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[Map control]

Here are some ideas for special modes, different from the standard destroy-or-capture your enemy skirmish:

Map control
There will be resource points on the map. At the top of the screen is a circular balance meter with a dot in it and the players on the sides. Control the majority of the resource points and the balance dot will shift to your side. You win if the dot touches your side.
All normal skirmish maps with resource points can be played in this mode.

Single-player Siege (defence)
You get a bunch of resources and some time to build a good castle and man it with units. Then a fixed-size AI army comes in and attacks you. You win by killing the attacker (or make it retreat), you lose if your citadel is captured
Could be possible against another human, but that'd be kind of boring for the attacker who has to wait.

Single-player Siege (offence)
The AI controls a castle (either pre-built or custom-built by the AI in some kind of turbospeed mode) which you will have to take by capturing the citadel. You lose if your army is dead.

Multi-player siege
One player controls a prebuilt castle, the other gets a prebuilt army. The victory conditions are as above

The above three modes require special maps, but these maps work for all three modes

Style contest
The game goes for a set amount of time. You win by earning the most points. You can earn points by succesfully executing ambushes, killing an enemy commander, make a glorious charge, that kind of stuff
Unlikely because of the need to define what is good style

Treasure hunt
There are hidden/protected treasures in the map, win by collecting the majority/a preset amount of them
Almost all normal skirmish maps can be used for this mode, mappers just need to place some points for spawning treasure. Custom maps should be made for very specific things, like treasures hidden in guarded fortresses or something.

Quest
You get a hero with a small army. You have to do some kind of quest with this group, but your hero must survive at all costs.
Removed in favour of mode below

Quest
Custom maps define custom missions with custom victory conditions. Can be played single-player or multiplayer

Comments?

[Map Control]

Map Control
There will be resource points on the map. Control the majority of them and a timer bar will start to decrease. If it's empty, you win

Let me add one elaboration to that; if you lose map control, the timer does not go away, but starts to increase.  It only goes away when it's full again.  If you regain control, the timer starts going down where it left off.  That is, if the timer is 5 minutes, you hold map control for 4 minutes (1 minute left) and lose it for one minute, you've got to hold it for two more minutes, rather than it restarting at 5.

Style contest
The game goes for a set amount of time. You win by earning the most points. You can earn points by succesfully executing ambushes, killing an enemy commander, make a glorious charge, that kind of stuff

I disagree with this one; first and foremost, it relies upon us developing algorithms to detect "style".  However, by its definition, that blocks creativity because good "style" is limited to what we've pre-programmed.  I don't think it will work.

Treasure hunt
There are hidden/protected treasures in the map, win by collecting the majority/a preset amount of them

Like relics in AoE; that could work.

Like relics in AoE; that could work.

yeah that's what i thought of when i wrote that

1st post updated

I think most of these "objectives" would be best encompassed as custom maps, rather than different game modes.  Frankly, I can imagine that we'll want to produce dozens of skirmish maps, and scripting all of them for quest mode could get woefully redundant.  All of these game modes should conform to regular skirmish match rules, but simply act as different objectives.  Anything beyond that deserves its own custom scripted map.

No, not all maps have to be made to fit all modes. That's just impossible
However, these special game modes should be implemented by the game, not as scripts in a map. Firstly, scripts won't be able to do everything (such as draw that balance meter), and secondly map creaters would have to repeat the same script a lot of times.
Also, a game mode like Map Control can easily be applied to almost all the normal skirmish maps.

I agree though, that something like the Quest mode is better created as a custom map. We will of course have the option for custom or standalone single-player missions.

updated first post