Planning out a Multicross Self-Insert with Real-Time Strategy powers. Ideas for settings which correspond to Age of Empires 2's tech level (~1400s)?

[Haydn Waterman]

I've tried SB, SV, and even the fanfiction-specific subReddit and gotten no responses, may as well try it here too. Apologies if this is the wrong place to post, I have no idea where to put this.

So there's a whole bunch of RTS's out there, and I want to do a story where the SI wakes up in an appropriate setting with an AoE1 Town Center, is 'conveniently' put in an awkward position with the locals (seriously, how was he supposed to know that the 'bandits' who killed his Scout were the Kingsguard escorting Aerys the Second to Duskendale to deal with Denys' refusal to pay his taxes?), and has to use his resource-gathering and unit-spamming abilities to 'conquer' the land/s (the Seven Kingdoms).

But RTS settings are kinda bullshit (Units have unlimited stamina and ammunition, suffer no consequence from injury until they abruptly drop dead, and don't get me started on Priests), especially with the Return of Rome variant upping the population cap to 500. So I was looking at other settings to drop the SI into, keeping his old 'Tech Trees' and their separated Population Caps intact but adding new systems with much more dangerous Units, and I stalled out on an early question.

AoE1's Tech Tree caps around the Fall of Rome in ~400AD, a 'fair' matchup for Game of Thrones' pre-gunpowder science. AoE3 takes place with a Tech Tree that reaches the Industrial Revolution, with Musketeers and Cannon I was going to put against Familiar of Zero's ~1700s Halkeginia. And most other RTS games take place in their own microcosm's (Starcraft/Warcraft in the Koprulu Sector/Azeroth, Command and Conquer/Homeworld and their self-contained settings, Dune and Tolkein's respective RTS games fit well into their army-centric lore, etc).

But where do I place AoE2, which has Gunpowder Units like Hand Cannoneers and Cannon Galleons (around the divide between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, right before guns became standard in modern warfare around the 1500s)? What about other original settings like Age of Mythology's fantastical elements, or Supreme Commander and Total Annihilation's endgame Clarketech (and WH40K's setting is already taken because they have their own RTS's to pull from)? And what RTS's and Settings can the community think of where 'conventional ' armies are fielded, and a random with the power to field armies of their own at impossible rates is an OCP but not undefeatable, would make 'good matchups' or interesting interactions?

Once I've moved on, I don't want to go 'backwards' in Power Levels very often unless it's a 'vacation setting', or they have some unexpected abilities of their own that allow them to match-up fairly against the SI's armies, so any considerations should be listed before I go further than the first AoE1 vs GoT matchups.

 

[TrahKartolo]

Speaking of GoT like setting (in power), but less annoying. What about games? Final fantasy tactic?
Magic isn't that overpowered, its all about civil war adjacent shenanigans, also based on war of the roses just like GoT.
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For setting on which this applies:

a random with the power to field armies of their own at impossible rates is an OCP but not undefeatable, would make 'good matchups' or interesting interactions?

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What about CDDA? A post apoc game where alien space goo revive the dead as something akin to necromorphs, but less overpowered. Due to the feds messing up with barrier of reality, which caused extradimensional intruder aliens and phenomenon to pop up around. Local humans 99% wiped out, but survivors are still extant. Your mc would 'rule' the setting on which a glorified human bandit/bikers gang dominate, but wouldn't be overpowered from the setting because there are many, many aliens from the portal storms which have wrecked the world: zombies (really just an alien goo puppeted biomass), literal world jumper cyborg factions, alien-goo powered mutated (and or gigantified) insects, and more.
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[Haydn Waterman]

Final fantasy tactic

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I hadn't considered that one, I'll give it a look.

What about CDDA?

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Cataclysm's not a bad game or a bad setting, but it doesn't have any one-to-one comparisons with an RTS army running 1400's technology (everything is either way higher in tech and a huge threat, way lower in tech and not a threat at all, or has magic which is so wildly inconsistent that it would probably not fit the Conventional Army vs RTS Army dynamic I'm looking for), nor are there many Canon characters to interact with, nor is the setting mainstream enough for most people to point at and say "oh yeah, I know those characters, and I'm invested in seeing how they react to being run down by a seemingly-limitless RTS Army".

And even if there were, the goal is less to 'rule' and more to 'fight whoever's currently in power, then get sent off to the next setting to defeat the ruling armies there too', while maybe leaving behind their 'most recent' type of Units/Buildings as a smaller standing army if he feels like tipping the remaining balance of power or giving someone the "don't make me come over there" treatment.

Ex: Game Of Thrones has a copy of their AoE1 stuff left behind, SETTING2 has a copy of their AoE2 stuff left behind (but not their AoE1 stuff, effectively halving his maximum force-of-arms in that setting), Familiar Of Zero has a copy of their AoE3 stuff left behind (but not their AoE1 or AoE2 stuff, severely limiting his force projection), etc.

 

[Zombie 3xecutor]

it depends on the type of setting you would like, something with plenty of background and established lore or less lore but more creative freedom.
possible options:
Game worlds:
Armed and dangerous- guns, weird tech, magic and classic lionhead humor
Bladestorm- 100 year war, merc commanders, early gunpowder weapons
Divinity- high magic, no gun powder, gods and fantasy
Dragon age- fantasy, gunpowder weapons and plenty of opportunities for claiming territory following the game events
Elder scrolls-no gunpowder but steam powered mechanicals
Fable- gunpowder weapons in the later titles, magic and fantasy, British humor.
Fallout- plenty of gunpowder weapons, high tech, lots of guilt free targets
Witcher- magic and fantasy, easy enemy in not-German empire
Monster Hunter- giant overpowered monsters, gunpowder weapons, giant weapons,
Warhammer Fantasy

TV/Film worlds:
Anime/manga- free choice, too many to name them all
Asterix and Obelix- superpowered gauls, villian romans at peak power
RWBY- super powered teens, evil shadow monsters, low magic
Avatar: Airbender- steam powered tech, mystic powers, spirits
Star Gate
Star Trek
Star Wars- has an RTS game: Star wars Galactic Battlegraounds- uses AoE engine.
any zombie franchise
Battlestar Galactica

Book Worlds:
Discworld- magic, British humor, plenty of lore and characters to interact with.
Game of thrones
Lord of the rings/The Hobbit- low magic, fantasy, no true gunpowder weapons.

not an exhaustive list but some ideas and options. looking forward to what you post.

 

[Haydn Waterman]

it depends on the type of setting you would like, something with plenty of background and established lore or less lore but more creative freedom.
possible options:
Game worlds:
Dragon age- fantasy, gunpowder weapons and plenty of opportunities for claiming territory following the game events
Elder scrolls-no gunpowder but steam powered mechanicals
Fable- gunpowder weapons in the later titles, magic and fantasy, British humor.
Fallout- plenty of gunpowder weapons, high tech, lots of guilt free targets
Witcher- magic and fantasy, easy enemy in not-German empire

Anime/manga- free choice, too many to name them all

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The type of setting I'm looking for (for the second and fourth settings, which should share a similar level of 'army strength') is one with Army-vs-Army battles limited to a certain scope (~14th Century-level, just barely into the 'experimenting with gunpowder weaponry' phase), and ideally with some sort of plot to forcibly bounce the SI off of. For their first setting (GoT, as in my first post, so let's take that one off the list too), they have access to a 500-strong quickly-replenished army with tech from the peak of the Roman Empire (~400AD, lots of Scythe Chariots/Chariot Archers since Food and Wood are easy to gather).

For their second, they keep the same Age of Empires 1 army and gain an additional 500-Population-Cap to fill from AoE2 that uses medieval Knights, Arbalest Crossbows, Trebuchets/Catapults, and has just started to dip its toes into Gunpowder technology with Bombard Cannon Siege Weapons, Cannon Galleon Siege Ships, Bombard Tower Fortifications, and '13th century Chinese' Hand Cannoneer 'Archers'.

• Monster Hunter ain't no Army-vs-Army setting, so not that one.
• Asterix & Obelix is a bit comedic for the tone I'm going for (despite the nostalgia for the old comics), so also no. Same for Armed & Dangerous.
• Games like Star Wars: Empire At War and Total War: Warhammer Fantasy are being reserved for when he gets sent to those settings, same as Warhammer 40K, Starcraft, Supreme Commander, etc.
• Divinity is high fantasy and has active gods way out of the league of a thousand-strong RTS army of drones, mostly because of the DnD RPG mechanics. Discworld is a similar reason, though I'd reach the conclusion for somewhat different reasons (the ubiquity of reality-warping magic, for one).
• RWBY's an interesting idea, but the SI would need the powers of an RTS that can generate resources renewably or he'd run out in an endless war with the Grimm. Plus, something for Salem's Immortality.
• Various zombie franchises are a very interesting idea, I might come back to a few of those.
• Several other suggestions, like Stargate/Star Trek/Battlestar Galactica, either have their own RTS games to pull from later in the SI's journey, or are way too high tech for him to meaningfully compete with at present. Imagine going up against Warhammer 40K (which thankfully has it's own RTS games) with no way off your starting planet and no defense from orbital bombardment or cyclonic torpedoes.
• AtlA... huh. That might be a winner? Not sure, I'll do some more research. Same for LotR, and Bladestorm... eh, I'm not a fan of 'real life' settings being used in this fic, no 'X-Factor' to bounce off of.

The rest of the settings I haven't removed from the quote above will get some more consideration, but I'm a bit iffy since I'll need to do some research. Fallout and the Elder Scrolls, being Bethesda games, aren't known for giving a good scale of the armies/numbers involved with any of the Factions, I don't know how much thought Dragon Age and Fable put into their number-crunching worldbuilding, and I don't know enough about the Witcher but that might be a good candidate for Age of Mythology's more magical focus, honestly.

If you have any specific examples of well-thought-out Anime/Manga/Manhua/whatever, I'll hear them, but you're right that there's way too many to sort the wheat from the chaff myself.

 

[Dead patriot]

Yona of the dawn is a good early setting with very little magic and a protagonist in need of an army in the first year of the story