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[Xantalos]

Bronze Age scenario concentrating around Mediterranean Europe/Africa/Asia would be interesting. There was a big crash of civilizations back then and we still don't know exactly why. Sea people ran around burning cities, but we aren't sure who they were or where they came from. The culture of Minos was demolished because of a natural disaster - or an unnatural one. Plenty of legends and mystery cults around, enough to throw in a monster or two.

A Karth-type holding domain over the Mongolians appeals to me in this manner.

[Jalak]

Hell, of all the space-era settings you could make a mod for, Mass Effect would be perfect. While Star Trek had its moments in some episodes and you could represent the old one in Star Wars and Warhammer 40k as the dark side of the force and warp powers of chaos respectively, Mass Effect is practically born for this sort of game, considering the focus it has on the characters and the "indoctrination" influence of the Reapers.

[Xantalos]

But that means we'd be the most evil plot device in all fiction!
Though that does sound interesting, especially since government of the galaxy is basically on top of the Great Seal equivalent.

[Jalak]

Cold War in the 1960s/1970s. You are playing an alien infiltrator or an Ancient Power awoken my nuclear testing or the like. Gives nice twist to Vietnam war, troubles in Africa and all that. One ultimate goal might be driving the superpowers into a nuclear war to destroy the world for aliens to colonize/because human are ugly/for lulz. Since CIA and KGB did actually do paranormal research into psychic powers at the time, having some MKULTRA or Rasputin agents running around with "magic" might be okay.

I always wanted to represent the aliens in X-Com...

[Xantalos]

Oh god I just realized how many books I can recreate with the modding tools and such. Movies too!
Must consider variations.

[lijacote]

China/Japan/Manchuria/Korea during Sengoku Jidai, the Baltic Sea during the Hanseatic League's fight against Novgorod etc. + HRE, Revolutionary France and subsequent Napoleon, the Cathar genocide . . . There are a lot of historical scenarios that would be interesting with added Elder God.

The Genabackan campaign and Kolansian trouble with the Forkrul Assail from the Malazan universe, along with Unta's rise... well. That is the extent of my fantasy recollection at this hour and level of caffeine intake. Oh, and the jaghut/imass wars.

Trying to muse on Elder Gods, I have a few in mind.

A god of death that could open the gates of the afterlife for a bunch of undead servants ("Hood's breath!" :p), increase unfortunate mortality . . . Maybe zombie plague.

Actually, that's all without going into plagiarizing. You could have a god that was exploded into many pieces, and had to fight or collect those other pieces, with those other pieces acting independently and with varying goals and strategies, but eh.

Eh. Anyway, still super pumped for the game. Can't wait for a demo, but I must. But thou must!

[Jalak]

But that means we'd be the most evil plot device in all fiction!
Though that does sound interesting, especially since government of the galaxy is basically on top of the Great Seal equivalent.

That would probably end up as a pretty big problem, game-play wise. Since the Council....whatever that structure is called, is the heart of the space UN, having it as the great seal would have you discovered by "spectres" or other curious adventurers pretty quickly, since a lot of "fleets" would have to be going through it if the mod wants to represent it's importance accurately.

An idea to make it work, however, would be to have it as a normal POI under control of some neutral entity (or the Asari) and then have it connect to a POI located "outside" the galaxy that houses a crap load of Reaper military forces. However, the passage between the two POI is disconnected, and the only way to open it would be to get one of your agents to go to the space, perform a long and powerful "ritual" which opens the passage and allows the Reapers to go through, thus starting the purge. Maybe have other POI's with the same setup. The Great Seal itself could be the collector base, which only opens its passage if the chosen one (Shepherd) does a high-level quest.

[Mithras]

Huh, you know, looking at the Aventuran Free State in relation to the rest of the world suddenly made me realize how small it actually is in comparison to rest of the world big powers. It got me thinking about all four major powers (five if you count the enclave) and what you can do to exploit their weaknesses.

So the Aventuran Free state is right next to two major hostile forces, that being the Golden Republic and you/your potential orc hordes. Hell, it looks like it's specifically in the scenario just to give an obvious target for the first-timer overlords.
The Golden Republic itself has to deal with various territories separated by sea and probably all too aware of the fact that slavery is not as popular as it once was. Wouldn't be too out there to assume that the rest of the world that they used to preside over hates them, so they seem a good target to flex your "diplomatic" muscles.
The Kingdom of  Cylaria borders various tribal powers, some that would most likely be hostile to colonial imperialism, and the elusive elves residing there would probably give them pause to messing with the region too much. A unified tribal collective would be a scary thing for them indeed.
However, the Arden Protectorate is the odd one out to me in what you can do with them. Sure, the long coastline would be hard to defend, but they must have a pretty big army on hand to defend themselves. The Greywind/possible mount doom combo would certainly give them something to think about, but those all look like mid-late game problems. What would a player be expected to do with them in the early game?

From the developers discussion of the Arden Protectorate, it is a mercenary dictatorship ruling over an underclass of slaves, lacking Cylaria's strong cultural bonds. So I imagine a good early game approach would either be infultrate it or to encourage its colapse. However King has said that in the build from the begining of this month every other nation on the map (and a couple on the edges that we haven't seen yet) want a piece of it. So it's presented as easy to take control (due to the corrupt nature of the dictator and the fact that he's the only one to hold real power) but very difficult to do anything with, because any form of government change would basically lead to the country fracturing and it's neighbours going to war on it.

Personally, as soon as I get my grubby hands on Aslan (probably a long time away) I'm going to turn the dictator as loony as possible, partly to see how large a clue footprint that leads and partly to try and set Arden on a short term path of war and conquest that eventually leads to its fall, meanwhile the plan is to get a couple of the blue tribes under my wing and infitrate a couple of low fame agents into Cylaria, as soon as Cylaria becomes preoccupied with either fighting Arden or grabbing a piece of the pie from Arden's crumbling the plan is to burn the farmland and convince the corrupted tribes to jump in, ideally leaving us with a couple of strong allied tribes sharing a border with a fractured and warred over provinces which used to be Arden, at that point it would probably be sensible to move the focus of agents elsewhere and if possible wake the Baron as soon as it looks like it's all going to get cleaned up. But that's all pipe dreams for now.

[Lapoleon]

The Warhammer Fantasy Old World also leads to an interesting setting. There are two major good nations (the Empire and Bretonnia), three smaller nations (Kislev, Estalia and Tilea) and plenty of microstates (the Border Princes). There are powerful and isolationist Elves (Wood and High variety) and loosely connected dwarven enclaves.
Easy allies are abound in the Orc tribes and the Norscans, whilst more difficult quests might lead to an alliance with the Skaven or possibly (though rather difficult) the Vampire Counts.
Map:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The usual suspects would be:
Khorne: More or less the same as Karth, although more based around the Norscans than the orcs.
Tzeenth: Seems similar to Belial, as an all knowing God. Would be based on trickery and change (revolution etc.). I wonder if it's possible to give heroes a mutation, maybe it's possible to create a wound which won't be randomly assigned and which gives a huge malus on relations with civilized nations. I wonder what happens when a hero is exiled from everywhere.
Nurgle: Plagues, plagues everywhere. Would also have an easier time allying with the Skaven. Could probably be modeled on the Death Lord Old One once he returns in the game.
Slaanesh: The one which differs most from the Old Ones we've seen. Would have many agents focused on seduction and corruption. I think I've seen somewhere that heroes can marry, so that will certainly lead to possibilities. Also thieves guilds will be nice to corrupt, maybe focus them on brothels or something.

One problem is how to handle the fact that these are known threats and prevent random heroes from entering the Chaotic Maelstrom. Lorewise I also can't really see them waking up, so they'd have to have long wake-up times, representing the Growth of the Chaos Wastes more than anything else.

If possible to have multiple start locations there are extra options:
- The Horned Rat: Nobody believes the Skaven are real anyway, so keep it that way. Spread chaos and corruption without ever being suspected. Poison cities and fan the flames of war. Assassin Agents will roam the map and no king will be safe.
- Nagash, to quote the Warhammer Wiki: "Its believed that he is currently enacting his will in the world through the manipulation of others", he'd have control of the undead and access to extremely powerful magics. You can also use the Vampire Counts as easy allies and they are poised to strike at the heart of the Empire.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Congrats on the RPS mention.

I'll probably kickstart this before the end, I certainly like how you're mixing a little RPG into your strategy. It's good to be bad.

[KingDinosaurGames]

Karth waking and discovering there's no orcs left in his world, so instead he rouses the Mongol  Horde?  Count me in....

Armies and Agents/Heroes rarely directly interact (unless they are taking on roles as commanders or fighting in military battles).  Agents can almost always slip right by armies as if they weren't there, unless the army is specifically tasked with trying to hunt an agent (which almost never happens unless you just publicly assassinated the King or equivalent).  Even then the army only provides a bonus to heroes trying to find you.  The most common way an army interferes with your goals is by raising Order passively simply by being present, and they make it much harder for you to Terrorize villages if the army is stationed there.

The Swirl Village sitting calmly near the top is the Order of Twilight, which was meant as an early path to securing Necromantic support but also a "Soft underbelly" for naval invasions against your power.  However, it became so much more over the course of the game due to the fact that it is still fundamentally a human society.  I had one really bizarre game where through a random event the Order developed a port, which gave them trade - the Golden Republic pounced on creating a trade route with them because trade with "uncivilized" and "Exotic" nations is worth a bonus, so then they also established a Merchant Guild branch there, which then led to a second overland trade route which the Order established with the emerging Lizard Kingdom in the swamps to the south.  Fast forward multiple turns (I was busy testing something in the wild lands) and the Order progresses to a republic, the Lizardmen become a Monarchy, and they all join in an alliance with Aventura and the Golden Republic.  Very odd, but this happened because trade routes can cause cultures to become closer together, and a society can shift it's government type if it becomes close enough with a more advanced government.  It was worth it just to see the Lizardmen have a Grand Ball in the swamp.

Thanks!   Just saw the RPS article, I think we can now safely start to dream of stretch goals.

You CAN set multiple starts, either by Old One or random.

[Astfgl66]

The game is funded, congrats!
I hope you get more and more media coverage so that we can acheive stretch goals.

Good luck with the rest of your already successful Kickstarter! 
(I just hope you have your priorities straight and that (eventual) stretch goals will not delay the game much.)

[Nuttycompa]

Let me be the first one to congrats your kickstarter success, and welcome our new awakened overlord. ;

[Digital Hellhound]

Wow, this looks absolutely fantastic. I was ready to cry tears of joy when I saw that you're including an editor. There is nothing as wonderful in this world than a proper game editor.

[lijacote]

Wow. That's fast! I suppose that's media coverage kicking in.