My take on an RTS/FPS hybrid

Here's my idea so far... I'm going with the working title "Overlord". I chose the name because I'm terrible at names and it was the best I could think of. (Overlord is also the name of a very special/important unit, but we'll get to that later.)

The concept is to have a war in a futuristic war-torn urban setting. I haven't gone into enough detail on the plot to figure out why these areas are war-torn or who is even fighting for what. (I'm no good at story telling.) Now, the main concept behind this game is the combination of RTS and FPS. I've thought these would make a good combo for a while now, so I finally sat down and wrote up my take on how it would work.

Systems necessary to mix RTS and FPS gameplay -

Squad Leader Units - These are the players means of becoming part of the squads. They issue commands to the NPU (Non-Player Units) and are controlled by the player via top-down or first-person views. When not being directly controlled by the player, they act as an above average NPU. NPU's recieve performance bonuses for having a Squad Leader present. The player may switch to first-person control of any Squad Leader Unit, but may only control one at a time. Squad Leaders will generally cost approximately twice the resources of an average NPU. (This offers flexibility for both player types. RTS fans will generally opt for more NPU's per control unit, while FPS players will opt for smaller squads, giving them more control units to switch between.)

Overlords - The Squad Leaders' Squad Leader. The player is always in control of the Overlord, but the control is initially subtle. (Think of the Overlord as the players window into the RTS side of the game, as he is the commander issuing the orders.) The Overlord can be deployed as a particularly strong unit, just as a Squad Leader can. Again, NPU's recieve performance bonuses for an Overlord, just as they do for Squad Leaders. If the Overlord is destroyed, the campaign is failed. Overlords can issue a retreat command to surrender the current territory and fall back to safer ground. If a retreat command is issued, leaderless NPU squads still in enemy territory may be captured. The Overlord cannot be captured or destoryed unless it has been dispatched by the player. When the player runs out of territory to retreat to, the Overlord is forced into play until more territory/resources can be acquired.

The above units act as the connections between the RTS and FPS game(S). When the player is satisfied with his current stategy, he can take to the field with the squad leader units to insure his tactics will succeed. If he so chooses, he may also largely sacrifice strategy for sheer bravado. (Though it will be less likely to succeed in the long run.) Control of the above units may be switched on-the-fly. When switching to a different unit, the player may choose to make his squad continue with a planned action, (Such as moving an NPU squad to a certain location, or patrolling a post.) or he may choose a stand-by mode, where the NPU's will not act, but react if enemy units come to their location. Players will never directly control the NPU grunts, but may direct them with commands issued as Squad Leader or Overlord. If an NPU squad loses their Squad Leader, they will continue to perform their last selected command. A replacement Squad Leader may be issued, but in the mean time, the NPU's will have to fend for themselves.

Below I detailed a few thoughts I had on how to make the game fun for both of its target audiences. As with the rest, I may have just had enough caffeine to think it was a good idea at the time.

(Continued)