>>2068
>This is needed without a doubt and many of my ideas here are focused on how to make it happen.
For a spiritual successor to EaW with proper galactic mechanics. A lot of the ideas for that overlap with a grand strategy game but the main difference is that a GSG has no direct control over battles (what I assume you mean with tactical interface). As battles are already by themselves a lengthy topic that takes much effort to design I'd rather split them already from the galactic map and leave pure grand strategy for it. Grand strategy has a much wider scale, thousands of provinces in some games and tens of thousands in other. With the number of planets in lore a GSG galactic map would have an order of magnitude more planets than the largest map in Thrawn's Revenge. Hence it'd also have dozens of simultaneous battles which would be too much time and micro to fight individually. But without battles missions can't be represented tactically, which is indeed a good idea and somewhat exists in the Consortium's corruption missions.
>Not needed for CW and probably not for post-Endor either because most Imperial warlords aren't the democracy-loving type.
For Endor's aftermath I'd still represent the New Republic as each sector as its own tag with all of them together as a larger organization. In reality there'd be a number of complications in modding EU4 into something like that.
>Probably only needed for post-Endor.
Or not at all. The Chiss might as well be visible on the map at all times as long as interaction with them has diplomatic or even transit restrictions.
>Some planets have their own native religions, but it's different when the setting has a religion that's actually been proven correct. Culture is still very much a thing, but you can handle this by working it into the diplomacy system.
In Paradox games every province has culture and religion and so does the tag which controls them. In Victoria II this is even broken down into percentages, as it actually represents populations rather than territories. Provinces which don't have an official or integrated/accepted culture and/or religion offer their ruler less % of their income and manpower and have more unrest. There are ways to change culture and religion or to make them contribute more. These two systems are the obvious choices for representing species and political alignments. The Hutts may be able to fully exploit systems inhabited by their own and by other nearby species, but if they expand into, say, Kuat they won't be able to make full use of it. Non-human planets controlled by Imperial states will provide less tax income and be more likely to revolt. The New Republic will have it easier in this case. Which species are fully integrated can change but conditionally and at a political cost. Religion can be used for, of course, religion but I'd rather use it for political alignment (something simple like pro-Imperial, pro-New Republic, isolationist and so on; they are organized into groups so it's also possible to break any of these into several more). It'd be a lot more flexible and systems would change their commitment due to both passive and active intervention by the controlling power (e.g. a warlord with a benevolent and competent administration swaying systems that'd rather be independent, propaganda campaigns turning New Republic sympathizers into loyal Imperials) and other factors (incompetent administration having the opposite effect, external propaganda, etc.). In CK2 and EU4 religion is already more flexible than culture with several mechanics for them to change on their own (such as the Protestant Reformation spreading through Europe) and religion-specific mechanics (Catholics closely following the Papacy). EaW's civilian forces in land battle and influence in Thrawn's Revenge don't get even close to what the most basic implementation of Paradox mechanics could do.
>Don't know what this is because I haven't played it
A nonsensical system which subjects everything to RNG, creates nonsensical choices between things that shouldn't be mutually exclusive as they consume the same kind of monarch power, makes mechanics feel gimmicky by being triple choices between the three kinds of power and cannot be modded out.
>Already in Rebellion and EaW. FoCom and EaW also have land battles.
All of those have land battles. Of the grand strategy kind, no direct control and no tactical view, just a box you can click and then the result.
Characters in CK2 are more complex and do more stuff than in EaW, they have ages, families, culture, religion, personal relations, personal wealth, opinion of one another in the same manner as states have a relation value in EU, skills, traits (kind of education received, virtues and vices, physical traits, etc.) and more. They own territory and occupy positions in the political and military hierarchy. They can form plots and factions with one another to pressure the ruler or carry out assassinations.
>Don't know what this is either, but I doubt it does anything that isn't already inherent in EaW in some form. Probably not needed.
EaW has nothing of the sort. It's inherent that it
can't have anything of the sort, because all states are hardcoded to be monolithic (no layers) and in the same diplomatic state (war) with each other. The closest is Corey's truces (e.g. between the Empire and New Republic in the Hunt for Zsinj) and CIS factions. An EaW successor doesn't need it (though it can happen) but a GSG would have it at its very heart with everything centered on it. In my concept Pestage, Zsinj, Kaine, Delvardus, Harrsk, etc. aren't the sole entities making calculations and decisions in the simulation. Rather than a dozen such entities there'd be hundreds. Every warlord state has its subject Moffs engaged in a struggle for greater or lesser autonomy with their overlord, maybe even every Moff has a "court" in which officers vie for power. Rather than picking between a dozen choices you can play as a minor Moff, and if bold enough break free and carve your own despotate.
>This issue may not be as difficult as you'd think since we're operating on a multi-planetary level. Any planet that has the capability to support humanoid life will probably have roughly the same collection of resources, so the only difference will be planets with non-humanoid life that have very strange characteristics. You can account for weird planets by using planetary buffs and debuffs to signify an overabundance of a certain type of resource and a dearth of other types.
Like I've said it's overkill. Victoria II can simulate a backwater becoming an industrial power through social and economic change but that's not needed, first because Star Wars is relatively static and second because the time period covered is too short for much change to happen. It's no wonder Hearts of Iron, which takes place over only a decade, has a much simpler economic system than Victoria, but it does give emphasis to control of resources. Assigning an income to the system and having the controller extract a % of it determined by unrest, integration of the population, quality of administration, extent of de facto control, etc. already covers almost all that's needed. Add to that a resource system (durasteel, tibanna, bacta but also some industrial components which are only available in specific places such as robotics and capital ship parts, maybe even a "training" resource which only systems like Carida provide) and mechanics for internal administration so you can be either a competent or negligent ruler and most is already covered. I'd also have technological output in some way at the system level and then technological advancement is either from such output in total (Hearts of Iron III) or per capita (Victoria II).
But we're discussing different things, Grand Strategy is one thing, building on EaW's base is another. If you talk about modding EaW then your idea of expanding on the role of missions is promising.