Self imposed restrictions

[todofwar]

Got this idea from a thread in the suggestions forum, but this isn't necessarily a new game mechanic so I thought I would post it here. Someone was saying they purposefully built no turrets and felt the game was a bit better, I was wondering what other restrictions might make the gameplay more interesting in pre-alpha, could potentially lead to permanent improvements. I'm starting a game now where I limit myself to two turrets, and can only build a total of 20 tiles underground (by which I mean render 20 tiles liveable, with flooring and lights) on Callie Classic. Anyone else have an idea for a restricted playthrough and the result?

[Amaror]

Well i am doing a kassandra classic, mostly outdoors, with no turrets and no funnelling.
It's really fun. The beginning is difficult but once you get all your soldiers with M-16s or better, it gets pretty easy, too.

[Pendryn]

Sure, try building a town rather than a base or fort. Don't build defensive walls, no turrets, no sandbags. If raiders attack, you get to use your buildings walls as cover. Try to make it make sense. Make sure it has wide streets, I'd say no less than 3 wides. Mining is, of course, allowed, but you'd build a mine shaft, not a building. Nothing underground except your miners and, perhaps a convenient stockpile.

Take it a step further, make sure people have houses, with multiple rooms for dining, relaxing, and eating.

And one more step, only trained military personnel may carry weapons larger than pistols or pump-shotguns.

That's all I've got for now.

[Kender]

Future hardcore mode.

Let's lay some rules for reference purpose.

[Xanting]

Right now I am playing on randy random without any turrets or defensive walls and is just relying on strategic placement of colonists and overwhelming firepower to defend my above ground town. Past 10 colonists it gets much easier to defend a town due to the fact that you can direct enough firepower to kill isolated raiders instantly.

[nnescio]

"It's better to be loved than feared."

(AKA "Seriously, guys, Machiavelli was totally sarcastic.")

Cannot deliberately use the fear mechanic to maintain loyalty:
- Do not build gibbet cages.
- Do not beat or execute prisoners.
- Do not sell slaves.
- Do not deliberately harm colonists to induce the "wounded" moodlet
- Do not intentionally expose colonists to corpses.
- (etc. you get the point)

Basically, with this restriction, it's okay for colonists to gain a +fear moodlet from time to time, but it must never be deliberately induced by the player.

[Galileus]

I do that all the time

[todofwar]

So far in my own restricted I've found it becomes very nicely balanced. I've built three layers of concrete around all structures and fires are no longer an issue, I have separation between the buildings which actually adds in defensive capabilities. Having only two turrets made me realize they are quite week and only really a deterrent, which what I imagine their original purpose was. I have been using blasting charges for an initial defensive line. It has been much more challenging this way, my colony has waxed and waned between 10 and 4 colonists but we keep on trucking.

[Negocromn]

I'm playing Randy Random with no buildings but a jail and gibbet cages.

8 Nobles, 1 Assassin, 2 Oafs.

If raider groups land one after the other or they number 20+ I just sell my jail and gibbet cages and they just walk around doing nothing, as they go after buildings only, not people or farming areas. It's kinda cheap, but getting attacked by 9 raiders when you have just a pistol means that is the only option....

[todofwar]

Thought I'd label and compile these, because my job currently has far too many waiting steps.

The Town:

Sure, try building a town rather than a base or fort. Don't build defensive walls, no turrets, no sandbags. If raiders attack, you get to use your buildings walls as cover. Try to make it make sense. Make sure it has wide streets, I'd say no less than 3 wides. Mining is, of course, allowed, but you'd build a mine shaft, not a building. Nothing underground except your miners and, perhaps a convenient stockpile.

Take it a step further, make sure people have houses, with multiple rooms for dining, relaxing, and eating.

And one more step, only trained military personnel may carry weapons larger than pistols or pump-shotguns. -Not sure if this would work with current build of the game, I normally don't get too many soldier classes

That's all I've got for now.

Mr. Nice Guy

"It's better to be loved than feared."

(AKA "Seriously, guys, Machiavelli was totally sarcastic.")

Cannot deliberately use the fear mechanic to maintain loyalty:
- Do not build gibbet cages.
- Do not beat or execute prisoners.
- Do not sell slaves.
- Do not deliberately harm colonists to induce the "wounded" moodlet
- Do not intentionally expose colonists to corpses.
- (etc. you get the point)

Basically, with this restriction, it's okay for colonists to gain a +fear moodlet from time to time, but it must never be deliberately induced by the player.

Surface Dweller:
No underground buildings, mining to clear a bit of space (no more than a few tiles) is ok but that's it.

No more TD:
Only two turrets, no hydroponics as defenses, no "honeycomb".

Hyper Real:
This scenario assumes you were able to recover only the components from your ship to assemble the following for your colony:
-4 Solar Generators
-1 Nutrient Paste Dispenser
-1 Comm Console
-4 Batteries
-2 Hydroponic tables
-No turrets
-No Geothermal
-Only metal flooring in two rooms
Those are the only restrictions, aside from that go to town.

Cave Dweller:
-Everything must be underground except farms, dumps, and graves. Stockpile must be rebuilt underground.

And of course mix and match, a No more TD Surface Dweller is what I originally posted.

(Note: I am not trying to insult the TD crowd, I like a bit of gaming the system myself and have gone after insane defenses on occasion, this is just some new modes that make the game a bit more of a challenge)

[ShootyFace]

Sure, try building a town rather than a base or fort. Don't build defensive walls, no turrets, no sandbags. If raiders attack, you get to use your buildings walls as cover. Try to make it make sense. Make sure it has wide streets, I'd say no less than 3 wides. Mining is, of course, allowed, but you'd build a mine shaft, not a building. Nothing underground except your miners and, perhaps a convenient stockpile.

Take it a step further, make sure people have houses, with multiple rooms for dining, relaxing, and eating.

And one more step, only trained military personnel may carry weapons larger than pistols or pump-shotguns.

That's all I've got for now.

This is what I've been doing to mix things up, and playing with Random Randy tellin' the tale. Only everybody gets guns, ya kidding me? Randy is a sunuvabitch, I'll say that much. But playing the game without turrets and sandbags has been a lot of fun, honestly. Very difficult, every engagement is a real test. I've had some great moments, although every colony so far has not made it more than a couple weeks at best.

[todofwar]

Tried the town on Callie Classic, which was way too easy since without turrets she seems to assume you're defenseless and sends the weakest raids. Going to go again on Kassandra.

[DeltaV]

Someone should try a game where the only thing they can use as cover for their colonists is the natural debris that spawns. No blasting charges, no turrets, no moving them around.

[Nasikabatrachus]

I just got finished with a brief "little house on the prairie" game. I've  never read Little House On The Prairie Or Whatever Its Name Is, but I thought it was a suitable name for a run with no electricity allowed at all.

-no electricity
-only two people (I drafted the third and made him wait to die away from the others)
-no mining
-no research
-cassandra classic

I also intentionally chose to give the colonists low skill in construction (just three to start with), but even without high skill it wasn't a barrier to completing the few things I built.

To my surprise, it wasn't all that tough, at least until everybody died. It wasn't particularly difficult to manage food intake without a nutrient paste dispenser, as the colonists only need to eat about twice a day and the naturally growing food can handle the needs of two people for the most part (and, in some forts, are a vital resource for larger populations in a crisis). The one person raids were easy to handle by waiting for them just behind the front door and rushing the raiders with melee attacks, but the first raidâ€"one enemy with a pistol and one with fragsâ€"proved to be too much for my tactical imagination. The end result was two incapacitated colonists and one incapacitated raider being burned to death by the fires from the potted plants, and one raider killed by a boomrat on his way out.

Playing the game in this way really highlighted some of its weak areas. It was still somewhat interesting to manage my two colonists' efforts to grow food, cut grass to allow for food-bearing wild plants to grow, build small structures, make pleasant environments, but after a little while I realized that's all there was. Even the house they built felt really hollow, since its only real function was to remove the "slept outside" unhappiness points.

As development progresses, I think the game could really benefit from more basic, low-tech ideas. Like campfires, for instance. I would really love to have the colonists build campfires to huddle around. Even if it did nothing for the colonists, it would give the player a nice psychological morsel to chew on to make the world feel more real.

With the addition of hunting, more limited natural food sources (implying sparser animal populations, and a hydration/food split, such small survival games could get very intense indeed.

[Pendryn]

To my surprise, it wasn't all that tough, at least until everybody died.

The best.