[Ductape]

First off, I am not a ps1 vet so my ideas are based off of what I have read and seen. Also all times referenced would be realtime, not gametime. My primary inspiration for the idea is the buying of additional territory hexes in Civ 5 where each territory has a "pricetag."

I was thinking of something where there is an immediate resource bonus upon capture of a hex. A "bounty" if you will on territories. Based on what resources the territory produces, this will fluctuate, and increase up to a maximum cap based on how long the territory has been held by a faction. The bounty cap would also decrease based on how many hexes it is from the front, up to 4 or so hexes. This would make rapid expansion very profitable in the short run. A Hex would take 8 hours or so to change status so that a breakthrough results in a high return.

However these new acquisitions would not start generating steady resources until a long timer is completed, say 4 days. During this time they do not provide anything, explained by a rebuilding of infrastructure and forming supply lines. This would help to prevent empires from becoming the dominant empire overnight. The off-peak hours would now be very profitable raiding times but would be harder to hold come peak hours. This would also make ganging up on an empire a prolonged affair, and a major effort would have to be made by the 2 empires to avoid having things become business as usual.

A hex would also begin to drop in status if it has not seen an attack in 24 hours or so. This serves a dual purpose, stopping empire team ups, and making sure battles are fought across the entire front.

It would be the counter measure to empires ganging up against the remaining empire because by the time the newly captured squares become resource generators, the rear uncontested borders would have a large bounty. Because the 2 empires are fighting across half of the territory, their resource incomes would be much smaller than fighting both empires. When the profit of empire cooperation starts to become meagre and its harder to keep up the assault, the plump back borders of the allied empire will start to grow in appeal.

I also believe that the encouraged shifting of battlegrounds will make all areas see combat, keeping the variety and make breakthroughs more common, increasing the tension in game play over all as players rush to defend the weak spots.

All these times are guesses and estimations but I think that the ratio should remain similar. Also it may be a good idea to insert a defense bonus after a hard fought battle where some resources can be earned by holding territory from enemy and harvesting the wreckage.