Or, have an option so that you can switch between god view and eye view, kinda like in the dungeon keeper games.
Only that you cant control your men like in dungeon keeper, you can only control your character from eye view.

Also, about the running from one edge of he map to the other, just to get your men:
You can send messangers to give the en orders for you, that way you wont have to go yurself. But the system should be more less the same in eithr god iew or eye view otherwise people will simply use the quicker way, but i guess thats up to them.

The game should not be limmited to one town, there should be loads of towns, ally towns, enemy towns and neutral towns.
You should be able to go to war with thease towns if thats what you want, and if you win you should be able to take it as your own, the enemies should be able to take your towns too.

The choice of going to war or going on quests to find new armours etc, should be a strategic desigion for the player to make, i mean, if you go get the armour, you would have more defense and you could get your lacksmiths to forge simular armours so that your armies can benefit from it too,
or you can choose to go to war straight away, less armour, but the enemy has less time to prepare, A strategic desigion.


The missions:
There should be all sorts of missions, and you should always be able to choose between at least two different missions (or have the option of rejecting current missions and just mess aoud till the next missions come up)
You shoud be able to pick and choose whic missios you do and dont do, to complete the game you should have to do missions, but only about half of the total amount.
The storylie should alter slightly dependig on if you complete the mission or not and which missions ytou do.
If you fail a mission, you cant replay it, you may be at a disadvantag but thats life, yull have to live with the consequences.
The enemies can go look for the armours weapons or whatever as well, not just you (so be quick)
There should be help out your allys missions as well as team up with enemy to destroy more powerful enemy missions.

The enemy towns can attack (destroy and or conquor) each other.

phew... the amount of things id like to see in a game... my list is endless!

You could play an actual god, just not in the B&W style. Allow two modes of playing. One as an invisible spirit, that can move anywhere within a certain distance of his places of worship. The spiritual form can be seen only by you preists, or people with an innate ability, and you could give them instructions; i.e; instruct them to order troops into position. The advantage of this form would be extremly rapid movement, as nothing will hinder you, and perhaps you could have the power to teleport into the prescence of one of your priests. Putting them in personal command of different armies will therefore make your forces easy to control, and your settlements easy to manage. On the downside, you couldn''t directly interfere with your enviroment.

In your other form, you infuse an avatar with your spirit, an control him. He is powerfull (but not invincible) in combat and magic, and he can go outside of the range of your temples. This way, you could control your avatar on a quest, perhaps with troops, to get a powerful item for your avatar or your followers to use, or exp to make your avatar more powerful. In avatar form, you could interfere with your enviroment, and kill enemies. The downside is that leaving your avatar form to enter the spirit form would destroy your avatar to be reincarnated back at your main temple. This way, you have a dillemma when going on a long quest, in that the priests will have to respond pretty much autonomously. Of course, you could take your avatar, and go and order them personally, but this would not always be practical.

For an example of a good avatar, see BGII, e.g; The Slayer, and Rillifane''s avatar.

I think that you should separate the adventuring sections from the town/management sections altogether. I am unable to elaborate at this time, but think about it anyway and I''ll say what''s on my mind later.

George D. Filiotis
Are you in support of the ban of Dihydrogen Monoxide? You should be!

I said 3rd person.
I plan on 3rd person with the capability of zooming out quite a bit for an overview.

Thanks for the input every one!

Good luck.
Be sure to let me know when the games finnished, send me a demo or something.

Here''s what I couldn''t say earlier, assuming anyone is still reading this:

For adventuring purposes, have your world or location maps have town ''objects'' on them (they may change looks depending on size and culture). When the PC walks into a town, the town sub-map is loaded (for all intents and purposes, it is just like an external map, but it has some added features which require it to be separated from the larger world maps for the sake of memory conservation).

If the town is hostile, the local guard force, people, and mercenaries will rally up in the town square and try to kill or chase the PC out. Before this happens, the player has a chance to offer a tribute to peaceable interaction. Depending on what the player offers, and what the town needs, the town may shift its view on the PC.

If the town is neutral (or has beeen pacified by an offer, see above), the PC can trade with the townsfolk, depending on how much the town likes the player, prices may vary. When trading, the PC will go up to a person in the town and ''interact'' (press action button or something). Then the trade screen would be opened and the PC buys or sells whatever (or hire people), I suggest that the items available include commodities and bulk transportation methods (rent a horse & cart to take a ton of barley to a neighbouring town). The player may also Vote at the town hall, for changes that may be made to the town. The town will like the PC if (s)he has bought more than sold in trade, does not cause trouble or hurt anyone (that the townspeople know of), and has cast votes that ended up winning.

If a PC is liked enough by any particular town (see above), (s)he gets influence. Influence can be used to advise people on what to vote for, it can be used to run for lordship in any town (if the PC looses an election, all influence is lost and must be regained). If a PC becomes the Lord of any town, (s)he may access the Town Management Control System (TMCS) (and also gets a considerable influence bonus, but in neighbouring towns, the player''s influence drops to half).

Influence will also cause a town to produce followers, who will assist the PC as long as (s)he has a given minimum of influence points. A follower is a mercenary or craftsman who will help the player for zero cost.

When the PC interacts with the town hall in a town where he/she is a lord, instead of being allowed to vote on topics that are in question, the TMCS is brought up, and votable topics can be created by the Player. For instance, the PC can suggest that a barracks is built next to the southern gate (security), or that the eastern wall be expanded by 100 meters and the intervening space be made into housing (encourage population growth), or that farming have reduced taxation (encourage food production). The town may be viewed from an overhead quasi-isometric view. As long as town rescources are not low, and manpower is available, the townspeople should support most propositions, but if the PC botches the job of spreading rescources correctly, then the people may call for an election, with the demand, they list their complaints about their current lord. At which point the PC will have a certain amount of time (determined by game balance) to repair all of the damages cited, if the PC manages, it is likely that (s)he will remain lord, otherwise (s)he will be ousted and be left with zero influence.

I suggest that a game ending be set at when the player is lord of all the towns that remain (so all towns that wouldn''t cooperate were simply destroyed).

That sums it up, Moogle, let me know if I''m slightly off, I wasn''t sure if you wanted a game geared more towards adventuring or working with towns and bashing through the monsters while travelling between them. Note that there is space for quests and their ilk (to gain influence in towns).

George D. Filiotis
Are you in support of the ban of Dihydrogen Monoxide? You should be!

Nice start Moogle. Personally I think the main char should be less then godlike, just a little. And for a change maybe we should have a strategy game without birds eye view. Napolean didn''t have airplanes and spy-satellites at his disposal. Instead have runners or something to bring you reports which are shown on a map or something. I have other ideas for it but I dont have time to post em at the moment. What you should do until you find a designer Moogle is work on it yourself, maybe use some of that time to do simple concept art and work on engine if you''ve figured out what sort you want.

Thanx sucker! It''s now my idea AND I''m going to develop it AND make MILLIONS!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH


-i''M eVIL-

quote: Original post by AP
Thanx sucker! It's now my idea AND I'm going to develop it...

Was this addressed to Moogle or me? My contribution is written out at spforge.com as well.

EDIT: typo

George D. Filiotis
Are you in support of the ban of Dihydrogen Monoxide? You should be!

Edited by - symphonic on January 24, 2002 6:09:30 PM

Perhaps you should look into the Age of Wonder-series. It''s not RTS, but it''s pretty much like the best-game-ever-created (TM) Master of Magic, and it''s a cross between turn based strategy and character building.

You should also check out Stronghold, the old variant at underdogs. It''s about building a town full of D&D characters and sending them to fight the cosmos Greater Evils.