I am so ready to be done with this game. I thought, at first, that not directly controlling my units would be liberating, that it would allow me to focus on things that interested me more, like building up my town's economy. But there's no economy and there's no real variation in the building. You either survive long enough to build everything or you don't. There's a degree of interest in seeing your heroes slowly conquer the map through their adventures, but it's not enough to carry a whole game.
I think there's a lot of room to explore different levels of authority in games. So, potentially, a strategy game where your forces are autonomous could potentially be quite interesting (actually, I think it already exists and is called Crusader Kings II), but usually, you've got an unrealistic amount of control over some very specific things. Like, in the Tropico series, el Presidente decides where every house and business on the island is built, even if you're trying to establish a capitalist society. Very few games actually commit to the idea of limiting your control to high-level policy.
I wonder if the issue here is a technological one, or if it's a failure of imagination, or if it's just because the high-level approach would have you looking mostly at spreadsheets and reports and less at maps and characters. Certainly, issuing a generic proclamation of "we are at war with the goblins" is less exciting than moving around individual units. Hell, even Crusader Kings II gives you the godlike ability to direct units to exactly where you want them, despite the fact that your character is hundreds of miles away.
What would a game even look like if it adhered to the limitations of realistic leadership? There would be a delay between issuing your orders and having them carried out. You would only know what was happening after it happened. Everything you know about your kingdom would be highly abstract and filtered through the ideological preconceptions of your staff. It would be difficult to even tell success from failure. A sequestered king, surrounded by flattering courtiers, may not even know about civil unrest until the revolution is on his doorstep.
It would be a frustrating gaming experience, to be sure. To not have control and to also not be entirely certain what it is you don't have control over. Video games, as a form of entertainment, have to do better. They have to present you with choices and then honestly convey the consequences of those choices, because that's what makes them games. Anything else would just be screaming into the void.
Do you hear that, Majesty 2? You are on thin ice here. Real thin ice.
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