Raiding, Defending and "Battle Simulation"

The issue with launching a raid and then having to wait a day in order to get the results of the raid is that it diminishes some of the instant gratification of sending out a raid and seeing your strategy in action.

One way to handle this is by having the game play being treated as a "battle simulation" that is eventually "locked in" by the player.

Day 0

Player 1 decides to launch a raid against Player 2.

Player 1 examines Player 2's defenses, selects a mix of raiders, and then simulates an attack. After watching the simulation [which can be played back at high speed], Player 1 notices that some of his forces are having trouble getting past a certain set of towers. Player 1 adds a wave of attackers that are resistant to those towers and runs the simulation again. Player 1 can keep tweaking and simulating the assault for as little or as long as he wishes, trying to achieve maximum efficiency against a static opponent. Once content with a strategy, Player 1 locks in his attack and receives a "projected earnings estimate".

This earnings estimate is based on the success of the simulated attack against the static, existing defenses combined with the Player 2's average ability to thwart raids. So if Player 2 has a history, on average, of performing 25% better than a static defense, the earnings estimate would be 25% lower than the simulated result of a raid against the existing fortifications.

Day 1

The next day, Player 2 receives a queue of raids that includes Player 1's attack, as well as attack waves from other players. Player 2 simulates defenses. This plays out like a traditional game of tower defense, where Player 2 can keep trying different defense strategies as various attack waves come through, trying to reduce or eliminate resource loss. Player 2 can keep tweaking and simulating the defense for as little or as long as he wishes, just like playing a regular game of tower defense, trying to survive for longer and longer during each simulation. Eventually Player 2 locks in a defense strategy.

Day 2

Player 1 [and all the other attacking players] then receive any resources captured from Player 2 and get a message along the lines of "you have captured X$ worth of resources, or Y% of your projected earnings estimate"

This game structure allows for an indefinite duration of play, since players can endlessly rehearse their attack and defense plans in an effort to achieve better results - particularly on the defensive end.

Further Ideas:

It *might* be interesting [at least visually] to overlay projected and actual battles. Sort of a way to visualize the impact of decision making. Particularly if one's efforts include building or stymying/killing pathmaking engineering units.

Maybe skilled success against static defenses can gain you some sort of additional reward, even if the actual raid doesn't go as well.

"Projected earnings estimate" doesn't have to be called that, or work exactly that way. It could be an interesting gauge of success for both attacker and defender, and might help set a threshold that helps ensure that most raids aren't benign, boring or have zero chance of profit.