Originally Demigods was slated to have an impressive single player component. However, as it evolved this feature was dropped. At release Demigod's Single Player was reduced to skirmishes versus the AI and the Single Player Tournament. The majority of Demigod users, at this point, seem to play on private lans or single player. Thus, it seems reasonable that efforts to increase the diversity and depth of single player games may prove fruitful.

The purpose of this post is to query the community about potential ways of enhancing the single player experience.

What we have:

• Limited Map Changes
  • mrappard has done a lot of work with the maps, but with mixed success.
    
  • The pathing information contained in the map files hasn't been understood. Attempts to recreate them result in failures. It is unknown why.
  • Feature placement changes work.
    
    • There is a version of Cataract released on this forum that demonstrates this.
      • Towers, Citadels, Crystals, walls, and portals can all be moved freely.
      • I'm not 100% sure if pathing works when these are changed, but I think it does.
  • Maps may require input from the user to overwrite ones
• Game Style Changes
  • Scottish Alien was developing a Bombing Run game.
    
    • I'm not sure what happened or how far he got. However, he is MIA at this point.
• Special Units AI
  
  • Peppe has demonstrated that much of the AI can be controlled for Demigod AIs.
  • There is no scripting, but high level changes can be implimented.
• Adding Units
  • Creating new models is impossible (virtually) without very expensive modelling and scripting software
  • Texture Mesh changes are relatively easy - see any of the numerous skinning threads Ptarth has made
    
  • Size scaling of models is trivial and scripting is mostly size independent
  • Adding nonDemigod units is straightforward as long as they use currently existing models.
  • Adding new abilities is relatively trivial.
• Adding New Demigods
  • mrappard has released the first complete new demigod
  • It relies on replacing an existing demigod
  • It is a reskin of Regulus
• Single Player Mods
  • Mods do not load until a game starts.
  • This forces some limitations, unless we want to change the executable
    • Changing the executable is something that should be generally avoided
  • Some mods do not function in Single Player.
    • I don't recall the specifics, anyone else?
• Scripting Events
  • I believe we do have some potential with event scripting, it would be horrendously kludgy, but should work
    • Best idea would be to use buffs that trigger functions when they expire.
    • Possibly combined with invisible units that create effects when they die (as an effect of a buff or such)
  • We have no additional voice overs.
  • Events would be text based, the same types of messages that appear in game.
    • A Player could easily miss these events
    • There would be no pausing (I think)

Where does that leave us?

Well, the best idea I have is that mods could be loaded that create single scenarios (multiple mods could provide a series of scenarios that would be related). These scenarios would be played as a Skirmish versus the AI. It may require the player to have a specific and fixed number of AIs. This may be manipulatable by the mod, but I'm uncertain. It seems possible to develop scenarios that require you to achieve goals such as killing an overpowered demigod, fighting against reinforcement waves that do not have capturable portals, and rewarding progress in a map with "treasure" chests containing various items.

Thoughts?