FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION
The Game World
The choice of setting for your strategy game is a vital consideration because different players prefer different fantasies. Dress up the underlying gameplay in a different setting and it can feel like a totally different game. You can transplant the core mechanics of a strategy game into many different settings; it's practically a universal game construction kit. Will your game be set in history? The contemporary world? The future (as you anticipate it)? Or a fantasy world of your imagination?
In spite of the ease with which strategy game mechanics can be reused in a new setting, you will need to keep some important distinctions in mind.
Military strategy games, perennial favorites, tend to be set in the past—either an accurately portrayed past or one in the realms of mythology. People who play
games about historical events tend to know a lot about the pertinent history, and the more representational your game claims to be, the more closely they will scrutinize it to see if it rings true. You can get away with a certain amount of simplification (as Age of Empires did) provided that you are honest about it.
The danger here is dipping too often from the same well. So many games are set during World War II that the market has become oversaturated. Customers don't want to buy the same game again and again. However, there is always room for original approaches so long as you can make them compelling. You should at least think about moving into less common territory; consider the Korean War, the wars of Shaka Zulu, the Warring States era in Chinese history, and so on. Humanity's long and bloody history offers plenty to borrow from.
Choosing a present-day military conflict risks generating controversy and negative public opinion. Although this could gain your game some degree of notoriety, unless the game itself is a superlative addition to the gaming world, the disadvantages of such exposure greatly outweigh any advantages. In 2009, game publisher Konami announced, then withdrew, a game called Six Days in Fallujah, based on the 2004 battle in that Iraqi city. American and British war veterans, as well as peace groups, objected strongly to the game despite the designer's plans to be both accurate and respectful. (Six Days in Fallujah was actually a third-person shooter, not a strategy game, but it still illustrates the risk of making a game about a sensitive subject.)
If you want to use modern settings and weaponry, you might find it less controversial to make them fictitious. Both America's Army and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare use fictitious settings.
With a modern setting, you have to address the problem of battlefield scale. It takes foot infantry days to walk across a region that a jet fighter can fly over in a few seconds. You therefore have to choose which scale your game is really designed for and perhaps exclude units that don't work well on that scale.
