Hey, I used to have an account here like a year ago, but something happened you guys got hacked or something so I had to make a new account. Preceding the release of Left 4 Dead, I've been spending a lot of time over in fansites like left4dead411.com, lots of zombie forums and the like. The number of people interested in a zombie RTS is phenomenal, I think it's really an untapped market. Now I know on the next page there is a zombie RTS post, but I'd like to throw my ideas out here because they are a totally different angle and stuff. I've been pondering and discussing the idea of a zombie-based RTS for a while now, and I have a group of over 100 people willing to help with graphics, music, art, promotion, pretty much everything except actual coding. (what's with the lack of programmers these days?) The game would almost certainly be single-player, campaign based as it will be a lot easier to build the 'mood' with scripting. However, there may later be a multiplayer option with skirmish-type battles. Hence the most plausible idea is to mod a current RTS, which would save months of work and is a lot more realistic to plan than to build a game from the foundations up. Now there are a couple of options for modding, main ones I've considered are BfME2, Company of Heroes, the newly coming World of Conflict, perhaps even one of the Total War games, depending on the way it's done. My thoughts have seemed to have settled on BfME, the horde-based troops of Orcs and Uruk-Hai would be quite easy to convert to infected groups, and the idea of the Evenstar/One Ring powers can be adapted nicely, which I'll go into later. Obviously in my RTS will be two main adversaries, humans and the infected. Unlike a lot of RTS's where the factions are similar, I hope to have these completely different in the way they fight and operate. To elaborate on this, the infected side only gain new troops from either battle, or from ransacking civilian buildings and 'converting' those inside, relying on quick conversion and large numbers. On the other hand, the human side can call reinforcements and rely on weaponry. The human side will have 2 types of people, though they can only control military units. When I say military units of course I mean anyone with a weapon, which could sometimes be civilians (I liked the farmer idea from the other zombie RTS post) or police officers. The other type of people will be civilians whose job it is of the human player to protect. The civilians will be garrisoned in buildings, for example a House would contain 1-3 civilians while as a large building like an office complex could contain up to 50 or so. If an infected 'squad' arrives at a civilian building they can enter it like they would attack a unit, and after a short progress bar the zombies will exit the building with new 'recruits'. It is the job of the human forces through combat and construction to defend these buildings and not let the infected get to them. Human units that are controllable will be armed civilians known as militia, they will have small arms like pistols, the occasional shotgun and will be found a lot on the outskirts of cities or in rural areas. There will then be police officers, similar to militia but more heavily armed, and marines, which will be in squads of around 6 or 7. Marines will have 1 heavy weapon (RPG-based) and a deployable machine-gunner as well as the other standard rifle-soldiers. The infected will have 1 main unit apart from special units which I will talk about later, this being the normal infected horde that you've seen from 28 days later and the like. The infected will be in larger groups of say 15, will be moderately fast (not sprinting but not shambling either) and will take a few shots to kill. They will not be able to cross barricades and it will take them a while to destroy such constructions without the help of special units, giving the humans a defensive edge. Special units will be available to the humans and infected alike. The most powerful special unit will be a "zombie-hunter" mercenary type character that would be difficult to obtain, wield dual-pistols and kill a zombie in 1 or 2 shots. This character represents the movie hero that you see in zombie films and would be quite formidable to a zombie-player. As a deterrent to sending the zombie-hunter into huge groups of zombies, if captured this infected will be twice as fast and resilient to damage, making it valuable to both sides. There will also be morale boosting Sergeants for the human side which will increase accuracy of troops, and builders that can construct barricades on main streets. The infected will have a few special units, mainly a 'hulk' which would act as a siege ladder to pass barricades, and would be quite resilient to damage making him a prime target of the human forces. The other special unit I have in mind is a small fast horde which would only take a few hits to kill but would be used for scouting and flanking which will be a main strategy for the infected player. When playing as the infected, I'm going for a RE/28 days feel to the zombies, created by a virus which you are playing as. As you kill humans you can buy upgrades, mutations for your virus, for example a scent upgrade which will show human gatherings beyond the fog of war with a red mist, a beserk upgrade that makes ransacking buildings quicker etc. The human side will also be able to get upgrades after killing many infected; a binoculars upgrade which increases line of sight for example and a grenade launcher upgrade for marines. These will function very similarly to the Evenstar/Ring in BfME but will not summon creatures in the same way just give bonuses to existing groups. As for storyline/campaigns, the Human campaign will start off with you defending a small town from the new virus and as the game progresses you will move to more residential areas, with the climax being in a large city. The last mission would resolve the storyline as you rescue a scientist who has discovered a cure for the virus. On the other hand the infected campaign will begin with you escaping a research lab in the form of only a few infected, in a rural setting preying on farming communities to build up your horde. The last mission would be very similar but focus on you reaching the scientist and killing him, whilst he is being defended by large military forces. The numbers of infected will rise as the player progresses showing the spread of the virus and the downfall of humanity before it's end/rescue. I want to try and avoid the idea of heavy vehicles like tanks until perhaps the most difficult of missions where there will be very large numbers of infected. In these missions even, the tanks would be stationary so as to avoid a huge unbalance. Strategies - the human player will be playing defensively mostly apart from aggressive missions, this will involve constructing barricades and emplacing machine guns and the like to defend citizens. This will of course lead to the use of special units and flanking on the part of the infected, unlike some games at the moment where flanking is irrelevant I want it to be a large part of this RTS, meaning that enforced humans can get quickly decimated if they allow themselves to be flanked. The aggressive missions will involve rescue as mentioned before, demolition for example to blow up a bridge into the town to quell the infection, or to reach a missile silo to destroy a lot of the infected. The infected will be playing a battle of attrition mainly with humans being the resource, while it will be necessary to lose your infected to gain position, use of flanking and special units will reduce losses. You will need to infect civilians on the edge of a town before actually attacking the military forces there for example. Anyway if you've put up with my post, it's appreciated. I'm a big fan of zombie games and a big fan of RTS and even if I can only get a single-player mod going that would still be awesome. Let me know what you think of my ideas, suggestions are great and if you know of any other games I could use as a base please recommend.

Personally, I think it would be a fun simple game. Something I would try and love for a little while... The problem I would have with it though would be the lack of different troops... Where as I like games where I have a bunch of different approches...

Running up with Zombies and infecting New York would be fun, but I could only do it a couple times. I know Zombie's probably couldn't drive tanks or of the such to make it a fair game to add more units... But I do like the idea as a start. If you could come up with more units that make sense and don't make the game seem too unrealistic then I think it would be more fun in the long run.

Hi there, i think that the best possible game that involves zombies has to be one where you have a range of weapons, and just have to keep away from the zombies, prehaps a very simple environment. some spooky zombies, a shot gun and a baseball bat. and you have to use the environment and weapons to stop them getting at you.

Thats my ten cents <:D

Thanks for the feedback Porkchop, I'll work on some more unit designs. Also, is it best to have lots of types of units, or lots of actions that a unit can perform, like in BfME the units can switch weapons and have special actions?

Different ways to attack can make things interesting aswell, but would the zombies have weapons and stuff too?

If not, you can give them different things, maybe something like where you could send one of them in some kind of "bomb" mode. Something that could spread the virus amoung the human troops effectively, but also, with less health and lower movement speed so it's easy to kill them, but with a good result for the Zombie player. Unit gets killed and sends out an AOE of virus, but of corse, not to big of an area.

Also, tanks wouldn't be that big of a problem. To even it out, you could make it where you flanking crawlers could attack them and get inside of the tank, disabling it and getting the tank crew to come back as Zombies. -Or one of your upgrades could be like acidic spit for them or somethin'... Zombie's with acid spit don't seem to far out.

As for a Base, you could use the Good ol' C&C kind of system. That wouldn't be to bad, though maybe a little over played for some. Although Company of hero's would probably be better, for the fact of good graphics.

Alright here's what I've thrown together on unit types.

Human Units

Builder
These are your average run of the mill builders come to help the cause. Although they can't fight, they can construct barricades which will vitally slow the infected down. As a result they are to be protected a lot and the infected will try to eliminate them.

Militia
The militia are random men and women models who have arms. In a squad of 4 there will be one shotgun to 3 pistols, it will take them roughly 5 shots to kill a zombie making them one of the weakest units, but a necessary defence when stronger units aren't available.

Police officer
Similar to militia (not powerful weaponry) but with armour so can resist more damage. The police will be more accurate with their weapons though, and have a special ability to switch to melee, in which they will use batons, which is okay against the odd zombie but a horde will quickly overpower.

Scout
The scout can run twice as fast as a soldier and carries a small sub-machinegun. He is not very good in combat (better than a policeman) but has long range of sight due to his binoculars and radio. He can also hide in foliage allowing you to see when the infected are going to attack (countered later on by scent upgrade). If killed will become a faster than average infected.

Soldiers
The soldiers will be in squads of 5 and will carry carbine rifles. They will kneel to shoot and so be a lot more accurate and damage-dealing than police officers. Later on you can upgrade them with grenade launchers which will cause large blast-type damage. Soldiers can also entrench in bunkers which will highly improve their forward defence but make them vulnerable to flanking.

Machine-gunner
A 2 man crew with a heavy machine-gun, takes a moment to deploy/undeploy, 1 man fires the other reloads. The machine-gunner can take down a lot of zombies but is VERY vulnerable to flanking as they take a moment to undeploy.

RPG
A single-person unit carrying an RPG. While the RPG can do lots of damage in a hit, reloading and aiming time is slow meaning they are vulnerable to zombie attack unless you keep them at range.

Sergeant
The sergeant only has a pistol and no armour, at first you'd think this makes him a useless unit but he gives morale to all nearby humans making them a lot more accurate and disciplined in the face of the infected.

Doctor
The doctor is as you'd expect, can heal units providing they are not being attacked. However has a special ability vaccine that makes selected units die if killed and not return as infected. Careful use of this will mean the infected run out of people a lot faster and do not gain advantage from victory.

How about the Infected types of units?

and about the units, I wouldn't make them just the same with different names and ways to do so. I'd try to make it where they have a different setup all together but if used right, both sides can cancle each other out.

How about same units, just infected.

Infected units

Infected
This is the standard infected civilian. Moves at a fast walking pace, maybe jog. Takes a few hits to take down and really only work in numbers.

Hulk
The hulk is an extremely large infected. It is rather slow and very damage resilient. It has 2 special functions, firstly it can use it's body as a ramp over barricades like a siege ladder, and secondly it can throw boulders which are especially effective against bunkers and tanks.

Leapers
Leapers only come in groups of 3 and as you can probably guess their special function is to leap over barricades. This can be countered by machine-gunners who will simply mow them down, however a successful leap can wipe out a line of defence. They are quite weak but fast.

Stalkers
Stalkers are very much like the fast zombies from HL2, they run extremely fast, have a large line of sight but are very weak. They are mostly used as a scout unit or to flank a group of entrenched soldiers for example. They can also become invisible if stationary.

Spreader
The spreader's only function is to spread the virus to living creatures. It does so with a range attack in which it throws it's own head into a group of humans, spraying the blood over them. It can be killed with 1 hit and so must be protected by other infected, however a successful hit of it's attack can convert a large group of soldiers. It's attack can be countered by a doctor beforehand if planned properly.

Lol sorry about my slow typing finally we have the special units which you can only recieve after many kills.

Zombie Hunter / Mercenary
A young male/female, fast runner, carries dual pistols and is very accurate. As a downside of their strength if infected they become a very fast zombie like the stalkers but with more resilience to damage. Special attack is a molotov cocktail throw which can take out a group of infected.

Wallrunner
This unit as you can imagine from the name can run along walls and has a 1 hit-kill pounce attack. As a result it is an excellent assassin for the infected to use against a sergeant or doctor and demoralise the human troops.