Age of Empires X: The Age of Wars

Notes:

• I'm calling this AgeX, because I have no idea on what Age4 or 5 will be. Maybe ES decides to make the next games to be remakes of the old ones, or new ones about World Colonization.
  
• This game I'm proposing is about a lot of things, mainly the 20th century in general. I'll talk about World (well, only Africa, Asia and Oceania) Descolonization, both World Wars, some revolutions and the Cold war time. An X-pack would be about the 21st century in general.
  

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Well, to begin with, I need to say that, if the game is about the 20th century, it's impossible to have more than one civilization for the same nation. I mean, there would be no sense in putting the Kaiserreich, the Weimar Republic, the Nazis and the newest German Republic all in the same game.

My proposal to solve this problem, is by adding technology levels to the civs. I'll talk about this later, though.
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Well, first, let's say that there would have to be four (4) different kinds of maps, each one would have its own function in the game. I'll present it to you:

1. The Capital Territory (CT) - more or less like the Age3 Home Cities, but it would be like the main game maps and you would be able to build anything you'd like on it, although you wouldn't be able to control the builders or any other unit.
   
2. The State Area (SA) - well, every nationstate, or at least most of them, controls other areas besides its capital, right?? In this map, you wouldn't be able to control each city or any units, but this would be one of the most important maps for your game. The only thing you'd be able to build is cities. Each city has its own population that grows gradually. By building a new city, you'd be sending part of other cities' pops to increase your own. Your population wouldn't grow like in other past Age games, where you built houses to do so (Can you imagine the US invading Germany in WW2 and building houses there to increase their population??). It would be proportional to your total population, in -your- country. For example, you have a number X of inhabitants, so you'd be able to train Y% (10 or 20 percent) of units in camp. It's important to note that your enemies would be able to invade your SA, and you'd be in control of troops (not units) in your enemy ones.
   
3. The Main Battle Map (BM) - Well, the enemy territory (of course this implies that you are invading your enemy's territory, if you are protecting your areas, it would, at least in theory, be part of your nation). That would be exactly like the current Random Maps. With the exception that there would be NPC cities (something like the Age3 tribes, but not exactly the same), which could be either enemy or ally. And the Political Center (like a BM capital), which would be just a bigger city in this map.
   
4. The Political Center (PC) - Well, as i mentioned in the last topic, it would just be a bigger city in the BM, but if you conquer it (yea, you'll be able to conquer NPC cities, and that would give you wealth, which would be the most important resource in the game), your wealth would increase faster than other players'. If you conquer it, you'll be able to "control" it, like you "control" your CT.
   

You'd be able to keep both the CT and SA and its stats after a game is finished (like you can keep your Home Cities in Age3) and, also, all the resources you acquired and didn't expend until now.
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Now about the Civs. As I already said, I don't think there should be different civs for Nazis and Kaiserreich germans, so, instead of having civs, we should call them Nations. There are two kinds of nation, the playable ones (PN) and the non-playable ones (NPN). Lets begin with the PN.

There could be many nations at all, but there wouldn't be unique units or different architetural styles. There should be, at least, the main Entente and Alliance Powers of WW1, the main Allies and Axis members of WW2 and the main members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact in it. Also, if World Descolonization is a theme, there should be, at least, one African and/or one Asian civ inthe game. To mention some, I'd say:

• Americans (US);
  
• British (first the whole empire, than only the UK);
  
• French (as Free French Forces, not Vichy France, during WWII);
  
• Italians;
  
• Germans (all, pre-WW1, nazi, etc);
  
• Austrians (together with Hungarians in the beginning, then separated);
  
• Serbians/Ioguslav (well, it could be both);
  
• Turks (as Ottomans in the beginning, than as Turkey)
  
• Russians (Imperial, Socialist and Modern);
  
• Arabs (well, all of them; more specifically egyptians);
  
• Angolans (for the African part);
  
• India (for the asian part);
  
• China (Imperial, RoC and PRC);
  
• Japanese;
  
• Vietnamites;
  
• Cubans (or Peruvians, or any other Latin American nation);
  
• Brasilians.
  

For the NPN, there could be lots of, since they wouldn't have units at all, only cities. there could be israeli, arabs, koreans, latin americans, africans, asians, indians, etc.
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There would be four kinds of resources. I'll list them:

1. Population - as I mentioned before, your capacity in camp would be counted as a percent of your population in your country. You can create more by building new cities (-not- by capturing NPN ones).
   
2. Wealth - the most important resource. You'd need it to build anything (including your cities), train any unit, etc. Your wealth grows normally (1%/min) if you don't interfere. For every city capital/political center building you -build- or conquer (only NPN or enemy SA cities), that % would grow. A maximum could be 50% of the total, I guess.
   
3. Water - You'd need this to build new cities and train human units (i.e. if you train a tank, which would have more humans in it than a single soldier, you'd need more water). You'll also need it to have it to train/build Naval units. The only way to get this is by building wells (or something like that) in your CT or building new cities or conquering NPN cities.
   
4. Oil - You can get oil by conquering NPN cities or building plataforms in your SA or CT. I'ts important to build vehicle units (cars, tanks, air planes, etc.), and only for that.
   

You'd be able to sell/buy all resources with the exception of population, of course; in exchange for wealth.
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You'd only be able to build military buildings in the BM. All civil ones would be in your cities (both captured and built). Some buildings would include:

• The Local Headquarters, or the newest version of your Town Center (it doesn't make sense to build tc's in the middle of a war, it's not colonisation, after all);
  
• The Military Bases (new version of Age2 castles and Age3 forts), they'd be very strong, and you'd be able to build any infantry, artillery (not tanks) or cavalry unit in it;
  
• The Wells, where you'd be able to get a -small- quantity of water (you'd get more if you buit wells in your SA or CT);
  
• The Military Camps, or the new version of the Age2 barracks (to train infantry and cavalry);
  
• The Air Bases, to build planes and copters, of course;
  
• The Docks, to build naval units (ships and boats);
  
• The Outposts, or new versions of past towers;
  
• The Barbed Wire fences that would evolve into Walls later, to protect your camp; and
  
• The Military Tent, which would serve as portable train camps.
  

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There would be a different kind of resource, the Experience Points (XP). It would work much like the Age3 XP. With the difference that there would be the Technology Levels (which I already mentioned here) or Tech Levels to make it simpler. There would be something like 3 to 5 tech levels, each one reached when you get a different ammount of XP. That would be different to each nation or civ because each XP level would be a different Real Life age. So, each civ would get a different leader and, maybe, capital for each different ammount of XP you have. For example:

1. if you had 0 to 140 000 XP (this is only an example), the era would be pre-WW1;
   
2. if you had 140 000 to 500 000 XP, the era would be WW1;
   
3. if you had 500 000 to 1 350 000 XP, the era would be between-wars (or something like that);
   
4. if you had 1 350 000 to 1999 000 XP, the era would be WW2;
   
5. if you had 1 999 000 to 3 000 000 XP, the era would be Cold War;
   
6. if you had more than 3 000 000 XP, the era would be Post-Wars (or something like that).
   

The main difference between these "eras" or "ages" and the Tech levels is that the tech levels are different for each nation. For example, the germans would have 5 tech levels:

• German Tech Level #01: In pre-WW1 and WW1, the Kaiserreich Germany.
  
• German Tech Level #02: In the biggest part of between-war, the Weimar Republic.
  
• German Tech Level #03: In part of between-wars and all WW2, the Nazi Germany.
  
• German Tech Level #04: In Cold Era, the FRG, only, not the GDR.
  
• German Tech Level #05: In Post-Wars, the modern Germany.
  

Although the capital of the Germans only changes once (for tech level #04), and then changes back in tech level #05; the leader would always change, from the kaisers to the leaders of the weimar republics, then Hitler and, then, the new chancellors.

These Tech Levels and XP levels (eras) would be kept even if a game is finished, different for the battle tech system, which could be like the past Age games ages system (i.e. discovery, colonial, etc etc.) that would be reseted for each new game and would only serve for the same functions of the current system.
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Well, I think it's enough for today, I may post the units another day. Please say what you think of my proposals...

[This message has been edited by Smertios (edited 08-03-2006 @ 05:14 PM).]