Indeed. Dominion 3 PBEM is a great way to do this. I hope it is done this way here. (definite issue with Aow and AowSM)

As well, if one can host on one's own server as an option would be good too.

Agree with all above.

- Its dom-III style but can be done better than the bare-bones scripting possible in dominions.

BTW, in a way its also, somewhat, Kohan style, though in Kohan you could only script the AI (as a whole) and the system was less flexible.

Scripting or configuration should be made easier and persistent. Meaning you could create (or import) unit profiles and then when setting your army just choose the appropriate profiles. So you'd create something like, aggressive melee, hold line melee, skirmish melee etc. profiles.

- PBEM is required even though there may be a central server for MP. The advantage with PBEM is that its more flexible. Any group of friends can set up a game w/o dependency on network server. It also means that you won't have to be online for playing your turn.

For tacticle battles you could have a Dom3 system, but on Dom3 you normally scripted your armies in general terms, you don't get to see the battlefield's terain or your opponents army, you can't tell your archers to focus on those glass cannons, or you knights to flak that infentry unit.

Instead how about the players enter the battlle field map and order their units around, these orders (along side scripts because as we all know the plan is the first casualty in any battle) are e-mailed along with orders on the strategic map and the next turn players can see what happened, if the fight hasn't ended they can update everyone's orders.

This is actually how I think battles are planned already, when the devs say simultanious turns I think that means you can only ajust your orders at the end of a fixed turn length, pausing whenever you want is pause-based real-time combat, althought PBEM will probobly need longer combat turns.

PBEM would be really cool in this game! I remember how much fun it was in Civ4. I would join a game with 30 people and we would play for months! The guy that organized it also created a website where each nation had its own forum. Most of the diplomacy was handled on the forums which was a cool way to particapate eventhough you werent playing out your turn.

I won't use it, but I hope it will be available for those that want it. Seems like tactical battles will have to auto-resolve. Is there any other way that PBEM could work?