Some fun custom gamemodes, tried out.

[GeneticFreak]

I wonder if one of these will get implemented as a "preset" option in the game (you know, like Diplomacy etc). I have actually tried these modes against people and they liked it.

1) Paranoia Mode
- All players starts off as one team
- Radar sharing is Always Off
- Random territories
- Scoring mode is Default
(Basically it's Diplomacy without radar sharing and default scoring mode, this way everyone have to scout at defcon 5-4, but scouting itself will most likely get the other player asking "wth are you doing on my airspace" and will cause more paranoia and friendlyfires at Defcon 3. More interesting than regular diplomacy -i.e. the "kick europe out at DEFCON 1"- )

2) Zion mode (a.k.a. Sudden Death mode)
- 1 city per player
- 200m population
- Team change disabled
- Defections disabled
- Random territories
- Scoring mode is Survivor
(Your main interest will be in protecting your Zion while trying to kill everyone else)

3) Everybody Dies (a.k.a Points Race) mode
- 30 cities per player
- 200m population
- Scoring mode is Default
(Enables players to get decent points in racking out several unprotected small cities as much as taking out big cities, in the end the game is more open to possibilities that even someone who got a big lead can drop to last place, also means that your nukes are worth more points than before, which will take more second thought in choosing where to launch them)

4) Arcade Mode
- 10 cities per player
- 50m population
- World size 50%
- Scoring mode is Genocide
- Speed locked to 20x real time
- Victory timer set at 30% nukes
- Radar Sharing Always On
(You get the idea)

5) Top vs Bottom Mode
- Red team: Europe, Russia, North America
- Green team: Asia, Africa, South America
- Team change disabled
- Defections disabled
(This is actually quite balanced since the south continents got more spots "at home" where they can launch subs from, got larger sea access, and north got the defence benefit of smaller lands)

Any other modes you played and fun? Post here!

[Mighty Goose]

wildcat

200 million pop
10 cities per team
100% map size
locked at 2x speed
victory timer 50% nukes and 30 mins

everything else is default.

i find this mode great fun as it always leads to more and more violent escalations and ends in utter frag death with 2 minutes to go...

[GeneticFreak]

Sounds fun Cmon more ideas. What wacky modes have you played?

[xyzyxx]

Never tried this, but just came up with it: M.A.D. mode

VictoryTimer: set to 35
VictoryTrigger: set to 99
ScoreMode set to Genocide

The victory timer starts almost right after the first nukes are fired. All players would be forced to attack each other simultaneously, or be left without any points. This will, of course, leave all players defenseless as well, unless they decide not to launch some of their nukes.

EDIT: Seems this doesn't work well, as when Carriers get destroyed players lose Nukes, and the Victory Timer starts early.

[Majromax]

I like "Small World" mode -- as default except WorldSize 50. The standard building allotment is then 3 silos, 3 radar, 2 airbases. It makes for a very tactical game. Scaling the number of cities to half (and population to 50m) is optional, but can make for a nice touch.

The only problem I've seen is that the fuel range of planes isn't scaled properly. It either doesn't scale at all or is scaled directly (rather than the inverse) of WorldSize -- it definitely doesn't match the red "operational range" circle when launching fighters and bombers from aribases or carriers.

[JaguarUSF]

The Single City Mode is quite interesting.....the game I had resulted in everyone tied with 0 points (survivor scoring, everybody dies!) at the end.

You could have a variant on that MAD mode: 75% victory start, 20 minute counter (or something equally short). Quick and deadly....

I can report the Quick and Dirty mode works very well: Victory Trigger=75, Victory Timer=20. You gotta go fast, as 20 minutes in just barely enough time to silo launch. You might want to increase it to 25 minutes, b/c in most of the games I've tested it out in, most nukes were in flight when the game ended. Maybe you got assassinated during the game?

[Bamelin]

Just a heads up, I tried out "Paranoia Mode" tonight. It turned out to be an awsome game with everyone expecting to get stabbed in the back.

I took hit Africa hard and smashed Russia's silo's (I was Asia) in the initial backstab, but then everyone teamed up on me to make me pay for my crimes against the alliance.

I ended up coming in 2nd giving as good as I got.

[Memno]

Played two paranoia games today using survivor mode, although they never managed to finish due to me crashing twice, then the host for the first game and I crashed again on the second.

Great fun though, sending planes out over a nearby "friend" starts with them getting shot down, you shooting down theirs. Quietly nuking their radars before everything goes belly up and they decide to start a full scale war by voting you out. And there is always the suspicion the person you're allied with is holding a fleet of carriers just out of radar range off your coast.

[Missile Command Kid]

Paranoia is fun & gets my vote as a "Must have" official game mode. Zion, not so fun: I've played three Zion games and everybody ended up at zero. Tried one Dual Zion game (two cities instead of one) and, once again, everybody ended up at zero. Is there a variant that would allow somebody to actually win, like perhaps victory timer at 80% or 90%?

[Daxx]

I love the Zion mode, but obviously the problem is that everyone tends to end up at "nil point". Perhaps have scoring set to 1 point per survivor + 1 point per kill?

[waytoomuchcoffee]

Well, at least I liked the easter egg in the Zion mode. Birmingham as capital of North America. Introversion is based out of Birmingham UK.
Otherwise, same problem. It is too easy to nuke someone down to zero. Would be better as a non-survival game.

[Hegemon Hog]

I love the Zion mode, but obviously the problem is that everyone tends to end up at "nil point". Perhaps have scoring set to 1 point per survivor + 1 point per kill?

I've been wondering why there's no +1/-1 scoring system.... There's +2/-1, +1/0, and 0/-1. Doesn't the option for +1/-1 just jump out at you? It would be like a less aggressive (more defensive) default scoring mode.

The only thing I could think of was that you would often end up with most players having negative points. If that's an issue, why not start it like survivor, where you start with a number of points equal to your population. At the end of the game, you would see if you killed more than you let die by seeing if your score dropped or increased.

[Bas]

I just tried Zion mode. A game I joined had just one city per territory, three territories per player. It was funny, but sucked ass. Funny ass though. We just launched all our sub nukes to the enemy cities, and there was not a soul alive on the map.

When Everybody Dies©, the map goes dark. Anyway, the computer thought my opponent won, even though we had the same score (526), and I had more kills (but 32 million collateral damage, and he 9).

All in all, I would rate the fun a 9 out of ten, but actual gameplay a zero.

Edit: Having read the paranoia idea, I can say this: I applaud the idea, but it won't work. Now it'll be "SPAM EUROPE WITH FIGHTERS AT DEFCON 1 THEN KICK THEM".

[GeneticFreak]

History has been made! Someone on Zion mode scored a 1 while everyone else was 0
He must've got Neo in his city
Brb reformatting the matrix