[dogscoff]

Firstly, you'll be looking at massively multiplayer. Purpose-built strategy MMOGs will happen, but the really interesting ones will be the ones where you are giving orders to real people, not computer agents. Of course, this means that for every person who wants to play the game as a general, there will have to be a couple hundred other players willing to take on the role of footsoldier/ pilot/ tank commander/ whatever and follow orders. That's just fine though, those numbers are probably fairly representative of the sales of strategy games vs FPS/ flight sims etc. This means that a game won't be classed as a MMOrole plyer or MMOshooter any more, it will just be a game world with different roles and different gaming experiences within it.

We're already seeing things like this emerge on some of the MMORPGs. Thousands of people converge on servers to carry out huge battles. For the bulk of these plyers the gaming is strictly FPS-type action, but there are leaders who act as generals and direct the combat. I suppose this counts more as tactical than strategic, but there's no reason why these games and conflicts shouldn't extend to the strategic level in future.

Also, VR seems to be making a bit of a comeback. That could be really atmospheric, imagine commanding a battlefield in VR, viewing progress from a hilltop or swooping over your units to see how the action is going, issuing orders as you go.

However the one thing I think will take off hugely is voice control. Serious gamers already use VOIP systems alongside their games to communicate with other players, it's only a matter of time before someone starts coding virtual players (bots) that respond to voice commands. Of course the technical obstacle is not so much the voice recognition but reliable machine-parsing of natural language. People have been working on this for years, with varying levels of success. However gaming systems now have the spare storage and processing power available for this kind of trickery, and I think games will be the arena where it actually happens. They will be crude at first, but you know how technology snowballs, especially when it has money behind it. Maybe one day we'll hit the point where you aren't sure whether that guy on your team is human or AI. Again, this technology will be driven by the FPS experience (since that's where most of the gamers are) but once developped it will soon slosh over into strategy.

Just imagine SE if you could issue natural language commands to fleet commanders, ship captains and planetary governors:

"Governor, I need you to emergency build weapons platforms to defend against a seeker-biased opponent until sixth fleet arrives. Then you can go back to normal production."

"Commander, that wounded battlecruiser is in one of these three systems. Your mission is to hunt it down. If any of its null-space weapons are still intact, try to capture it. If not, blow it away. Be careful."

"Governor James, commandeer any transports that come into your system and start moving your oxy-breathing population to the Buratis system."

"Captain Gruk, I want you to catch up with Maelstrom fleet and resupply it. Avoid enemy-controlled systems unless you can get fleet protection. Our Krill allies may be travelling through the Primadara system shortly, so maybe you could ride with them."

"Commander, sit your fleet on that warp point and attack any Phong ships that try to warp through, but allow the Jraenar to pass. If any Cue Cappa warp through, tell them to turn around and go back but don't fire on them unless they disobey you or attack you. Don't engage any fleet that significantly outnumbers you."