I have always been a huge fan of RTS TBS and Sim games. All my friends played stupid FPS games on consoles and maybe starcraft if they were really adventurous. In the decade or so that I have been playing these genres I always thought it would be really cool if you could mix them up. Many games like Total War and Majesty mixed these kinds of things up but I feel like it wasn't enough. Majesty did the no control over your units thing but they didn't really add any of the cool economic gameplay of Sim games like Emperor:ROTMK or even something like Patrician. Total War was pretty good but it was too far on the TBS side. Also I was always a fan of tech trees and also fantasy or fantasy historical as opposed to pure historical. Still I LOVED the combat system. I often spend time thinking about what an ideal RTS/RPG/TBS/SIM game would be like. I have particular favorite aspects from each area that I would really like to see together. From RPG games I would like a hero/avatar style character, something already in some RTS games like the Hero in Warlords BattleCry 3 and TBS games like the Pretender God in Dominions 3. These features work incredibly in these two games, so its clear they can mesh with both tbs and rts mechanics already. From TBS games I would love to have the complex tech trees and extensive magic systems ala Civilization or Dominions or GalCiv 2. I would also love the extended game length. Obviously this sort of thing would be more conducive to single player, but you could absolutely play it in weekend sessions like a PnP RPG club type thing. Dominions 3 is probably the TBS game with a setting and tech tree/magic system/creature summoning system closest to my ideal game. I guess it is my favorite TBS game that I've ever played. From SIM games I would love to have the city building from Emperor and the trading fleets from Patrician. Emperor had a fabulous economic system with trade goods and storage and the housing system. But sadly their trade system is just building a trading quay or trading post and maybe a bit of price setting. You also cannot really interact with other cities. And obviously RTS games would be the backbone of this game style. Real time combat although perhaps less micro heavy ala Majesty but maybe with a group/squad/party/army system, possibly something like the Dominions 3 system with a leader general who gains skill at leadership and with an order system so you have a bit more control than majesty's flags. Now obviously we have some problems with map sizes and city sizes. One option would be to have a starting city and the option to set up new cities if you want. Cities would exist on a tactical map like in Civ or Emperor or Total War and then the city would be managed Emperor style where you would click on the city to go to a new screen with the city buildings and all the workers and such moving around. You would have to keep up with all the Emperor style management tasks like building inspection and repairs and the food system and such. Now you would want to do things like build walls and defense towers, again like Emperor and when enemy units reached the spot on the tactical map where the city is they could transfer to the city section of the game. That solution might present a technical problem so I often try to consider others. How about you guys? What kind of weird genre mash ups would you like to play? Pretty much every serious gamer has in mind an ideal game that they wish existed. I love to hear the weird and wonderful things that other people come up with.
While it sounds like it should be amazingly often, what I find is that when I'm building an economy, I want to build an economy, not have it destroyed... to make it managable it has to be continually abstracted. So you end up with Rise of Nations, or Sins of a Solar Empire instead.
Right now my favorite RTS is Company of Heroes, because it does away with all the peasant-gathering and a simple upgrade to your builder unit makes it a fighting force capable of flanking and quickly destroying enemy units, while still having the ability to build, lay mines, etc. So you have a full fighting force out there. It's based on a strategic point system of resources which is, imo, the best system to ever come to RTS - you don't build peasants to gather resources, your fighting force takes territory which gives you more resources.
I say, instead of mashing them up, take them apart, so that I can concentrate on the part I need to. If you keep them all together, it should be a TBS or a very good Diplomacy system like Europa Universalis, Victoria, Knights of Honor, etc.
Well some games I have been designing in my free time:
Spectacle fighter + Rhythm Game
Fantasy 4x with TBS version of Total War combat simulation (the action plays out similar to frozen synapse).
X-Com in a fantasy universe with strong rpg elements
For your idea, I think it would have to be one big city/castle that you control and build. Then you have to deal with politics, factions, monster invasions, crime, assassinations, and revolts. You would control the military and police in all the battles, and you could have a limited number of heroes that you assign to certain areas/duties. I guess you could be a wizard, and half the game is gaining control of the city while slowly influencing its growth, and the second half could be maintaining control while you pursue a special artifact or kill all of your opponents.
I was thinking about a system to add some politics where you finish various missions for NPC factions while doing the main mission and you get bonuses like new magical knowledge or a global resource bonus that can be used anywhere in a huge campaign. Or maybe have a relation score that is influence by missions, whether you protect a given kingdom from attack, how many of a given factions structures survive and so forth.
You could also have stuff related to trade which improves relations.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
