Military and the ideal RTS

Alright, so to get to what I was really trying to say about military strategy in a game.

The way I see it, a target, in terms of what Caesar 3 sets down should be given us, in the beginning of the game. Now either we can be given a fixed amount of time to achieve this target, or we should be racing both to fulfill our quotas. If we are racing each other to fill the quota, then it might be interesting to allow players to choose their own quotas.

The quota might be like a status in the game, like industrial age, 6 level military, 8 science… etc. and so much capital… or liquid assets for army building. This will make things interesting, because if a players set themselves different targets of civ, and compete with each other, when setting the target itself, players will have to think.

A player might set a really low quota for himself, in the hope of catching his opponent early, unaware, but if the other opponent plays faster, even if he does not complete his quota at the end of the session of resource collection, he might still have the advantage. And if one sets himself a really high quota, he might suddenly find himself having to fight, without really preparing for it.

The quota might also be a steady ‘income’ for the city or state, from what ever it does to collect resources. So then the quota would have to be three things… first would be the level of research, then the amount of resource collected, and then the ‘income.’

So anyway, once one of the players attains his quota, the next step is the battle. Now if you have the resources you’re supposed, it will mean that you can support a particular size and kind of army. Like if you haven’t done any maritime research, you cant have a navy. So then you set about choosing an army.

The ‘income’ has been included because an army when on campaign will still need some sort of an economic resource. Plundering of course counts. And also an army would treat economics very differently, it wouldn’t build ‘town centres’ to start with.

Anyway the army, and how it works will be dealt with later.