Capture the enemy capital and/or the enemy leader, and it doesn't matter how many troops the losing side has left: you have won, they have lost, this is now your land, and that army that used to fight you is now your army.

That uh, isn't true at all.  Especially that last bit, "That army that used to fight you is now your army".  It's more like, that army that used to fight you in official battles will now fight a long, grueling guerrilla war against you.  It takes a long time to unify people, and standing armies have to remain behind to put down rebellions, etc.  Look at the Iraq War and occupation thereof.   Or Napoleon's invasion of Egypt.

Most competetive RTSes end in "gg" and one team surrendering rather than playing until every single building is dead.  That's the gaming equivalent of this.

Whether this happens for an entire match (ala StarCraft) or if there is a higher level 'campaign' or 'war' layer wrapped on top of it doesn't matter.

9 hours ago, ferrous said:

That uh, isn't true at all.  Especially that last bit, "That army that used to fight you is now your army".  It's more like, that army that used to fight you in official battles will now fight a long, grueling guerrilla war against you.

That does happen sometimes.  It doesn't always happen, at least not to the same degree, and if you're writing the game, you can choose to either let it happen or not let it happen.

Historically, there were all sorts of factors that influenced if this happened, such as:

• The loyalty of the army.  (Paid mercenaries are likely to join the conqueror, soldiers with personal loyalty primarily to the previous ruler are not.  Soldiers with loyalty to the country could go either way.)
• The perceived legitimacy of the conqueror's rule.
• Quality of life under the conqueror, as compared to the previous ruler.
• The realistic chances of driving the conqueror out.

Regardless, dealing with local unrest is fundamentally a different proposition than fighting an opposing army.  Even if the local rebellion is eventually successful in driving out the invaders, this doesn't do the previous ruler any good if he has been killed in battle or captured and executed.  So if the game is about the conflict between rulers A and B, then the game is over with a victory for A if B is captured and killed, even if A will ultimately fail to hold on to the conquered land.

There are multiplayer games where once you defeat an enemy by capturing their base, you gain all their resources. Others you gain their resources but all come at a reduced rate, or come to you damaged.

Gaining their resources can be a factor in larger games. You may defend against a larger opponent but focus mainly on defeating smaller opponents.  Or you may attempt to strategically attack a powerful opponent while you know they are sending resources elsewhere. When different players have different types of resources you may target opponents not because of their immediate power but because a combination of resources will improve your standing.

These aren't just new games. Long-established games like Monopoly (played by the official rules) use the tactic. A bankrupt player turns their assets over to their creditor, which can make the creditor extremely powerful in the game. If the creditor is the bank, all the assets are auctioned off which can help a cash-heavy player tip the scales. Further, a player can strategically help to bankrupt a heavily mortgaged opponent to another of their opponents.  Since the creditor must pay a penalty for mortgaged assets transferred to them, the automatic payments due to acquisition can cause a trickle-down bankruptcy.  In turn this leads to a secondary strategy of purposely mortgaging property in the hope of becoming a poison pill, others do not want to bankrupt you because of the damage they will inflict on themselves.  Thus the complete acquisition of the opponent's resources can dramatically impact the game, perhaps in favor over their victor or damaging their victor in a Pyrrhic victory.

Resource acquisition can be a powerful feature in a game.

On 11/17/2017 at 9:02 PM, Hodgman said:

Yeah, watch some starcraft 2 esports matches. If two armies engage 100%, one will get wiped out, which leaves the loser defenceless, leading to a loss... So that simply doesn't happen because it's bad strategy. Instead, players identify whether they can decisively win the battle or not, and if not, they retreat. Often neither side can decisively win, so there's lots of small skirmishes and hit and run attacks where both sides retreat. 

While retreating, your time to receive reinforcements reduces and your proximity to defensive buildings increases, which often tips the scales in your favour enough that now your opponent must stop chasing you and themselves retreat. This swings back and forth until a tactical slight of hand disrupts the balance. 

Often, there's an eventual large battle that decides the match, which usually doesn't eliminate a player's army, but puts them into a situation that they know is unwinnable, (due to economic/industry/technology supremacy of their opposition - e.g. Knowledge that their tank production rate is not high enough to survive the *next* battle) so they type "gg wp" and concede defeat. 

Its only at lower ranked levels of play where people don't understand the game where anyone actually loses via elimination. 

Couldn't have said it better myself. From what I gathered, you want a realistic, historical simulation rts right? Much of a war, especially during the Great War (WWI) is getting caught in stalemates. You can fight for months on end, losing troop after troop and gain no ground in the skirmishes. Starcraft 2's matches can very much reflect these stalemates, while also making the game entertaining.

If you want to "get rid of an army" but still want to only actually "kill" 10 % of it to keep a realistic feel, you can have large parts of the loosing army disband (this is pretty historically correct). They return to their farms after being discouraged/loose faith in their leader.

The end effect for gameplay is very similar (the loosing army gets removed from the game, or severely weakened), but you can keep death rates in the actual battle down. However, the winning army is now almost at the same strength (loosing only 5-10% of their men) so you still have a gameplay problem. 

Autoresolving in warhammer total war had this problem: you win and get rid of the  other army, but your army looses nearly nothing.