The above part I quoted is what made the battles in AW such fun. It was the fight to destroy or defend the base or factories that made AW such a blast, with large scale air battles lasting for hours. I still fondly remember a battle to take out the Azland Spitfire factory that lasted over 3 hours.
ack-ack
May be a wall of text. But I encourage all to read it through as it provides a possible solution that may be acceptable to the largest segment
I remember fondly those days as well. Did destroying those spit factories have anything to do with winning the war as it was perceived back then?
No, right?
I'd like to move away from map resets for a moment. The reason being is it seems to me. Or has at least been my experience that being present to reset a map is due largely to luck then anything else. Think of all the hours you (anyone) are on. How often do you (anyone) really see a map reset?
That being said. I'd like to go back and revisit what has been mentioned earlier about Strat, What Ack Ack said in the portion I quoted, And the first line in this post.
The strat portion of the game is where IMO it is the most lax. Its the largest portion of the game that for lack of a better term is broken.
Q -Why were hitting the spit factories and defense of those factories so popular?
A- Because they had a direct effect on the game.
But they didnt cripple the game. They never had any lasting effect on the outcome of the night. But they were important enough to bother trying to defend.
We have wonderful beautifully rendered strat targets now. But how often do people really try to bomb them? And just how many really bother to defend them?
Few. Why? the answers are simple and obvious. On the attacking side While you can rack up points bombing them. They dont accomplish anything other then garner perks and perhaps ranks. But on a meaningful level they have next to no effect on anything.
From a defensive standpoint. You dont see many upping to defend against this because again. They have no meaningful effect on anything.
So why bother? And thats why you dont see very many strat missions.
If you want to have an effect on the game. Your actually better off flying to and dropping the hangars at a feild and "ruining a furball"
As I mentioned earlier. the reasons why the fights over the spit factories were so popular is because they had a direct and immediate although relatively short lived effect on the game itself. Therfore they were important enough to make hitting them AND defending them worthwhile.
The strat targets here have been dummied down so much that they have no real effect on the game. Again there is no compelling reason to hit or defend them. People want not only things to do. But want to have a reason for things to do. They want to have an impact. Right now strat targets provide neither.
Possible solution to consider.
Return to the "zone" system with some tweaks. Keep these wonderfully designed strat targets. but give the strat targes some meaning. And assign 1 strat target of differing types to each base in the "zone"
Examples of strat targets
Spit Factory
Ammo Factory
Heavy Bomber factory
Railway/resupply Depot.
Each field would have 1 factory assigned to it within a zone Possibly placed somewhere near the town at a point evenly spaced between the field and Gv spawn points (Gives the GVers something else to fight in and over) And would also make sense aesthetically and logically because the fictitious townspeople would supply labor to the factories and the military base would provide for the defence of both. Pretty meaningless but would add to the immersion depth but again. would provide for another battlefeild for the GVs to fight in
Hitting the strat targets should eliminate or reduce in stages the ability of all bases within that zone to conduct operations of that given type.
Examples.
Destroying a spit factory would mean no spits would be able to up from any base within that zone. Same thing with the heavy bomber factories.
Ammo factories can be set to effect the ordinance available by degree of destruction. Totally destroyed ammo factory would mean only the lightest of bombs or rockets would be available within that zone. while a moderately destroyed ammo factory would only effect the heaviest of ord.
Railway/resupply Depots (trains & trucks) would reduce the amount of trains and/or resupply trucks that would be available to Resupply bases and factories. Possibly located at the rearmost "primary zone base"
To prevent milkrunning and abuse of this by the hordes. These factories and supply routes should always be property of the native country and can only be rebuilt by that country until such a time that all bases within a zone are captured. At which point they revert to being the property of the attacking country
Long story short. Lets say Horde A comes in an obliterates the ammo factory connected to the field they are attacking. Then they capture that base. Wonderful. Good for that horde. BUT in obliterating that ammo factory also means they too cannot up heavy ords from that feild until such a time as that factory regenerates.
also attacking that factory from that newly captured base will have the same adverse effects on that feild as it does to the native country untill such a point where all the bases in that zone are captured.
In this way it would be much to the attacking countries benifit to try to capture bases within a zone with the factories more or less intact
Yet it still provides enough reason to attack these strat targets as well as enough reason to defend them.
Making These strats zone oriented means that only those bases within a particular zone are effected. Meaning you can still up your uber spit16.Or up with 1K bombs Just not from that zone.
And of course we could always expand o this to have more of a national effect by having even more major factories (Ball Bearings) deep within a country like we have HQ that would effect maybe all late war "uber" rides spits,P51's La7's 190D's Late war tanks etc
Anyone willing to take that long to fly that deep and actually make it. Deserves to have a greater impact. And anyone willing to let them fly that deep unscathed. Deserves whatever they get stuck with.
This IMO has several benefits. It provides real reason to attack strats which simple do not exist now. real reason to defend them which also doesn't exist now. Yet it doesn't seriously effect the furball crowd, nor unduly reward the hordes.
