Could you please add a TL;DR section to the question?

Sure thing, will do.

Both could work. The best option would probably come down to what you want your game to play like, how exactly this will work, how this interacts with other mechanics and play-testing.

There are a couple of questions you can ask: will scaling squares mean scaling everything up so it feels like nothing is any bigger (which is bad)? Or would you only scale the squares, in which case do you still expect players to place individual buildings when they get to a 500 km x 500 km square? How exactly would you transition to bigger squares? Would you keep the smaller ones? Would other players just suddenly appear / disappear since your level determines who you can see? How many squares would you need to manage at any given point with each approach?

Hi Dukeling, and thanks for your questions: No, not everything scales up equally. Yes, only the squares scale so individual buildings still need to be placed regardless of square size. You transition to larger squares simply by acquiring more squares. You (sort of) keep smaller squares - 25 small squares is equivalent to 1 5x5 square, which is roughly in the same position as the 25 small squares. Yes, players would just suddenly appear/disappear as you level up/down. Number of squares with my model is about 25 at each level; with his model it could (in theory) be up to 26 million.

What happens if you "level up" into territory occupied by another player of the same "level"? Do you immediately "slice" their territory down, or is there some form of conflict resolution - if so, how do you prevent players being "stuck" at a point where levelling up causes them to conflict an establish player, and immediately lose 90% of their territory & resources through "bad luck"?

@Arj You should also think about the above questions in terms of how players will experience this. For example, it could be quite time-consuming / boring to fill a 500 km x 500 km square with individual buildings, and painful to lose one (if possible). Creating the perfect square layout and plan only to have everything change when you level up and potentially ending up in a very bad position won't be the best user experience (other games, e.g. Spore, has a clearer separation between levels). How different is the gameplay for different "levels"? If it's too similar it might feel repetitive.

The different approaches are useful for achieving different objectives. Its hard to give a meaningful answer to this question without understanding the end goal. It also seems like there are plenty of other ways to handle territory systems that are excluded by the emphasis this question places on the initial design disagreement.

How many alpha testers do you have? Are there enough that you can have Group A test your approach, Group B test his approach, and possibly a Group C that can test both? You mentioned that you have already coded, implemented, and tested your approach and also that his approach is simple. Perhaps after some tester reviews one of you might change your mind. If not, maybe @MarcosZolnowski's idea will work rather than scrapping the whole project.

@Chronocidal That's an excellent question, and something that I've built into the game mechanics. First, it's an RTS, so encouraging conflict is obviously beneficial. If Player A "levels up" while within Player B's territory, yes they slice off that portion of Player B's territory. Since they are now at the same power level, Player A has annoyed Player B, and Player B will probably retaliate. With my model however, Player A can check to see if they are within another player's territory, and if so, choose to start acquiring territory slightly outside the other player's borders to avoid conflict

@Dukeling Thanks, we thought about the problem of having to (very slightly) change a player's territory "shape" as they levelled up, but we both agreed that this is a pretty small price to pay, and the larger territory almost always subsumes the smaller territory anyway so would unlikely to ever be a major issue. BTW, you can't "fill" a 500kmx500km square with buildings - like in other RTS' you have both a building cap and exclusion radius, so building in larger squares is not too different to building in small squares. It is definitely painful to lose a large square though (intentionally)!

@Dukeling Also, gameplay is quite different at different levels. You unlock more powerful units (e.g. aircraft so you can cover larger distances), larger buildings, can tap into larger resources like oil fields etc. My whole idea is that when you are at the highest levels, conflict feels a lot more "global" whereas at lower levels you feel more like you're fighting house to house. This is also part of the reason I guess I believe my approach is better, because with fixed squares these different aspects of conflict are lost.

@lordMartlet Not that many right now, maybe 30-40. I would love to do some A/B/C testing but I worry with these numbers the results would not be statistically significant. Also, when I said his approach was "simple" I meant simple in concept. Re-coding now is a non-trivial exercise; even moreso if I have to maintain 2 (or 3) codebases.

What do your alpha testers say about it? I mean, if you're this close to release, you have had alpha testers try it out right? RIGHT?

@corsiKa Yes, we've had alpha testers try it out :) But this is a new feature and we were going to release it along with the new player tutorial which we are just now finalising. Up until now, territory acquisition has always been at the 5m square edge size. We were always planning on "somehow making territory bigger" as it's obviously impossible to capture more than a few hundred squares without getting completely frustrated with the game ;)

Had as in past tense? Hmmmm... found the problem!

@corsiKa I didn't mean that we had alpha testers who hated the game and then left ;) There just hasn't been enough content up until now to sustain more than maybe an hour or two of play (for example, see my comment about the slow pace of territory acquisition) so our alpha testers play the game, give us some feedback, we work on that feedback, then release the next version for them to play.

@user16408 The reason I'm excluding other territory systems is because I don't think it's helpful to do so at this point in time. We have established functionality that we don't agree on. I think it's better to try and reach agreement (and in my opinion, modify existing code rather than starting from scratch), rather than introduce the complexity of a whole new approach (which feels very much the same as starting from scratch). Sure, if we absolutely can't see eye to eye and both decide on a whole new approach, that's fine. But I don't think it should be an option straight away.

Your approach had a very EVE-esque feeling to me, where you can have a small corp with only one or few POSes, which is part of an alliance owning outposts, which probably is part of a faction holding large swathes of the map. It feels very organic and at first glance it seems a very interesting concept.

@Polygnome Thanks very much for your feedback. I never played EVE - not because it's not my type of game (it totally is), but because I knew I'd have to basically sign my life away ;)

@Arj That is why I stopped ;)

I wanted to toss into the mix that I was a bit surprised that the question states the game is "close to launching". I think it's fairly clear it's not

@TimHolt You're right, it's not close to commercial launch - we are launching an alpha. I mention it in the text but I've now clarified it in the TL;DR.

@Zizy Archer The reason we are now looking to expand the territory system is for the reason you stated - at 5m edge size, you'll unlikely encounter anyone else's territory (even though your units may engage other units/buildings), so we wanted a system whereby within a few levels players would be engaging each other in a fight for territory, not just a fight with units.

@Bilkokuya The original design just stated that territorial expansion would be part of the game. The game has had 5m edge size squares since its inception, and both of us knew we wanted to make it "bigger", somehow, at some point. That point is now, since we've completed and tested all other main facets of the game (HQ placement, resource gathering, building construction, unit creation, movement, combat etc.).

@Bilkokuya There are too many other types of territory systems to list, from hex/square grids in Civ, to blobs like in Rise of Nations, to no real territory at all like in Age of Empires. Territory is definitely a major part of our game - it's not an afterthought.

@Bridgeburners 2) Players always have the option to "look up and down" to examine who holds what territory on the map at what level. You do this by +/- buttons, where if you hit + you can see what territory is owned by players at 1 map level higher than you.