I guess most of us that grew up with strategy games, once or twice has designed a game of our own. I have done that several times, mostly table top battle simulations but also strategic campaign games. The results have been mixed. Those I have liked best and played most have been simple ones with an innovative idea. Those I have scraped are mostly huge projects with less focus on a achievable goal. For example, the largest and most complex game I ever made, a space strategy game with everything from tactical battles to political simulation has never been played while my very simple travel table top game where all troops and terrain are symbolized by lego pieces stuck on a 1x1 foot lego plate is very popular among my friends.
Most of the problems with complexity can be solved by automation when making a computer game, but programming in it self is harder the bigger the system is. So even if a game with very high comlexity level is nice to play on a computer, it isn't that an easy task to make it. The focus must be on the main idéa of the game and the software design have to be modularized so that it will be easy to add on complexity later on.
My own view on what makes a great strategy game is fairly clear to me on some points and very shaded knowledge on others. One of my main objections to many popular non turn based games, such as age of empires and similar, is that they are not a competition of minds but a competition of handling the user interface. As soon as you have learned the basic strategys all are pretty equal on that mather and the one whom is the fastest to use the keyboard and mouse is the winner. Ofcoure skill of handling the outer circumstanses have always been important in real life strategy as well, but it has never been the way of giving orders that has made a general victorius, though the lack of such skills has certainly made a lot of genuises end up as loosers. In the end a great strategy game must give the ones with new ideas and a tactical mind the advantage over the lesser skilled tactitian even though the first one has the quicker hands on the keys. There are ways of handling both turnbased systems and real time ones that does create a continues flow without taking the step from strategy to action to far. For example the real time system of Europa Universalis and the turnbased and time limited system of Alpha Centauri. Another thing I liked is a real-time space game which i forgot the name of that let one player make the strategical decissions while the rest played the tactical simulations in real time action battles. To make the thinking of the game play important that was a nice way since the player in strategical command sometimes had lots of time to make long term plans and sometimes had to give split second orders. Whatever system one chooses it has to be very well thought through.
Lots of computer games have implemented shade of war or other systems to make opponents moves and activities invisible for players. Simple once with unexplored parts of the map black or more advanced systems where lots of things make up what you see of the opponents world. What most games doesn't bother with is what you know of your own troops and resources and the time it takes to get the information and for orders to get through. That is sometimes an even more imortant information to hide. One of the games with the best way of handling that i have ever played is the Amiga game of Waterloo. The player was either Wellington or Napoleon. One could see the parts of the battlefield that was in line of sight from the HQ. If one was on a bad spot for reconing one could move, or send out scouts and read their written reports. One had a limited numer of scouts and riders to send out orders. Sometimes they were intercepted by opponents or delayed or shoot or kept by a field commander as he needed him himself. One had to plan troop movements hours ahead ordering simultaniusly conducted assaults to a certain time. If one was to hasty some of the orders didn't arrive in time and the assault was a failure. The commanders sent back reports of tha battles, and the state of their troops if they could and had the riders available. The whole idéa of the game was wonderfull, but the user interface wasn´t good enough to make it one of the best...
Another important thing in the days of internet gaming is that co-operation must pay off. And I do not mean just to combine the troops to form the greater army or fleet or to combine the production of two nations. Those things as well as trade and diplomacy are important parts of strategy, but there is another level of co-operation that is all too often overlooked. Finding peoples skilles and putting them on the right tasks together with people that they work well with has always been crucial in warfare and other forms of competition.
One of the best strategy games I ever played is the card game of bridge. The rules are as simple as the once of chess and the strategies of bidding systems and techniques of play are equally or more analyzed than the first moves of chess. But it is not those things that make bridge wonderfull, it is the unique balance of importance of the structure and knowledge of the bidding system, the skills of playing the cards to make the opponents make misstakes, the possibility to bluff the opponents and the risks involved as your partner is equally fooled and the wonderfull and extreamly important element of communicating and knowing your partner. There are hundreds of systems (strategies) that defines how bridge should be played and knowing a good such one gives you an advantage, but a better player usually beats a worse one even if he doesnt have a good system. But a better player can never be victorius over anyone, regardless of skills and systems, if the opponents are better to communicate and let their resources (cards and bids) work togherer to increase their value. That is such an important part of strategy and forgotten in almost every computer game I have ever played.
If one could design a computer game that has the balance of bridge and takes as much andvantages of the computer as bridge does of the deck of cards one would end up with a compleatly new level of gaming. How it should be done? Well, every idéa, good as bad, is a step toward such a goal...
