The base-mechanics you chose to build your game upon aren't really meant for "strategy". The current system is, as you already pointed out, a wash-rinse-repeat system.
To add a deeper level of strategy would require a fundamental change.
Strategy is mainly achieved by forcing important decisions whit a limited resource on the player. You current game-model doesn't do that. Everything is pretty straight forward.
- Turns are only used for attacking
- Gold is a universal resource/currency
- Units are too similar to each other
TurnsIf I understood your game correctly, you attack a player and this uses a certain amount of turns. That's it.
The way you use turns doesn't force a player to make a decision. It only prevents him from attacking every single player in the game during a short time period. This could also be achieved by adding a time-period between attacks. If you are looking to add more complexity, this would be the start.
Example 1: Updates Let updates consume not only gold, but also money. This forces a new decision on the player (attack and gain money/exp or improve something for more gain later on). Of course this is only an illusion since turns are regenerated every 30 mins, but if you balance it correctly, the player will have to make an important decision here.
Example 2: Building / RecruitingAgain, same change as above.
Different mechanicsAs I'm writing this, some things are passing through my head and they could be used to accomplish a more decision-oriented enviroment for the player. The system will still use turns, but different types of turns.
4 types of turns:
- Raw Turns(RwT)
- Attack Turns (AT)
- Research Turns(RT)
- Build Turns(BT)
Every 30 minutes, the player recieves an amount of RwT. RwT are an unusable form of turns, meaning the player can't do anything with it. However, those RwT can be converted in the other 3 forms of turns. These froms of turns can be used just like I called them. AT for attacking, RT for researching/updating and BT for recruiting/building.
You could even add it so that the exchange rates from RwT to the other types of turns can vary and be influenced by the player.
Gold/ResourcesWhile I'm actually quite fond of the idea of using only one resource, it doesn't promoted a lot of strategy.
If you were to split it up into 3 or even only 2 resources, the player would have to make more decisions to establish a working economy, especially if the resources are of unequal importancy. If gold is broken up in gold, wood and food the players could start traiding between them or even specialize in a certain area.
UnitsYour current units only distinguish themselves in the ability to either attack, defend or do both. Again, I'd support this kind of thinking, but it isn't enought to present the player with a decent choice-catalogue. If you want to force more decisins onto the player I suggest you split up the 2 groups (attack and defend) into sub-groups.
Here's a list of what I'm thinking of for the attack sub-group
- Unit A with attack type 1 and strong defence against 3, mediocre against 1 and weak against 2
- Unit B with attack type 2 and strong defence against 1, mediocre against 2 and weak against 3
- Unit C with attack type 3 and strong defence against 2, mediocre against 3 and weak against 1
Of course, this is only a very quick and hevily unbalanced list, but you get the picture of having boni and mali to each unit against a certain other type.
Yep, I think I'm done with my current train of thought. Hope this helps out a bit.
