What game modes should we start with?

Planetary Annihilation: Who destroy planet first, win!

In terms of basic things that should be in a first release:

Game modes:
Assassination
Annihilation (kill all units)
Sandbox (maybe, I put this in mainly because letting people play with whatever they want is a good way to figure out balance issues early)

Anything else is nice but beyond what's necessary

Options:
No nukes (or equivalent)
No Super units
Planet + Moon numbers
Unit limit (make the maximum settings ridiculous, because hey, if we want to break our computers its our funeral)
Time limit (because its easy to add, though that whole complete the game before a planet smashes into yours sounds like a really cool mechanic for enforcing it, particularly with those ideas of escaping the solar system as a victory condition)
Resource accumulation rates
Planet sizes (again, if we want to break our computer doing stupid things just put a disclaimer and let us)

I wonder if we're talking about how much detail we can put into custom maps, or "how many lobby options can we cram into one map".

This sort of stuff would be excellent for making a campaign or custom game modes.

This. I would love if all of these were toggleable on/off in options. It would also help to prevent problems like the turtle stand off - instead of both going for gates, one player might try and claim the metal planet/superlaser while another might just go for more conventional assassination.
It would be even better in big games, where you might get several players going for the same victory condition. This would maybe lead to 3 fighting over a metal world, a couple just fighting it out normally and someone else building a gate. It could also lead to some great situations where all the players realise someone's about to win (say with a gate) and all attack them with everything they've got to stop them at the last minute.
This could get pretty crazy, but seriously awesome

Assassination
Annihilation
Sandbox

Add-ons:
Time Limit - The idea about a black hole is real awesome.
Lonely planet - Can't expand
Moon hopper - Only moons and asteriods
FFA
Phantom - Mods know what this is.
Planetary Annihilation - Destroy the a planet first to win.

Unit limits obviously as well, but maybe set custom ones like Arty and Missiles only. Tanks only. Mechs only etc.

What if you add this Tech/Wonder victory and add a second game mode that could be applied to it? To make the specific commanders to send on you need some metal named " Uberium " to build the gate and commanders and get them sent off? Would give people a reason to hold and control special ore mines at planets and moons

So far this syncs up pretty well with what we've been thinking.

We'll implement a few of the basic ones initially and then make sure the hooks are there to do the rest.

Hooks for a single player campaign are definitely something we want to do. If we miss anything we'll be updating the game to add more anyway.

Thanks for all of the feedback so far.

This.

Please ignore any perceived criticism of FFA, I was just trying to give it context.

Will we get to see a list of what we can expect of game modes in the near future?

Maybe once it's actually implemented but no plan survives contact with the enemy. Lists are pointless, it's what ends up in the game that matters.

Something that always struck me as an important option is game speed. I was big on Age of Empires 2 when it was on The Zone and I still play it today. Most of the time I would play it on fastest but there were times when I would make a game with the slowest setting and micromanage everything.

I also vote for Assimilation. Forgot it earlier.

I'm really surprised to have read this far in and not have seen a "Diplomacy" option -- Everyone starts on the same team, last man standing wins.

This was awesome in Defcon, and and I think it would work well in any game that lets you stockpile weapons of horrible devastation. Plus it would add a whole new meaning to the space race, getting up there might give you a massive advantage, but it could also turn everyone else against you.

How about "Escaping Planet"? As Earth 2150 did...

The Planet is going to be ruptured. You have to build a spacecraft (or whatever) to escape the planet by using limited resource before the planet is doomed. Or course, there is no enough resources for everyone (such as small number of mass spot). So you have to fight for resources.

I posted it in mine already. Might look different, though:

Didn't include the part about not knowing how many people were in the lobby though.

skwibble quote -

Should both teams be allowed to construct the wonder at one time?
If so, could this lead to both teams adopting a turtling stance while rushing to complete the wonder and so deciding not to spend any resources on combat?

Should the other team be automatically notified when one starts their wonder? Furthermore, should they be notified of its position?


Don't forget, there can be far more than just 1 team. Why not 5 or 6 teams?

My (current) preferences..

Sandbox
Annihilation
Team Victory (with option to then go FFA against former teammates)
King Of The Hill.



UI-Setting options..

IF a set of players or the host stipulates say, a ground war only,
selecting said option then removes all non-ground war units
from the selectable unit lists/factory lists. Same for say a nuke-
only war, no other offensive (non-nuke related) units can be
selected. etc etc.

A single-player mode, where you fight the AI, but the actual
number of enemy AI against you is not shown (ie a selection
chosen of 1+).

Timed games - an option to just select a minimum and maximum
game limit, and the server (or whatever) chooses the time, but
the players don't know what it is.

Points Mean Prizes.
Whoever (individual or team) has the most "points" at the end of
a timed game is the winner. Also on that topic, maybe a way to
customise how the game awards points, to try to influence how
players conduct their campaigns.

I think it is be important to have game modes which allow people with different skill to play together. I would be interested in ideas with that goal.
Murder seems to be interesting in that point of view as high skilled player need not only to survive, but the need to keep low level player to survive.


Another use case is when you know you only have N minutes for a game.
PA has a advantage here because it can implement fun sudden death mechanics where the battlefield slowly shrinken. One planet at a time

I'm sure some kind of "king of the moon" could be really fun too.

Of the things that haven't been beaten to death, I particularly liked:

Something simple and fun. Not really a serious match. Could also disable planet damage and just fling dozens of rocks at each other's home worlds. This way you could set up defense and make it a little more strategic (take out defense before launch / overwhelm).

Love it. I recently played a few games which used this. Was pretty awesome. Not for the action, but just the fact that you're dealing directly with other people. Imagine being allied to someone, launch an asteroid with their help, only to redirect it towards their world

Yes to everything there. I recall playing a shooter recently where there was no player list (mixing up games, haven't played FPS in a few years). Had assumed there were only 4-5 of us, then walked into a firefight between ~20 people. Had a lot of fun.

Some more ideas that have probably already been said:

Custom Start
- Choose where you start

Homeworld
- Each player starts on highly productive planet equidistant from each other
- Eliminated when homeworld is destroyed
- Abundance of asteroids
- Centrally located space stations to help players

Team Anonymous
- Merge of diplomacy and FFA
- Your team identity is unknown to other players
- Must destroy the other team (so trusting other players to be on your team)
- More variable than FFA since you don't have to assume your allies will ultimately attack you

Anti-war
- Player with the most lost unit value wins (timed or quantity)
- Based on resource value
- Permanent fire at will mode for all units
- Suicides / team damage disabled (so can't leave all your units at one health and rush the enemy
This probably won't work without unit restrictions.

Rogue Planets
- Many hostile space stations
- Points for destroying them

Congregate
- Player with most moons in orbit around home world wins

Rebellion
- One player owns very highly productive planet, and moons
- All other players are teamed against them but only have access to poor resource planets / moons
- Several asteroids and space stations
- Target player can't leave orbit of world (so gives other players chance to prepare)

Minimalism
- Score penalties with each new unit and structure

Miscellaneous Tweaks
- Build times
- Income
- Damage
- Health
- RoF
- Scale
- Gravity
- Mobility

It's tough to think of new game modes without knowing exactly what we can use. I'm sure we'll think of more as things become more complete.

Can't really think of many modes that would equalize skills levels. Antiwar and the diplomacy modes are all.

I imagine many of these can be options when making a match, allowing you to combine any number of them.

None of my ideas (whoever else's they were as well) are vital for the initial launch. It's clear what those should be.