Designing tiles part two.

Trying to work out how to give the player a sense of defending a city under seige.
In TU1 seiges usually involved capturing hardpoints and then spawning sappers or titans or a nuke to take down walls and grab the enemy's key.
This gave the player a nice progression and pay-off to play through.

But in TU2 the aim will sometimes be to simply defend a settlement (from airlifted in enemies) so that the area remains in blue team's control on the high-level strategic map.
So how to give this experience a definite structure rather than just a loose battle which could get a bit monotonous? By implementing the following;

Powerstations are scattered around - some are inside the walls. These help power the central forcefield protecting the central base (dome).
If the enemy destroy all the powerstations, the central dome becomes vulnerable. This means it's crucial to defend at least one powerstation possibly with turrets or a teammate.

Walls can be breached by enemy sappers.

Once breached, buildings inside the walls can be destroyed by enemy sappers.
Once destroyed, buildings are replaced by ground switches which can be driven over to change their colour.
This gives the player a 'second chance' and something else to do while looking for the next target.
If the enemy manage to trip 50%+ of the switches, then the central dome becomes vulnerable.

If the central dome is destroyed, it is replaced by a single hardpoint.
If an enemy tank manages to occupy the hardpoint for 20 seconds, the level is lost.
Again, this final stage gives the player yet another chance to turn things around and recover, but if the enemy is still numerous, it's going to be difficult.

The level can be won by destroying 80% of the invading force, causing them to retreat.

this really tops my 1 vs. 100+ idea or did you get some idea from my idea?

City Siege design sound fantastic! Keep up the great work!

Just one point. While new gameplay modes are always welcome, I suggest at least having "some" or "more of the same" from TU1. I am not saying change nothing and have everything for every level be the same style as in TU1, but if you keep the same style in TU1 for a few of the levels in TU2, you will at least avoid those gamer complaints that are common with sequels of "If only it were more like the original".

In short new is refreshing, but old is a welcome comfort as well. No reason not to have both in TU2.

I think most out of anything I am looking forward to playing more levels like Level 19 (logic gates?), Networking Hacking, and the other network hack level with in the valley level.

The whole, activate your hub with a glyph, make and control towers, then blast through the enemy base walls to steal the key was by far my favorite gameplay of the game in TU1.

Scribble

Thanks for your comments here and in the other topics - always good to hear feedback from players about what they liked/didn't like in TU1 - appreciate it.

I get what you're saying about retaining the gameplay style in level 19 etc in TU2.
Certainly the trick will be to retain stuff TU1 players liked, but to build on that.

To give a bit more info, TU2 will incorporate a simple strategic map where the player can plot a path across the sector by moving reinforcements to conquer/defend discrete areas/levels. Some areas will contain hubs (which will involve the sort of hub battles you've seen in TU1), but many will not.
In these areas (if the player chooses to play them 'on the ground'), depending on enemy occupation level, it'll be a straight forward mission to kill enemy tanks up to attacking or defending a fortress.

On the strategic map, some areas will contain hubs. Hubs are power sources. Power can be channeled to surrounding areas via pipelines. Connect an area with a pipeline and its occupation level grows. Areas with an occupation level > 2 will have fortresses. Areas connected via pipeline will have extra foretess defenses such as extra turrets.

To attack an enemy fortress connected by pipeline; the walls will be shielded - take out the surrounding powerstations feeding the shields. Spawn sappers to punch holes in the fortress walls. The central hub is shielded. The sappers will start drilling the buildings within the walls. These leave switches for the player trip. Once enough switches have been tripped (and the enemy will be trying to stop you), the central hub becomes vulnerable. Destroy the central hub. Escape the resultant blast - level won. As you point out, want the player to have the same feeling of accomplishment felt in level 19 after using a nuke, grabbing the key and running...

Will the Skrimish editor in TU2 be about building custom levels with the TU1 style gameplay or the TU2 new gamplay or will it have the option for both?