Age of Dynasties

In the past I was a big fan of Age of Empires. Two aspects especially appealed to me: building an entire empire from nothing and exploring the world. There was nothing more fun than finding out where the water flows, or where new resources could be found, or where the base of your opponent is located. (And then finding a way to get there unseen with your army.)

Unfortunately, however, there are also things I like less about the game.

The world is ultimately quite small. Before you know it you have discovered everything, before you know it you are already building right next to your neighbor, before you know it all resources are gone.
Managing your colony is too simplistic. I would like to see that you actually have to implement laws, get a political system running, maintain the global economy and trade, etc.
There is too little variation, tactics, strategy. Especially in online multiplayer it often comes down to who has the optimal build order best memorized and who can click the fastest.

Now there are many great people who make “mods” for Age of Empires that solve some of those problems, but it is not enough for me. I am also familiar with similar games, such as the Civilization series, but those are also not quite what I am looking for.

That is why I will now explain my own game idea! I would love it if this were ever made. (Essentially my game will become a mix between Age of Empires, Civilization, and something like Europa Universalis. Plus some other things.)

The idea

It is most fun as an (online) multiplayer game, but can also easily have a singleplayer campaign. The game is 2D, but looks 3D, just like Age of Empires 1 and 2. The reason for this is that it is less heavy for the computer, and therefore it can handle larger maps and more units.

The game is played in realtime. (So not turn-based, like Civilization.)

A random map of the game world is generated. (Of course people may also create nice maps themselves and use those if they want.) This map must be very large. The map consists of many areas with a random shape and size (although the differences should not be too large). Some areas are part of land, some are ocean, some are islands, some are polar caps, etc. When you zoom all the way out, you should see something that resembles a realistic world map.

It is important that the map provokes many interesting geographical decisions. So besides sea and land, there are also mountains, deserts, swamps, jungles, rivers (which cannot simply be crossed). It must matter where you do or do not build things, how you arrange (trade) routes, how your army maneuvers and positions itself, etc.

Every player begins in a random area. The rest of the world is black/undiscovered for that person. Besides human players, other neutral population tribes will also start here and there in an area.

The goal of the game is to become the greatest power in the world. You win if all opponents are defeated (possibly because they surrender, or because their territories are under your control). Optionally you can add extra victory conditions. For example, someone who owns more than 50% of all territories wins, or someone who is the first to research the technology for building a rocket.

During the game you therefore mainly have three goals:

Explore the world + keep track of what happens everywhere. (Through diplomatic relations, or by letting your people hold high positions in another country, or by secretly sending spies.)
Strategically colonize and expand. (It costs a lot to make an area yours, even if it was previously unmanaged, but once that succeeds you gain something.)
Build up your economy and everything else, allowing you to defend yourself and attack opponents.

It is important to note that exploration and expansion are very important. If you are the first to find and take some remote island, you already have a big advantage. If you are the first to find a strategic place along a river or between mountains, you can build a nice safe city there. Because the world consists of many areas (200? 300? 500?) a lot is possible if you explore and expand intelligently.

I also find the “espionage” aspect important. In Age of Empires, for example, once you have explored things you already know roughly what everything looks like. If you then also place a few buildings, or a small army, near your opponent, you see everything that happens. I think that is a missed opportunity! In my game you must work hard to gather information. You must equip your boats with radar to detect opponents. You must get spies into a country unseen.

Below I will go into detail about the core parts of the game.

Starting situation

Everyone starts with two characters: a man and a woman. Despite this simple beginning, every player has a completely different starting situation. This situation determines what you can do/invent, and ultimately also partly determines the culture and way of trade of your civilization.

First of all, everyone begins with different DNA. The man and the woman have random “genes” that make them good or bad at certain things. (Of course this must happen fairly. You do not want one player to have only bad things and another only good ones. Players must be different, not stronger/weaker.)

The children they get will inherit those traits again, just like their children, and so it is passed down.

Second, everyone begins with different resources (and weather conditions) in a different area. If you start in the desert you will not use techniques that require a lot of water, if you start in a colder area you will pay more attention to warmth and insulation.

Over time the DNA and the choices you have made (especially at the beginning) will form your “civilization”. If this is implemented well, each playthrough should therefore create an entirely new, unique civilization. You started with DNA that produced great physical strength? Your civilization will later be known as “strong”. You started with DNA that gave extra IQ? Your civilization will later be known as “intelligent”. (You can go even further. For example, that early in the DNA it appeared that people had a preference for the color red, and the computer then gives all your buildings red shades.)

In this way each match becomes completely different and every player will take a different path. Eventually, when you encounter others, you can figure out where their strength lies and make use of it. (Or discover where their weakness lies and exploit it.) This opens the door for much smarter and more strategic diplomatic actions. If one people happens to produce enormous amounts of stone but struggles to get money, they can trade with someone else who does have money but no stone.

Exploring

Exploring is simple: you select one of your characters and send it somewhere. By character I mean anything that can move: citizens, soldiers, ships, airplanes. (Although airplanes and similar things only become available very late in the game. I doubt this. Maybe it is more fun if those things are left out and there is a ceiling to technological progress. Or if they become more imaginative units: instead of airplanes we give players hot air balloons.)

Once you have explored an area, the geographical elements remain on your map forever, but you do not see what happens there. Someone could build all kinds of things there, or place an army, and you would not see it. You only see what happens in areas that belong to you and areas where your characters are present. (Yes, you therefore see very little if you do not make extra effort. That seemed realistic and good for gameplay to me.)

You must also explore an area before you are allowed to colonize it. (But that seemed obvious to me.)

You cannot pass through someone else’s area unless that person explicitly has “open borders” with you (or allows immigrants).

Keeping track of what happens everywhere

There are many ways to keep track of what happens everywhere. Below I give everything I have thought of so far, but there is surely more.

If you are friends with someone, you can send characters to work for that person. You lose the manpower (although you do get money for it), but you also receive everything about what happens within that specific area.
- An alternative is immigrants/refugees. As long as someone has chosen the law that allows immigrants, you can go there to live. Again: you temporarily lose manpower, but you gain information and shelter. (For example: that other person might be able to feed the characters, and you might not.)
You place radar on sea or air vehicles. They will not necessarily see everything happening in surrounding areas, but they will see all characters (that can be detected by radar).
You send spies! Spies are very expensive, because they require a lot of training and support, but if they are discovered they are immediately gone. A player can discover whether a spy is among their ranks by applying stricter border control, increasing police, manually inspecting someone, etc. (It becomes even more interesting if that person then has a small chance of being persuaded into becoming a double agent. Then you must also watch whether your spy still really belongs to you.)
Trade. Suppose you have a trade ship that constantly travels between your harbor and that of a friend. It immediately sees what happens in surrounding areas. On top of that you receive extra information—because traders always start talking with people who have interesting stories …
Chat communication. Of course you can also sometimes just say or ask something in public or private chat. (Whether the other person responds, or tells the truth, is another story …)
You continuously deploy reconnaissance forces. (Think of a drone that keeps flying over areas of the opponent. It costs you many resources, especially if it keeps getting shot down, but it yields a lot of information.)

Why is it so important that people keep track of what happens? If you cannot, it is no longer a game. You cannot make a plan, make strategic moves, think ahead, etc. You never know what happens or will happen. If you can see everything too easily, it is also no longer a game. You know exactly what everyone else will do, you can never secretly develop a plan or engage in favoritism, it is unrealistic, etc.

Moreover I personally find the idea of uncertainty, exploring what the opponent is doing, deploying spies, etc. very appealing.

Colonizing

Colonizing an area is simple: you send a character there and click “colonize!”. The more characters you send, the faster it goes.

This colonizing costs many resources, manpower and time.

At first it provides

Access to all resources
The possibility for population to grow. (As long as at least one man and one woman are in an area, a child appears every so often.)
Extra living space (so that you can maintain a larger population).
Extra building space (each area can hold one building).

Possibly the area has a strategic position or is necessary to reach somewhere else.

Later areas become increasingly useful. You can collect taxes over each area, you can build more buildings per area, population can grow faster (if they are satisfied and have good housing), build defenses, etc.

During the game a player tries to expand as quickly as possible without their whole country collapsing. If you expand too quickly, you probably cannot handle the large population. If you expand too slowly, you will quickly fall behind the rest.

If you colonize an area that is not connected to your current territory, it is considered a new country. For example: I started on continent A, but sent a ship to continent B to colonize there, then I have two countries under my rule.

Note: I do not know whether players should invent their own country names. That will probably produce a lot of nonsense :p Let the computer automatically generate something nice.

Government

Each country under your rule can have different rules, laws and systems if you choose that. (By default they all use the same as the “main country”.) In addition, each country contains “(capital)cities”. The player must have a good balance between city and countryside. In the countryside one can place farms for example, while in the city the university provides new technology. Ideally you have only a few strong, large cities in good positions.

The governing itself happens on two levels: micro and macro.

Micro: each character can be individually selected and assigned to a task. You can also split an army within an area and send parts in different directions. (If this becomes too heavy it can always be adjusted. Then all your characters within the same area simply always form one unit. When you assign a new task, one of those units is randomly used to perform it.)

Macro: you make decisions (regarding diplomacy, trade, political system, etc.) for the entire country (or an entire city). I think the role of the political system should be highlighted here. If someone sets certain fascist laws, they receive the label fascism. Players who have another system (for example communism) can then never be friends with that person. And if you go too far, your people become angry and start a revolution for independence. (And if you do not win, you lose a colony, which then becomes a “neutral computer player”.)

I want to prevent too much micromanagement. That is why I prefer applying everything as much as possible on area, city or country scale.

Note: I just realized that technically a player can have two countries under their rule that have completely opposite political systems. I do not know what to do with that :p

Which laws and systems should exist exactly, I do not know. It should not become too difficult. It is better to give a player one or two decisions about for example immigration policy than twenty subtly different legislative proposals.

Economy

Your most important “resource” is manpower. Your population has children. When these children later become adults they become part of your manpower. (Unless you implement laws that approve child labor. You can also decide to adopt a law where women are not part of the manpower, or instead the men. But I do not immediately see what the advantage of that is :p)

You need manpower to get things done. If an area has 5 manpower for example, you can assign 5 characters to certain tasks. Maybe two of them go chopping wood, two join the army, and one harvests grain.

This manpower must be kept alive. You do this by providing food and drink. You get this by hunting, building near a river, building a farm, trading with other players, etc. If there is not enough food/drink, your population slowly dies.

To build new buildings you need wood and stone. Wood you naturally get by cutting trees within your area, and stone by finding stones and breaking them. (I will just write it down.)

The last important “resource” is happiness (the English happiness sounds better). If your characters are not happy, because of your stupid laws, or wars, or lack of education/entertainment/etc., they work less or stop working. They become sick more easily and reproduce more slowly. If it becomes very bad a revolution starts.

Finally there are some “wildcard” resources. I do not know exactly what to call them, but you choose about 5 to 10 resources that you can also obtain (to a lesser degree) in the world, which are necessary for all other things. For example, clothing might require wool. Weapons require gunpowder and metal. Possibly you only obtain such a resource after converting it through a process.

In reality you might need 100 additional resources, but that is unmanageable. That is why it is summarized :p

Huh, no money!? WHAT? Listen. Money is only important because everyone agreed that money is important. In other words, you can decide yourself what functions as “money” in your country. Suppose wood is very scarce in your area, then you can treat that as money. You pay your workers and such in wood. When you then trade with other countries, you must pay attention to the exchange rate. If that other country has a lot of wood, you will end up being cheated.

In this way you gain an extra dimension in the game. What do I use as money? When can I best exchange it? How will I evaluate other people’s money? (Because you must decide yourself how much something is worth to you. Whether your 10 food is worth 5 wood. Whether your characters are paid enough in that other country.)

Note: resources are not shared across everything you own. Each city has its own resources, its own storage and supply. If a city gets into trouble, you must therefore establish trade routes (possibly with yourself) to solve that.

Buildings

There is not much special here. You have houses for people to live in. Different huts for resources (lumberjack hut, stonecutter hut, etc.). A base/main building. Storage spaces, military buildings, hospitals, schools, police, etc.

Basically a sort of “SimCity meets Age of Empires” :p

As said earlier an area can by default only hold one building, but that can be increased. (Although … maybe the default should be 2 or 3, because one is very little.)

Technology

This is also not very special (and already discussed). You start with nothing. Gradually you discover how to build better roads, better soldiers, stronger buildings, better insulation, etc.

What you discover depends very much on your civilization. The DNA determines what people are best at, and how fast research goes (in a certain direction). (Possibly you can only research in a general direction and do not know exactly what you will get. This is realistic—because nobody says “I will discover the wheel in four weeks!"—but it may be too random.)

Moreover, depending on your starting situation, you cannot build everything. It is very nice if you have researched how to make a super cool spear … but if the resources for that cannot be found anywhere nearby, you should have gone another direction.

Conclusion: non-linear technological progress.

I doubt how far that progress should go. If you start from nothing, it is quite a long distance to today’s technology. I still prefer the earlier periods, when people indeed still had to invent the wheel, so I have another idea.

The idea is: “alternative world = alternative technology”. Since the map you play on is a sort of alternative version of Earth, it only makes sense to also have alternative technology. In other words, you can go in many directions with technology, you do not know in advance exactly what exists in your match, and it ends in different places. Maybe in your current world people are not smart enough to reach airplanes and remain stuck at hot air balloons. Maybe your civilization discovered the car (but no weapons), while another civilization did not even invent the wheel (but does have strange guns).

My only remark is that this could become “too random/unpredictable”. One must guard against that. If that succeeds, if enough structure enters such a system, it seems wonderful to me. Every match is completely different, and people cannot simply memorize the best upgrades and always go for those. All players become a completely different civilization. Eventually you must pay very close attention to which players your civilization is strong against, and which it is hopelessly weak against.

Fighting

The fighting is also not groundbreaking :p Although, because of the setup of this game, it should proceed much more strategically and tactically than in for example Age of Empires. In my game you must choose position even better, handle your army carefully, colonize the right areas, and take the terrain/circumstances extra into account (as well as the opponent’s civilization).

You can only fight with people with whom you are at war. To fight, you send your army into the area where the other army stands. Then they will fight each other until someone wins or someone retreats. (Retreating can only be done to a free area, of course.)

Suppose A and B fight over an area of A. If A retreats to a nearby area of their own, or B defeats A’s entire army, A immediately loses their area. If B retreats, or A defeats B’s entire army, nothing happens. (That A loses their area does not immediately make it belong to B. The area becomes neutral until someone colonizes it. The buildings and the people also remain. If B colonizes the area, they can decide what to do with it. They can absorb the people into their own nation, or subjugate them as slaves, or kill them all.)

Most “ranged units” can also only attack if they stand in the same area. Only a few ranged units have a large enough range to attack someone from a distance. (For example: archer has too small a range, but catapult is large enough?)

Note: if there is no defending army, B only needs to stand in the area for a while to slowly take it from A. In a sense areas have their own “health”, depending on how strong the buildings are and how developed the area is. I still doubt exactly how this works, but what is written above is my first guess.

That’s it

This was the whole idea. I do not think it becomes better if it becomes even more complicated than this. (Of course I also mentioned quite a few things only briefly or summarized them in this explanation.)

I would love such a game. I do not know if anyone will ever read this, I do not know if it will ever be made (in this way), but I would think it is cool. (I would have done it myself if I were still pursuing a professional career as a game developer. And if I had been a better programmer :p)

Because I am familiar with game development, I also know quite well that the idea above is very difficult to work out in some respects. How do you make such a large map and large number of units work? How do you balance players if they can build such diverse civilizations? How do you find a good balance between micro and macro management? How do you let all of this run well in online multiplayer without too much delay?

But still, it is possible! I am sure of it! And someone has to do it!

In the past I was a big fan of _Age of Empires_. Two aspects especially appealed to me: *building an entire empire from nothing* and *exploring the world*. There was nothing more fun than finding out where the water flows, or where new resources could be found, or where the base of your opponent is located. (And then finding a way to get there unseen with your army.) Unfortunately, however, there are also things I like less about the game. - The world is ultimately quite small. Before you know it you have discovered everything, before you know it you are already building right next to your neighbor, before you know it all resources are gone. - Managing your colony is too simplistic. I would like to see that you actually have to implement laws, get a political system running, maintain the global economy and trade, etc. - There is too little variation, tactics, strategy. Especially in online multiplayer it often comes down to who has the optimal build order best memorized and who can click the fastest. Now there are many great people who make "mods" for _Age of Empires_ that solve some of those problems, but it is not enough for me. I am also familiar with similar games, such as the Civilization series, but those are also not quite what I am looking for. That is why I will now explain my own game idea! I would love it if this were ever made. (Essentially my game will become a mix between Age of Empires, Civilization, and something like Europa Universalis. Plus some other things.) ## The idea It is most fun as an (online) multiplayer game, but can also easily have a singleplayer campaign. The game is 2D, but looks 3D, just like Age of Empires 1 and 2. The reason for this is that it is less heavy for the computer, and therefore it can handle larger maps and more units. The game is played in realtime. (So not turn-based, like Civilization.) A random map of the game world is generated. (Of course people may also create nice maps themselves and use those if they want.) This map must be *very large*. The map consists of many areas with a random shape and size (although the differences should not be too large). Some areas are part of land, some are ocean, some are islands, some are polar caps, etc. When you zoom all the way out, you should see something that resembles a realistic world map. It is important that the map provokes many interesting geographical decisions. So besides sea and land, there are also mountains, deserts, swamps, jungles, rivers (which cannot simply be crossed). It must matter where you do or do not build things, how you arrange (trade) routes, how your army maneuvers and positions itself, etc. Every player begins in a random area. The rest of the world is black/undiscovered for that person. Besides human players, other neutral population tribes will also start here and there in an area. The goal of the game is to become the greatest power in the world. You win if all opponents are defeated (possibly because they surrender, or because their territories are under your control). Optionally you can add extra victory conditions. For example, someone who owns more than 50% of all territories wins, or someone who is the first to research the technology for building a rocket. During the game you therefore mainly have three goals: - Explore the world + keep track of what happens everywhere. (Through diplomatic relations, or by letting your people hold high positions in another country, or by secretly sending spies.) - Strategically colonize and expand. (It costs a lot to make an area yours, even if it was previously unmanaged, but once that succeeds you gain something.) - Build up your economy and everything else, allowing you to defend yourself and attack opponents. It is important to note that *exploration* and *expansion* are very important. If you are the first to find and take some remote island, you already have a big advantage. If you are the first to find a strategic place along a river or between mountains, you can build a nice safe city there. Because the world consists of *many* areas (200? 300? 500?) a lot is possible if you explore and expand intelligently. I also find the "espionage" aspect important. In Age of Empires, for example, once you have explored things you already know roughly what everything looks like. If you then also place a few buildings, or a small army, near your opponent, you see everything that happens. I think that is a missed opportunity! In my game you must work hard to gather information. You must equip your boats with radar to detect opponents. You must get spies into a country unseen. Below I will go into detail about the core parts of the game. ## Starting situation Everyone starts with two characters: a man and a woman. Despite this simple beginning, every player has a completely different starting situation. This situation determines what you can do/invent, and ultimately also partly determines the culture and way of trade of your civilization. First of all, everyone begins with different DNA. The man and the woman have random "genes" that make them good or bad at certain things. (Of course this must happen fairly. You do not want one player to have only bad things and another only good ones. Players must be *different*, not stronger/weaker.) The children they get will inherit those traits again, just like their children, and so it is passed down. Second, everyone begins with different resources (and weather conditions) in a different area. If you start in the desert you will not use techniques that require a lot of water, if you start in a colder area you will pay more attention to warmth and insulation. Over time the DNA and the choices you have made (especially at the beginning) will form your "civilization". If this is implemented well, each playthrough should therefore create an entirely new, unique civilization. You started with DNA that produced great physical strength? Your civilization will later be known as "strong". You started with DNA that gave extra IQ? Your civilization will later be known as "intelligent". (You can go even further. For example, that early in the DNA it appeared that people had a preference for the color red, and the computer then gives all your buildings red shades.) In this way each match becomes completely different and every player will take a different path. Eventually, when you encounter others, you can figure out where their strength lies and make use of it. (Or discover where their weakness lies and exploit it.) This opens the door for much smarter and more strategic diplomatic actions. If one people happens to produce enormous amounts of stone but struggles to get money, they can trade with someone else who does have money but no stone. ## Exploring Exploring is simple: you select one of your characters and send it somewhere. By character I mean anything that can move: citizens, soldiers, ships, airplanes. (Although airplanes and similar things only become available very late in the game. I doubt this. Maybe it is more fun if those things are left out and there is a ceiling to technological progress. Or if they become more imaginative units: instead of airplanes we give players hot air balloons.) Once you have explored an area, the geographical elements remain on your map forever, but you do not see what happens there. Someone could build all kinds of things there, or place an army, and you would not see it. You only see what happens in areas that belong to you and areas where your characters are present. (Yes, you therefore see very little if you do not make extra effort. That seemed realistic and good for gameplay to me.) You must also explore an area before you are allowed to colonize it. (But that seemed obvious to me.) You *cannot* pass through someone else's area unless that person explicitly has "open borders" with you (or allows immigrants). ## Keeping track of what happens everywhere There are many ways to keep track of what happens everywhere. Below I give everything I have thought of so far, but there is surely more. - If you are friends with someone, you can send characters to work for that person. You lose the manpower (although you do get money for it), but you also receive everything about what happens within that specific area. - An alternative is immigrants/refugees. As long as someone has chosen the law that allows immigrants, you can go there to live. Again: you temporarily lose manpower, but you gain information and shelter. (For example: that other person might be able to feed the characters, and you might not.) - You place radar on sea or air vehicles. They will not necessarily see everything happening in surrounding areas, but they *will* see all characters (that can be detected by radar). - You send spies! Spies are very expensive, because they require a lot of training and support, but if they are discovered they are immediately gone. A player can discover whether a spy is among their ranks by applying stricter border control, increasing police, manually inspecting someone, etc. (It becomes even more interesting if that person then has a small chance of being persuaded into becoming a double agent. Then you must also watch whether your spy still really belongs to you.) - Trade. Suppose you have a trade ship that constantly travels between your harbor and that of a friend. It immediately sees what happens in surrounding areas. On top of that you receive extra information—because traders always start talking with people who have interesting stories ... - Chat communication. Of course you can also sometimes just say or ask something in public or private chat. (Whether the other person responds, or tells the truth, is another story ...) - You continuously deploy reconnaissance forces. (Think of a drone that keeps flying over areas of the opponent. It costs you many resources, especially if it keeps getting shot down, but it yields a lot of information.) *Why is it so important that people keep track of what happens?* If you cannot, it is no longer a game. You cannot make a plan, make strategic moves, think ahead, etc. You never know what happens or will happen. If you can see everything *too easily*, it is also no longer a game. You know exactly what everyone else will do, you can never secretly develop a plan or engage in favoritism, it is unrealistic, etc. Moreover I personally find the idea of uncertainty, exploring what the opponent is doing, deploying spies, etc. very appealing. ## Colonizing Colonizing an area is simple: you send a character there and click "colonize!". The more characters you send, the faster it goes. This colonizing *costs* many resources, manpower and time. At first it *provides* - Access to all resources - The possibility for population to grow. (As long as at least one man and one woman are in an area, a child appears every so often.) - Extra living space (so that you can maintain a larger population). - Extra building space (each area can hold one building). Possibly the area has a strategic position or is necessary to reach somewhere else. Later areas become increasingly useful. You can collect taxes over each area, you can build more buildings per area, population can grow faster (if they are satisfied and have good housing), build defenses, etc. During the game a player tries to expand as quickly as possible *without* their whole country collapsing. If you expand too quickly, you probably cannot handle the large population. If you expand too slowly, you will quickly fall behind the rest. If you colonize an area *that is not connected to your current territory*, it is considered a new country. For example: I started on continent A, but sent a ship to continent B to colonize there, then I have two countries under my rule. *Note*: I do not know whether players should invent their own country names. That will probably produce a lot of nonsense :p Let the computer automatically generate something nice. ## Government Each country under your rule can have different rules, laws and systems if you choose that. (By default they all use the same as the "main country".) In addition, each country contains "(capital)cities". The player must have a good balance between city and countryside. In the countryside one can place farms for example, while in the city the university provides new technology. Ideally you have only a few strong, large cities in good positions. The governing itself happens on two levels: micro and macro. **Micro:** each character can be individually selected and assigned to a task. You can also split an army within an area and send parts in different directions. (If this becomes too heavy it can always be adjusted. Then all your characters within the same area simply always form one unit. When you assign a new task, one of those units is randomly used to perform it.) **Macro:** you make decisions (regarding diplomacy, trade, political system, etc.) for the entire country (or an entire city). I think the role of the political system should be highlighted here. If someone sets certain fascist laws, they receive the label fascism. Players who have another system (for example communism) can then never be friends with that person. And if you go too far, your people become angry and start a revolution for independence. (And if you do not win, you lose a colony, which then becomes a "neutral computer player".) I want to prevent too much micromanagement. That is why I prefer applying everything as much as possible on area, city or country scale. *Note*: I just realized that technically a player can have two countries under their rule that have *completely opposite* political systems. I do not know what to do with that :p Which laws and systems should exist exactly, I do not know. It should not become too difficult. It is better to give a player one or two decisions about for example immigration policy than twenty subtly different legislative proposals. ## Economy Your most important "resource" is **manpower**. Your population has children. When these children later become adults they become part of your *manpower*. (Unless you implement laws that approve child labor. You can also decide to adopt a law where women are not part of the manpower, or instead the men. But I do not immediately see what the advantage of that is :p) You need manpower to get things done. If an area has 5 manpower for example, you can assign 5 characters to certain tasks. Maybe two of them go chopping wood, two join the army, and one harvests grain. This manpower must be kept alive. You do this by providing **food** and **drink**. You get this by hunting, building near a river, building a farm, trading with other players, etc. If there is not enough food/drink, your population slowly dies. To build new buildings you need **wood** and **stone**. Wood you naturally get by cutting trees within your area, and stone by finding stones and breaking them. (I will just write it down.) The last important "resource" is **happiness** (the English *happiness* sounds better). If your characters are not happy, because of your stupid laws, or wars, or lack of education/entertainment/etc., they work less or stop working. They become sick more easily and reproduce more slowly. If it becomes very bad a revolution starts. Finally there are some "wildcard" resources. I do not know exactly what to call them, but you choose about 5 to 10 resources that you can also obtain (to a lesser degree) in the world, which are necessary for all other things. For example, *clothing* might require wool. *Weapons* require gunpowder and metal. Possibly you only obtain such a resource after converting it through a process. In reality you might need 100 additional resources, but that is unmanageable. That is why it is summarized :p *Huh, no money!? WHAT?* Listen. Money is only important because everyone *agreed* that money is important. In other words, you can decide yourself what functions as "money" in your country. Suppose wood is very scarce in your area, then you can treat that as money. You pay your workers and such in wood. When you then trade with other countries, you must pay attention to the exchange rate. If that other country has *a lot* of wood, you will end up being cheated. In this way you gain an extra dimension in the game. What do I use as money? When can I best exchange it? How will I evaluate other people's money? (Because you must decide yourself how much something is worth to you. Whether your 10 food is worth 5 wood. Whether your characters are paid enough in that other country.) *Note*: resources are not shared across everything you own. Each city has its own resources, its own storage and supply. If a city gets into trouble, you must therefore establish trade routes (possibly with yourself) to solve that. ## Buildings There is not much special here. You have houses for people to live in. Different huts for resources (lumberjack hut, stonecutter hut, etc.). A base/main building. Storage spaces, military buildings, hospitals, schools, police, etc. Basically a sort of "SimCity meets Age of Empires" :p As said earlier an area can by default only hold one building, but that can be increased. (Although ... maybe the default should be 2 or 3, because one is very little.) ## Technology This is also not very special (and already discussed). You start with nothing. Gradually you discover how to build better roads, better soldiers, stronger buildings, better insulation, etc. What you discover depends very much on your civilization. The DNA determines what people are best at, and how fast research goes (in a certain direction). (Possibly you can only research in a general direction and do not know exactly what you will get. This is realistic—because nobody says "I will discover the wheel in four weeks!"—but it may be too random.) Moreover, depending on your starting situation, you cannot build everything. It is very nice if you have researched how to make a super cool spear ... but if the resources for that cannot be found anywhere nearby, you should have gone another direction. Conclusion: non-linear technological progress. I doubt how far that progress should go. If you start from nothing, it is quite a long distance to today's technology. I still prefer the earlier periods, when people indeed still had to invent the wheel, so I have another idea. The idea is: "alternative world = alternative technology". Since the map you play on is a sort of alternative version of Earth, it only makes sense to also have alternative technology. In other words, you can go in many directions with technology, you do not know in advance exactly what exists in your match, and it ends in different places. Maybe in your current world people are not smart enough to reach airplanes and remain stuck at hot air balloons. Maybe your civilization discovered the car (but no weapons), while another civilization did not even invent the wheel (but does have strange guns). My only remark is that this could become "too random/unpredictable". One must guard against that. If that succeeds, if enough structure enters such a system, it seems wonderful to me. Every match is completely different, and people cannot simply memorize the best upgrades and always go for those. All players become a completely different civilization. Eventually you must pay very close attention to which players your civilization is strong against, and which it is hopelessly weak against. ## Fighting The fighting is also not groundbreaking :p Although, because of the setup of this game, it should proceed much more strategically and tactically than in for example Age of Empires. In my game you must choose position even better, handle your army carefully, colonize the right areas, and take the terrain/circumstances extra into account (as well as the opponent's civilization). You can only fight with people with whom you are at war. To fight, you send your army into the area where the other army stands. Then they will fight each other until someone wins or someone retreats. (Retreating can only be done to a free area, of course.) Suppose A and B fight over an area of A. If A retreats to a nearby area of their own, or B defeats A's entire army, A immediately loses their area. If B retreats, or A defeats B's entire army, nothing happens. (That A loses their area does not immediately make it belong to B. The area becomes neutral until someone colonizes it. The buildings and the people also remain. If B colonizes the area, they can decide what to do with it. They can absorb the people into their own nation, or subjugate them as slaves, or kill them all.) Most "ranged units" can also only attack if they stand in the same area. Only a few ranged units have a large enough range to attack someone from a distance. (For example: archer has too small a range, but catapult is large enough?) *Note*: if there is no defending army, B only needs to stand in the area for a while to slowly take it from A. In a sense areas have their own "health", depending on how strong the buildings are and how developed the area is. I still doubt exactly how this works, but what is written above is my first guess. ## That's it This was the whole idea. I do not think it becomes better if it becomes even more complicated than this. (Of course I also mentioned quite a few things only briefly or summarized them in this explanation.) I would love such a game. I do not know if anyone will ever read this, I do not know if it will ever be made (in this way), but I would think it is cool. (I would have done it myself if I were still pursuing a professional career as a game developer. And if I had been a better programmer :p) Because I am familiar with game development, I also know quite well that the idea above is very difficult to work out in some respects. How do you make such a large map and large number of units work? How do you balance players if they can build such diverse civilizations? How do you find a good balance between micro and macro management? How do you let all of this run well in *online multiplayer* without too much delay? But still, it is possible! I am sure of it! And someone has to do it!