u/Fit_Account8121

My situation is the following:

Playing as Kingdom of Milan, on the lower end of the great power list. I usually play tall, so my lands are basically northern Italy and a few caribbean beaches. I am on equal military tech level with most other powers. My total army is about 75k-ish big.

The year is around 1620, and the Ottomans pretty much gobbled up the Carpathian basin. They are fighting wars with the Gurkhans on the east- a fact that I wanted to abuse to annoy them. However, if I accept an invitation to war against them, they easily push me back with two armies by the total size of around 60k.

The question: is there any way in the game to use espionage or something similar to dismantle/weaken the Ottomans? Supporting rebels in this game always seemed to me as a waste of money, as it never produces any significant result.

I am not a programmer, or else I would have made it already - this is how a perfect strategy game for me looks like. I wonder if there is an obscure game that is somehow similar to this pitch. Also, a question to developers: would an idea like this be viable?

Subgenre: real-time with pause 4x/grand strategy- historical or low fantasy.

Map style: world map with pre-placed settlements/settlement locations. Each has a zone of control into which minor locations/villages can be built. Everything happens on the map, there are no battle/city etc screens.

Key mechanics:

Every action is done through characters. The player represents either a dynasty or a faction they belong to. The goal is to further the presence/legacy of this faction.

Main hooks:

1. Military: armies consist of regiments, but the player does not control individual regiments. They control the army, and cam set the tactics/behavior and the formations of regiments.

2. Influence: the player can extend influence on other factions through actions/quests done by appropriate agents. Cultural influence allows for various actions on rival pops, or, in extreme case, different levels of peaceful annexation.

3. Development: the player builds, upgrades and develops their city. The economy system has at least some level of production chain aspect. City populations can be interacted with, have demands and needs, and are divided to strata.

Main anti-snowball and anti-info overload system:

The player can only have certain (non-fixed, organically limited) amount of faction members, and they divide them between the roles of generals, cultural agents, merchants and governors. The player can only directly control cities that are governed ny a character of their own faction. If they run out of candidates or just prefer to not directly govern a city, they could pick a semi-autonomous local vassal whom they control through missions and set goals.

The overall feel of this game would be something like a mix of CK3 and Knights of Honor 2 Sovereign.

As the title says: if you could handpick your mechanics of your very custom PDX grand strategy, how would it look like? Mine would go along the lines of:

1. Province system:

-- less provinces, more interaction with them -> I know that 'settlements/locations' kinda do this already, but they are a bit overwhelming for me. I would involve less provinces (somewhere around the lines of EU3, or between eu3 and 4), but you could do more things in them (multiple resources, cultures, pop strata).

--organic growth and pop interaction -> populations grow as their needs are met. Culture happiness or conversion are not mana- invested actions, but organically happen based on your policies/decisions. Produced resource numbers depend on development of buildings/institutions relevant to given resource.

2. Military

-- basic unit types: ranged, shock & flank (cavalry), defense & line holding (infantry) and artillery/siege. They would all have their role in battle, and their position would matter in the sense that it would affect battle stances. Battle simulation would be a mix of Crusader kings (flanks) and Eu4 (positions), with the position aspect being broadened to actual mini- battle topography (without a full battle simulation of course).

-- more military actions in the province, for ex:

Plunder: brings in money and supply/slow reinforcements, but breaks formation in case of battle

Siege: focus on sieging down the province's defenses

Entrench: takes a very optimal defensive formation, but reduced supply (with the logic that the army, holding position, has less people securing supply routes)

3. Characters: something similar to what Imperator had. A royal dynasty and great families with some occassional 'great people' who can establish their own clans. The family trees and interactions would be more limited than CK.

4. Research: filling-up bars like in CK or Imperator, but with a twist: your bars are influenced by actions you actually do in the game (a kind of experience based on actions) and the 'researchers' would just add modifiers. Research areas would be Warfare, Stewardship, Governance, Exploration and Religion& Culture.

-- the research 'tree' would be a sort of mix of EU4s idea groups organized in Imperator's web. One research area would have multiple unlockable trees.

5. Missions:

Not a big change, but missions would have multiple ways to be solved, while remaining in the same general topic (for example, "Self-sufficient Joseon" would not be hitting a particular number of stability, but could be achieved by several ways).

Setting:

A shorter EU. Essentially from 1330s to the 1650s or start of 1700s