To be honest: I don't know how I can explain this to you.

I have a concept in mind - a highly theoretical concept - to combine different game styles and genres. Now I don't know where to start with this.

This is an attempt to describe something that i would call the perfect game (for me that is of course, but part of the idea is to keep it open and enjoyable for many). I for sure think the game I have in mind would be worth realising it, but I for sure know I do not have the abilities, the know-how nor the ressources to realize a project like this. On the other side, if ever anybody came up with a game like this (there are many games already combining some aspects of RPG / RTS and simulation), I am sure I would pay some money to play something like it. I am just not sure if I can transport the picture I have in mind.

If I had to put it in just one line, maybe this would be my answer:

The Elder-Scrolls + The Settlers (Die Siedler) + The Sims ( + Spore + WoW and many, many more ... ) !!

or
Zelde + Civilisation + The Sims ( & Grand Theft Auto )
or
(MMO) RPG + RTS + The Sims ( & Spore )

Just adding these strong titles isn't saying very much about the idea I have in mind, but for those of you who know these games, this equasion might somewhat point into the direction I am thinking of.
These games are only examples. Just as well I could also have written down any RPG or even MMORPG instead of the Elder-Scroll series, or any other strategy game like Civilisation or Anno - but I am very specific about The Sims. You will see why.

The Core Game: strategy
The core of the game I want to get at, is this:
The player starts with a few sims. He helps them survive in wilderness, learn technologies and grow their culture into a prospering future. This isn't much more but a combination of realtime strategy games with a ressource system that can be used to produce tools, buildings and so on.

Biological Sims
The twist is the 'biological sim'. In other words, the sims eat, drink, sleep, starve, die, mate and the females get pregnant and give birth - as already seen in The Sims. But this time the player gets to choose if he only wants to control one or a few sims or if he wants to build whole nations and worlds.

Strategy + RPG : the 'Souls'
The player gets the option to not only lead his people or his nation to glory but also his clan, his family to a great dynasty. Adding to this rather strategy like gameplay is an RPG function, where the player gets to play individual members of his people of sims. In difference to the avatars of any other RPG these sims age and die eventually. To save the progress with these avatars, some of the sims' characters progress is inherited by genetics to their children and some is stored within their 'souls' and given on when the soul is reborn.

grow nations and cultures
While exploring the virtual world they inhabit, the sims learn to use the ressources provided and grow technologies and traditions. The player leads them on their way teaching them to find food and shelter, to create tools and vehicles, to tame animals and cultivate crops this leading the people of sims from stoneages into a future.

setting
As to my liking each player should be given the option to make his world a 'realistic' place or rather a fantasy or sci-fi setting. I'd definately preffer a fantasy world with humans, elves and orcs - maybe even vampires and werwolfs and so on.

User Created Contend
It would be nice, if each player could leave traces in the world he inhabits with his sims. Like a given up village growing into a ghost town for later visitors - maybe as a dungeon for other players but maybe even for the player abondoning the village in the first place or a questline a player leaves for others to tell them of the history of a place.

Map
With his sims the player inhabits a wild virtual world which he can explore, cultivate and shape. The map is a combination of a random generated ( 3D- ) environment and 'fields' layed out by the player (similar to the concept of the boardgame 'Carcassonne').


MMO ?!
A Massive-Multiplayer Online modus isn't neccessarily part of the concept, but it would add up nicely if different players could group up their sims and join forces for fights or work together on their villages and nations or compete against each other.

Where this concept leads:
A software to create and explore an individual fantasy world in the size of Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion and to inhabit it with a people of sims to colonize and cultivate, to cooperate and compete with other players and their sims.

Game Cycle
The game cycle would be something like this:

• create a new world (optional)
  
• create a new race (optional)
  
• create 1st sim (the player may create more sims at any time): pick race, name, gender...
  
• watch or controle the sim in the virtual inviroment
  
  
  
  • explore the random world as you enter untouched fields on the map or
    
  • put down fields from your stack where they fit in
    
  • help the sim and their people to survive:
    
    
    
    • find and gather ressources as food, water, wood, stone, leather...
      
    • process collected ressources to tools, clothing, buildings ...
      
    • defend against animals, monsters and enemies
      
    • learn new technologies, create tools, weapons, houses, vehicles, tame and breed animals, plant and gather crops,
      
    • cultivate the land, build houses, settlements and colonies
      
    • travel on land, water or air to colonise far away lands
      
    • solve quests, fight monsters, compete in dungeons to gather experience and level your sims and souls
      
    • lead individual sims questing and into dungeons, using weapons like swords, axes, bows and magic while fighting monsters and mighty enemies
      
    • train your sims to level their skills
      
    • help the sims group and organize, watch them get settled and grow a culture from a small family to a great nation
      
    • explore the map as well as new abilities and sciences to help you build stronger settlements and faster vehicles or work ressources more eficiently
      
    • craft your own armor and weapons as long with your own magical abilities, potions and spells or even your own school of magic. With its own myths, quests and history.
      
      
      => you create the world you discover and shape it for your friends.
      
      I hope this explains the basics of the idea.
      
      Thanks you for your replies and comments on the idea in general as on any specifics of this concept.

You would need different levels that group invidual "sims" or smaller groups

Like level 1 would have invidual sims

Level 2 would have groups of lets say 16 sims

Level 3 would have groups of X group 2s


When the civilization is still tiny, you would only be able to affect level 1 as there is not enough sims to form level 2 groups.

However, when there is enough for a few level 2s, invidual sims will not be persistent. You might teach one how to make fire, but it is applied to a level above it, nto the invidual sim. Next time you come back, you might not find that sim, but everyone will know how to make fire.

That is, you can still access lower levels, but their data is generated based on the data on the upper level, and the changes you make affect the upper level. When you "zoom out", that invidual sim you were messing with will no longer exist.

Of course there could be exceptions, like sims living in a separate community (making it a separate civilization kind of), and any special sims you want to not "disappear" like the leaders of the civilization and such.