Would a smaller-scale Total War-style indie game actually work?
I’ve been getting a little burned out on Total War: Warhammer III lately, so I started digging through Steam looking for something that scratched the same itch. Specifically, I wanted a grand strategy game with a turn-based campaign layer, but with large-scale real-time battles where positioning, unit composition, equipment, buffs, etc. actually matter.
After searching for about an hour, I realized there really aren’t that many games doing that exact combination, at least not many that grabbed my attention for more than a couple hours.
So naturally, my terrible idea was: why not try making one?
I’m an indie dev, so I fully understand how ridiculous the scope of something like this could become. I’m not trying to recreate Total War or compete with a massive studio. The idea would be much smaller in scale and built around a tighter core gameplay loop.
At its heart, it would be a turn-based strategy game where you manage territory, armies, resources, upgrades, and whatever other systems survive the prototype phase. When armies meet, though, the game shifts into real-time large-scale battles.
My goal is to hit a middle ground where the game is simple enough that you don’t need a spreadsheet open just to play it, but deep enough that you actually want to experiment. Different unit compositions, equipment, buffs, upgrades, strategies, army builds, and so on should give you reasons to keep improving instead of just building the same doomstack every game.
This is still extremely early and I’m drawing out the actual mechanics now, so I’m mostly looking for criticism rather than hype.
What would make a game like this fail?
More specifically, is there a reason we don’t see many games combining a turn-based strategic campaign with large real-time battles outside of Total War? Is it mostly a development/scope problem, or are there gameplay problems with the formula that aren’t obvious until you actually start building it?
I’d genuinely like to hear what people think would go wrong with this idea before I get too attached to it.