I have a confession. Although I haven't tried it in play yet, I love Domains at War. The thing I really like about it is that tactical and strategic level decisions are fully integrated with one another, and affect one another. I salivate at the idea of playing a tactical battle, and having losses mean something more than just victory points, but meaning you don't have those troops for later. I really like the type of battle being based on disposition and intelligence-gathering. I like that you need to consider the logistics of warfare, not just tactics. And I like the tactical battles rules well enough too. They seem to be a pretty good simulation given the relative simplicity of the rules. The key tenets of ancient/medieval warfare seem to be addressed.
I'm also a fan of intrigue in games. Deals behind closed doors, characters disappearing in the dark, backstabbing. General greyness of morals, and not being confident in who can be trusted.
So it got me to thinking. What if I:
- Did up a hex-map of Calradia, the land that the computer game Mount & Blade is set in. Logic here being it's 6 somewhat even factions.
- ACKSified it. Set out domains, city and village sizes, castle values. Some liberties would be taken, it would be assumed there were other castles and towns around, but that the ones on the map were the notable ones.
- Cut out a lot of stuff. Monsters, magic, magic weapons, levelling of characters, growth of domains, etc, in order to streamline it as a wargame.
- Got 6 players, and told them to have at it. Each player controls the king, vassals are also under the control of the players as per henchmen. Each has their own stats.
Essentially it would be a somewhat more militaristic Game of Thrones. Hopefully players would start to conspire with each other.
My RPG group has rejected the concept, and fair enough, they're in it for RPGing, not wargaming. But generally speaking, could this work, or am I crazy?