I got bored lately so I picked up from my head an idea I came up some time ago.

The idea is about non-complex realtime strategy game. It will have two opposing factions: 'attackes' and 'defenders'. The 'defenders' are sitting on their home planet and are trying to defend it from the 'attackers'. You can choose your side, and on this choice will depend your strategy.

As a 'defender' you have access to defence buildings, slow but strong units - generaly you're sitting inside fortified base. As an attacker you have only few defensive buildings (to get rid of scouts and light attacks), but you have access to unlimited supply of units from the orbit. All you need is just one spot to where they'll be dropped. And you have to take over the map.

That's a basic design. Now I need your opinions on how to handle resource income and map management. My original idea was to have map divided into sectors. For each sector you'll get some 'points' for a fixed time and you can exchange them for units. Also in each sector you can have a base/drop-off point.

The question is: will this be balanced?

Feel free to comment on that, critise that and post new ideas.

Oh I forgot about that, they'll either have time based victory condition (survive for x minutes) or simply by destroying all the drop points, so it'll be impossible for invaders to deploy new forces.

An idea I've had for an RTS/empire building game for a while is based around the idea that you are a captain of a terraforming crew working for one of several megacorps. You start with a small crew of advisors that you choose from three pools: scientific advisors, military advisors, construction advisors. Each advisor has their own specialty which determines what building and units you can build.

The idea is that you get money from the jobs you choose each round to hire new advisors and train/upgrade existing ones. The number of units you can build depends on the number of advisors you have and their level.

For units, I'd use the system they have in Kohan, where instead of creating individual units, you construct companies of units. I'd use a similar resource system to Kohan as well. In Kohan, the resources are gold, stone, wood, iron, and mana. Only gold is stockpiled. Instead of stockpiling the other resources, each resource generator creates an income. When a resource's income is negative, it reduces your gold income, but you can continue to build units that require that resource. If your gold icome becomes negative then you start to lose money from your stockpile. When that reaches zero, companies you have start being disbanded until you have a positive income again.

Missions can range from having to build terraforming infrastructure on a planet under race conditions, to protecting colonists on newly terrafromed planets. The plan is that in about midgame, you start encroaching on a new alien species, and get to fight a war, yada yada yada.

What the company system gives to Kohan is versatility. You don't just create squadrons of one unit type, but create companies of different units. This is what the company creation screen looks like:

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Each company has four frontline units (which are each the same type). The support troops are optional, and don't have to be of the same type. If you don't have a hero to assign to the company, a default captain type is created based on the frontline unit.

A lot of the support units and heroes also gave resistances and bonuses to the various attack types.

Kohan has those as well, but you form groups of companies into formations. Makes it easy to move a lot of units at once.

I suggest having the defender start with a set resource amount from which he has to build units and buildings. The attacker should get resources injected into his account periodically so he will be able to buy reinforcements as the game goes on.

To balance this the attacker should be able to spawn his units anywhere on the map. To keep the attacker from spawning units in the middle of the defender's base the reinforcements could arrive in vulnerable transports which the defender could shot down easily if they are spotted.

My solution to the defender's resource issue is give him a lot at start up and nothing else until the game ends. What would stop him from creating the perfect army and wiping out the attacker's smaller incursions one by one? There should be no "perfect army" the defender has to modify his defenses based on the attacker's unit choices. Thus the defender is forced to ratton his resources to meet the attacker's varying offensive strategies. Also even if all the attacker's forces are wiped out the attacker should be able to start up else where on the map when his next resource influx comes in.

Which is why you are posting and asking us for ideas I would imagine. Here is another one. I would like to see more C&C Red Alert type airstrips. Too often RST's flying units just hover indefinitely and become super units (star craft protos carriers). I like the concept of a vulnerable base structure that launches a plane which has to land back at that structure after a short period of time.

This can be balanced by two strategies anti air units to shoot down the plane or fast moving ground units to find and distroy the airbase. Each has its pros and cons. Expending resources on anti air units reduces the budget for fighting against other units where as fast ground units are more flexable but can not guarantee success if stronger ground units are defending the airfields. Of course slow non anti air units are easy prey for the aircraft.

Actually I was thinking the attacker should be forced to rely on air fields as well. Just a small catapult placed in the ground like a monorail and a circular landing pad near by with some supply crates. It should look cheep and temporary so the attacker doesn't feel too attached to it. But having these structures would force the defender to sally forth from his turtle like enclosure if airstrikes become too much of a problem.

[Edit] I have attached an image [/Edit]

It is your game so make it the way you see fit. However I never really liked the timed airstrike concept of C&C. It gives the player a free kill anywhere on the board. It does not allow the player to develop new strategies or force them to worry about protecting their resources/units. It just rewards the player for being patient enough for the next airstrike to become available. Granted in your game where waiting too long leads to failure for the attacker there is some risk involved. Still a free kill is a free kill and it is not going to make the defender happy to have a unit that he can't strike back against on a perminant basis.

Also I have given some thought to ways of discouraging the defenders to build swarms of fast attack units and "zerg rushing" the attacker when ever he deploys. Give the attacker cheep deployable mine fields and the defender slow moving mine sweepers. If the defender blows all his resources on fast attack units the attacker just needs to mine the area around his base and pick off the mine sweeper with airstrikes.

Another idea I had was for long range artillery units/buildings. They could shoot beyond the area they can see like (Total Annihilation) and do area damage. To balance them the area damage only effects lightly armored units like infantry. while a direct hit could take out a tank or several damage a building their inaccuracy would prevent such a hit from occurring unless the artillery were able to shoot undisturbed for 10 minutes or the targets are clustered so close togeather the artillery can't miss.

I know artillery like this would be a major advantage to the attacking player since the defender would most likely rely on static defenses. A good counter could be high walls. Since the shells are ballistic they would be more likely to hit these tall structures before the units behind them. This would also force the defender to wander out of his his base to eliminate the source of the shelling. At the very least locate the battery with aircraft and try and destroy it with their own artillery.

The A10's could be shot down by sams and shoulder missiles in the original C&C. That didn't make them any less of a free kill, or rather a chance at a free kill.

My point is that good games allow the player to make choices which effect the outcome of the game. The more choices and results you give the player, the richer and more enjoyable the gaming experience will be.

Periodic airstrikes do not add more options for the attacker or defender. The attacker knows the airstrike will be available so he might as well use them. The defender knows the airstrike is comming and has to invest in anti air units to prevent important stuff from getting blown up.

I just read this great article on gamasutra about something similar to this. It is worth checking out if you have not already. Here is the link:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070123/chelaru_01.shtml