just a quick "down and dirty" RTS idea: There are three alien races at war in a distant galaxy... Alien race ''A'' uses gravity as it''s technology base...they have few but powerful unit types, with the primary weapon being the ability to produce "gravity bubbles"...these aliens need ''space rocks'' as a power sorce for thier armies...unfortunetly a side effect of useing ''space rocks'' is that a by-product of the fission process used releases ''space gas'' Alien race ''B'' uses light as it''s technology base...they have a large number of highly specialised unit types that can fire laser beams...they require ''space gas'' to power thier fleets...however useing ''space gas'' generates ''space liquid'' as a by-product Alien race ''C'' is based off of nanotechnology...they only have three units that can be infinately combined into ''blobs'' that attack by touching the enemy...this alien race uses ''space liquid'' as its power source...but this generates ''space rocks'' as a by-product The game wouldn''t feature any technology tree, or new units...Winning/loseing would be decided on how well the player controls his/her units...the resources the aliens need feed off each other, idealy createing a stable balance...stable until the players start fighting...attacking the alien race that generates the by-product you need wouldn''t be exactly wise...however each of the alien races is strongest against the race that ''feeds'' it...for example: the ''light'' based race needs the by-product produced by the ''gravity'' race...but the light beams produced by the ''light'' aliens can still penetrate the ''gravity bubbles'' fired by the other race (allowing them to still hurt this enemy)...but the ''light'' race is weak against the ''nanotech'' race because these same beam weapons would only split the ''blobs'' into two smaller ''blobs'' (that can be recombined)...but then again the ''nanotech'' race would be weak against the ''gravity'' race because the ''gravity bubbles'' can damage the entire ''blob'' without splitting it...thus the races are strongest against the race that can harm them the most through indirect meens...but the races are weakest against the race that they can most indirectly effect through resources. additionaly if one race would get wiped out during a game (for example the ''gravity'' race). the initial resource balance is thrown off, but it would actually stableize (for example..the ''light'' race would lose it''s resource...which would also meen that the ''nanotech'' race growth would be limited)...so the two remaining races would fight it out completely basied on tactics (one race would have "the upper hand" so to speak...so it could prove humiateing if they end up defeated)...but then again, with the initial resouce balance between the three races...players could end up fighting each other just to keep all the races in the game. Could be a fun little RTS game, basied more on unit tactics then createing "tank rushes" and so forth..thoughts?

MSW,

So basically you''re saying that my enemy is the only person I can get the stuff I depend on from. Um.

Why is he my enemy again? This game would seem to end in a sort of stalemate unless there''s some inducement to attack. After all, why not just get along? If we can recycle these materials indefinitely we have an infinite power source, and can totally waste any other species out there.

Perhaps it would work better to have two such cyclic consortiums battling each other: then the efficiency of all races is tied to the weakest player on a side. Or perhaps I''m just not getting it...

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-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

How about a multi-player RTS game.

You prepare your team on an online forum, chatroom, whatever. You then enter your three person team. Once another team or two are in and ready, you go into a game enviroment and build up. once you are ready, your team go to war with another team and fight. once on of their men are down it should be fairly easy to defeat them, if they dont have allies. once one of their guys goes down there is space for someone else to enter. You get a point for every person you knock out and when you knock out the original team you win/get 5 points.

Just an idea...

SpittingTrashcan is completely right but the ap poster, if I
understand that post right, has a good idea.

It wouldn''t be a the three groups of aliens fighting, it
would be collections of aliens from each race.
one group with A''s,B''s, and C''s fighting against another group
of A''s, B''s, and C''s.