veji1 wrote:Well, with a european map of the detail level of ROP, they could with rule and slight engine alterations make games covering all periods fromm 1600 to 1920 (with a rail road overlay).
Actually antique and classic period should work too. For medieval I have some doubts but maybe with some inovative design ideas. So essentially I'd say anything from 4000BC to 2000AD (there has been some discussion about the Vietnam war, Punic and Peloponesian War mods were at one point underway (the reason they did not progress was not engine limitations, rather too small a volunteer base and possibly that no coordinators came forward)...
Of course more modern warfare would require more engine modifications. Particularly air warfare starting with the 1910's. Possibly post WWII would also require coverage of missiles and satelites (then again, one could assume a non nuclear or limited nuclear war (like they did with GDW's Third World War Series (was that GDW? 4 games, first covering Northwestern Europe, second the Balkans, third Scandinavia and the fourth Iran/Irak and co.), where they assumed that any strategic nuclear war would mean no real tactical warfare and that any tactical warfare scenario could only lead up to the point were it went all out nuclear, so no need to cover more than tactical nukes (ABC/NBC was abstracted except in the 4th game as it was assumed that native forces in that part of Asia would have outdated chemical/bacteorlogical warfare equipment, while the main forces would be sufficiently equiped not to suffer negatively from tactical chemicals...)...
Many gams could be designed by mod teams alone without (or with only minor) official support. Though of course that would require a dedicated team and almost certainly a good coordinator. One problem would probably be that many of the most likely candidates for such mod teams are also Ageod betas/volunteers already tied up in other projects (in some cases also with projects for other game companies (iirc we have a few Matrix betas here)...
Marc aka Caran...