my two cents. Larger maps give more opportunity for unopposed milkrunning. I stopped playing in the MA of that that, ahemm, other sim a year before I left (paying just to play in scenarios) because the BIG PAC concept made it way too easy to be a big dweeb.
The pattern -- each country would settle into a comfortable corner of the map with huge odds and take relatively undefended bases. If the resistance got too tough, they would just move their numbers elsewhere on the big map. I never saw a point in it myself, capturing the field (through numbers and against minimal reisitance) became more important than a good fight to the community, which to me marked the death of the AW I first played in DOS before EA did its bit.
Usually, it was either be a banger or get banged with a lot of time spent flying around looking for a reasonable challenge with reasonably even odds. A handful of people would put up a modest, futile defense of the contested bases, but most would eventually seek the path of least resistance and join the numbers on the country's seperate offensive elsewhere.
Here, of course, there is the reset concept and tougher airfield/town capture and porkage (individual P-51s with one bomb and ccip bombsights can't effectively pork potential reisitance bases three deep from the desired capture field), so larger fields may not matter in the end. Just something to think about.
Charon
[ 10-31-2001: Message edited by: Charon ]