I think I would have it more like Dawn of War II and Company of Heroes, squad control but not as huge as in Total War. I could never picture wars in Fallout the size of those in Total War, but I could the size of them in Dawn of War II and Company of Heroes, and since they mostly use ranged weapons in Fallout, and you manage small squads of 5-20 instead of a group of 70+ soldiers, and since they use tactics like taking cover behind [censored], imo it would be much better. I mean, if you play with a BoS faction, you won't have that many power armor clad soldiers in the field, and then you go exterminate raider camps at night with maybe 80 people in them, and that's what just one of twenty possible squads in Total War would be. Total War are great games, and huge battles are awesome, but you don't really care about losing men until you lose too many men In Company of Heroes (or moreso in Dawn of War II) a squad is wiped out and you get a little sad inside.
I could see Caesar's Legion with a huge army in Total War though, and maybe NCR too, using WW1 tactics. Hehe. Slaughter ensured. But yeah, I'd prefer system similar to Company of Heroes than Age of Empires or Total War. Maybe a mix of them all, though. Shouldn't be a rip-off or "Total War/Age of Empires/Company of Heroes with laser weapons and power armor"
I could see Caesar's Legion with a huge army in Total War though, and maybe NCR too, using WW1 tactics. Hehe. Slaughter ensured. But yeah, I'd prefer system similar to Company of Heroes than Age of Empires or Total War. Maybe a mix of them all, though. Shouldn't be a rip-off or "Total War/Age of Empires/Company of Heroes with laser weapons and power armor"
I have to agree, CoH would be the best engine for a Fallout Strategy game. It has lots to offer for such a game, like not all weapons being capable of damaging armor (in CoH case tanks, in FO case power armor), upgrades for squads as well as the low squad size (more of a 4 men fireteam actually, but only 2 of them can be upgraded), cover. I also used to mod those games a lot, but usually only removing the pop count (pop count, not man power) of everything, and I failed at removing the plane crash damage (I hate it that everytime you shoot a plane down, it crashes straight into your base, yet the player that ordered the plane to fly over didn't have to pay anything for a plane lost).
I would make a few changes though, like:
Removing the commander abilities, you know, the tank support (tiger or tiger ace, StuH, not StuG), airstrikes, artillery, reinforcements that sort of thing.
Change squad size to 5 troopers (not for specialists, unique units or vehicles)
Remove the ability to upgrade a squad twice, but instead give 2 members the same upgrade
Give all troops some melee capability (but CL should have awesome melee troops in their legionaires)
Remove resource capture points and instead, allow for only a few buildings (around 3) to be placed that will very slowly generate resources
Remove the taking weapons from dead soldiers (the squad can only get 1 upgrade
So long as 1 member of the squad breathes, the squad can return to a hospital/HQ and be restored to full (for a price). Any upgrades will also be restored (so you don't lose them
Resources I've though of
Water
Food
Manpower
Equipment (rifles, armor, fences, building material that sort of thing)
Energy (for Energy weapons, buildings)
Explosives
Money (faction specific, like NCR dollars, Legion Denarius, Vegas chips?)
Fuel if vehicles are included
Now to give an example of an NCR 5 trooper squad
They start out with a service rifle with bayonet for all 5, once upgraded there's only 3 service rifles+bayonets in that squad, the other 2 will carry the upgrade weapon. That upgrade weapon can be
Shotgun
Assault rifle
Scoped rifle
LMG
I'm also thinking of creating 4 basic squads and 4 heavy squads for all factions, with energy weapons gaining a bonus to power armor and regular weapons against regular armor (or the other way around if that's better) explosives don't gain any damage bonus
the 4 basic squads, as well as the 4 heavy squads, would be sorted along these lines, so you'd have
Regular armor + regular weapon
Power armor + energy weapon
Regular armor + energy weapon
Power armor + regular weapon
The NCR would use the 1st recon as snipers (different from scoped rifle in that snipers can shoot from much further, but they come in 2 men units)
The Legion would use Legionaires as unique units (maybe in squads of 10, and they thow spears before charging)
Just some thoughts