Game Elements 2 and 3, NPC Behaviours and RPG-Like Progression

The AI, both enemy and allied, will act adaptively and have variety to it, mainly for re-playability and difficulty reasons. A way the enemy AI will do this is by having different ways of responding to threats and actions depending on the faction they are a part of and the type (class) of enemy. For example, a grunt member of the more melee based will attempt to get close and deal as much damage as possible, while a heavy weapons specialist will attempt to use explosives and deal as damage to as many units as it can. I decided upon this kind of AI since most turn-based strategy games that implement this kind of system are much more liked due to the experience of the enemy active trying to "fight back".

The AI will also attempt to adapt to the player's choices as well, doing so will make sure that they player isn't able to keep using the same strategies and for multiple missions in a row, forcing the player to be as adaptive as the AI itself. I believe that this kind of AI will make the game seem more appealing to veteran turn-based strategy players while peaking the interest of novice ones.

I also wanted to provide an interesting mechanic in which the factions within the game can actively attack each other. While the player is not in a combat scenario, the enemy faction AI will also be attempting to undermine both the player and the other enemy factions, having this in the game will grant a unique experience each time.

Moving on to player character progression, I wanted to be able to have the player create almost tailormade units, while having them still keep to a specific type system, for this I did have to do some research into game that give characters unique profiles, mainly I used Rimworld and Baldur's Gate, since characters made by Rimworld's system use backgrounds and traits to create a unique profile, while Baldur's Gate, allows characters to become specialized in specific playstyles. By fusing the both of these to some degree, I think I could make it so that the player characters are able to feel more like tools in a box instead of predefined set of stock standard units.

For the purpose of character skill progression, I had to do some more research however all of the games that I looked at tended to use the same system, a system in which, whenever the character levels up, they gain a promotion, I decided to use this system as it is a mainstay characteristic of turn-based strategy games.