I'm thinking Risk-like. Units from Place A to Place B. Build improvements to improve area output.
However, I was thinking of throwing tiles, XP, Civilization 4 and Europa Universalis III in.
Tile-based World, rather than Area
Each tile has a terrain. This affects movement. Cities start out as villages in one tile, but can expand to other tiles around it. At the same time, the city's "Reach" expands to soak up more neighbouring tiles, ergo improving income, once connected. [Civilization 4].
Dawn of Time
Start as Cavemen with a Tribe and build up from there. Hunt wild things, foraging wilder things. Advance in technology, which are grouped into basic Categories, as opposed to a complicated tech-tree, which improves relating things related to that category, over time (per example, "Military" improves soldiers. Military X + Science X = Unlocks Unit X). [Europa Universalis 3]
NPCs
As opposed to a big world with players spotted to and fro about it, have NPCs thrown into the mix - just to make things interesting.
Keep it Simple
The problem with most, if not all, my previous forum games is that I'd wind up having to spent 1+ Hour updating each player, because of all the micromanagement. By making cut-backs of Quality, regretfully, the game should be self-sufficient.
Not only that, but considering all the possible negotiations you guys will likely have to make, I can probably not have to update every hour, as previous was the case, after everybody had said "Go to X."
XP
Experience Points would be garnered by taking a heavy interest in something, which can then be spent on the related "Interest" it was garnered for. For example, if a player attacked another town, he would be rewarded with Military Experience. If he had a certain amount of settlements focused on Research, he would gain Technology Experience. These can then be spent on "Buffs" or "Boosts" for their respective focuses.
This would dissuade stagnant gameplay and make it more competitive, avoiding situations of players simply kicking back and waiting for the military points to go up, before striking.
Fortune favours the Bold.
However, I don't want to have to go to all the trouble of setting this up, only to have Two guys interested. So. Anybody interested?
- Expand from tribal villages.
- Send out migrants/settlers from your population to populate a new tile, creating a new village.
- Earn resources from the land.
- Build improvements (Roads, land clearance, etc) to improve the land's output.
- Set a focus for your city, which improves an option of Population, Culture, Commerce, Military, etc.
- - These focuses would benefit the related technology, theoretically.
- Meet NPCs or other Player nations, form alliances and cast stones. Or laser fire, if you last that long.
- Terraform land, with acquired technology, to your benefit or the enemy's downfall.
+ I'm open to suggestions for any other ideas for the game.