Pongo and Urchin,
I think the ENY Limiter for side balancing is a miserable failure too. All it seems to have done is cause a lot of folks to make an initial switch from Rooks to Nits and Bish, but they aren't coming back now that things are out of whack the other way.
If we have to live with it, then it needs to be tweaked. Here's the problem I've seen the last two weeks:
Rooks: 89
Nits: 148
Bish 140
No ENY limiter in effect! ! Apparently the limiter only works when 1 country is siginificantly numerically superior to the other two. But if two countries are both much larger, no limits. Here we have two countrys who each have 50% more pilots than the third country, but there is no side balancing occuring.
The result is the the smaller country gets gangbanged by the two large ones, fighting for scraps and the reset.
If we are going to have a balancing effect then the above should have resulted in an ENY limitation for both the Nits and Bish, encouraging a few of them to each switch sides to Rooks.
The limiter should be based on X% larger then the SMALLEST country, not X% larger than the No.2 country. And it should apply to the two larger countrys, not just the largest. For example:
Rooks: 50
Bish: 90
Nits: 100
Nits would have say a 20 Eny limter, Bish a 15 limiter.
Otherwise scrap the whole idea. I still think switching from the ENY limiter to a Ordanance Limiter is a better answer. Cut back on the larger countries abilities to drop bombs and rockets, not the kind of plane they can fly. I don't mind furballing with LA-7s, and it does no good to limit LA-7s when they larger country can JABO with P-47s carrying massive amounts of ordnance. The steamroller continues because they bomb you into submission at every base.
But limit their bombs and rockets:
X% = no 1,000 lbs bombs available
Y% = no 500 lbs or larger bombs or rockets available
Z% = no 250 lbs or larger bombs or rockets available.
Everybody gets to fly the plane of their choice but the steamroller will be slowed down to a manageable level.
Anything would be better than what we have now. It's time for HTC to experiment with something else.