I'm putting out some blatant marketing feelers today because one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is the type of games I want to focus on making the most but more importantly what type of games do I actually play the most? The thing that smacked me in the face a lot was how much I enjoy grand strategy type games.
The problem with that is of course, there aren't that many of them out there that I haven't played to death and the ones that do exist are created by companies that are trying to wring their playerbase dry as much as possible like Paradox Interactive and Creative Assembly.
So with that in mind I've been wondering about the type of grand strategy game people would want that doesn't have the DLC garbage spammed everywhere. What sort of features would you want to see? As for the setting, I'm kind of thinking of having a fantasy setting but allow you to control Romans as part of the main story.
Sort of like the anime GATE but in the reverse and I'd have it where Rome ends up invading a fantasy world which would be hilarious I think but also somewhat interesting. There are also frequently used features in grand strategy that I find very annoying which I would probably remove or fix somehow like diplomacy spam for example. I do know that Age of Wonders exists, don't get me wrong but boy did that game need to be optimised, don't know if they've fixed the issues yet.
That's certainly going to be a tough one to narrow down, given the variety of preferences people can have on such a genre.
I can give a rundown of a few areas I'd personally like to see in a solidly done (modern) strategy game, based largely on past favorites:
Something space-science fiction related in the same vein as Master of Orion, Star Trek: Birth of the Federation, Star Wars: Rebellion, and Sword of the Stars.
Most newer games I've tried of this variety tend to take annoying and experience killing design choices. Oversimplified and "streamlined" gameplay, 2D/pixely/cartoony art design, and often little depth or personality to anything story, lore, or character related. (IE, Stellaris having a rather bland "spreadsheet" faction setup). I can expound further if you're curious.
I've never been quite able to get into too many fantasy strategy games, save for a few niche instances though, and I think I've burned myself out on historical strategy games thanks to Paradox and Total War.
Maybe something like Heroes of Might and Magic might work, if it had the same personality and charm, but a less cumbersome design to the overarching strategic gameplay.
Ironically this has been my frustration with a lot of modern grand strategy design, for all the scale there's very little complexity going on with the gameplay itself. Even then, the gameplay you do see there you realise studying it isn't as complicated as they make it out to be which got my programmer brain going on this particular problem.
I'm kind of smelling blood in the water with this niche just because of the really bad business practices these companies are committing themselves to.
That's very much the same kind of motivation that finally pushed me into starting on my own game a few years ago. I've tried to keep any details on it pretty close to the vest though, as I'm sure you and others here would certainly understand.
Something worth remembering by the way. It isn't the complexity that makes the game so much as the fun and satisfaction that the core gameplay gives to the player.
IE, playing cat and mouse with an enemy vessel in space, glancing skirmishes that eventually lead to a major moment where you maneuver your ship at the perfect speed and angle, and executing a deadly barrage onto an enemy at just the perfect moment.
So many developers let themselves get so deeply embedded into systems and meta mechanics that they forget and fail to deliver on the simple things. Plus, sometimes it's the simplest things that can provide the most satisfying and complex results (Emergent Gameplay).