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Millennia: Atomic Ambitions
DLC Summary
Millennia: Atomic Ambitions is a large downloadable content pack with additions for the mid and late game. The content focuses on the themes of nuclear warfare and the different outcomes players can take in a modern war.
Engine:
Platform:
Unity 2019.4.4.0f1
PC
Development Time:
5 months
Team Size:
18 team members
Design Goals
Design New Content
Atomic Ambitions was planned as a large DLC. This meant a lot of new content was going to be added by all members of the design team. I worked with the leads team to designate what I would be responsible for designing.
Integrate Old Content
Millenia is a systemic strategy title so any changes to that system will require maintenance of old content. I identified parts of the game that would need updating and took responsibility of fixing said parts.
Design New Content
Age of Atom
This was the first age I designed for Millenia.
The main mechanic of the age is Network Status. Nuclear energy is dangerous! Players gain boosts to their nation at different % thresholds of the Network Status Gauge. Going over 100%, however, triggers a Meltdown. This causes tile improvements to break and fallout to spawn.
The different technologies center on new uses for Uranium. Everyone in this age has some uranium spawn near them to ensure players engage with the content.
I really pushed for a "retro-futurism" aesthetic in the art and mechanics. I was inspired by shows such as Fallout but also the old designs of Disney World by Walt Disney. One of the age's technologies replaces sidewalks and trains with People Movers and Monorails which have models in game.
New National Spirits
I designed 3 new national spirits for this DLC.
Nuclear Superiority is the warfare focused spirit. Players gain bonuses for escalating DEFCON levels, new bomb testing powers, and new bomb delivery methods. Players who want to nuke first pick this spirit. The visuals for this spirit were very inspired by the character Dr. Strangelove.
Flower Child is an arts focused spirit. For players who want to stop a nuclear war from occurring are encouraged to take this spirit. Build music festivals, burn effigies to gain culture, and use that culture to de-escalate DEFCON. Inspired by the hippie movement of the 1960s, Woodstock, and Burning Man.
Siege Masters is the only new national spirit to appear before the modern era ages. The spirit provides new ways to siege enemy cities by digging tunnels, building trebuchets and ballistae, and harvesting forest tiles away from the player's borders.
Nuclear Bomb Mechanic
I worked with the design team to create the nuclear bombing mechanic.
Specifically I concepted lots of delivery methods for nuclear bombs such as:
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Fired by submarines
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Detonated via suitcase
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Dropped by planes
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Launched by ICBM
Some methods of delivery were simple to implement by design such as ICBM and suitcase detonation.
Others, such as the planes, required me to work with the programming team to determine when planes would bomb normally and when they would initiate a nuclear bomb delivery.
New Expeditions for Age of Wasteland
My final contribution to the new content within Atomic Ambitions. In the age of wasteland many cities are turned into explorable ruins. I designed branching choices within these and they provided an opportunity to inject worldbuilding into the game.
Refresh Old Content
Updating Old National Spirits
I redesigned parts of the Machinery national spirit, available during the medieval ages, so players could interact with alternate power sources. The new spirit has a focus on gathering Iron and creating Charcoal as goods.
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Update Base Game with Uranium
Another way I updated the base game was by injecting Uranium into base game content. Alternate ages would need to provide varied sources of nuclear energy and nuclear weaponry.
Postmortem
What Went Well
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This was the largest DLC we worked on and a lot of my own designs were included.
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The new content integrated well with the pre-existing systems and enhanced the gameplay during the later half of each game session.
What Went Wrong
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Some features in Age of Wasteland feel a little unbalanced as it's supposed to be a reset age, but prices are still kept at age 9 standards.
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The Age of Atom mechanic feels finnicky as players are constantly managing it to make sure it doesn't grow too much or too little.
What I Learned
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I learned a lot about how to sell new content additions. it's not enough to simply add something that's a different color. The player needs to see why certain content is being added and what's good about it.
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