Hello,
I have an idea for a browser-game.
First of all I have to say that I played a browser-game called grepolis (it’s pretty popular in Germany) in the last months, but in my opinion there is much to be improved and changed. (I want to write the client in the browser in java, for example grepollis is written in php, html and it’s and I really don´t like it)

So this is my idea.

You start, like in every other browser game with a small city (let’s call it village), in my idea in the ancient world. Normally you start building things with recourses like wood etc. But after a time it gets boring and way too repeating….I don´t want to level up the woodcutter (is it right?!) in 5 cities. So I thought, why not make it simpler. In my idea I would have only one resource: money.

Resources:

I would be way more interesting in my opinion to have only money.

You get money from:

- taxes from your population in your city. Your population can grow/stagnate/decrease, the factors are taxes, the “buildings “(like baths or aqueducts), if there is an nearby army (I come to that later), or if it reached its limits -trade, the city (NOT you) trades with some near cities(bigger city = more trading) by water and on land. You can make arrangement with other players for trading rights, but you will get the best trading between your cities (to make it more attractive to conquer cities).

You lose money from:

-the army (land/see), it constantly costs money…this prevents players from not expanding and building constantly huge armies until they crush some nearby (always fighting) players

City:

This is very simple, you can build public buildings for an increasing population and military buildings (like walls or ports) for recruiting military forces. I also think that an “automatic” managing of cities would also be cool, because when you have much cities you can´t take care of all, but the automatic managing would be lower (10%) than the daily average of growth / population (this would be good for something I plan for the future, but it’s a very, very long time until I can do this, if I can actually reach it)

Army:

This is very difficult…

Land:

In my idea the army is moving “freely”, not connected to any city. It has many advantages, for example when a player has many cities (like 20-30) and the army is connected to the city you have many organization problems. You can build forts with these to prevent other armies coming in your “state”, it automatically “defends enemy armies around them. And you can, of course, conquer cities by siege. A siege take 12 hours to build and u have 12 hours to conquer until your army is out of food and has to deny the siege. Nearby city-friendly armies support the city. You can´t conquer all cities, the number is limited, you can increase it by fighting. If an army is on your territory your city´s population is stagnating and the trade is decreasing.

Sea:

It is also moving freely, but it’s defending a huge space around them (to defend landing troops on your land). You can siege ports, so the enemy can´t trade with it.

Map:

To make it simple, I would implement a 2d map containing squares filled with land/sea/mountain (the army can’t move through it. On these squares there would be symbols like for example cities or ports. And a more zoomed out map, where you can see only the “states” (every city has one). Here you can move armies only from city to city.


A little bit about me. I am 16 and I come from the web design (I know html, js etc.), right now I go to school (I think its grammar school in English, but I am not sure, it’s the highest of three forms we have in Germany),so I have only 1 ½ year left . I have 2-3 years’ experience in java and also 1 year in c#. I want to teach me things like communication over the internet or MySQL. I am a fast learner in things like programming.
Other skills:
I am very good at Photoshop…I have a father working as a creative-director and sometimes I work for him to earn some money.


I know this looks rather complex, but look:

1. I first write everything beside the army
   
2. What I describe are mainly “math”-related things and not things like 3d or animations etc. I don´t have the experience to do a great looking 3 strategy game. But I (think I) can make formula to calculate for example the taxes and the trade.
   
3. i was thinking about alliances and som,ething like this, but i think his would be real complicated.
   

So what is your opinion??
I really would like to do it in a team, but I think it’s hard to find nice guys who want to work with me, because I am not the “super-experienced” guy.

To the technical side, I have done some thinking for the server (like formulas for calculating the taxes etc.).

Is it my idea(s) or the fact that some would thin this is more related to website forum than in this forum??
I have senn none browsergame here yet (but i'm new )

It sounds fine, but there probably isn't that much input people can offer; nothing you're describing is particularly unusual, and there isn't really anything in the idea that leaps out at me as either a terrible mistake or a really awesome unique feature.


Obviously you would need to do some testing to figure out what sort of costs and incomes make sense and give a fun and playable game.


I assume armies are initially created in the cities, and can then be moved out into the world? Are all armies of a fixed strength, and you build more armies to increase your power, or can you make an individual army stronger by giving it more troops/better equipment/whatever?

How will combat be resolved? Does the stronger army always win quickly and immediately, or does each army gradually take losses until one side is destroyed or one side withdraws? Is there any random chance involved, or are the results of combat deterministic based on the strength of the army and perhaps the area around them?

you can recruit your troops in the city, but then move it freely, not like the other games.

you can build troops, i forgot and i haven't plannend any random factor.
But sometimes there are advantages for one army in a fight, for example, when its in a fort, its getting a bonus, or in a city.....

I have some ideas for "Groups", because its always not easy to originize them, but that would be difficult for me to implement....

look, todays strategy browsergames have limited featurs with the army.....usually there is only the one army per city and you attack by selecting one city and klick on the enemys city. Here are two examples from different producers:
http://www.gamesaktuell.de/screenshots/970x546/2011/10/reborn_horizon_open_beta_004.jpg
This is, for example a very new game called reborn horizon and its great because the managing of one city is very well made and interesting:
http://reborn-horizon.slipshift.net/images/screenshots/RH_Screenshot_City_T4.jpg

here is another example: its a very popular game called grepolis. It has some good gameplay-elements and managing of a city looks like this:
http://www.pcgames.de/screenshots/original/2011/01/Grepolis_2.0_01.jpg
(in the background you can see the map)
but its still no "real army", only troops in the city.

The troops in city has several advantages in the "early" time of the game, but after a time its really annoying.

I would like to make a world in squares (like civilisation), like this:
http://www.linuxfocus.org/common/images/article118/gameshot2.jpg
(only map, completly top-down), but the actual gameplay would be another.

Also in nearly 100% of the browsergames there is this typikal building upgrade system.....like woodcutter lvl. 25......with usually 3-4 recourcess. I would have another.

A really really big point would be that you would be getting the money from taxes, not from buildings...and that your army constantly costs. The trading rights, which give you money also by trading taxes, is also a gameplay point no other browsergame has. (I would also like to make a function to make riots in the enemys citsy by paying the population->decrease of the taxes, but this is not planned in a near time).

Remeber, i am talking about a browsergame.....not a normal game.....this has serveral gameplay-related and feature-related cosequences.