I''m a bit of a ''strat head'' i must admit, and my favorite types are the age of empires and like games. I have literally wasted far to many hours of my spare time (and sometimes not so ''spare'' time) on these games and so i''d say i am pretty much addicted . I''ve ussually found these games lacking in some way however, on a broad basis this would be in the realm of realism. Age of Empires as an example, your goal is to essentially wipe out all other civilisations, be it through building a wonder, getting all the relics, or by sending wave after wave of military units to destroy the enimies cities. It seems to me that areas that are integral to real life, such as diplomacy, trade, science etc are means to realising these aims, and not aims within themselves. There is also the point of the AI, which consitently (In the case of the AOE series and like games that i have played) sits in one position, builds a single city and seems to expect the player to do the same. This makes it especially easy for me to win at times, just by building colonies and controlling as many resources and as much land as possible. Anyway, I''d like to see a game that goes further, taking the ideas of trade, diplomacy, both external and internal and population control further. I''ll disscuss a few points. Trade For instance a product system, tading coffee, silk, exotic foods not found in the lands of other civilisations for money or resources or other products. Population It may also be nice to see some sort of seperation between state (you the player) and individual (your civilian minions), so rather than directly controling your villagers you build cities and tax your civillians for money and buy resources you need. You''d thus have direct control over the military and goverment builders etc, which would represent a percentage of your total population, but the majority of your people would have a mind of their own. Maybe a stronghold type system where you don''t create units, they are generated based on your existing population, and the amount of spare population room you have. Resources As indicated above these would be gathered outside of your control by civillians and the player would be responcible for taxing this civil income. Controlling the population The player would not have direct control over the population unless they were involed in a civil service, ministry of defence or works etc. The percentage of the population going into a certain field, from civil services to civillian persiuts such as farming could be controlled by enviromental factors and some sort of goverment propaganda system. For instance your civilisation doesn''t have enough food, tell them farming is the next growth industry and they''ll all make their fortunes... If the player is in desperate need for millitary units, a draft could be called to get a much greater percentage of your population immidiatly in to millitary training. Buildings Unlike AOE where a barracks, for instance creates a soldier, a barracks would train a soldier from your available units waiting to go into millitary service. Buildings could also be more intimatly related, for instance a store house actually contains a stockpile of resources need to build more buildings, and feed the local population, this could also add an aspect of siege tactics, because an enemy could wait outside a city until all its resources have been exhausted. Heirachy With the extra micro management that would be required to run a civilisation a AI helpers could be employed to help with more mundane aspects, while still allowing the player to tweek or take over if required. For instance, city mayors and regional governors, millitary commanders to micro manage battles based on player tactics, a ministry of works that builds a city with all the essencials after a player has requested it. Conquest Conquering a city/empire would not necessarily mean destroying every villager and building. Accepting a surrender would mean the city would become the property of the player, with perhaps a few units left secretly under the control of the original player to use as a resitance movement (depending on the cities ''feelings'' toward the new player). Misc Roads could form some sort of fixed path, to speed up pathing as the game progresses, and could be advantagous by making units move faster, and less likely to ''get lost''. Also what if when you sent a unit of into the wilds it litterally could get lost and not be able to find its way and die of starvation? I have more ideas but that is more than enough for now i think . Any suggestions, opinions (not flames) would be greatly appreaciated. If you don''''t gosub a program loop you''''ll never get a sub-routine - Kryten Red Dwarf

you have some nice ideas there, i often wish for more micro management in RTS, the problem is the more of that kind of stuff you add the longer each mission/game will be.

For example the turned bases civilization, had a lot of micro management great game but took an entire day to complete a single game.