OK, bear with me here. I apologise in advance for the length of this post and please take it the right way.
Before you jump into developing a campaign mode, I want to explore what you are getting into. This looks pretty complex. As I understand it, perhaps it might play something like this:
I start a new campaign and you create a folder for it, containing the overworld data. All the summary information for the villain maps needs to be displayed to me from turn 1.
You fill in 10 map squares with villain keepers to defeat. Let’s say they are all pre-installed maps. You put a private copy of the keeper maps in my campaign folder. Now you must generate the remaining 90 maps on a 10 x 10 overworld. Maybe you just generate the summary information at this stage. Generating 90 map files is too slow. Most people will probably never visit most of those maps anyway if you don’t need them to win the game.
I choose my starting location in the middle of some easy-looking keeperless squares you spawned. I complete the starting location easily because it is only inhabited by one human town, a cyclops and some bandits. It takes 20 minutes.
I ignore the bandits. I save the campaign. It only saves one map, the other maps haven’t changed. Most of the maps haven’t even been generated yet.
I go shopping in real life and come back later and I load my campaign. It loads the overworld file again. I load my dungeon base for a while and get bored because there isn’t much to level up on. I have no throne and no enemies yet. I go to the overworld map (dungeon base saves). I invade a neighbouring square by selecting it on the overworld map view.
This time I have an average difficulty map, like the common ones you get already. Some dwarves and elves and humans. It takes a short time to generate this map because it hasn’t actually been created yet.
I have to stay in control of a minion. If it dies, the invasion has failed and the villain map will be saved. Perhaps during my invasion, I realise I am unready.
I go back to the overworld map and you save my invasion. I return to my dungeon base to train up my troops. My dungeon base loads up. Some neighbouring bandits have been waiting to attack me but I was away on an invasion, so they waited to ambush me when I come back. I kill the bandits and go on to wipe them out. I train a bigger and better army and make a throne for myself.
By doing this, I get attacked severely and I hit the 5 villain limit on my base dungeon. This will probably remain the case for the rest of the campaign – it is now all out war.
Up to 5 different tribes are coming in occasionally from some of the surrounding maps. These invaders represent the strength of those tribes but those other maps are not actually loaded because it would be too slow to have more than one map running at a time.
There is a dragon that attacks from the square to my north. Since the dragon was the only villain on the map to my north, I now own 2 squares when I kill it. There is some loot, although I have to load up the map to get to it.
Back to my invasion (you save my dungeon base and load my invasion). During this next assault the elves are defeated. I take a look at my base dungeon. (invaded map saves). I defend my dungeon against the four other villains that are attacking from around about. These were all waiting for me to return to my base because they can’t really attack while I am away on an invasion. I guess they all attack at once. This is the price I pay for botching my invasion. I survive.
After this, my keeper is getting very high level and I also have spell casting vampires and legendary beasts, traps, all the types of rooms and minions. I make a direct path across the 10 x 10 map to the nearest villain keeper, who is only a few maps away. I guess I have to conquer the maps in between us. Should be easy, but if an invasion fails for any reason, I will have to go back to my base dungeon map to re-equip and party up again. I can expect to face plenty of assaults waiting for me every time I have to go back to base. On the other hand, I also get to train and recruit.
I start taking on the villain keepers. Invasion parties have to be well chosen because if I fail, I will have to go back to my dungeon base and face counter attacks. The private campaign copy of the player maps also have to save and load when I enter and exit them. However, I don’t have to wait for the initial generation of those maps because they are derived from player maps that were installed with the game.
This will go on in real life for days or weeks. Attacks and counter-attacks. Loading villain keeper maps and then failing and getting hit back. Eventually all 10 keepers are dead and I have won the campaign. 25 of the 100 maps were beaten. The other 75 maps were never visited, loaded up or even generated.
I retire and upload my own base dungeon for other players to enjoy.
My question: Can you handle that kind of complexity?
Campaign mode sounds exciting. Would it be possible to have a portal network that links all the maps together, rather than having to march my minions all over a huge country?
5 unconquered villains is enough to be getting on with! Especially if they all own a whole map for themselves! Could you limit the major villains to about 5 at the same time (like we have now in normal mode?) When I conquer a map, a new villain could be switched in. So they could be rotated in one at a time. Thus saving my laptop from exploding and also avoiding getting attacked by 30 players at a time.
