Game time!

So, it's spring break (Finally!), and I've had a bit of time to think about how I want my game to progress forward. I've made a few changes to it since my last post on the matter to address what I felt was an interesting, but ultimately hard to work with idea.

Taking a leaf from games like Advance Wars, I wondered what would happen if you instead added a turn-based element to the game. Pure turn-based strategy is not where I want to go with this, though. I feel those have been done about as well as they can be, especially for another battle simulation game. My idea is to exploit a mix between the two, and address what I ultimately felt was a weakness in my initial iteration of the idea.

Something I thought (and was echoed by those I asked) could be an issue was that commanding a fully real-time army from the large and small scale would ultimately be very tricky. At the small scale, it's hard to say that your actions ultimately make a difference in a battle involving thousands of units. At the large scale, it's too easy to forget the smaller details that only appear at the close levels. When you've got the option (or have to) switch between the two, something is bound to be lost. Your small scale decisions don't matter, but your large scale decisions are too broad to be effective. It becomes so detail-oriented that it would only be fun for the most hardened of strategists. While that could be a fun concept for later, it's not what I'm aiming for now.

This iteration also had the problem of storytelling. From battle to battle, there is only a few opportunities to actually tell a story, and none of them in any truly meaningful way. While RTS or turn-based games aren't known for story (Except maybe Final Fantasy), it'd still be nice to have something.

In this new iteration, I've had the idea of mixing the RTS and turn based elements that I've liked from previous games.

At the highest level, the game is a turn-based strategy. You have control of individual armies where you are able to assign special attributes, adjust the mix of unit types, etc. Each army will also have a commander who can impart traits (such as additional unit capacity, higher cohesion/damage/accuracy, etc) upon the army he commands. The benefits that the commander brings are also related to the number of battles he has been in. If an army is overrun in battle, the commander also runs the risk of being killed/captured.

Each turn, an army can move over the map in a certain radius from its position at the beginning of the day. It may move to a city to reenforce it, or to relieve a battered army that is in battle. To that end, it's up to the player.

Each turn as well, the player will have the option to either directly oversee a battle, or allow the computer to run simulations that determine losses/victory/defeat, etc. The thing is, a battle is not guaranteed to end in one turn. With enough reinforcements, battles can carry on for multiple turns. In certain situations for plot advancement, the player will be required to oversee a battle, but otherwise it's totally up to the player. They can oversee all or none of a battles in a turn.

Controlling individual points on the map are also important - they give you defensive positions, and maybe certain cities/etc can provide you with beneficial items.

Within an individual battle, I figure that it would last... say... 10 minutes per turn. During this 10 minutes the battle progresses in real time, and you are able to control whatever assets you have available, which is decided from what armies you have moved to the battle. You can then attempt to best your opponent in real time as opposed to letting the computer decide.

A cool idea I had would be how to handle an army reaching the city mid turn. Let's say I have one army in battle, and another stationed half of a turn outside the city. Since the battle is going badly for me, I move that second army into the city at the beginning of the turn. Now, in a traditional turn based game, my new army won't be available to me until the beginning of the next turn, and may never actually reenforce my existing army (who will then be wiped out).

Instead, the game will calculate the time required to reach the city (half of it's movement distance = half a turn). If I oversee the battle, I will see my new units arrive on the field halfway through the fight. I can then reenforce my positions and perhaps turn the tide of battle, or at least stem the casualties. If I don't oversee the battle directly, the simulation will take into account the arrival of the new units on the field.

This is more or less train-of-thought, and I'm sure several other changes will come, but there's a few ideas here that I really like, and will likely incorporate. Hopefully full-on programming will begin before too long!