Alright, so I've had this idea for a logistical strategy came for some time now. To my knowledge (which in my opinion at least is extensive) is has not really been done before, so I just really want feedback on the idea. I must admit making something like this is far ahead of me at this moment, but like I said: I just want some feedback on the general idea of it. I guess a nice starting point would be to say your overview would be a map with forest, cities, forts, rivers and the like, and of course also displaying positions of yours and the enemy’s(s') units. A unit would perhaps consist of an officer and an amount of different types of soldiers (i.e. cavalry, archers, ect cetra); these units combined would make up your army. ----------------- Now stats such as strength, speed, and health won't really exist. Instead you'd be given morale, amount of soldiers, and supplies. Morale would affect overall performance of soldiers, the desertion and recruitment rate of a unit's soldiers. If you have low morale (probably considered 30% or below) you may have as much as 100+ soldiers deserting every turn. On the opposite end, with perhaps 60 %+( you probably would never have morale above 75%) recruiters with even with diplomatic skills on the lower end of the scale would start to bring in a fair amount of soldiers. Morale is effected by how well the unit does in battle and what's offered as pay, As I said before each unit is made up of a certain amount of a type of soldier. There are foot soldiers, archers, and cavalry. Foot soldiers are weak but are cheap to maintain(less equipment, and not as effective therefore get paid less), archers can attack from a distance and are very effective against foot soldiers and relatively effective against cavalry, but if they are attacked from close up are almost completely useless and will be massacred. Cavalry are very effective against foot soldiers and against archers from a closed distance, but are very expensive to maintain. When a unit loses soldiers its morale drops and when the amount of soldiers reaches zero the unit is defeated. Supplies are very important to maintaining an army and consist of food, equipment, and money. If your supplies are low because you neglected to set-up and protect supply lines then soldiers will be defeated easier and dessert more. -------------- Landscape and weather would greatly affect the performance of your soldiers. For example archers located on higher ground would be more effective than those located on plains and in forests. Rain might effect the rate at which a unit travels and would effect the accuracy of archers. If archers fired against the wind their attack would be less effective then if they fired with it. Mountainous terrain would greatly slow down the rate at which cavalry moved. Capturing cities and forts might not only be an objective to winning a battle but for winning the battle in general as well. Fortifying your soldiers in an outpost would offer much better protection and would serve for housing supplies better. --------------- Last, but not least of all would be traps. Setting up traps such as rockslides would be an important part of emerging from a battle victorious. Although setting up traps may greatly delay movement of or greatly damage an enemy unit it would leave your unit vulnerable for an amount of turns. ------------------ So basically instead of a traditional RTS, where you just build units and buildings and then attack the enemy, or a strategy RPG where many things are based on your equipment and levels, this style would rely on decisions of where to place units, which you should use to attack, and other aspects like that. ---------- Alright, I realize that may have been a bit much and as a new member no one really holds any respect towards me, but I would appreciate it very much if you would comment on it. One thing I'm concerned about is that this might be a bit complicated, so I'd definitely like feedback on that.

The only idea in your design that I can see which is unique to your game is the morale/desertion system. I've seen all of the other things you mentioned implemented to at least some level in current RTS games, so I'll comment on the morale system first.

I think having to manage the morale of your units is an interesting idea, and could work to an extent. The risk you take with such a system is annoying the player or slowing the pace of your game. Commanding a unit to attack and having them ignore the player and run away/desert could easily annoy the player if it was implemented badly or happened too often. I believe if done well it could add an interesting element to the game though. I'd personally find it particularly cool if I could play an evil general and slaughter my own troops if they ran away, in order to scare the others into being less likely to disobey me... but I guess that's just me. Since morale is the main element that makes your game unique, I would spend plenty of time thinking about the design of the morale system.

I'm uncertain as to what you mean by stats such as speed and health not existing. I'm assuming that you intend calvalry to be faster than foot soldiers. Not having variable stats would also make it impossible to upgrade units or have many different types of units, which would seem to remove depth from the game (at least that's how I see it). It seems that without such stats, you'd be mostly playing a numbers game. The side with the fewest soldiers would be likely to always lose most often, losing morale, deserting and ultimately losing the game. Different types of units being more effective specific other types has been done in Empire Earth and Warcraft 3 among others, and has been proven to work pretty well and add interesting strategic elements, so I think you're on safe ground there.

The landscape and weather features you suggested, though not a new idea, sounds like a fairly in depth implementation and should be interesting from a strategy perspective. You'd have to be careful not to overdo this and cripple the pace of the game, but good design should avoid this, and I guess it won't affect a turn-based game as much as it would an RTS. I wasn't quite sure from your description whether you intend your game to be turn based or realtime - the traps section suggests turn-based, but some parts sounded more like an RTS to me. Your idea for traps is a good one, it has an inherent downside in that they take time to set up, so I think it should be pretty well balanced and complement the other strategy elements well. Some traps could be specific to geographic features/weather, so would work well with your other systems.

That's enough typing for now anyway... hope that gives you some stuff to think about, and good luck with your game.

Your morale/recruitment system is perfectly fine for independent (mercenary) groups, but for government armies, it's more based upon the overall view of the government and military.

1 other thing to consider: Economics of the area that you're in. Most non-officers are people who are undereducated and have few long-term opportunities in mainstream society. If the society that you're in is in a depressed state, you'll get volounteers no matter the morale level of your troops, so long as you pay regularly. Ya gotta eat, right?

Note: I have nothing against people who join the military, I was in the Army during the first Gulf War. I'm not hammering on people in the military, I'm making a statement of fact.

Also, for archers, clear terrain > high ground. The high ground is nice, but if it's in a wooded area, you're still better off pulling out a sword

I think you might have slightly made a misunderstanding about the dessertion system(or maybe I'm reading what you wrote incorrectly), the whole entire unit wouldn't dessert, but only an amount of soldiers at the beginning of every turn depending on how high your morale is. But all right, I'll make sure to spend more time on this part.

About having no variable stats, yeah I can see what you mean. So perhaps putting upgradable units and maybe better supplies based on how much money you had in there, and some other things would be best.

And yeah, sorry about not being clear about this but it is a turned based game. None the less I will make sure to make it so the weather and landscape system does not slow it down.

And yeah, Solinear, I'll keep in mind what you've said, especially about the economics, and keep in mind that part about the terrain.

Anyway, thanks a lot for your input, it has helped a lot.

All right then, what web based games do have a morale system? Perhaps I can check them out and see what they are like.