I think one of the key things here is that sometimes there is no subsitution for time.

In GalCiv or most other traditional 4X's, if you build enough factories, you can crank out an amazing # of units per turn.

But that is a uni-dimensional design.  There are other factors in place including time to train, delivery of resources from other places, etc.

The reason we have such a simplistic system today is that the 4X genre got started back when our PC's were a lot wimpier and we simply couldn't have the game go out and put together more complex algorithms for estimating time before the unit is complete.  But that is no longer the case.

Another reason is the difficulty traditionally in creating UI for these games.  Elemental's UI is built by DesktopX so we can really refine the system to prevent micro-management.

When I click on a city and want to see how long it will take for my squad of Paladins to be made it will still say "9 turns" but that 9 turns will be now based on:

• 0 weeks for horses because they're available in town.
• 8 weeks for training.
• 2 weeks for supply of plate mail to arrive from Trinos
• 9 weeks for supply of enchanted long swords to arrive from Kaplar.

Yet, in another town, it might only take 8 weeks even if the city is a totally undeveloped town:

• 0 weeks for horses because the stables have them on hand.
• 8 weeks for training.
• 0 weeks for plate mail because they're available in the warehouse.
• 0 weeks for enchanted long swords because they're available in the warehouse.

Excellent. And will we just have to click one time on the "paladin" button we created before? Or will we have to first ask for horses, then plate mail, then long swords.

And what about the goods if I take an enemy town? Will there be some way to burn our resources if we see an invioncible army coming our way (that was the scroched land tactic used during WW2 in Russia)?

Sounds good.  Does that mean there won't be any "Quick Buy" options for units?  I never have liked that, even though it's been a staple of most 4X games.  It's not like the US military could rush build a new aircraft carrier and have it ready in 1 week just by throwing more money at it!  As you say, there is no substitute for time.

And even if they did rush a project, launching it before schedule, it would have loads of problems! So maybe allow rushed but give the unit penalties. Of course, that probably is something to suggest in GalCiv, not here where units are people, not machines. 

Although rushing a unit of swordsmen leaves only 60% of your units actually equipped with swords! Or only 40% have all the designated armour! It might be worth having a slightly weakened unit when you're in a tight spot.

Does this means unit sizes are fixed? So you design Squads consisting of n Units armed with Weapon x and Armor y, Riding z ?

Really interesting looking economical system, making use of the infrastructure/roads for more then just troop transport. It sounds far beyond what I could hope for, but afterall; this is Stardock! I will pre-order for sure when my next pay check arrives!

Come on Stardock, show the world the great potential of turn based strategy!!!

Damn you, Stardock! How am I supposed to enjoy Empire: Total War now?

Would there be any way to speed up training time? eg. you build a barracks and now training time is 25% shorter

This way you won't have a small village with hardly any buildings produce a unit as fast as a huge metropolis.

I hope that you don't have to click through all your towns just to see which one can build a specific unit the fastest at a given time. That would lead into micromanaging hell.

Then why in the first town do they only train for 8 weeks instead of nine? They should be 9-week-trained knights. If you don't give that automatically, it would be an advantage to micro-manage and make sure city one has 9-week trained knights and city 2 has 8-week trained knights ( = more micro management = evil). And how do they train without the swords? Yes, you can use wooden swords. How do they train horseback riding before they have the horses? You need to either put training at the end, once everything else is available, or make it an order that's available all the time.

I'd like to see a system where your unit has three stats:

-Built-in (armor, weapon, natural strength). These don't change unless you outfit your unit differently or cast a mutation spell on it.

-Experience: Veterans are not veterans because they are well-trained but because they faced actual death. Nothing replaces experience, so give experience points that boost troops after combat. You might even envision some arenas where you pitch your soldiers against each other in evil death fights. You'll lose some, but the remaining ones will be experimented. Basically, fights grant experience points which grant levels. Fast for the first levels, very slow and probably capped for the higher levels.

-Training: Can be gained with time in a barracks. This requires your unit to be in a city with barracks for instance. Like experience, you gain points with time, but it's a different level from experience. And you need both experience and training to be really elite.

Another issue is whether you can disband units. If so, you can arm some units with sticks, move them around, and disband them somewhere, effectively controlling where your population will be.

In medieval times, it was very common that knights were aristocrats training for war most of their time, while commoners were raised and given sticks, spears and sickles to go fight with their lieges. Such a militia would have to be disbanded fast otherwise noone would be able to tend the crops. Do you think of any way to represent something like that or do you go the classical 4X way of doing a professional, standing, army?

Very promising concept. Though, as Wahngrok also points out, it also sets other requirements on the UI. I'd want to be able to know why my units are produced faster at my puny village V than at my splendid capital C. So essentially, I'd also want to be able to get the kind of information outlined above. And at the civilization-level, I'd want to quickly get a clear overview of the production capabilities of my cities; and, easily get some kind of overview of how I can improve a certain production capability somewhere.

I like of realism, but only up to the point where it doesn't hurt gameplay by making it hard for the player to grasp the game-logic. Recall MOO3, anyone?

BTW, having not posted in a long while, let me also note that I admire the continued willingness to engage in discussions on the gameplay design with us, the players!

@Frogboy - great. That is what I had in mind. Except I hope the enchanted long swords were created by the avatar while "hanging out" in the town. I'm firmly convinced that enchanted items should be linked to the avatar's magic pool. I can see if special creatures are added with such abilities on a very limited scale but in general all the magic should come from the avatar. It would be nice to have weapon, armor, steed and siege equipment enchantment as proficiencies for the avatar.

@LDi - I also want that kind of system. Except I want the option to micro everything. To me micro is part of the immersion effect for the game. Maybe I'm too much of an old P&P gamer.

  No substitute for time?  I think you mean,

'There's no substitute for POWER'.     Ummm.....pOWer.

(work per unit time).

Sounds like a fantastic concept, although there are a couple of things I'm not so sure about. Well first of all this doesn't sounds particularly...uhm...magical. In my opinion there really should be ways to affect what role your troops play on the battle field besides quality of weapons, armour and training. You had mentioned griffins, that sounds great, some exotic mythological mounts would help a lot. I think it's a must, however, to have magical weapons and armour that you can give to your units. I'm not talking small bonuses either, how about swords that can be planted into the ground to cause earthquakes that damage all units on surrounding tiles and the like? Upgrades and spells would be nice too, because otherwise it may just end up being "historical" armies where we have realistic Medieval warriors in realistic gear, with minimal magic and mayhem, except when fighting the odd dragon or giant spider. This will be less of an issue if the player can realistically afford to have heroes with most of their armies, who will hopefully be able to equip items and perhaps use some magic. If not though, the above may be worth considering.

The second thing is variation, basically you can get footmen, archers and cavalry by the sounds of it, in light, medium and heavy varieties. Are all of the races going to work on this same model? What about factions? What will distinguish the armies of the different sides from each other? In other words will the Fallen and Humans be using different equipment and play differently on the battlefield?  

The last thing is that all of this sounds pretty complex if indeed your armies are going to be composed of thousands of individuals, even more so if you allow units to have spells and magical weapons, which is an issue that may require some thinking in and of itself regarding how best to optimize the system so players can make epic-sized armies without a lot of difficulty.

Well, if there's any developer that can pull off such an ambitious mechanic it's Stardock, I'm sure you guys will do an awesome job no matter what you decide to do.