So I've had an idea for a game recently. I've always loved the turn-based gameplay of games like Total War or Civ, but I've always felt like the realism was missing. What I've thought've recently was making an RTS game in which the battlefield was an entire county or state, and from a distance you'd get the traditional grid-based movement and gameplay as well as dice-based combat based on a unit's stats, but when you zoomed in, you'd get the traditional 3rd-person detached view.
From the Commmand view, infantry units would be labeled by their insignia on a map, and everything would look like the tactical map you'd see in real life, but when you zoomed in you could see individual units, and the true chaos you were unleashing. Thus, you could get massive firefights for entire cities, seeing how big the map was, as well as thousands of units making combat, but not have to starcraft-multitask and be able to scroll around and view individual units fight just for cool views before jumping back into combat.
So basically, Sins of a Solar Empire set in Ancient/medieval Times. You know, if we're being technical, such a game does exist. It's called Spore :P
Kidding aside, have you ever played anything created by Paradox Interactive? I think they may satiate your particular taste of games. It's not exactly as you have described it, but it is pretty close in terms of depth, detail, and completely random real world shit fucking you over. They're also pretty historically accurate, even going as far as to simulate real world
tribes in the middle east and africa during the 1700s.
Check out the following games:
Europa Universalis - Takes place from 1400s - 1800s. Has 3 Expansion Packs
Crusader Kings - 1000s - 1400s
Victoria: Empire Under the Sun - 1800s to World War I. 1 Expansion
Hearts of Iron - Era of World War II. 3 Expansions.
