept.  The whole idea of having to salvage, trade for, and fight over increasingly rare items that no one remembers how to make in order to keep your technology running.

Perhaps discovering useful technology by chance could be a big part of the gameplay.  Everything the player's build past a certain level requires occasional replacement parts, which if not found by chance need to be traded for or raided from other civilizations.

The more reliant on pre-war tech you choose to be, the stronger and more prosperous your civ, but you need to constantly search for the parts you need to maintain your technology.

[lolninja]

One thing I really liked about Fallout New Vegas, is how you have to deal with a number of NPC groups, and helping one group offends another, I could see something like that being pretty powerful in a browser game, gives you a good avenue of decision making.

For example in New Vegas, there is a big group trying to establish order, NCR, but they harbour a historical grudge against another group, Brotherhood of Steal. Now working with the NCR leads to a pretty easy game, but you don't get to play with all of the big fancy toys. Siding with the brotherhood means you get more cool bits of equipment, but the game is harder because your known as being sympathetic to one of the NCR's enemies.

How I realise what I've mentioned is in relation to the 'one man and his dog' style of game you were wanting to avoid, but having a range of NPC groups which vary in side, power and influence could be a pretty cool system if implemented right.

[ashley20]

That reminds me a bit of the old visionaries cartoons which had a kind of post apocalyptic storyline (technology fails, and an age of magic begins) : Two groups trying to gain overall control (ocassionally forced to work together but generally in competition), each group containing individual characters with specialist strengths and skills, finding other 'survivors' who want to be led and trying to persuade them to join sides.

[Chris]

One thing I think is unique about the post apocalyptic setting is the whole "scavenger civilization" concept.  The whole idea of having to salvage, trade for, and fight over increasingly rare items that no one remembers how to make in order to keep your technology running.

Yes... I think salvaging something is a must...

Perhaps discovering useful technology by chance could be a big part of the gameplay.  Everything the player's build past a certain level requires occasional replacement parts, which if not found by chance need to be traded for or raided from other civilizations.

More about this?

That reminds me a bit of the old visionaries cartoons which had a kind of post apocalyptic storyline (technology fails, and an age of magic begins) : Two groups trying to gain overall control (ocassionally forced to work together but generally in competition), each group containing individual characters with specialist strengths and skills, finding other 'survivors' who want to be led and trying to persuade them to join sides.

Do you recall the name of this cartoon? Sounds like quite similar to what I try to achieve.

[Topazan]

One thing I think is unique about the post apocalyptic setting is the whole "scavenger civilization" concept.  The whole idea of having to salvage, trade for, and fight over increasingly rare items that no one remembers how to make in order to keep your technology running.

Yes... I think salvaging something is a must...

Perhaps discovering useful technology by chance could be a big part of the gameplay.  Everything the player's build past a certain level requires occasional replacement parts, which if not found by chance need to be traded for or raided from other civilizations.

More about this?

Using the Fallout games as inspiration, suppose you want to build a water purification system for your settlement.  In addition to some generic resources (maybe scrap metal and concrete rubble can be the basic resources), you need the following technological components:
1 control chip
2 filters
3 pumps
5 automotive power cells

One way for players to get these is by exploring ruins.  This is risky because they could be haunted by raiders or mutants, and any components you find may not be the ones you need.  If you're lucky, you'll be able to find a friendly settlement that has what you want and needs what you have.  Some components are much rarer than others.

The other way to get them would be attacking a settlement that already has a working water purification system, and stealing the components you need from theirs.

In addition, perhaps the components don't last forever, and the purification system will slowly become less efficient unless new components are found.  An ongoing conflict over the remaining scraps of technology.

[Nox]

You could do something more with mutation, e.g. artifacts sometimes causing mut., mutagenous areas, limited curing of mut., throwing radiation cells to some enemy camp, magic causing mutation (related to ashley20's post)... maybe player could choose a strenght of the spell when casting, higher power means higher chance of more people being affected by some mutation (similar concept with spell power was in some 1st person group rpg...might&magic?)
Not sure if it fit's your image, just ideas

[ashley20]

 

Do you recall the name of this cartoon? Sounds like quite similar to what I try to achieve.

The cartoon was called Visionaries : Knights of the Magical Light (sorry for the late response).

[pixlepix]

What about, the edge of the game world slowly shrinks, forcing you to always move and fight for space. Would create a good 'feel'