When the battle ground is not the origin base

[Tilt]

Local object count (which effects FPS) will in fact be down as there will not be towns and fields within close proximity. Hence both need not be rendered together.

Total object count for the whole terrain would be marginally up IMO.

As above I would urge a  first step by adding the spawn roads and moving/adding the towns with their own map rooms (and I presume towers). The strat model could remain exactly as it is whilst HTC reviews the game play..............

I guess they would "look" very much like the old depot did ie a town with a tower and maproom.

For me the clipboard would only show the map room dot. With a small colour ring around it (red or green) the dot would flash when under threat as now. This to reduce clutter. Roads would be just like the yellow spawn lines now except they join stuff together.

Towns would not need to show numbers/alts/country icons etc

(side note.........if you now have towns flashing every where there is enemy close do we need darbars where there is no tower radar cover?)

(another side note....... as the main "struggle" is away from air fields [until the front reaches them].................. we could re en force the AA at air fields)

(another note on ports.... for PAC type terrains ports become the logistic source to islands hence often a GV field will have to be replaced with a port........... which does not have to have a fleet attached.............. ports, when captured will always be presumed to have logistic supply by sea hence to capture an island its port must always be captured first. Again this focusses initial game play away from the airfields)

Easy

any chance of a clipboard type map of your terrain thoughts?

[DoKGonZo]

FWIW, overall I'd like to see a somewhat sparser map tried. If we switch from a map with 60 bases to one with 30 bases and 30 cities, it's the same basic target density. It's just so easy for a side to lose focus when there's so many other bases to go try to get. I'm not saying make it like the Sahara desert, but maybe drop it from 60 bases to like 48 or 54 - that kind of ratio. It's going to be a considerable amoung of work to actually capture a base, it should at least gobble up some ground.

    -DoK

[Easyscor]

The bit map I'm working from doesn't show the field types and strat placement, unfortunately it doesn't look any different from a screen shot of a clipboard in a H2H room.  That's why I was trying to build a map, so I can distribute it and let people take a look at the layout and test the game play.

Ideally some form of the setup would end up in the SEA on off nights for testing the concept.

[Easyscor]

Originally posted by Tilt
Easy

any chance of a clipboard type map of your terrain thoughts?

If you're still curious, checkout the H2H room "Team-Northwest Passage".  Best way I can think of to test it and see what people think.  Course, it’s a highly compacted terrain and was my test terrain while learning AH TE2.

[Tilt]

Originally posted by Easyscor
If you're still curious, checkout the H2H room "Team-Northwest Passage".  Best way I can think of to test it and see what people think.  Course, it’s a highly compacted terrain and was my test terrain while learning AH TE2.

Looked in the H2H BB...... could not see it.......

could you provide a link to the terrain?

I have never used the H2H facility in AH

[Tilt]

Originally posted by Easyscor
If you're still curious, checkout the H2H room "Team-Northwest Passage".  Best way I can think of to test it and see what people think.  Course, it’s a highly compacted terrain and was my test terrain while learning AH TE2.

[Pongo]

Wow kwassa. thats alot of work and is an interesting idea.
What would it look like on an island map?

[Karnak]

Kweassa,

That is very much like what I'd like to see AH move towards.  Have cities and towns, which are independant of airfields and vehicle bases, be the object of the "war" section of the game.

[Tilt]

Pongo my view would be that on an island map the entry point to every island would be its port . Hence capturing any other base first would be possible but would not give any access until the road was cleared from the port (presumably via a few towns).

[Tilt]

[Tilt]

Stealing kweassas pic and addingf some stuff my take would be very similar.........

The key is the development of the "spawn road"

The concept is a dual purpose road that provides logistic links and multiple spawn points.

The road provides logistics from a logistic source such as a "city" or "port" via the road net work to fields of various types.

Along the road are towns. At major cross roads are GV Fields. Air fields are off spur roads

Vehicles may spawn at any point along the road (no more spawn camping) provided a properly equiped (intact VH's) field is linked to that point via towns owned by your nation.

Consider the map above.

The green country is invading the red via two pronged attack. one from the north and one via the port at 7.15.9.

Ports are logistically linked to any other port which has access to a city. Hence once captured a port recieves logistics and can be used as a base for further invasion. I have shown ports here as having their own towns. In this invasion the greens have captured a Vehicle field and are pushing SW and  W. They will not have any local air fields until they capture the Airfield at 7.15.7.

The reds have had their airfields at 8.14.7 and 8.11.9 cut off from logistical support. These air fields are accessable for reds but they are not renewing. the Airfield at 8.11.9 cannot be attacked by land untill the town at 9.12.1 is taken by greens......mean while the reds can launch GV's at the Vehicle field at 9.12.6 provided 8.11.9 has VH's.

Should the reds retake the town at 9.14.2 then the airfield at 8.14.7 will recieve logistics and re build.

The greens have taken a towns at  8.12.2 and 8.13.4. This must have been done via C47's or via very long cross country GV missions (possible). This has isolated the GV field at 8.12.6 which is no longer recieving supplies until it is captured and supplied by greens or/unless one of thes two towns is retaken by reds.

The greens have also similarly captured the airfield at 8.13.5 . Again isolated from green logistical supply this field will not be re supplied until (in this case) the GV field at 8.12.6 is captured.

A city complex is located at 7.13.6. Infact its a GV field linked like a zone master to local strat and surrounded by a cluster of towns. Hence capturing a city complex is a gradual process.

Cities provide the land based flow of logistics across the road network to the various facilities. However this is no longer zone based. Even with a local city complex lost to the enemy any valid road net work will provide supplies from Cities further away to local facilities still not lost or isolated. Or ideed to ports to support activities across the sea.

Towns would each have a tower type facility where they could be accessed and they may have a few fixed mannable gun positions to put up a slender defence.

I think capture conditions should be valid when say 60% of a town is destroyed. (but this could be adjustable in the arena settings)

The layout could be better designed than the one above...I have just used it to give an example as to how it would work

[Pongo]

Implementing destroyable bridges would be a nice addition to this concept.
Roads would also have to be navigatable. Many of our maps just lay a gray line over impassable terrrain. That would not work if you really intend to move along the road.
You might also make scheduled supply runs along a road of advance to drop off ammo and fuel. Such supplies could be interdicted but you can be sure if you make it back to your road head the trucks will arrive in 30 min if not destroyed.

Ya. this concept needs to have river bridges and mountain passes on the map.

[DoKGonZo]

Uh ... I think I understand ... what if you simplify it this way:

- Each port/field has a number of cities associated that's related to the size of the field (small's have 2, ports and meds's have 3, larges have 4).

- These cities are layed out along the road network kind of like you've done.

- Each city has a vehicle base in it - so you could theoretically capture the cities from the ground if you wanted to. There should be enough distance from the cities to the associated airbase than taking the airbase by ground alone is not a time-effective tactic. However, city-to-city land battles should be frequent.

- When these cities are captured, then the associated field can be taken.

- AAA cover at fields is doubled since the action is to take place over the cities and only when that's all done is the field capturable - meaning it'll need to be a serious and costly assault. Defenders can only hug ack when the field capture is immenant.

- This obviously means you need fewer airbases since there are 2 to 4 peripheral targets to fight over for that sector. So fights wouldn't necesarily get spread out more, but the overall number of objectives would shrink. The "world" we fly from gets smaller because there are fewer bases.

[Wurger]

Originally posted by Tilt
Yup my thinking too............

populate the terrain with towns which must be taken to advance a front...............

Think of a way of making it so that taking a base is only interesting if you hold several towns around it.......or key towns feeding ..... ie you have moved the front to a point to where the base may be captured.


There are several ways of tackling this depending upon how much work HTC would wish to put in..............

My favourite right now would be to make "spawn roads" for GV's such that spawning along a road is amatter of clip board clicking on a town (when in the tower). to arrive at a town periphery. This town must be on a road connected directly or via other towns (belonging to your country) to your field.

Once you have captured towns enroute to an enemy field you can then capture it (or if you already have done it with para's you can now use it)

But ideally IMO the target is to move towns away from fields and make their capture a requirement to "win the war"

AC's spawn the usual way and conduct an air war over towns where air fields are further apart.

Naval stuff is as before but we add towns between fields on islands.

Brilliant!:aok

Bazi