Viceroy - hate to burst your buble but the Generals/Commander concept is not yours. Not only had EA already come up with it, I had it in my template quite a while ago, but then dumped it.

Why am i not suprised that you've claimed credit for my good idea.

The commanders idea is different to the generals system because their won't be generals powers like artillery strike or generals points, because theirs also a choice of taking a secondary commander with limited choices so you cna have precise strategies. also these Commanders won't be horribly crappy or unbalanced.

Viceroy, it's still EA's idea from Generals. Tweaking it a little doesn't make it your idea. Generals Powers and Generals Points are not necessarily part of that system: for the most part we're just talking about the different Generals from Zero Hour who have different strengths and weaknesses.

In fact EA's concept is just a tweak of the major Gods from Age of Mythology. Having a secondary Commander is just a reinterpretation of minor Gods. So really there's nothing too original there.

Regardless though if you remember before I left i was talking about a leader system if you remeber i dino't think generals was out then and i only bought AoM 2 months ago so the commanders idea was merely me tweaking an old idea i had into a better idea.

Well Zero Hour probably wasn't out, and it's the one that's got the Generals system. But even if you only bought AoM 2 months ago, it was still out back then and the idea was still well-known.

At any rate, even if you did think of it before Ensemble, they made it into a game before you, so if it were to be included in the next Star Wars RTS, it would be seen as a rip-off.

And wenre't you warbling on that everything is a rip off of everything else and people expect it?

There's a difference between a subtle rip-off and a blatant rip-off. In the case of this Generals system, it is not only a blatant rip-off, but a fundamental corner-stone of the gameplay, which makes it even worse.

How many people will particulalry care after they've played the game and found they like it, sure they may say yeah it shares a few features with this game but it's a really great title.

Certainly a lot of people look past rip-offs, but others (and especially game reviewers and critics) will fixate on rip-offs to the detriment of the game's success. Such was true with SWGB, for although I think along with many others here that it is one of the best RTS games, the fact it is so similar aesthetically to Age of Kings bacame a big issue with some gamers and in particular some reviewers. This is why SWGB isn't given the respect it deserves.

Third factions that are computer controlled but can choose sides depending on who they are like ewoks on endor choosing the rebel alliance or geonosians helping separtists on Geonosis. But also include Jabba's Organization too!

You mean like Warcraft 3's creeps in a way?

That's kind of how I envision them working.

For once something we can all agree on

Yes, though I should point out that this wasn't the original topic we were arguing - joesdomain changed the subject for some reason.

Well someone coime up with a new idea we can discuss before this forum dies again.

Here's an idea I've been thinking about a little bit. Essentially it's a hybrid of the Generals system and minor civs ideas.

What if, in addition to choosing a "pure" force, you could choose to run an allied force. What this would mean is you could choose from a short list of allies for each civ and you get to use them in the game. You'll lose some of your units as a result for balance reasons, but it could create some interesting battles, and also move towards what we see in the movies.

So you could choose from the four "vanilla" factions: Rebels, Empire, Republic, Separatists. Or alternatively, you select one of their allies to go with you. The allies would be like this:

Rebel Alliance
Vanilla - no allies, get access to all Rebel units
Wookiees - lose some of the Rebel units for Wookiee units
Mon Calamari - lose some of the Rebel units for Mon Calamari units

Empire
Vanilla - no allies, get access to all Rebel units
Hutt Cartel - lose some of the Imperial units for Cartel units
Trandoshans - lose some of the Imperial units for Trandoshan units

Republic
Vanilla - no allies, get access to all Republic units
Naboo - lose some of the Republic units for Naboo units
Gungans - lose some of the Republic units for Gungan units

Separatists
Vanilla - no allies, get access to all Separatist units
Geonosians - lose some of the Separatist units for Geonosian units
Trade Federation? - perhaps Separatists could just be the Confederacy, with the option to take the Trade Federation as an ally but lose some of the Confederacy units?

Though the idea is very interesting, balancing all of those might end up very difficult. We might come across issues where people won't play vanilla factions or only non-vanilla factions or only the strongest ally you can get.

It's an idea at least but I can quite easily see the Confederacy getting Geonosain units anyway quite normally especially in terms of fighters since a game without the Nantex class fighter and other units which are true to the confedreacies style would certainly ruffle my feathers as well as some of the purists feathers.