I actually agree. Also, there seems to be a divide in my head between “published rules” and “house-rule suggestions/idle musings”. Getting it from the lead game designer himself certainly helps, but you just can’t beat the authority of a published supplement.
I love the sound of both of these. Especially if 2 allows for quickly running 20-30 pcs + henches vs 50-100+ monsters (something I’ve seen coming up with relative frequency in my own campaign).
Wait - isn’t that what the simplistic combat resolution in Domains At War is for?
I’m not terribly concerned about whether something is “official” or not. To me that’s all up to the Judge anyway. Because of that I really appreciate how Alex has been answering questions that aren’t simply clarifications on currently published material. He has been consistently providing not so much official rulings as how he would adjudicate, and more importantly, why, detailing the thinking behind his judgements.
That’s remendously useful to me, as such logical extrapolations help illustrate how I might go about making any sort of comparable ruling, or how I might want to change things to achieve a different result.
When I read the commentary from the Grim Fist campaign, and it kinda hand-waves over the process of the party clearing out hex after hex, I wonder if they actually role play all of those battles, or if Cameron had figured out a way to abstract them since the Fist is so high level at this point.
If Dungeons at War is a way to make those hex clearing expeditions fun for everyone without being time consuming, I am all for it.
Auran Empire at War does sound interesting, and I think I’d end up buying it, but I’d like to see the Auran Empire campaign setting first. Heck, I’d like to get my hands on the completed version of Domains at War first and play around a little with that before we moved to Empires at War.
Also consider me intrigued with the Lair Book idea.
Lastly, I wonder if Tavis, Alex, et al, have considered any of the criticism of the game at higher levels, specifically how does the game work around the table when everyone just wants to build their own domain? I know that roleplaying your henchmen while the King-level guys are doing their things in the background is one way, and perhaps Dungeons at War is another way. But some advice on building King-level encounters could be useful. Most Judges can build a 1st-3rd level dungeon in their sleep but challenging 10th-13th level players is a whole 'nother ball of wax.
I haven't run a siege/assault with D@W: Battles yet, but the assumed tactics that go into D@W: Campaigns' abstract system involve massed formations quite unlike what you see in dungeon combat.
I would invest in that.
Trying to handle multiple realms could be a hassle. Making it more viable to eschew a realm for those who have little interest in them might be useful. Another interesting option is to make it possible to combine resources into one realm (a thief’s hideout can fit nicely inside another party-member’s domain, and a church (though not the fortified church stronghold) can also exist and thrive in another character’s domain). If the party has fewer strongholds realms to jointly manage, you have fewer headaches as a judge.
It’s not clear to me what’s being offered.
AE@W: Since it’s specific to the Auran Empire at a grand level, is this essentially a boardgame? I like the sound of that. I’d buy it.
Dungeons@W: Wait, what? I don’t understand this. I can’t imagine what the map would look like or what the unit size is. If it’s individual characters, isn’t that just ACKs? Are we talking hex-maps or square grids?
Other: Somebody mentioned “dungeon-hijinks” as a manner of abstracting lair-clearing and the like. That sounds very useful. Also, a book that unleashes all of Alex’s secrets would be wonderful. Like the post about setting up campaign threats and adding set-pieces to published dungeons and so forth.
Wow this thread sparked lots of conversation - and confusion. To clarify:
AE@W: The idea is a grand strategic boardgame. I was inspired by Conquest of the Empire, Napoleon in Europe, and similar games by Avalon Hill, Eagle Games, and Fantasy Flight. It would use a lightweight version of D@W, designed for referee-less grand-strategy play.
Dungeons@War: The idea is a tactical miniatures game, similar to D&D 4E or The Fantasy Trip's Melee. ACKS + Hex Grid.
Other: Dungeon Hijinks is related to Dungeons@War, although distinct. Neat idea. Sharing my GM secrets - I have a book I've been writing called Check For Traps.
Ok, I would buy all of those. 
Personally, I’m more interested with supplements that add to ACKS itself rather than board games-like games that are more tangentially related (also, the mention of D&D 4E automatically turns me off to an idea). More setting information about the Auran Empire setting is good (especially if it has more monsters, spells, classes, items, etc., like you’d find in any D&D 3.x setting book). Dungeon-hijinks are definitely good but I doubt that could carry a full supplement on its own, so it would have to bundled with something else.
Combined domains is definitely the way to go at early domain level. I believe that ‘domain play’ is actually best understood as multiple phases - in the first, you’ve just hit 9th, and the party as a whole has a land grant, but you lack the resources to build a bunch of separate strongholds and you have many powerful enemies, so you concentrate your strength and cooperate closely (in some cases having a single party treasury, as the Grim Fist did). In the second phase, you have gradually expanded your domain and have levelled so that your personal power matches that of your domain-level enemies, the single domain starts to get too large for a single ruler, and you split it into 2-3 PC-run domains (fighter, cleric, wizard), with the thief expanding on his own terms. Finally, you run out of PCs to directly assign 24-mile-hex domains to, and you start doling them out to henchmen and further underlings, much as expected. But that first, cooperative stage is important, both for ensuring the literal survival of the party at early domain levels via cooperation and pooling of resources and for ensuring the survival of the game by maintaining party cohesion.
(We did not do this - see here for post-mortem)
One thing I’d like to see is expanded guidelines for creating a campaign world. Those in the core book work well enough, but I feel like they could use some more space and explanation, and examples, and ways of construction towns, dungeons, et al in more detail could also be useful.
Seconded, although it sounds like that might be in “Check for Traps”.
Maybe this could be bundled with the Auran Empire book or vice-versa, using the Auran empire as an extended example for campaign world creation while simultaneously allowing for a commentary on the process of the design decisions of the Auran Empire setting.
Respectfully, the new product I want is the Setting book. I feel we have already tackled the combat with Domains of War.
I really want to dive into the setting and use it, but there is just not enough to play with. I would kickstart in a minute.
Respectfully, that is my vote for the most wanted new product.
Pretty much what Ludanto says… 