GameSpot Designer Diary: Mission Design

[Martok]

Strangely I tended to find the Senate missions were perfectly appropriate for my Julii campaign. They always set a target that was just within my grasp and often nudged me along a road I was already going (Gaul etc).

Then I envy you, econ. The missions I received always seemed pretty random. I did get the occasional mission that made sense for my chosen faction (conquer a Gaulish settlement as the Julii, capture a Carthaginian city as the Scipii, etc.), but overall that was pretty uncommon in my experience.

I did not mind the blockade Greece/Carthage ones. I saw them just as a mechanism to make sure I was at war with the same enemies as the other two Roman factions.

I can see the logic in that....and if missions like that had been limited to "blockade" only, I might not have minded so much. The problem is, I also received missions telling me to outright conquer Carthaginian and/or Greek cities as well. I still remember a Julii campaign where I was told to conquer Carthage itself, but the Scipii were already powerful enough to have done so themselves. Talk about your "WTF?!" moments....

Of course, what sold the missions to me where the chance of nice reward like a triarii (crumbs, they took long to build) or even better an exotic unit.

I admit I found that to be pretty cool as well, at least in concept. Often times, however, all I received was a couple extra units of Histati or maybe Principes if I was lucky. The most exotic "reward" unit I ever received was a unit of Sammite Gladiators, and that was only one time.