IMO, currently the basic tactical layout of the MA strat system is focused on a 'point'. There are 'airfields' scattered around the map as a 'point'. A single 'town' is attached to this point. The objective of the strat-game is to attack the single, individual point and captures it. When all the 'points' are captured, the war is won.
I've been thinking for sometime - perhaps that 'point-oriented' system is the cause of the 'evils' many people complain about in the MA. An example of such 'evils' would be the "horde-forming" and "tool-shed busting".
So I've been thinking.
Currently, in the MA, you capture fields. If you capture a certain field, the ownership of the 'zone' changes, and the whole strats turn over to the otherside.
*What if the 'points of functionality' are separated from 'points of tactical capture'?
* What if the zone/field capture mechanics are reversed?
For example, the 'zone' exists as it is.
However, the airfields individually, are uncapturable. You can hit airfields to deprive them of plane spawning abilities, or fuel, or radar, or etc... but you can't hit airfields to capture them. Individual airfield capture is impossible.
The towns are separated from the airfields. The towns in the zone area, as a whole, are attached to the zone itself, and not at individual airfields.
In other words; if there are 6~7 airfields in a zone, there are also 6~7 towns in the zone. However, these towns are not placed right beside airfields. These towns are scattered around in the empty spaces in between the airfields. Capture all the towns, and then the zone ownership is changed, and then the entire airfields making up the zone are captured as a whole.
I think this idea has merit.
The basics of the strat gameplay remain about the same it is. There is nothing complex to the simple mechanics of 'attack, destroy, enter troops and capture'. However, one thing that changes very importantly, is that now suppressing a single airfield is not in direct relation of capturing a single field.
You need to capture all the towns in between the many airfields, to capture the entire zone - and when all the towns are captured the entire zone control goes over, and the all the airfields also change ownership. What this does, is change the overall situation in the fact that suppressing an airfield becomes something optional.
For instance, let's imagine the Day#1 of this new system. A horde forms as usual, and they start attacking... but what do they attack? The airfields? The towns are not at the airfields. The towns are in between airfields, so the horde now heads to one town in the zone.
The problem they face, is that having a zillion fighters hanging over a single town will not be the same thing as having a zillion fighters hanging over a single field.
In the old strat system, if you suppress a single field with hordish numbers, then you also suppress the airspace over the town that is attached to the field. Therefore, having superior numbers directly corresponds to the ease of overall capture. It is literally 'steam rolling' - no need for tactics, no need for thinking, no need for dividied roles. Just join the horde, capture fields one by one. Simple as that.
However, imagine the zone mechanics is reversed.
You have to capture all the towns inside the zone to capture the zone itself - and only then will the airfields be captured. A single horde may be able to take control over the first two or three towns that are nearby their own home space. However, the towns in the zones furthest from their home space, will take a longer time to reach.
The difficulty of capture will naturally vary according to which town the horde wants to capture. Since all of the enemy fields in the area are uncaptured and still functioning(and will not be captured untill all the towns inside the zone are captured) it would mean that in the final stages of zone capture, attacking the last few towns would mean passing through multiple enemy field airspace that are still functioning.
In short, having a single conecntrated horde at a single point will not deprive the opposition an opportunity to fight at all, nor will it automatically mean a capture. Again, to capture a zone, and thus capture all the fields in the zone, the towns scattered around the zones must be captured. The nearest towns may be captured with the same horde tactics as seen currently, but the towns deeper inside enemy territory will need much more work to capture. It also means the horde must disperse, and spread out fighter defenses to secure all airpaths which pass enemy airfields that are still alive - so that the buffs and jabos and goons, can get through without harm.
..
The key is, separating the point of functionality and the point of capture. The largest strengths of this idea is that even if a certain side is losing, they still have functioning airfields. As long as there are funtioning airfields, there is always a way to fight back. If one side is winning, it means they have a lot of captured towns to defend against functioning airfields. The horde must disperse to defend them individually, and thus means a lot more opportunity find smaller scale fights as the zone capture progresses.
