Here's a nice feature I was thinking of: What if there was a way to convert enemy units to own units, instead of always having to destroy them? In other words having units that defect to an enemy team under some circumstances. Obviously the golden rule is that both you and the enemy must be of the same faction.
I can think of two ways in which this could take place. One is having enemy units automatically become yours if they're low on health and underpowered, as a way of surrendering so you spare their lives. This could be done by having each unit detect the count + attack + defense of enemy and allied units in their view range. If the unit determines there's no chance to win that battle, they might offer themselves to the faction they're fighting. After all, no army has soldiers that wouldn't be betray to stay alive
Predisposition to betrayal could be influenced by certain factors. An idea might be the amount of resources you have... so if you're low on food for instance, your units might have a lower moral and turn over to enemies more easily.
The other way is making enemy conversion an attack type, and having special units do this (priests for example). When a priest approaches an enemy and begins preaching to it, that unit won't attack but stay there and listen. If the priest is allowed to talk to the enemy units for too long, that unit is convinced to join their faction. I remember seeing exactly this in another RTS years ago (I think it was Populous) and it worked nicely. But this ability should require limited mana, and certain units should be immune to preaching. Only problem is such units would be useless if you don't have an enemy of the same faction as you, unless they also have other abilities like healing.
Buildings might be a different matter since they aren't sentient beings. They can simply become yours after their health drops below a certain amount, to represent your troops taking them over. It would be cool to conquer enemy establishments during an attack instead of just destroying them, and take over castles / barracks / blacksmiths. Animals could work the same way, since pigs and cows don't care to fight for their country
I think this feature would add more depth balance and strategy, and I'd love to see any idea like this done. What do you think, and any developers willing to give it a try?
