Did you want more ideas about how the empire can be influenced? Is any of this helpful?

I don't want to make it tactical, I also don't want to do adventure-something either. I want a pure turn based strategy (grand strategy preferably), that feels like running/building an empire. But without the overdone map + units fighting on the map.

I just want another core mechanic. Maybe some sort of cards? I don't know. I'm looking for anything that isn't map+units.

I've already commented about cards here: http://www.gamedev.net/topic/643362-why-cards-in-a-game-design/?view=findpost&p=5064318

Without land or units there's still plenty of potential for a game. The problem is we see in a finished game measurements like land, resources, units; we have to depart from the notion that these scores are built in. Goals after we've taken those out, whatever goal you or the player will have, that is what the game is about.

You said you wanted a mechanic, so this is it. You give your goal a name, a description, and then think of how the game opens up the possibility of achieving it.

Now I'm backtracking: You said you wanted to feel like you were an emperor. Technically you could be an emperor who does nothing to help the empire. The empire could still be building up around you based on the actions of your loyal servants. Maybe the game mechanics would allow you to stuff your face all day, and choose concubines, for years on end until your family is assassinated. Then you can build in a score for how much weight you put on, how many kids you had, how likely it was one of your kids that assassinated you, etc.

You just need a goal, a well-defined goal.

I found an example mechanic.

In Victoria 2 there is map and you move units and these fight, standard so far. But, it's not the core activity, actually, those military units are not that important most of the time. Majority of the "action" is in the "influence" mechanic. You have influence points, you can spend these on various minor nations. Then, when you accumulate enough points in a nation you have one of 4 actions available:

* increase your relations with that country

* "take over", to be more precise "include in your sphere of influence", you can do it only if you have the highest relation level

* reset all influence points of another major power (so they can't increase relation or put that country into their sphere)

* "poison" target major power's status (temporarily) reducing the speed of acquiring influence points in that nation

In practice the player spends most of the time watching these parmaterers and making diplomatic actions while military actions are rare.

From my prespective, the military units could be removed from that game (and replaced with some more abstract "army" thing that simply reacts to orders like "conquer country X").

What about taking some of the city building and province mechanics from a game like ceaser and move them up to the empire level.

Or you could a have a tile system and each turn you place improvement, tech, or event tiles. What I'm thinking is you could place a mining tile down on a mountain and it might evolve after a number of turns to a gold mine. You can further improve it by placing a village tile or industrial technology which might unlock jewelry at that location as a trade resource.

Where this could be interesting is that you each turn you might have to play 3 improvement tiles and 1 problem tile. In this way the player is balancing between growth and expansions but also seeding the problems they will have to deal with. Do I place an enemy agent? A famine? or increase the power of the thieves guild?

What about taking some of the city building and province mechanics from a game like ceaser and move them up to the empire level.

Well, I have doubts. I mean I want to get rid of the map+units mechanic, not of the cruel, bloody, risky stuff. City building is fun and everything but... where is crushing the rebellion of your ungrateful subjects? Where is the coup of your treacherous admirals? And where is the posion in your food put in by your supposed to be loyal courtiers? Not to meantion an alien invasion on top of it all (OK, that one is not internall struggle, but still).

I want the bloody meat preserved :D Just peacefully putting tiles together is just not the same. It does not feel like being an emperor.

Maybe more into direction of boardgames/cardgames? Like you get "crisis cards" each turn and you should deal with these or the stability of the empire falls (like in Battlestar Galactica Boargame for example). Or spreading of "trouble" like cubes in Pandemic.

I found an old post that I contributed in another thread, it could be give you ideas:

I think the few people that have power in their hands must keep the population happy to avoid rebellions, for example keeping monsters outside the land, maintaining a healthy economy, etc. As a player earns more and more territory, he will also be required to do more micro-management tasks. At some point the player will be forced to ally with other players to take care of these tasks so he can continue with conquest campaigns. But if the player doesn't care about his land and his people, individual players could find chances to sabotage his power. For example under a good government the "burn this farm" action will be grayed out, and farms will randomly enable this action as rating goes down. With supplies reduced the player's army will lose its combat performance and soldiers will defect. This will become a snowball effect that could quickly remove all of the player's control of his territory, allowing other players to take advantage and become new rulers.

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/631601-theoretical-multiplayer-game/#entry4982198

Instead of getting rid of map and units system, make it "in fiction". Almost every sovereign uses a table, map and pieces to represent generals/captains/etc. You could try playing out a kingdom game from the place a ruler used to do it. From his throne, council room and war room. The delegation of tax money and labor kept the nobles in line and in return they would offer knights and soldiers when the kingdom required it. The most intriguing part of all this would be in the use of spies and council meetings.

It's easy to assume this structure only applied in the medieval times but honestly current day capitalism enables a lot of the same imperial structure that existed then.

It's easy to assume this structure only applied in the medieval times but honestly current day capitalism enables a lot of the same imperial structure that existed then.

Please don't be confusing economics with the social contract theory. If someone makes a game they should have their facts straight.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/social+contract

http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=dmnyamaka

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/capitalism

Empires are about factions vying for power. Its about degree of influence to achieve that power. These factions can be geographic in their concentrations of power but also the influence can be trhu individual/groups inside institutions which arent strictly geographical. Power is also about coalitions of factions who combine their influence to make things happen to their benefit (and conversely to take the benefits away from rivals).

Instead of getting rid of map and units system, make it "in fiction". Almost every sovereign uses a table, map and pieces to represent generals/captains/etc. You could try playing out a kingdom game from the place a ruler used to do it. From his throne, council room and war room. The delegation of tax money and labor kept the nobles in line and in return they would offer knights and soldiers when the kingdom required it. The most intriguing part of all this would be in the use of spies and council meetings.

Yes... that sounds nice. Question, how exactly such mechanic should work.