@Danny, the game sounds good, I'll see if I have time for testing, and if so I'll drop you an e-mail.
@Cae, while your correct on resources and funding, there are other factors as well. Dwarf fortress began as an ascii created game and can still be played with practically no graphics, it was just a case of time and effort given over to a lot of complexity, and of course the fact that to be brutally honest up until recently (ie castaways and Time of conflict), showing that level of multiple complexity in audio was rather laborious, where as for a sighted developer they already have a massive overview of a fully realized 2D environment there anyway just by virtue of owning a monitor.
This to me is the issue I always had with Sengoku Jidai, the fact that it's fairly difficult to pause and manage sinse everything is going on at once and you suffer something of information overload, with the complexity occurring not by managing multiple levels of technical and environmental challenge in an adaptive way, but simply by getting a handle on what your hoards of minians are doing as they wander around pretty much at random, (castaways isn't turn based, but the ability to stop the clock and get an overview and to have things stop while the game speaks really helps with the overload, Castaways isn't turn based, it's tick based which is fine), I admit I have not played the game for a while.
I actually had a design thought on this problem earlier this year, a game based on zombie appocalypse survival where instead of managing hundreds of units in the space of a long period, you managed 5-10 survivers of a zombie outbreak we're alive style, and thus could deal with things like their happiness, their abilities with different jobs from searching ruins to slaying zombies, setting up power lines, building walls etc, even their entertainment and relationships.
@morecoffee, Yep, I also played Castaways for hours, and it is an expantion on the same principles that I'd like to see. For example in castaways, there are only a limited number of possible types of map tyle, you can't discover say rare deposites of resources, you don't have to care about ordinary things like the people's clothes and furniture for their houses, or things like making tools for the various jobs, or about seasons, and the disasters are limited. Also, all your population are equally good at everythin, and don't care if they slave away in the fields all day or sit around making wine. I would also love to see a game take the development phase a little further than castaways, letting you construct better versions of specific buildings and improve what you already have. Castaways is certainly the closest we've come to the style of thing I was thinking of, I'm just slightly disappointed in the fact that in the four years Castaways has been out nobody has done anything even in the same genre, (accept possibly Sengoku Jidai, which is heavily based on battle)..
@Guitarman, the game of thrones books are awsome! some people are less keen on them for reasons of slowness or being too dark, but I really enjoyed them, the book I mentioned however "world of ice and fire" isn't exactly a usual book in the series, it's a rather long history of the world the series takes place in which shows in detail a lot of the background such as where various peoples came from and the doings of various noble houses before the start of the series. Probably not everyone's cup of tea sinse I know not everyone has quite the apitite for background details as I do, though I personally really enjoyed it (my new sig is taken from there).
I don't know about book share sinse it's not available in the Uk, ---- and anyway I'm not sure if book share does audio books or e books, however audio readings of all of the game of thrones books (including the world of ice and fire history), exist read by Roy Defreese and can be found on audible.com or similar.
With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)