Turn-based strategies might suit you better.
There is a reason why they are a completely different genre of games.
I enjoyed playing Age of Wonders (all titles) because I was getting frustrated with Starcraft: Brood War.
There is a reason why they are a completely different genre of games.
I enjoyed playing Age of Wonders (all titles) because I was getting frustrated with Starcraft: Brood War.
But I also like the real-time aspect. I like the urgency. I just want something in the middle between "You can't move your hand ultra fast so you lose" and "I will spend 10 minutes considering the optimal move".
There is an itch to be scratched by people who want to fight with a balance of quick and strategic decisions. Where "quick" is fluid. For example, when your 1 second decision is a really good 1 second decision, and you realize that with 10 seconds you wont improve it much - then you want to be able to make the decision in 1 second and then not be punished by someone who took 5 seconds to make an equal decision, and spent another 5 making it only slightly better. You also dont want to be punished by people making your quick decision obsolete through brute force of action.
Basically, something that promotes thinking before acting - while also promoting thinking efficiently over thinking exhaustively.
I am not sure yet what design principles best bring this out in a game, but I have been thinking about it a lot.
turn-based is great (big civ5 fan) but it has the opposite problem - it favors the player who takes the most advantage of the turn timer.
Ive thought a lot about possible hybrids, but havent settled on anything really catchy yet. Some ideas are cooldowns instead of turns, or turn timers that are so aggressive that barely anything is accomplished each turn - but you get a lot of turns so it's okay to burn some rather than commit to a mistake