I've held my tongue for the most part on the white flag and 50% thing until I saw how it effected the game. I know there were/are a lot of knee jerk reactions and some quick on the draw assumptions when major changes are made, I do my best to not pass judgment and at least ride the change out to see how things pan out. After a few months of this I've gathered my thoughs-
When the white flag and %50 town down for capture first came out I was a bit surprised, I didn't think HTC would swing *that* far from a current game play standard. I suppose one could compare it to going from 250ft NOE to 1000ft NOE standard. My first thought was "now we'll see smaller teams taking fields more often and hordes will be far less common." How wrong I've been.
The white flag removes much of what little "fog of war" Aces High MA had (dar bars and radar dots abound!). Previously, it took multiple sets of eyes, or multiple passes by a single person to check and double check the new towns to be sure it was capture ready. With the white flag, it is as obvious as can be. No more guessing. No more extra 30 seconds or 1 minute to inspect the town is needed. Just pound it for a short time and watch for the white flag (actually one pass by heavy bombers is all that is needed, even the old square town could not have that done to it), grab the 4-5 auto ack that may still be up, and get troops to the MR. The process as been VERY simplified. One would have thought that hordes would be fewer and much less embraced, but the opposite has happened. The bandwagon effect has really taken hold. I guess people really like being the bench warmer on winning team because essentially that is what 75% (or more) of the horde members are.
I read in the forums where HTC claimed that these new towns "were not supposed to be harder to capture" than the old towns. If the old square towns had 53 (?) buildings and the new towns have 93 (?) buildings, the 50% town down for new town capture is actually easier compared to the old town. No fuzzy math there. Add in the fact that a single pass by a heavy bomber, or a single skilled enough 110G-2, Mossi Mk IV, A20, or other such heavy attack aircraft pilot can make the town ready for capture, one has to wonder if HTC went too far in making things easy to get done.
I hope HTC has been watching and has or will come to the conclusion that the %50 town down for capture is simply too easy. That coupled with the white flag makes for an almost 10 year old XBawk style of game play. If the white flag is here to stay, then I suggest to make attacking team work for it and get the % up to 80% or better yet 90%. I'd prefer to get rid of the white flag and get back to %100 town down. If the object of AH is to provide a realm in which to have simulated WWII combat, then having fields rolled by hordes does not lend very well to that atmosphere. The current atmosphere seems to lend itself towards "capture the field" more than anything else.
Obviously, there are some that really prefer the XBawk style of game play, and that is fine. I would hope that HTC would prefer to stay towards a simulation style of game. There is a balance that needs to be struck between the two, few will argue against that.
