A New Strategy Game for You - What is it?

[Jon Shafer]

Let's say you had the ability to snap your fingers and a new strategy game would come out tomorrow, exactly to your specifications. What would it be?

I have a few ideas but I can't really share because I'm working on some of them. So I'll have to revisit this thread when they're announced.

I can say though that I'd like to see a game which does politics really well, where you have to plan out how to make as many important people happy as you can without alienating too many others. CK2 does a pretty good job of this and that's probably the main reason why I've enjoyed it so much. I still think there's plenty of room to improve though. There are an awful lot of characters in CK2 that just don't really matter, and all that extra 'clutter' makes it hard to figure out what is actually worth paying attention to. I also think the game could be clearer as to what the consequences of your political decisions will be. Even so, there's really no game out there that comes close to it in modeling political intrigue (that I know of, anyways ).

- Jon

Edit: Fixed some butchered grammar... four days after posting of course. Doh!

Edited April 17, 2012 by Jon Shafer

[Jaraknarn]

It already happened, it was Rome : Total War and it was awesome, lol.

If were gonna go for total wishlisting, it would be a blend of Civ, Rome, CK2 and maybe a bit of Empire: TW

To be more specific, Rome-like map, a similar but, reigned in for obvious reason, civ style settlement placing, CK2 politics/dynasty control, spanning the whole globe, starting at the beginning of civilization.

You are the Patriarch of a family emerging from the Zagros mountains, settling the first cities in Mesopotamia, slowly developing the concept of Kingship, then Empire, then perhaps nation? Uncivilised nomadic tribes are always ready to swoop down on your over-stretched empire, vassals and underling must be kept in-line, a 6000 year dynasty doesn't just protect itself you know. Spread your influence and knowledge, develop new and better ways of travelling the great distances within your empire and the un-explored world. Will your expansion have forced others to migrate to the americas earlier? Is a. Nasant austrailian kingdom ready to hack at your unprotected underbelly? Or will a Bizarro Alexander cut a blazing path through your hereditary holdings with an uncounterable technology?

Basically - History : The Game

[riadsala]

A multi-player, long-form game (Neptune's Pride, Dominions3, Solium Infernium, etc) game which allows for some interesting player interactions. All the above games are fun, but sadly, the "can only be one" win conditions means that all alliances eventually get broken, and the only thing you can trust your allies to do is to eventually stab you in the back.

There must be some way to allow for alliances to be an interesting game mechanic.

[Destrin]

I think a strategy game that does something more interesting in the multiplayer/cooperative area would be what interests me the most. Particularly anything that has a hierarchy of players.

Games like Allegiance, Savage, Nuclear Dawn, Natural Selection have all tried the RTS/FPS model where one player is the commander and other players can receive orders from the player higher up the chain of command about where to go and also receive support from the commander player.

How about handling this sort of player hierarchy in a strategy game? To apply this to a historical example, what about the Eastern Front? One player is the German OKW/OKH who has to deal with general theatre plans, resource allocation and the raising of troops/allocation of new troops. Then below that you probably have the Army Group North/Centre/South commanders, giving orders to corps/divisional commanders below them within the framework of the operational objectives set by high command.

Everything up to this point I would see as an EU3/grand strategy style of view/interface. Then maybe divisional and below might get closer to a RTS style of game where divisional/regimental commanders could take control of discrete units in achieving the directives handed to them.

For me, exploring the options for coop gameplay in a new way would make me sit up and take notice of a new strategy game.

[RoutineMachine]

It would be nice if there was a deeper exploration of Alpha Centauri's terraforming mechanics.

I envision different factions being unable to use direct military power against eachother, so instead trying to change climate patterns to their own advantage (sunny days for solar power plants, good breezes for wind farms) and to disadvantage their opponents (cause droughts for farms, raise sea levels to cause damage to coastal cities.)

The end game would build to ludicrous "Day After Tomorrow" climate change, generating tornadoes and hurricanes, earthquakes, El Nino etc

[Jaraknarn]

Oooo, I like the idea of exploring the co-op/multiplayer aspect. I suppose I've always considered RTS as a single experience, other than the odd Age of Empires duel. But, a lot of what I was suggesting there was to counter that "juggernaught" problem that happens in a lot of long form games, where you get to a point, where you own half the world and no one, not even someone you haven't discovered yet, can muster up enough resistence to halt your momentum.

A human opponent could do that. But, its all about logistics isn't it? Combining that long form RTS with how an actual human being plays games. A campaign like that would require a lot of dedication and organisation to pull off.

A lot of this reminds me of the conversation on last weeks Giantbomb, the one about implementing Journey style multiplayer in a FPS like CoD. Could that be done with an RTS? For things like battles?

If we imagine just for easiness sake that were using the rome battlle system, and have human players controlling the opposition in a battle, defending a city or attacking? It'd be so hard to do, one player would end up with a force he didn't choose, and it isn't really a solution to the "juggernaught" problem, still an interesting idea tho?

[Codicier]

@RoutineMachine

Thinking back to some of the stuff which was said about the Molyjam, if you switch from a sci-fi to mythical explanation for the mechanics the resulting game would end up not far off from Populous or Black and White.

[seamus2389]

I have two games I would like to see

One would be based upon the battles in Steven Erikson's Malazan because his take on how you fight battles with mages and pretty powerful explosions using roman style legions are something I would love to play.

In particular there is one battle where because the enemy had an advantage in terms of magic the entire army was broken in platoons to both avoid large losses but also to hunt down the mages and harass the enemy who had no cavalry. That idea was nothing I saw in fantasy books/games. It's equivalent would be in Men of War where you have to do the same to avoid getting destroyed by artillery but I want magic and alchemic explosives fired from crossbows instead of T-34s and 88s.

My other game would be one based on the struggle for Irish independence and the civil war resulting from the signing of the treaty with Britain that didn't go far enough for some of the people leading the struggle .

I want it to focus on the small scale raids under Collins (something like Jagged Alliance 2 from what I have heard of the game) and also the politics of getting to British to leave Ireland. The thing about the military side was that we never had to ability for an all out rebellion (see Easter rising 1916) and could only harass and eventually the British decided keeping Ireland wasn't worth the cost of dealing with this.

Maybe you would have to work on the the Treaty and it could be better/worse than the one that was signed depending on your actions of if it wasn't what De Valera and crew wanted you had to chose a side in the civil war - pro or anti-treaty and try and win.

[TheLastBaron]

I have two games I would like to see

One would be based upon the battles in Steven Erikson's Malazan because his take on how you fight battles with mages and pretty powerful explosions using roman style legions are something I would love to play.

Bruce brought up the idea if a Malazan strategy game in the episode of TMA on theme and mechanics and I've wanted to see one ever since.

[RoutineMachine]

@Codicier

Populous maybe, (I'm not too familiar with it). In my mind the climate effects are more subtle and global and less direct and immediate than the spellcasting in Black & White.

I'm envisioning a EUIII type map screen with climate overlays

[Codicier]

Yeah i think i get what you mean. Something where the aim is tweaking the climate in order to favor your civilization/nation/tribe etc. Then watching how your changes could produce un-looked for consequences?

Eg: Adding a mountain range could leave one area getting far more rain, but turn another in to a desert.

That said because climate is such a chaotic thing generally.If Nasa can't model climate change easily its a lot to ask from a game

I think perhaps even just trying to get a playable system out of such chaos might end up producing something that felt pretty contrived

Speaking of which have you tired out Fate of the World at all?

FoTW is probably the closest thing we have to teraforming game atm. Its has what at first seemed to me pretty gamey card based mechanic, but after a while I realized the line between success and failure was pretty brutal and it had a lot more depth than I'd assume at first glance.

You should perhaps keep a eye out for it on the steam midweek/wkend sales, it might be worth picking up at a nice discount if you like the concept.

[evildoc]

Eg: Adding a mountain range could leave one area getting far more rain, but turn another in to a desert.

Alpha Centauri did a fine job of this... memories of spiraling into a catastrophic war with a neighbor because I didn't notice my terraforming essentially made the Sierra Nevadas and caused desertification throughout their settled area.

My wish would be a game that gets away from the total informational awareness/control thing. Not just more fog of war, but level of detail and interaction restraints. Making more things hands-off in interesting ways.

On the grand strategy, going to war by crossing a unit across the dotted line seems oddly reversed. Especially in games where I can pick the exact armament of the basic soldier, but receive no friction from anyone when issuing idiotic/homicidal orders until after.

Operationally, I'd love to play essentially a battle report map. Be able to draw lines for attacks and defense points, and point at objectives. Having fronts be more ambiguous and analog, where its a representation of a goal. Putting some reason behind decisions, have some articulation of intent in-game.

Tactically, having those higher decisions filter down, but avoiding spreadsheet hell… my conscript army of terrified peasants can't actually follow the battle plan because my policies decisions have left them illiterate, starving, and armed with sticks. Oh well, too late now.

Recently, Unity of Command made me really excited with its territory/supply mechanisms. Peeling off units to nab a rail station while the main force press on with dwindling supplies feels great. It's simple and abstracted, but its a meaningful decision. Want that pushed up into a bigger space, with more fire-and-forget moments, that can lead to long unintended consequences…. and doesn't, you know, suck. You said finger snapping.

[corto]

I would love for a game in a modern setting with a Cold War theme as a background. Combat should be limited with heavy penalties (escalation to nuclear war) if abused so the player should be more inclined to escalate army presence in border countries as deterrence, increase Nuclear Weapons presence, anti-missil systems research, espionage, black ops, economic and industrial sabotage, diplomacy, and use of puppet states to try to impact the opponent block. It should be open ended as Paradox games. No fixed victory conditions. Defcon was too much abstract (for a good reason), this should have a more realistic feel and a clean, streamlined interface. A game theory thesis in video game form. hehehe

In multiplayer, I would like asynchronous multiplayer to become a norm in every game. I know that it would be difficult/impossible to balance every game to single player, multiplayer and an asynchronous mode, but a man can dream.

Edited April 16, 2012 by corto

[RoutineMachine]

@Codicier You have a point about a system simple enough to be playable system feeling contrived. It could help to make the setting a bit more exotic, either through fantasy or by putting it on a different planet, like Alpha Centauri did.

"Fate of the World" looks interesting. Thanks for the heads up!

@corto Are you familiar with "Balance of Power" by Chris Crawford?

[corto]

@corto Are you familiar with "Balance of Power" by Chris Crawford?

I didn't even knew of its existence! But now that I read something about it, it does seem exactly what I had in mind. Now if someone, say a game developer, took note and made a modernized game in that vein... *wink wink nudge nudge*

edit: And just to expand on the asynchronous multiplayer mode subject. In TPS/FPS games horde mode is more or else expected now as a co-op mode. It profoundly changes the balance of the game too, in terms of weapons, enemies, level design. A strategy game has a lot more running under the hood, too many systems interconnected and tweaking one could ruin the whole. But the more I think of it, the more it feels right. Asynchronous multiplayer mode could be a novel (in terms of widespread adoption) mechanic that would bring more players to the genre.

[warthurton]

So weird.

I just got my copy of Balance of Power out of storage last night.

Did anyone play BoP: 21st Century? It is listed as coming out in 2009.

Most of my BoP sessions ended poorly.

[Procyon Lotor]

I would like a first-person Civil War or Napeoleonic strategy game. You would play the role of the general. (Or maybe you could start as a colonel?) You would issue orders via couriers and aides-de-camp, unless you were physically with the troops, in which case you could issue the orders directly to the unit commander. You would receive information either with your own two eyes from your first-person perspective, or through the reports of your subordinates, delivered either orally over a map in your tent, or in written dispatches. What you wouldn't do is issue orders directly from a God's-eye view, which is what we are all used to. After the battle, you could watch a replay to find out exactly what the heck happened.

Maybe you can start low (Colonel) and work your way up through a campaign. That would be cool.

This might be an incredibly frustrating and terrible game. Or it might be awesome. In any event, it would be interesting because it would model the fog of war and information delays that historical commanders had to deal with. Rob talked about something like this in a recent 3MA, and it has been something that I have always wanted to see done.

[AteBit]

Personally I'd like to see more abstract strategy games (Eufloria comes to mind). Something weird, something that doesn't quite register initially, but once you get into it.. everything makes sense. Something that would generate the "I have no idea what you are doing, but it looks cool." response from onlookers. Something quirky, but with some nice depth to it.

[Corelli]

Social politics. There are really no good games (that I'm aware of, anyways) that delve into the social psychology of a given place and time.

I've thought of one way to do this that might work well: a Jane Austen family-marriage simulator type thing, trying to shepard your children/immediate family through a web of social intricacies and match them (and yourself?) in the most effective way possible. Even better, put an RPG layer on top of that with dialogue trees and stats, procedurally generate the NPCs, and there you go. I would play the shit out of that game.

Alternatively, I'd like to see a Total War-esque game based off of the Exalted license.

[Gormongous]

I'd probably stick to my hobbyhorse. I'd like a strategy game that recreates the collapse of the Roman Empire and the rise of the post-Roman kingdoms, culminating in Carolingian dominance.

Being a historian and not a game designer, I couldn't speak to the mechanics, but I think there are some very interesting tensions there that would play quite well. The integrity of the frontier must be maintained, though too strict would isolate Rome and too lax would leave nothing to defend. This decision could be nuanced by orders from the emperor and requests from Germanic chieftains, often with the intent of presenting a no-win situation, forcing a general to either rebel for his own good or accept a fail state.

Likewise, if we move into the fifth century, the currency becomes continuity with Rome. For a newly minted king, to consolidate power is to distance himself from the Roman government he replaced, often with disastrous results. The challenge would be to derive enough legitimacy from diplomatic contacts, military victories, and cultural fusion to transform a society from toady for Byzantium or the Huns to world power, probably much in the vein of current Total War games, but with medievalization instead of modernization.

Whenever new scholarship comes out about the Lombard Wars or something like that, all I can think of is how many permutations of strategy game would serve this period in history so well, from King of Dragon Pass to Europa Universalis III. Just the rise of Christianity and the fluidity of ethnicities alone are entire game mechanics in themselves, but as a misunderstood and unglamorous period in history, it's just about as likely as a game about African tribal politics.

Actually, reading over this thread, Jaraknarn's game would work just fine in my case too.

[Jaraknarn]

Did you ever play the Barbarian Invasion expansion for Rome? That covers quite a bit of the time period your discussing there. Its by no means as in depth as your suggesting, but does deal with concepts like the conversion to Christianity and Nomadic invasions.

The difficulty with a game like the one your suggesting is that Byzantium never truely medievilised. If it hadn't have been for their incompetent and early dying competent leaders, they probably would have dominated the west, and assimilated all the prot-states. Their just a bit like an Eldar race that isn't dying.

Also, Crusader Kings 2 has just come out and is seet 1066 to like 1450, post Lombards but, definately medievil. It handles the Byzantium thing quite well, as the game involves lots of Vassal orgnisation and nomadic invasion.

[robc]

I'm going to stretch the rules slightly and include a RPG with tactical combat as a strategy game. I want a RPG that has:

1a) This is the most important feature. I want time to actually matter. I am tired of being on the all important quest to save the world, but always motivated to try an explore every last nook and cranny of the world. If I really had to kill the foozle to save the world, I wouldn't explore every last inch of the world to earn a couple more coins. I would be focused on getting the job done. Now if I learned about a dungeon that may contain a powerful sword that will aid me in my quest, that makes more sense. If my current quest is to save a town from marauding orcs, there should be consequences if it takes me an extra week to get there because I decided to explore for the fun of it. Perhaps the talented blacksmith gets killed if I don't save the town by a certain date, and he could have taught me his craft or sold me a great set of armor.

1b) Now, there could be ebbs and flows of important quests so the player has some time to just explore. Perhaps the important quest isn't revealed until later in the game, so you do have time to take minor quests and do some exploring.

1c) Have different scales of success for completing quests in a timely manner. Solve it fast and everyone is ok. Take extra time and the towns economy takes a hit. Take more time and nothing is left.

2) Have a realistic reputation system. If I steal from a guy in a town but I'm not caught, it shouldn't hurt my reputation. Now if I rob everyone in town blind, I was new to town, and I leave after I am done, perhaps people are suspicious of the new comer. Maybe there is a chance I left behind some clues based on my thieving skills. Maybe not enough to convict me, but perhaps there is some mob justice.

3) Good turn-based tactical along the lines of a good tactical wargame, but in a typical fantasy setting (like Dungeons and Dragons). Have a detailed system where there is lots of room for strategizing.

4) Make death matter, but not common. In RPGs where it is expected you will die every 5 minutes and must save and reload have the effect of making death insignificant. It ruins the tension because the player isn't that concerned about avoiding death. There should be meaningful consequences for bad play, but death isn't the only option. The Dark Souls mechanic is interesting, but I don't think that it should be the common way death is handled. Make me play on with the consequences of my actions, not just reload the last save constantly.

You're going to hop right on this, right Jon? :-)

[Gormongous]

Did you ever play the Barbarian Invasion expansion for Rome? That covers quite a bit of the time period your discussing there. Its by no means as in depth as your suggesting, but does deal with concepts like the conversion to Christianity and Nomadic invasions.

The difficulty with a game like the one your suggesting is that Byzantium never truely medievilised. If it hadn't have been for their incompetent and early dying competent leaders, they probably would have dominated the west, and assimilated all the prot-states. Their just a bit like an Eldar race that isn't dying.

Also, Crusader Kings 2 has just come out and is seet 1066 to like 1450, post Lombards but, definately medievil. It handles the Byzantium thing quite well, as the game involves lots of Vassal orgnisation and nomadic invasion.

I enjoyed Barbarian Invasion a lot, but think a game built around those concepts of decay and making do, rather than bolted on top of a system designed to conquer the world, would be even more satisfying. Crusader Kings II also isn't quite there, since it's dealing in formalized political conventions, when the heart of the game I love would be focused on creating them, perhaps in a system like the government-building of Alpha Centauri, where individual policies can combine for divergent strategies, or the conquest model of Europa Barbarorum, where the type of local response chosen can set off event chains shaping a region's development. Still, those games comes closer than just about anything else out there to offering an alternative to positivist strategy games predicated on total conquest.

Also, I was thinking more that Byzantium would be an intimidating and unplayable outside power that the player would choose to either flatter or antagonize, with appropriate gameplay benefits. There's no need to go into the medievalism of Byzantium here, especially since their history from Theodosius up to 1204 could be a game all its own.

[Jon Shafer]

You're going to hop right on this, right Jon? :-)

I'll, uh, let you know when it's done.

- Jon

[Armchair General]

If you make Jane's Fleet Command 2, I'd be super pleased, which should hopefully serve as payment enough