Oops. I'm in the right place, but evidently in my excitement left my brain elsewhere when doing that last post. I meant AOM. Hee hee. At least I only insulted myself by the accident.
Anyway, I'm not sure what Mandragoran was referring to as "too complicated": too complicated to program, or to complicated to play with having to balance not only "Do my resources go towards economy or military?" but also adding "or towards the next game?"
If the latter, I already suggested it be optional, default off.
As to the former, it could be done simply. Imagine a text file created when I and Hypothetical_Nemesis end a game that was played with "Long Term Rivalry" checked. The file might be named
Novelist-Rivalry-Hypothetical_Nemesis.riv
and might look something like what follows. It would be easy to program such a system.
Furthermore, it would also allow players of differing ability levels to play a fun game together because such a text file could be made with a text editor before their game starts to handicap things!
So here's my sample text file contents (again, please excuse my AOK terminology)...
---- file Novelist-Rivalry-Hypothetical_Nemesis.riv ----
[Novelist]
// Lines with double slashes are comments.
// Edit this file to "handicap" a game.// ** These first options are adjusted in a past game by game play. **
BankFood=203
BankWood=167
BankGold=0
BankStone=221
// Last game resources were "tributed" to this player's bank pool.
// This pool, like the farm cue pool, is not located in a building.
// As long as one In-Bank was built this pool slowly decreased
// over time. The above numbers are 10% of how much of each
// resource was successfully "deposited" in this manner.
//
// In this next game, this player can build an Out-Bank, which
// works just like any other resource, in that villagers take
// resources from it and bring them to a town center.
// Once an Out-Banks is built, if all Out-Banks are destroyed
// then the resources above are lost.
SleepingUnits=5
// Last game a certain unit was created which never materialized
// in-game. This game once a certain technology is researched the
// "sleeping" units will appear beside the building that researched
// that required technology.
StartNomadLike=False
// If this value is true, this player last game researched a
// technology that allows him or her to start this game with
// no town center but bonus resources equal to the cost of a
// town center.
// ** These latter options are not adjusted by game play.
// They are only for "handicapping" games by using a text editor
// to manually adjust the figures. **
InitialBonusFood=0
InitialBonusWood=0
InitialBonusGold=0
InitialBonusStone=0
InitialBonusVillagers=0
// Changing these values allows one player to start with more.
UniversalBonusDamage=0
UniversalBonusSlashArmor=0
UniversalBonusPierceArmor=0
// These are dedicated to those gamers whose young children
// want to play against them.
// Change these values to make all this player's units stronger.
// Use with caution!
[Hypothetical_Nemesis]
<and the file would have the same set of options for this second player...><extending the concept to games with more than two players would work in an obvious way, except naming the file would be done differently>