An idea that I’ve been kicking around for a little while now, that I know I’m probably never going to work on, is a Pokémon Real-Time Strategy game in the vein of Warcraft 2 (not 3).
The idea is, you train trainers in a manner similar to training units in most RTS games, then send them into forests, caves, grassy areas, etc to find and catch Pokémon to use in battle. A trainer will only be allowed 3 Pokémon in their party for simplicity’s sake, and because that’s the most number of Pokémon you can send into battle at once.
Each Pokémon can be trained by sending the trainer back to an area with wild Pokémon, or by battling enemy trainers; the latter leveling them up faster, if they survive. Each Pokémon will also be able to learn up to four simplified moves: A “physical” (melée) attack, a “special” (ranged) attack, a status attack (equivalent possibly to area effect spells in a lot of fantasy RTSs) and a HM move that can be used on the world, rather than an enemy. The “physical” and “special” attacks will have the same type as the Pokémon using them, and get stronger as they level up. A certain species of Pokémon (or possibly each trainer, instead) may also specialize in either “physical” or “special” attacks, making one stronger and the other weaker. In this way you have separate melée and ranged units.
The HMs have to be taught to specific Pokémon, perhaps by sending their trainers to a dedicated HM-teaching building. The four main HM moves will be Cut, Strength, Surf and Fly, just like the Pokémon games. Each of these moves has a special use, and will not be used in battle. Cut will allow a Pokémon to gather resources from a Forest. Essentially making that Pokémon’s trainer a resource-gathering unit. Similarly, Strength will allow the Pokémon to gather resources from a cave or mine. Surf will allow that Pokémon, and therefore its trainer, to travel over water at the cost that the traveling Pokémon will not be able to battle while in use. So on water, the trainer can only use two Pokémon at a time. The same theory applies to Fly, allowing the trainer to become an airborne unit, at the cost of one battling Pokémon.
There will be four main resources to collect, which are generally pretty typical of any RTS. There will be gold and stone gathered by Strength-knowing Pokémon in caves or mines. There will also be wood and Apricorns gathered by Cut-knowing Pokémon in forests. Gold, stone and wood will be used as in most RTSs to build buildings, train trainers, research upgrades, etc. The new thing here is Apricorns. Once gathered, Apricorns are fashioned into pokéballs, and used by trainers to catch wild Pokémon. But one Apricorn does not necessarily mean one caught Pokémon, as each Pokémon may use a few Apricorns to catch, depending on that Pokémon’s catch rate.
That describes the basics, for now. There’s more, but I shall fill in the details at a later date.
