Option to carry over troops/resources from one game to the next one (could be good for campaigns)

[Grautvornix]

A bit of a strange idea possibly, but could it be interesting  having an option to carry over a number of (or even all remaining) troops and/or resources after winning a game into the next one?

This could be e.g. a selectable option to use this as starting conditions for the next game.  For balancing, of course, all other parties in whatever SP or MP would need to be given equal resources/troops to start with (with an equal mix).

With this, a campaign like e.g. "Alexander the great" could depend a lot on previous performance. But also general games could get an interesting start. The better my own performance during the last game (i.e. the more experience+ resources my own civ would have gathered) the more powerful my opponent would be. Strategy would still be very important as having a larger army does not necessarily warrant victory. 

One could even imagine that a starter condition could be saved and activated if so desired - always with the condition that all opponent shave the same.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Perhaps the player can save resources in the grand strategy mode and before each battle assign (pre setting) a percentage of materials (resources) and troops.

Those troops and resources would be results of a previous game.

[Grautvornix]

Yep, that would also be cool!

 

Let me provide some more thoughts and discussion:

As an example, when winning a game, I have 30 elite cav + 30 melee + 10 hoplites + 1 hero and 3k Wood, 500 metal, 920 stone, 12k food. The next game would provide me with exactly these resources  - but also all other players of that game with exactly the same troops and resources. Everyone would then start at an elevated level. Could that lead to new strategic options? Most likely.

The fundamental question will certainly be, how to preserve balance between players (whether AI or human). The issue might be that different civs have different strengths (cav, skirmish, elephants, naval, etc.), so that direct comparison might be more difficult.

On the othert hand, I might have been able to use the advantages of the previous map for my civ, but the next map might have different characteristics and that previous strategy does not work anymore (e.g. less wood or no metal but a lot of stone). Naval maps would not allow a follow-on non-naval map unless the ships were left behind (like in reality).

While for SP this can certainly be achieved, I am not so sure for MP games as each player would want to keep his own previous "achievements". 

I therefore belive such mechanism would make sense rather more for SP and campaigns than for MP games, and particularly not for rated MP games (that are subject to dispute all the time already). 

Technology tree:

If I had completely researched everything in the previous game and if I inherit that in full, what else can I do except focussing on strategy (good) and possibly producing more/different units (difficult if the respective production building does not exist at the beginning -> to be built).

Probably I am thinking too complex here. Best might be to inherit a population and resources but no the technology tree?

Discussing all this, I am not sure anymore this idea can be easily implemented but will rather change a lot of the game's mechanics unless we introduce some constraints on "heritability" of resources, e.g. no buildings, no ships.