For context, I am creating a HOI4-style strategy game set in the Cold War. The battles will likely be turn-based rather than involving maneuvering troops on the map.
A large part of the Cold War involved various proxy conflicts between the two global superpowers, the Americans and the Soviets. If I make it do that the player is only able to intervene in these proxy conflicts, things like “mega-factions” (the sort you see in games like HOI4 that are a pain to deal with) would no longer be a problem, and it also means a lot less work for me to add all the different factions joining in to create a huge WWIII.
However, if I limit the player to only intervention in other countries, that would limit the alternate history scenarios the player can take, and it would also mean that many countries could effectively become NPCs. I could implement a civil war mechanic, where certain focus paths will lead you to a civil war between two or more factions within your country, and you could seek intervention from the major powers. This would help countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia, etc. to be more fun to play if there was no direct war mechanic.
Finally, if there was a direct war mechanic, how should the game react to the Americans and Soviets being in direct conflict? Should the game end once a nuclear weapon has been fired, indicating that nuclear annihilation has occurred?
Allow direct conflict, but give it severe consequences. A little research should pull up some ideas of worst-case scenarios - anything from economic collapse to destruction of the UN to nuclear apocalypse.
Civil war mechanics could be interesting, for example if a power took direct action and it caused severe unrest among its populace.
I like alternate history games as long as they are pretty clear and obvious that they are not trying to portray real history as it happened. So anything that increases the different outcomes is welcome, but likely to be much more difficult to program.
It can go either way… What kind of game do you want to make?
Focus on your core vision
Indirect/proxy should make politics more-significant, right?
There’s a game, I think it’s called Democracy, which has one hell of alot of dimensions of stuff which affect outcomes.
if you’ve never seen its … can’t remember if it was the skill-tree or the setup-thing, or just the intro-tutorial, something ( I’m not a gamer, but study human-meaning, including psychology, including story & game ) … you may find many inspirations for interactions to include in the affecting-outcomes math…
Duh! I just realized, that you could actually do both, but each run the players have to choose direct-allowed or indirect-only, in order to give your game both kinds of exploration…
hopefully that’d mean only some more work, but for much more value for your game?
_ /\ _
