Seeing Seeker's post on Utopia this is one of my interests that I never was actually able to play, since for a game like Utopia I really don't like the fact that you go to sleep and get attacked by 3 million ninjas that raped your town and you don't even have a chance to defend against it. I think a strategy game needs to have some graphical representation of the outcome, because if it's just 100% text you end up having limited ability to affect the game and then it becomes more of a empire building game as opposed to military oriented.
Of course if there's some kind of graphical interface you can interact that can further amplify the effect of being there versus not, so you got to have a few things going:
1. It should be very hard and time consuming to defeat a well-defended guy even if he is not there at all (assuming equal forces).
2. It should not be possible to defeat a well-defended position if the opponent is there (assuming equal forces).
3. There should be no tactical manuevers advantage in such a game.
No matter how well you design a game there's going to be an issue in that some guys who don't need to sleep or on a different time zone can attack you during 3AM where you'd not be able to actually play the game, so assuming you're not going to have a foolproof AI you've to expect that if you're allowed to move units around there might be some way to beat the AI (and if it's not possible then there wouldn't be a point to playing the game because the AI can do everything). So let's say you got some map with a layout that everyone can see. The player should be able to give the following commands:
1. Send unit to attack objective X, with one possible waypoint so that you're not always trveling the most direct route possible (otherwise it'd be easy to defend).
2. Once a unit is out the only change in objective is retreat. Once the unit is retreating it cannot do anything but retreat, though if it cannot escape it'll fight instead until there's an escape path. You can set to allow the AI to retreat automatically when your unit strength is below some level you set.
A unit should attack the objective and whatever else is needed to accomplish it, and once it's done it will either occupy the new objective or go home (if the objective is say, an opposing unit). Therefore if you choose to specifically attack an enemy unit X your unit will go home after that unit is dead instead of continue fighting. This means as a defender you've more options on how to control your units since even with this restriction you could say put 2 units to attack a range unit, after they're done they go home and then you send it out again. On the other hand for the attacker it'd be pretty stupid to do this because then your unit will walk all the way home after that objective is done. So, the attacker is limited to attack say the location X (and his units will attack whatever's in the way), and defender might be able to finetune at some level. Note that because you don't control the units, that means if the ranged units properly protected by melee units, then just because you told your units to attack the range units doesn't mean they'll somehow try to walk pass the melee units. Here the lack of human control is important, because otherwise you'll always be able to find a way to walk pass the melee units defending and hit the range units.
What this means is that to hit the vulnerable units you most likely need a manuever on a greater scale. You'd either need you or maybe an ally to take a much longer or at least different path to reach the more vulnerable units behind. That is good since you want a game that emphasizes on cooperation (otherwise you can just play single player). Again, all this should be available in some kind of graphical interface, and really you should be able to see the units fighting on it. How far you can see might be a function of say your spying/scouting level and some function of the enemy unit size/type (more of them = easier to spot, but maybe some units are harder to spot).
So such a game will turn into a lot of manuevering, but if you make defense relatively strong or at least time-consuming for the attacker then you should eliminate the case where someone was defeated while all the guys on your side was asleep. You can probably even have preset conditions like 'always assist if we have this many guys and they only have that many guys'. The AI that manages your troops should be able to do okay in your absence but should never be better than you actually playing the game.
Of course if there's some kind of graphical interface you can interact that can further amplify the effect of being there versus not, so you got to have a few things going:
1. It should be very hard and time consuming to defeat a well-defended guy even if he is not there at all (assuming equal forces).
2. It should not be possible to defeat a well-defended position if the opponent is there (assuming equal forces).
3. There should be no tactical manuevers advantage in such a game.
No matter how well you design a game there's going to be an issue in that some guys who don't need to sleep or on a different time zone can attack you during 3AM where you'd not be able to actually play the game, so assuming you're not going to have a foolproof AI you've to expect that if you're allowed to move units around there might be some way to beat the AI (and if it's not possible then there wouldn't be a point to playing the game because the AI can do everything). So let's say you got some map with a layout that everyone can see. The player should be able to give the following commands:
1. Send unit to attack objective X, with one possible waypoint so that you're not always trveling the most direct route possible (otherwise it'd be easy to defend).
2. Once a unit is out the only change in objective is retreat. Once the unit is retreating it cannot do anything but retreat, though if it cannot escape it'll fight instead until there's an escape path. You can set to allow the AI to retreat automatically when your unit strength is below some level you set.
A unit should attack the objective and whatever else is needed to accomplish it, and once it's done it will either occupy the new objective or go home (if the objective is say, an opposing unit). Therefore if you choose to specifically attack an enemy unit X your unit will go home after that unit is dead instead of continue fighting. This means as a defender you've more options on how to control your units since even with this restriction you could say put 2 units to attack a range unit, after they're done they go home and then you send it out again. On the other hand for the attacker it'd be pretty stupid to do this because then your unit will walk all the way home after that objective is done. So, the attacker is limited to attack say the location X (and his units will attack whatever's in the way), and defender might be able to finetune at some level. Note that because you don't control the units, that means if the ranged units properly protected by melee units, then just because you told your units to attack the range units doesn't mean they'll somehow try to walk pass the melee units. Here the lack of human control is important, because otherwise you'll always be able to find a way to walk pass the melee units defending and hit the range units.
What this means is that to hit the vulnerable units you most likely need a manuever on a greater scale. You'd either need you or maybe an ally to take a much longer or at least different path to reach the more vulnerable units behind. That is good since you want a game that emphasizes on cooperation (otherwise you can just play single player). Again, all this should be available in some kind of graphical interface, and really you should be able to see the units fighting on it. How far you can see might be a function of say your spying/scouting level and some function of the enemy unit size/type (more of them = easier to spot, but maybe some units are harder to spot).
So such a game will turn into a lot of manuevering, but if you make defense relatively strong or at least time-consuming for the attacker then you should eliminate the case where someone was defeated while all the guys on your side was asleep. You can probably even have preset conditions like 'always assist if we have this many guys and they only have that many guys'. The AI that manages your troops should be able to do okay in your absence but should never be better than you actually playing the game.
