Let me start by applauding Stardock for their Generous offer to previous fans of Elemantal: War of Magic. I Just returned from vacation and saw this wonderful email offering me an apology and a generous gift of what could once again be, the apex of turn based strategy. Thank you Stardock, from a loyal customer.
To the meat:
I think that building in an interracial bonus and or detrimental scale for each empire could be really advantageous to the overall playability and enjoyment for many dedicated fans in this game. Being able to manage advantages and disadvantages based on the severity of the negative or positive influence. in a fashion simillar to the scale used in King Arthur Collections (Righteousness vs Tyranny and Paganism vs Christianity on another). In this game, dependinf on your actions you would move along these two scales, unlocking new abilities, or losing them if necessary.
(I've tried to attach a link to a crappy picture of the wheel in king arthur. have a look. the small circles along the two axis represent abilities you get if you are far enough along them. Please remember this is only one way this idea could be materialized... but possibly not the best).
Some ways this could apply:
For example... If you have 3 cities of men and one of magnar your nation would suffer some kind of penalty based off the idea of racial and cultural conflict. Perhaps unrest should increase by X% kingdom wide based on the total population mix. If however you replace that magnar city with a gilden city, there should be some kind of multicultural attribute or bonus available based on their ability to understand each other and apply new skills. This being said, even different races of men (or empires if playing an empire)should inflict smaller detrimental effects to symbolize the natural disconnect between cultures.
This is an idea that has been used nicely in games before! A simple but good example is Master of Orion 2 (epic). If you have a planet with meklar and humans there was damage to the overall moral of the colony thereby impacting the productivity of the colonists. Another is in King Arthur Collections where you would suffer penalties if your territories followed a different religion than their liege or your kingdom.
Think about it... If you are a human empire, how likely is it that your kingdom subjects will be happy living beside empire citizens?
Alternately, there should be advantages and disadvantages to ruling a 100% homogenous kingdom/empire as well. For example: Research bonus since everyone works and thinks the same way, or combat bonuses to moral etc. And on the other side, Trade negatives since the nation is insular. If done properly. This could significantly up the anti and really add a killer dynamic to the game. No matter how an individual player wants to build his kingdom, there is a trade off in positive and negative effects!
Also... I don't find it makes sense being able to make kingdom military units in a captured empire city... If you own an empire city you should only be able to build empire units there. (Again, mixed armies could impact their initiative etc). This would mix nicely with the fact that any player can recruit and use wargs or horses (cool feature).
lastly, the ability to switch between cities quickly when viewing detail reports of their production. Just like we can when trading with heroes. Also, some way to convert the population and racial alignment of a city.
What do you guys think?
