[CF List] The 'dis'economy of crossfire

[Preston Crow]

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     How about starting with a blank map with some kind of basic (boring) floor
     
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     tile, like gravel (to encourage a floor upgrade). With 1 exit and 1
     
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     entrance to a map item shop. In this shop there would be map item
     
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     generators, that when you pay enough money that item is placed into the
     
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     players inventory. Next the player exits the shop and drops that item on
     
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     his boring floor. This way you could drop better floor, wall parts etc. to
     
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     form a castle the way you like. Some items like stairs might need a fixed
     
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     position (so you don't need to dynamically calculate exit positions),
     
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     where you can drop money on that spot to get a new empty level.
     
     
I like that.  I would envision a slightly different mechanism, but with
only slightly different semantics:

There would be a new store type that stocked construction contracts.  It
might have a altars for generating standard contracts (floor types, walls,
and such), as well as randomly-generated special types.  Just like any
other store.

If you read the contract, it would explain how to use it:

	"Inside your castle, drop this on a square or throw
	it at an obstructed square to order workmen to alter
	the square to contain XXX."

You might have items like:

	Construction Contract: empty floor
	Construction Contract: wood floor
	Construction Contract: castle wall (north-south)
	Construction Contract: stairs to unfinished basement (20x20)

I could see a store with altars next to the sample of what the contracts
are for.

So initially, your castle would just be an entrance and a ton of obstructed
black squares.  You would buy construction contracts, throw them at the
squares, and they would convert into whatever the contract was for.  You
could drop them on previously-converted squares to remodel them.

This would probably require a new property that only squares inside your
castle would have to allow construction (I suppose you could also use it in
certain quests on maps that reset if the designer saw fit).

There would have to be rules for stacking improvements--normally building
something on a floor would leave the floor there, but replace other things.
And construction contracts for demolition.

--PC