An idea for a civ-like game has been banging around in my head for a while, and I wanted to put some ideas down. The layered node structure I’ve been working on gave me the idea, as I thought it would apply very well to a game that takes place on multiple levels of scale.
The basic idea is that, instead of having a world map and city screens like you do in Civilization, your city layer would actually take place within a child layer of the main map nod the city is based in. This would allow the city to be laid out in a manner conducive to tactical defense, and for the actual combat to be staged there, RTS-like.
All processing would take place on the detailed nodes when needed (like combat), but simple (and more common) actions like travel would take place on the top-level nodes where less computation is required. Units moving from one node to the next at the superlayer would exist in a sort of quantum state, like Schrodinger’s cat; they wouldn’t be placed in the sublayer until it was observed.
Another area of the game I’ve always felt needed more work is the resources. As someone who played it first as the board game it’s loosely based on, I’ve always felt this aspect was underplayed (it was in fact the central element of Avalon Hill’s game). I’d like to bring the game element back to that basic level by introducing the idea of representing most things with cards.
Each turn, the player will be granted a number of resource cards, of differing values. Each duplicate of a given resource card will increase the value of all cards of its type for that player. Cards may be traded freely with other players, or held onto in the hopes to collect more. Various technologies, buildings, and units would have costs, representing a specific resource (iron, horses, etc.), or a resource type (production, commerce, etc.), to be purchased by turning in resource cards.
Cities and their buildings would also create resources, or increase the output of natural resources. Some resources would additionally have special effects, like food resources could be traded in to increase population in a city. Cities and buildings would however also be subject to maintenance costs that would use up resources as well (this would be handled automatically and simply detract from your resource output for the turn).