[quote name='Luckless' timestamp='1353180649' post='5001818']Something that I have always kind of wanted to see was a game based around planning and a realistic command structure. You set goals, you design strategies, and you issue general orders with that regard. You become far more pulled back from the small details of the whole game, and then worry more about the larger picture.

The interesting thing, I always thout the same way, yet when I played HoI3 i found it inferior to HoI2 for some reason... I felt I was "not needed" there and the AI could perfectly manage without me. I wonder if it was because the whole concept is flawed or if the HoI3 implementation of that concept was poor.
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I think HOI3's issue is that they went with a model for that style of warfare that simply doesn't work well. It lacks the ability to address tactical issues that in turn allow strategic choices to be made, and their modelling of the world and combat greatly limits what you can do with regards to designing breakthroughs and delaying actions. Elements like conducting a heavy artillery barrage followed by multiple assaults on narrow fronts to push through to hold a defensive position behind an enemy line can't be modelled, but being able to design elements like that as part of your planning is something that needs to be there for a high level strategic command.

The biggest thing in my mind is that your subordinate AI needs to be smart, generally reliable, but not completely infallible. Command errors, such as the Charge of the Light Brigade, are an element that should exist. Some form of misinterpreting orders slightly, on both sides, just makes things more interesting. (Not that it should happen all the time, and not that it should always be negative. Maybe you'll order a fighter squadron to with draw, only to have them regroup at the wrong location as an enemy super-battleship appears, and you have a battle along the lines of Taffy-3's engagement at Samar, with a slim chance of a distinctly inferior force taking a slim victory.)