I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what kind of game I would make if I could make games.
A decent basis for me to go off of would be the total war games. I'd want those RTS elements. A camera that can zoom from the perspective of your commander(aka You) to a battlefield view where you can command your troops. Now this is par for the course with TW games, but the addition I'd want is a combat system and the ability to directly control your general and actually fight along with a few RPG elements and development for your character.
Going on a bit, naturally you'd have a bodyguard of about 20-30 guys to ride(all generals ride) in with you. You can send them in without you and they will boost the combat ability of the units nearby in addition to being a quite capable unit themselves. If you are with them, that provides a massive bonus. Theoretically, you could send your bodyguard one place and go to another personally. Think about it, the poor foot soldier sees his general fighting along side him. That's a pretty inspiring sight. You, physically, would be fairly tough. You'd have the best armor available of course and would be able to easily defeat pretty much any enemy one on one, excluding enemy generals and their bodyguards and specially trained or highly experienced units might give you trouble if you haven't trained your own direct combat abilities. However, you have limitations. You will get tired just like any of your units would and your health will not regenerate while still in or close to a combat zone. Outside of combat, the regen will be painfully slow and incomplete, only going up to say, the nearest quarter for health. Energy or stamina would come back faster and would be nearly complete, up to say 85%.
Outside of combat, you'd be able to customize your general by purchasing weapons, armor, mounts, even retainers who will follow you into battle or boost your diplomatic capabilities. You would have two kinds of experience, direct combat and tactical. Direct combat is determined by how many enemies you kill yourself and how skilled they are. Tactical would largely be based on your army's kill/loss ratio. A better ratio means more experience. Tactical upgrades would improve the bonus you give to your troops by increasing it's effect, radius, and giving abilities that increase morale/attack power/accuracy ect. of nearby units when used. Direct combat upgrades are much more straight forward
Army construction could be done one of two ways: You actually control the resources and towns you conquer, like the traditional TW set up, or you are merely the general. You are given an objective, a budget for it, and a time table to complete that objective by your lord.
The Sengoku period of Japan would work well in this, as would Medieval Europe, though the diversity of units might make things difficult to balance and difficult to make due to all the work.
See, what I find appealing about this game is that it has the potential for excellent immersion and allows the player to feel like a tactical or strategic genius while also having them feel like a warrior. The tactical challenge would be the standard TW challenge of how to best use your forces but with the added bit of when you should commit yourself to the battle whether you should split your bodyguard from yourself knowing it makes you much more vulnerable but spreads a combat boost out to two areas or if you can concentrate your influence and just dominate one area. Another thing that might happen is if you focus too much on what you personally are doing, you might kick ass but still lose the battle because you forgot about the enemy cavalry who proceeded to kill your archers then flank your main force.
So, Escapist, does this sound like fun?
As a side note, this is just a hypothetical. I utterly lack the modding ability to do that to a TW game.
A decent basis for me to go off of would be the total war games. I'd want those RTS elements. A camera that can zoom from the perspective of your commander(aka You) to a battlefield view where you can command your troops. Now this is par for the course with TW games, but the addition I'd want is a combat system and the ability to directly control your general and actually fight along with a few RPG elements and development for your character.
Going on a bit, naturally you'd have a bodyguard of about 20-30 guys to ride(all generals ride) in with you. You can send them in without you and they will boost the combat ability of the units nearby in addition to being a quite capable unit themselves. If you are with them, that provides a massive bonus. Theoretically, you could send your bodyguard one place and go to another personally. Think about it, the poor foot soldier sees his general fighting along side him. That's a pretty inspiring sight. You, physically, would be fairly tough. You'd have the best armor available of course and would be able to easily defeat pretty much any enemy one on one, excluding enemy generals and their bodyguards and specially trained or highly experienced units might give you trouble if you haven't trained your own direct combat abilities. However, you have limitations. You will get tired just like any of your units would and your health will not regenerate while still in or close to a combat zone. Outside of combat, the regen will be painfully slow and incomplete, only going up to say, the nearest quarter for health. Energy or stamina would come back faster and would be nearly complete, up to say 85%.
Outside of combat, you'd be able to customize your general by purchasing weapons, armor, mounts, even retainers who will follow you into battle or boost your diplomatic capabilities. You would have two kinds of experience, direct combat and tactical. Direct combat is determined by how many enemies you kill yourself and how skilled they are. Tactical would largely be based on your army's kill/loss ratio. A better ratio means more experience. Tactical upgrades would improve the bonus you give to your troops by increasing it's effect, radius, and giving abilities that increase morale/attack power/accuracy ect. of nearby units when used. Direct combat upgrades are much more straight forward
Army construction could be done one of two ways: You actually control the resources and towns you conquer, like the traditional TW set up, or you are merely the general. You are given an objective, a budget for it, and a time table to complete that objective by your lord.
The Sengoku period of Japan would work well in this, as would Medieval Europe, though the diversity of units might make things difficult to balance and difficult to make due to all the work.
See, what I find appealing about this game is that it has the potential for excellent immersion and allows the player to feel like a tactical or strategic genius while also having them feel like a warrior. The tactical challenge would be the standard TW challenge of how to best use your forces but with the added bit of when you should commit yourself to the battle whether you should split your bodyguard from yourself knowing it makes you much more vulnerable but spreads a combat boost out to two areas or if you can concentrate your influence and just dominate one area. Another thing that might happen is if you focus too much on what you personally are doing, you might kick ass but still lose the battle because you forgot about the enemy cavalry who proceeded to kill your archers then flank your main force.
So, Escapist, does this sound like fun?
As a side note, this is just a hypothetical. I utterly lack the modding ability to do that to a TW game.
