15. Ideas

15.1. Unincorporated ideas

  • Do we need a newspaper or advisers? Do they add to the game experience? Should not be only text, but also lots of graphical information.
  • Military and Combat: Do we need it that complex? Is morale really adding to game experience? Is it balanced?
  • Some educational/historic input. Additional to newspaper articles also great scientists (special specialists), great generals taken as historic figures. Maybe even historic database articles when clicking on a country or a province city?
  • Should leaders provide special abilities? Use historic names and several choices per country. In order to be important this should have a distinct effect on the game, otherwise it would just add to complexity.
  • Do we want to have products with different kind of qualities or only competition over price? In general it would it more realistic but also unnecessarily complex. Quantity as sign of dominance is enough.
  • Small gimmick: special currency (just the historical name) for each nation?
  • Different way of doing culture: having cultural background/predominance for each province and this then helps.
  • Revolt risk in each province right after occupation, lowering productivity, destroying improvements, being suppressed by military presence.
  • Define provinces as core provinces. Focus points for tension/aggression. But also ask for help others to regain your provinces which you would finally get, even when it is conquered by others.
  • When signing an alliance (planning war against somebody) already divide the territory. This will be the plan for division later regardless who conquered what?
  • Helping allies by sending troops to them and fighting or sending as a loan. (but not for free)
  • Military: Units: Does automatic upgrades make senses? If the number of units gets large this would mean a lot of work for the user but the best way of upgrading is not clear.
  • Resources appearing/disappearing by random?
  • Railroad routes to neighbors necessary in order to have trad capabilities?
  • Do we want Population as a real number? Currently only the number of provinces important for demand…
  • Prestige staff like special buildings (Panama canal, Suez canal, Expeditions to South Pole, North Pole, Himalaya, Exploring Africa, .. giving a cultural boost.
  • Instead of council of governors having a different score measure based on real assets.
  • Enable power blocks: maybe by having open markets giving trade advantages only if there is a peace treaty of all member for at least X years.
  • Statistics with bars (relative numbers) or real numbers (absolute numbers)
  • Have another extra consumer good next to clothes, furniture, tools.
  • Have special infrastructure improvements for each province (like industrial zone, university, military academy, trade zone, shipyard, …) giving bonuses and specializing this province. They need a yearly budget to operate. This would make the provinces even more valuable. More to gain in war.
  • Diplomacy: Specific contracts like junior/senior partner in alliance or give province X or war
  • Diplomacy: Send Ambassadors to foreign countries giving special bonuses gaining experience with every action they can perform
  • Diplomacy: Peace negotiations including money etc.
  • Should towns grow with radius on map?
  • More workshops: stone (to cement). salt (for canned food)
  • Transportation system with capacity (goods / turn) and different kind of transport ways (road, rail, …).
  • Peaceful assimilation should units be taken over from assimilated nation?
  • Diplomacy: Minor Nations: Maybe having the chance to deal with them exclusively for a certain period of time.
  • With experience use resources more efficiently.
  • Diplomacy: Minor Nations: Instead of assimilation give them state of colony - only limited influence. Supply workers, raw materials.
  • Spy as special unit
  • Privateer as naval action possibility
  • More buildings to be placed on land tiles that give bonuses?
  • If two GPs start war on the same Minor Nation and somebody wants to defend them he should end up in war with both. (bug from the original game)
  • Intro movie – I would like it.
  • Limit on how many units per battle/map.
  • Industry: Improve towns to give free stuff depending on character of the province. Do we want that? Alternatives: Increased efficiency of main factories, free workers, increased resources, increased demand. = Industrialization of provinces
  • Include weather conditions?
  • Trade routes? Do we really need them? Do we need to obey them? See trade possible without port? What happens if all sea ports of a nation are conquered? Sea trade possible? (What ports to minor nations use? Is land route preferred?) Do we want to make the game so complex at this position.
  • No corruption, happiness, province improvements, religion or government types, civics as in Civilization and we like it.
  • More internal, social modeling? More influence of historical leaders?
  • Trading territory, buy or sell provinces?
  • National meter for each province, also religions and bad economic state or nearby war have effect on social order or tax burdens. Finally can lead to revolution.
  • Different types of government: Communism, Capitalism
  • Naming Austria-Hungary also Habsburgian Empire? Event scripting to rename it and show it in a newspaper article?
  • How long should it take for a unit to level up? Quite long. At least one or two wars? Maybe going down with time?
  • Special unit: Medic/Field Surgeon (improves recovery?) or a hospital in the province or the general gets an upgrade.
  • Upgrading a unit must be much cheaper than buying/training a new one!
  • Should technology or general progress change unit abilities, e.g make cannon less good after trench warfare is invented?
  • Military-Combat-Naval: Manual Naval battles? How many ship types (merchants, warships) and symbolized as symbols (if used for warlike actions) or just as a number (if used as trade capacity).
  • If he end up with morale, do we want army wide morale like losses of provinces…
  • Minor/Major: Only difference is that Minor is much weaker, cannot be elected in government council. However Minor can become Major and vice versa.
  • Historical scenario: should they have historical aims?
  • For world scenarios: other resources like silk, oil, spices (different names of factories too)
  • Cultural victory via governors council? Increases your influence more and more? Or different victory?
  • If several turns per year - need to write down the names of each turn (and localize them) like Seasons or months.
  • What to do with isolated provinces???
  • Automatic retreat from battlefield as convenience, immediately ending the battle but always resulting in losses. Every retreating units suffers a certain damage (either absolute or relative).
  • Escape points on the battlefield? Or entrance areas? Fixed entrance areas?
  • Height on each terrain tile during combat, influences bonuses?
  • Special bonuses in terrain? Ambush possible in forest. Artillery not in mountains, no entrenchment in mountains or yes? Swamp reduces movement, less defence and attack? Cities ambush.
  • Minor powers cannot negotiate alliances or other important treaties or at least not as leading power?
  • Diplomacy: Treaties secret or open to everybody or what should be secret? Or secret for some period?
  • Diplomacy: Treaties only between two power, however include third power like being neutral to this power. Similar to Crown of Glory.
  • Traveling with soldiers through friendly territory? Teleportate back in case of sudden war?
  • Technology: Tech tree means that some will just look for the shortest route to some military techs. So not too many prerequisites.
  • Number of Techs somewhere between 35 techs (Imp1) and 108 (Imp2).
  • Diplomacy: Spies could have a great potential. For trading relations but also for spying on military. To not abuse load/reload, a mission should always take several turns before a result is shown.
  • All units: specialists/civilian, workers, military should use food.
  • Diplomacy: Possible spy actions: steal money, mess troop movements, destroy improvements?, act as counter-defense, invoke rebellion?
  • Random events like good harvest, harsh winter, earthquake, mining accidents, economic booms, nationalistic surges
  • Selling of troops as an alternative to sending them to alliance partners.
  • Recovery of units after battle takes long unless you have a medic/hospital nearby.
  • Bonus if you hold all provinces from a certain territory.
  • Instead of units of coal have real units: 1000 tons of coal?
  • Kind of opinion of population: like is a war popular or not, is a decision popular – clear ways to get the approval of your own people, like having a good casus belli? Maybe as kind of popularity measure. Considering your power basis. Improve by payments or secret police?
  • Multiplayer: Allow rejoining after crash, save always automatically to have entry points again, chat system
  • Multiplayer: Should player be able to play minor nations. What is the limit of number of multiplayer players? Just the number of nations? What if someone quits?
  • Scripting to have special events? Lua binding?
  • Use nice open source font? Liberation or so?
  • Modability: Make sure the engine works with any number of terrain types, military units, …
  • Diplomacy: Can we tie economic power more closely to diplomatic power? Should be so that it would work also with human players, not only AI, so have to be automatic factor. For example during trading.
  • Trade solely by merchant marine. Transport solely by railway transportation system.
  • Cool historical regimental names instead of “1st Infantry Regiment” (for historical nations). Perhaps fictitious regimental names for random generated nations (Hackensack Regiment of Foot).
  • In seaside towns and provinces could also be an opportunity to build coastal defenses to prevent the port blockades and invasions. Build time should be long-term and expensive.
  • Splitting of nations, maybe as diplomatic mission, maybe as random event if national cohesion is weak (war) or maybe as scripted event (to achieve historical accuracy)
  • Mobilization: costs time and higher keep-up costs but also higher effectiveness, clue is that other nations get to know if someone mobilizes but do not know against whom…
  • If long periods of peace, culture and art flourishes in the capital and across the country – peace dividend
  • Bonuses like free units for special achievement, even of industrial nature, when and how many…

15.1.1. Military

Specialization

  • Each unit can have one special trait, cannot be undone
  • Unit must have at least a certain level of experience or there is a certain fixed chance after each kill/battle action to develop a special trait
  • Upgrade anytime (not during combat) after the conditions are fulfilled
  • Infantry: City attack (bonus on attacking in cities), Tough (bonus on defense)
  • Artillery: Slow down (every attack slows a unit down one movement (not cumulative)), Defender (bonus on attack, penalty on movement)
  • Cavalry: Blitz (bonus on first attack), Fallback (certain chance of withdrawal instead of attack), Scout (can sneak through enemy lines)