For me, grand strategy requires a few things to be successful.
Every aspect of the "strategy" in the game needs to be able to be automated but "how" it is automated should be left to me. I should be able to optimally playthrough a game without having to manually control every aspect such that the game becomes tedious.
No cheese. Optimal strategies should not exist where you do things that are just so obviously cheesy and not intended. Like say in your world you start off with a city that has a governor and a warrior unit. On turn one you shouldn't degrade your warrior unit to gain 50 Iron then fire your governor so you can encourage crime only to immediately review you governor and get an additional growth bonus for lowering crime. Cheesy shit like this always pisses me off in strategy games.
Highly customizable races, cultures, etc... that have significant impacts on how the game's strategy is played. Maybe I want my Romans to be a highly religious society along with a warrior society well, if I go down that root, I should have access to buildings, units, types of attacks, types of special abilities, etc... that are going to be significantly different than if I went an atheist warrior root such that the way I play the game becomes highly different given the way in which I choose to develop my people.
Lots of different avenues for success. The more variability in how to play the game, the more fun it is. Like tech rushing shouldn't always be the be-all-end-all strategy. A common problem in Grand strategy games with "advancement", imo. Like having low tech but maybe a highly religiously zealous group of low tech but high numbers should perhaps be viable. To make this more "realistic", I'd recommend not doing civilization style where you progress through the ages cause it gets tough to imagine the realism between horses beating tanks or whatever.
Don't make negotiating with NPCs the way to win the game. Make it a potential side thing to gain a slight advantage but too many grand strategy games pretty much make the whole game depending upon negotiating with dumb AI, which is trash.
For me, grand strategy requires a few things to be successful.
Every aspect of the "strategy" in the game needs to be able to be automated but "how" it is automated should be left to me. I should be able to optimally playthrough a game without having to manually control every aspect such that the game becomes tedious.
No cheese. Optimal strategies should not exist where you do things that are just so obviously cheesy and not intended. Like say in your world you start off with a city that has a governor and a warrior unit. On turn one you shouldn't degrade your warrior unit to gain 50 Iron then fire your governor so you can encourage crime only to immediately review you governor and get an additional growth bonus for lowering crime. Cheesy shit like this always pisses me off in strategy games.
Highly customizable races, cultures, etc... that have significant impacts on how the game's strategy is played. Maybe I want my Romans to be a highly religious society along with a warrior society well, if I go down that root, I should have access to buildings, units, types of attacks, types of special abilities, etc... that are going to be significantly different than if I went an atheist warrior root such that the way I play the game becomes highly different given the way in which I choose to develop my people.
Lots of different avenues for success. The more variability in how to play the game, the more fun it is. Like tech rushing shouldn't always be the be-all-end-all strategy. A common problem in Grand strategy games with "advancement", imo. Like having low tech but maybe a highly religiously zealous group of low tech but high numbers should perhaps be viable. To make this more "realistic", I'd recommend not doing civilization style where you progress through the ages cause it gets tough to imagine the realism between horses beating tanks or whatever.
Don't make negotiating with NPCs the way to win the game. Make it a potential side thing to gain a slight advantage but too many grand strategy games pretty much make the whole game depending upon negotiating with dumb AI, which is trash.