[dogscoff]

It has often been discussed, and it would be really cool, but I think it would make the whole game ridiculously complicated. MIcromanagement hell. I suppose if you had a decent AI minister to take over for you if you didn't want to handle it yourself...

The other factor is the storage space. Savegames and maps would take up huge amounts of disk space and take forever to download.

I would like to see a few more variables thrown into ground combat though. I'd like rock planet races to fight at a disadvantage on gas planets, for example. Native breathers should get a combat bonus too, and various other changes that have been discussed, especially concerning orbital bombarment.

Now for SEV.... Imagine this:

How about if SEV was designed as a hugely huge massively-multiplayer Online universe, constantly operating in accelerated realtime whether you're Online or not (ie a fleet might take a real-life week to get from A to B) with campaigns that go on for (RL) years. The game universe would be insanely vast, and empires would eventually become too huge and complex for a player to operate on their own. You'd have "teams" playing each empire, and one team member could dedicate their time to ground combat on a huge, planetary sub game like the one you describe. Maybe even one general per planet, if it were complex enough.

Man, just imagine... that would be sooooo cool.

Of course, we'd all be single inside of a month...