I've been thinking about this one for ages. I'm wanting to make a text-based country game on Phuks with a bot. Basically it'd be a simple input -> output program. I'm just not sure how to go about planning a strategy for something like this.
I have two schools of thought regarding this. Either it can be super simple and kinda noobish, or it can be more complex.
It would be a lot like MP, but more refined with a fixed direction and more limitations. No more dinosaurs being reconstructed by 2030 in Germany.
The first strategy is to go for a more peaceful EU4 equivalent. If you want to forward your country and gain new advantages, there could be research points which unlocks further things. You would start with a fixed amount of resources (a country might have a lot of coal for example) and you can then mine this out gradually and sell for gold - or whatever currency with other players. It would be more like openRA than MP.
The second strategy is much more complex. You could have 'slots' which each player could decide to fill with infrastructure for their country. Effectively each slot would be equivalent to a plot of land in reality. If a country like NZ were played, it'd have 30 slots (we have an area of 278000km) that a player could decide to fill in. A country like Australia (much larger) might have 100 slots. Each individual 'slot' could be infrastructure, farming, mining, military barracks, etc. This creates a much more interesting economy and dynamic within the game. This creates an emphasis on other factors like food production, electricity generation, factories, etc. I feel this is much more inline with the MP approach of being a peaceful game than a war one. I feel this has much more room to grow in the future for additional features as well.
If you can't tell, I feel more orientated towards the second option but I'm interested in other opinions.
/u/Boukert - you know best.
Busy busy i will get back to you this week