Post game completion content

[DocClox]

With all that is being done in the game is the main charater getting any stats. I keep having girls kick my butt an my guys getting killed when they go crazy. Are we ever going to be able to bitch slap these hoes........please forgive language but you get my point. Is the main charater going to get fleshed out or he just going to be limp wrist harry that can't keep his girls in line.

Good point. I'd like to see him somewhere in-between the two, I think. I mean yes, he should be able to win a fight against most of the girls. On the other hand, some of them are superhuman and some are goddesses. I think it takes away from the girls somewhat if the PC is that good. Besides which, the true art ought to be to dominate with personality.

Also, keeping trained assassins, killer androids and powerful supernatural beings enslaved in a whorehouse ought not to be without its risks, or so it seems to me.

That said, I can see some appeal to having the player start out as a bit of a wimp, and to be able to improve his martial and magical prowess. But I don't think it's very high on anyone's priority list at the moment.

Seemsto me, then, that integrating the brothel management aspect of the gameinto the actual endgame is the way to go; I like the idea of Wards,needing to defeat a rival gang before you can move into theirterritory; I'd also suggest that the goal of the game be shiftedslightly, so that your goal is not just to wipe out your rivals butalso to build an empire on par with your father's; make getting all sixbrothels, say, a victory condition (possibly unlocking a seventh, morepalatial brothel in the Noble Quarter that provides some benefit tofilling - more money, say, or girls that work there gain Happiness andlose Rebellion automatically).

I thought about that. But winning by building a chain of brothels ... seems just a bit limp and dissatisfying compared to taking revenge for your father's murder.

That said, I don't have any problem with multiple victory conditions. We could even allow multiple victorys - there's a game called Way that does something a bit like this. It has lots of intermixed story threads running: complete one of them and you get a "The End", but the game plays on anyway with more stories still to tell. Maybe we could do something like that.

As to post-game-completioncontent, well, there's the seventh brothel idea, and the idea ofenslaving your former rivals; I was thinking it might not be a bad ideato open up other jobs/missions for your thugs, too. Say, off the top ofmy head... the Sabotage mission turns into attacking your politicalrivals and prominent noble holdings in the city; you get an additional'Campaign' job, wherein your thugs basically wander around tellingeveryone how awesome you are, that sort of thing. The goal wouldessentially be to see yourself elevated to Nobleman status yourself,with all the power and prestige that entails (and if you think gangs ofroving street thugs can't get someone made noble, look into the historyof the Roman Empire sometime; several Emperors became Emperor simply bygiving money to lots and lots of ne'er-do-well thugs, who'd thenproceed to thump anyone that talked smack about them in public).

The main concern I have about that is that Crossgate is pretty much run by the gangs, so I'm not sure how noble you can get. That said, I'm not sure who elects the mayor, or pays for the guards that raid your brothel either, so maybe we need to expand on that. There's also the issue of moving away from the basic theme again - we'd be adding a political element to the criminal and sexual (and possibly tactical) ones already there. Not that this would be necessarily bad, but it could well prove controversial.

On the other hand, I have often thought it would be fun to get a bit more hands on in subverting the infrastructure of government in the city: make sure one of your bastards gets elected as mayor, set up the garrisson commander with a lovely young mistress who'll do everything in her power to keep him happy, as long as he keeps you happy... that sort of thing. We could probably do that without straying too far from the focus of the game. With the player not getting to be nobility, but he does to be the power behind the throne; the puppet master pulling everyone's strings.

[zodiac44]

We could take a page out of Master of Orion (one of my favorite games of all time), and go with multiple win conditions based on how the player wants to achieve victory.  The "Revenge" route has the player kicking the asses of all his rivals; destroying them wins the game.  A "Diplomat" route has the player elected mayor of the city, with good and evil variants (good: stamp out corruption in the city and restore civic virtue, evil: turn the city government itself into the bureaucracy that runs your criminal empire).  A "WhoreMaster" (had to fit the title in somewhere) route has the player take control over all of the brothels in the city; no prostitute walks the streets without kicking profits back up to the player.  A "Mogul" route has the player collect some predefined (perhaps based on difficulty?) amount of cash in the bank.

Those are just a few suggestions, there could be many more, and some could be non-mutually exclusive (ie, achieve the "Revenge" victory, then continue playing and get the "WhoreMaster" victory, continue again and get the "Diplomat" victory; but the player cannot get both the good and evil variants of "Dimplomat").  Award points for each victory achieved, depending on the difficulty of the achievement.  Assign a point multiplier depending on the length of time it took to achieve the victory condition and another multiplier based on difficulty. 

[DocClox]

A "WhoreMaster" (had to fit the title in somewhere) route has the player take control over all of the brothels in the city; no prostitute walks the streets without kicking profits back up to the player.

Hmmm... we'd need to add a lot of indepenent brothels and streetwalkers, that would need to be persuaded to join the fold ... one way or another. Which could be fun, although I think we'd need to add some structure around it.

A "Mogul" route has the player collect some predefined (perhaps based on difficulty?) amount of cash in the bank.

Or even corner the energy market How about a transcendence victory where the player becomes an arch-mage and conducts a ritual to make him One with the Spirit of Poontang?

OK, I'm more than half kidding on that one. But I do sometimes think a tech tree would be nice, and if we have one it opens possibility of a research victory.

On the other hand, I'm not sure the existing map is big enough for some of these strategies. Sending units to sweep the galaxy looking for that last enemy outpost has a certain satisfaction to it. Sticking all your goons on "scout" or somesuch until you find the Last Streetwalker seems to have the same sort of bloodless quality as the current victory conditions. Even with six wards to play with, it still sounds like it would be a bit click-and-wait.

Not wanting to knock the idea (big Moo2 fan myself), just thinking out loud...

[Mehzerz]

Sticking all your goons on "scout" or some such until you find the Last Streetwalker seems to have the same sort of bloodless quality as the current victory conditions. Even with six wards to play with, it still sounds like it would be a bit click-and-wait.

Not wanting to knock the idea (big Moo2 fan myself), just thinking out loud...

lol, I don't think you'd actually get every girl available. (They're endless) But rather just make the goal to have a specific amount girls owned by you. Since it's up to the user on how many unique girls they want to add to the game I don't see how making it unique girl specific would be possible either.
Or you could just have the Walk feature be the reason for victory. Convincing so many girls to work for you.

[DocClox]

lol, I don't think you'd actually get every girl available. (They'reendless) But rather just make the goal to have a specific amount girlsowned by you.

I guess I was taking zodiac a bit litterally: "A 'WhoreMaster' route has theplayer take control over all of the brothels in the city; no prostitutewalks the streets without kicking profits back up to the player." [stupid italics won't turn off - bear with me]The thing is, having to scour the city for independant streetwalkers and bawdyhouses, and to keep control in the areas you've searched sounds like it could be fun. On the other hand, having a popup appear when you reach N+1 girls sounds kind of "meh". Just like the current one

more editing to come - going to save and see if I can shift these damn italics. Nope seems like I'm stuck with them

Anyway, that was the point, really. Not about getting all the girls, but controlling all the territory so completely that no new girl could start working unless she worked for you.

[zodiac44]

Anyway, that was the point, really. Not about getting all the girls, but controlling all the territory so completely that no new girl could start working unless she worked for you.

Yes - that's exactly what I was getting at.

[exodia91]

I've read, and re-read my posts, and I can't seem to find anywhere where I directly insulted you. Once in the traits thread I called the idea of limiting girls traits retarded, so if you took that as a direct insult to you, I apologize, that's not how it was meant. And asking that you make a new thread for this mod you were planning, was just a suggestion, because the thread it was in would get kind of big and cluttered and arguably off-topic and in the wrong section, so I suggested that you make a thread in the mod sections for it. Sorry if that offended you. And I can see my tone in the traits thread might have been a bit combative, however you were basically suggesting to make half my work on making these 50+ girls pointless. Hours of looking up info on girls, trying to pick the right traits and not go overboard, and all this would be rendered moot for half the people that downloaded the girls I make. I put a lot of time and effort into those girls, and I wanted them to be enjoyed the way I intended, and I felt that was being threatened (and still do) so I apologize if my tone was rude. The internet has not helped me in this matter, in that its hard to properly convey tone, I most definitely never intended to give a condescending one, however if that's how it looked, I apologize.

Now, back on topic.

I rather like the idea of multiple ways to win the game. However to make it getting some pre-determined amount of money seems..... ehh. And I don't really like the idea of city "cordons" I mostly ignore gang stuff when I play, and just do the minimum to get new territory for more brothels when I need them, and that sounds like I'd have to do all out gang stuff to get any new buildings. For endings I would suggest having enough government influence, fame, and money to pay for the army to come and wipe out all your rivals in one fell swoop for you. For players not interested in gang wars, it would give us an option to win without bothering with them much.

[letmein]

'One with the Spirit of Poontang'?  Classic.  I vote that somehow, some way, we get this in the game.


As for z's other ideas:

"Revenge" - well, it has the advantage of already, you know, existing as an option.  However, I was never under the impression that the player was trying to avenge anything, but that's simple enough to change - just much with the starting text again, and voila!

"Diplomat" - I like the idea, but I'm not sure how it would execute.  I see this victory (in either flavor, evil or good) as a combination of a lot of things:  throwing money at the problem, using gangs, negotiating with rival gangs (which I'll note is not possible, yet or maybe ever), ensuring the removal of the old mayor (peacefully or... not), and of course, just general reputation gain.

"Whoremaster" - I think this gets in by default.  Or, at least, the name - the victory condition itself may have to be tweaked.  Just getting a lot of girls seems either too easy, or too difficult.  Hmmm...  I have to ponder on this one a bit, I think I have an idea on it.  I'll get back to this at the end of the post.

"Mogul" - I dunno...  having a money victory just seems like a cop-out.  I think we can do better.

"Transcendence" - like I said above,  we really need to get the 'Spirit of Poontang' in the game somehow.  Not sure how this one would work...  maybe, to do your ritual thing, you need to have one girl with a maxed PClove, one with a max PChate, and one with a max PCfear - plus a rare catacomb item?  And a building?

"Other" - ah, yes, the mystical 'other'.  Really, this one defies reason:  it contains an infinate number of possibilities, but it is so rarely chosen.  Spitballing ideas:  something with the catacombs?  I don't know how we could make that a proper victory condition.  I might be neat to have a 'victory' condition based on how many gang members you lose.    Ditto for number of people killed in the dungeon.


Anyway, back to the "WM" victory:  well, there is at least one significant issue that I see, and that is that the number of girls, and thus the difficulty, of this victory, varies from player to player.  Not sure how to fix that, unless it's just to make the number requiredtotally arbitrary.

I wonder, would it be a good/possible idea to have your rivals actually have brothels, as in they own/employ girls (random and custom) of their own?  You'd have to have a way to keep track of the rival brothels, perhaps give them incomes, they'd need a basic AI...  hmm...


EDIT:  Doc, exodia, play nice.  I don't care who started it, I'm gonna end it.  Don't make me sic zodiac on you.        

[DocClox]

Once in the traits thread I called the idea of limiting girls traits retarded, so if you took that as a direct insult to you, I apologize

That was the term that started my fuse ticking, I must admit. Fair enough, apology accepted, and I apologize for jumping on you earlier on. We'll take it from there

I rather like the idea of multiple ways to win the game. However to make it getting some pre-determined amount of money seems..... ehh. And I don't really like the idea of city "cordons" I mostly ignore gang stuff when I play, and just do the minimum to get new territory for more brothels when I need them, and that sounds like I'd have to do all out gang stuff to get any new buildings.

That's certainly not the intention. I think we'd need to arrange it so that you could get a decent range of buildings in your starting ward. Secondly, I think I'd want to see a non-gang way of getting into other wards, even if it's just outright bribery.

Better yet might be to just add a preference flag to turn off the wards so you could expand without worrying about them.

For endings I would suggest having enough government influence, fame, and money to pay for the army to come and wipe out all your rivals in one fell swoop for you. For players not interested in gang wars, it would give us an option to win without bothering with them much.

A few folks have proposed a financial victory; I don't see a problem with that. Out of curiosity though, it seems as though you just want to play the game as a brothel sim. In which case: why bother winning at all?

[dcb42]

I do like the idea of multiple victory conditions and even multiple victories; I'd actually suggest having two "Endings" for the game. One when you achieve one of the Victory Conditions, and then you can get a second "Legendary Ending" when you achieve ALL the Victory Conditions. That way there's a reason to keep playing past the first victory condition, and a reason to explore parts of gameplay (gang wars, nobles, saving up cash) that you might have skipped otherwise.

Come to think of it, that'd rather neatly solve the integration issues with certain parts of gameplay; gangs and whores are separate now, but if they're both needed to reach an eventual goal then it links them, however tenuously, in the player's mind. Hmm.

[zodiac44]

'One with the Spirit of Poontang'?  Classic.  I vote that somehow, some way, we get this in the game.

Yeah, that one definitely needs to make it in.

"Whoremaster" - I think this gets in by default.  Or, at least, the name - the victory condition itself may have to be tweaked.  Just getting a lot of girls seems either too easy, or too difficult.  Hmmm...  I have to ponder on this one a bit, I think I have an idea on it.  I'll get back to this at the end of the post.

It's not about how many girls you control, necessarily.  It's about monopolizing the industry.  The idea is to have the player make it impossible for anyone else to operate a brothel in the city without it being under his purview.

"Mogul" - I dunno...  having a money victory just seems like a cop-out.  I think we can do better.

How about an insane amount of money, like 1 billion?  That isn't trivial to achieve, even in the current incarnation.

Anyway, back to the "WM" victory:  well, there is at least one significant issue that I see, and that is that the number of girls, and thus the difficulty, of this victory, varies from player to player.  Not sure how to fix that, unless it's just to make the number requiredtotally arbitrary.

Like I said, fixed because there isn't a requirement for a number of girls.  Even if there was, they could be filled in with randoms.

I wonder, would it be a good/possible idea to have your rivals actually have brothels, as in they own/employ girls (random and custom) of their own?  You'd have to have a way to keep track of the rival brothels, perhaps give them incomes, they'd need a basic AI...  hmm...

I take it as a given in the current game that your rivals run brothels, even though it isn't specified and they apparently don't compete for the same resources.

EDIT:  Doc, exodia, play nice.  I don't care who started it, I'm gonna end it.  Don't make me sic zodiac on you.        

Yeah!  I'll break your interwebs!  >;o)