Hello everyone, We will be developing an MMORTS this year but have encountered a problem. It will be a game like Ikariam but, of course, different in many ways. The map is the 7 continents and the objective is to build resources and manpower to eventually conquer the other nations. However, we want to have atleast 5000+ players in each continents. But what will these players do? they can't fight each other if they are all from one continent? How will they choose the leader of the continent? Will the other players be like "farms" gathering resources and building firepower the whole continent? Any help/idea will be cool. Thanks!

If you are wanting each continent to have peace amongst itself, I think having the players be the farmers/researchers. The players can gather materials or research new technology to build up the continents overall power. Once its time to strike the continent can arm its people to wage war. How will the choice of who to attack be made? I am thinking maybe a government would help out, perhaps the people can work through an achievement type system to make their way into the government, then the government will be the leader of the continent.

20% of your units automatically go the defense fund. By doing 'quests' (NPC gives them, stuff like raid the enemies, build up the continent's infrastructure, etc.) you can rise in the ranks of your government. When you get to high enough levels, you can use parts of the defense fund to attack enemy continents.

By itself, the defense fund units would garrison themselves at border towns and help protect them. Any spoils given to the defense fund is split among the players who's units make them up.

Some players would farm, but it should balance out among the continents.

Great inputs! We're just worried that the players will not have anything to do while they are waiting for the leader of the continent to wage war. Is farming and researching enough like what DRAIKEN said? We thought of a safe period of say 7 days to choose the leader, gather resources, and build up their units.

Choosing the leader would depend on ranks. As WAI said we can have lossless war games within the alliance or continent. Whoever wins or ranks the highest becomes the Prime Minister ( we're going with PM instead of presidents). FYI.. A continent will be divided into say 12 regions who will be led by Ministers. The regions will then be sub-divided into areas for Nth amount of players.

During the game, if the Ministers of the 12 regions aren't satisfied with the performance and leadership of the PM they could vote to oust or demote him.

On another note, the mock war games held within the alliance. What if we have battle simulations as training systems? Excellent idea of DOOMHASCOME to include NPCs in these simulations or 'quests'. They could increase their experience points in tank warfares and gunship warfares or even espionage. Once the PM needs tanks he can then choose the highest ranking squadron to be deployed to the other continents.

However, the problem we face is the task of the other players not deployed to battle. Will they stick to the game long enough to be called for a mission? Consider that these players will number in the thousands. OR will they get bored and just leave the game totally?

If you have these minor tasks (farming, etc) as mini games, then this can keep the interest of the player while they are waiting for the main event. Also, if a player is good at these mini games and not the main game, this gives them a role to take. Also if there are casual players you can set them to the mini games without them having to invest in a lot of time and effort (which causal gamers are not likely to do) and thus increase the potential player base through both novelty and with casual players.