A simple "inherit from parent" checkbox for each settings dialog?
So you adjust all the settings for each, say, city in the first few rounds; then, when you have several countries, you click that box in each of the cities and from then on set it just for each country; later, click it in each country and just set for whole planets. If later you want to micromanage some specific city or country, just uncheck the box only for that one, and let all the other cities in the country / countries on the planet keep following the settings of their parent level.
That's for geographical entities. But perhaps something similar could be set by inventing hierarchical levels for more abstract concepts like technological / economic / military / research strategies. Or maybe it doesn't even need to be invented; maybe they are already bundled together in sub- and sub-sub-concepts in some games?
I don't know, I haven't played any games of this kind for... Since Civ 1 or 2, maybe mid-nineties. This came to mind because I've been thinking about doing something like this in a (totally unrelated) piece of software I'm designing in my head.
So you adjust all the settings for each, say, city in the first few rounds; then, when you have several countries, you click that box in each of the cities and from then on set it just for each country; later, click it in each country and just set for whole planets. If later you want to micromanage some specific city or country, just uncheck the box only for that one, and let all the other cities in the country / countries on the planet keep following the settings of their parent level.
That's for geographical entities. But perhaps something similar could be set by inventing hierarchical levels for more abstract concepts like technological / economic / military / research strategies. Or maybe it doesn't even need to be invented; maybe they are already bundled together in sub- and sub-sub-concepts in some games?
I don't know, I haven't played any games of this kind for... Since Civ 1 or 2, maybe mid-nineties. This came to mind because I've been thinking about doing something like this in a (totally unrelated) piece of software I'm designing in my head.
[Edit: Tpyo]