Bring back Winning the War: simplified

[peterg2]

From the online help:

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Winning the War      
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The parameters for winning the war can vary, depending on the configuration of the terrain. Typically, a country must get the other two countries down to less than 4 fields in each to win the war."
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From the in-game map country status, all you can tell is percentages of fields that your country owns and what you own of other countries.

We really don't even know which fields are our own after they've been captured, unless we have the zone spider on. You have to manually count which field belongs to what country, then calculate the percentages, and then plot which field you have to try and take. Then you have to recount and recalculate everything every time a country takes a base.

Basically, we haven't a clue as to which fields we should capture, which are our own, which belong to which enemy, or how close we are to winning or loosing the war. It's all run by an algorithm that we can't see.

Obviously, the system was put in for load balancing. But, it has the effect of people not bothering with strategy or winning the war. Winning the war used to add a lot to the excitement of the game. Missions used to be put together to block advances or capture territory, much more so than today. So, more missions were posted and the game was a lot more fun.

With the return of the "small" maps, it might be good to try the old simple numbering system to win the war. We still have the ENY thing to balance sides to some extent.

Obviously, the old mismatches will occur. One team might get hammered one night and the next night do the hammering. It still happens with the current system though.

But, now we have a "who the heck knows what's happening" with the state of the war. There's no sense of urgency. It's like playing a football game, not knowing what the real score is, or how much time is left in the game.

It's the 4th quarter... no 3rd I think, and we're up by 14 points... or 3, or maybe we're behind by 7... I think.... or is it still the 2nd quarter. Huh... the game is over? How'd that happen. Did we loose? Oh... we won, how about that?

[KTM520guy]

Each map should last 48 to 72 hours then the Rooks would win (again)

[peterg2]

Humm... maybe one of the Arenas could be set up with the old method of winning a war by simply capturing all the fields of one country.

Then the nits could once again kick the crap out of the rooks.... followed by the rooks kicking the crap out of the bish... who then kicked the crap out of the nits, who proceeded to kick the crap out of the rooks again, who then turned around and beat the heck out of the nits..... and around and around it used to go.

But, it was a lot more fun than it is now.

[NHawk]

There are a lot of things that can contribute to winning or losing the war.

The 90-40-40 split isn't hard to figure out and it makes winning the war easier than it ever was in the past. You only need to capture 40% of the other two countries to win. That equates to 10 to 12 bases per country on most small maps. All while retaining what boils down to all of yours on a small map.

It's not that strategy doesn't mean anything any more, it's that some people don't understand the strategy being used.

Everyone complains about the "horde". Many times you'll see two countries going after (hording) the third. Then somewhere along the line, those two countries begin fighting each other. At that time, the third begins an attempt to come back by attacking one or both of the other two. But before they can, the war is won.

The term "Divide and Conquer" was coined long ago for a reason. Generals realized that it was easier to defeat one army of 50,000 men, followed by another army of 50,000 men than it was to beat a single 100,000 man army. The wise general would attack so as to divide the enemy army into two forces and then mop up one after the other.

What is happening in AH is the two countries are dividing the third. Thus making it easier to defeat. Then, when they begin fighting each other it boils down to who has more man power and who can hold off the third country while using minimal man power to do it.

That's both good and smart strategy. And, it's up to the third country to figure out how to defend against it. There is a defense, but many people scream bloody murder when it starts to develope and it usually falls apart before it can have any real affect.

Now, ENY does balance the sides but I don't think it happens the way it was intended. Sure some people will change sides to try and balance things out. But, I'm sure there are also some people like me who simply log off when they can't fly their plane of choice. Which I don't think was the intended result. But, either way the sides do balance out.

[RTHolmes]

Originally posted by peterg2
We really don't even know which fields are our own after they've been captured, unless we have the zone spider on. You have to manually count which field belongs to what country, then calculate the percentages, and then plot which field you have to try and take. Then you have to recount and recalculate everything every time a country takes a base.

Basically, we haven't a clue as to which fields we should capture, which are our own, which belong to which enemy, or how close we are to winning or loosing the war. It's all run by an algorithm that we can't see.

dont really understand this ... zones show you which bases should belong to each country, icons show who actually has them. status tells you what % of each countries bases are captured. as a nit if you have 30% of bish bases then you need some more ... pretty easy really