My idea for a single MA arena and making it work

[Knite]

I had an idea on a change to the actual "capture the base" style of gameplay, but I never finished my idea in my head so don't think I ever posted, but basically it was similar to...

Bring back the "mini" strats, but do not remove the large one. Make the mini-strats capturable. Those mini-strats are tied to 3-4 bases in their close proximity, and have VH capabilities spawning to the surrounding Air-Bases, and 4 radar towers. Make the Mini-strats resupply an item every run (for instance, first rebuilding a few town buildings, then rebuilding hangars, then ack), and make the runs pretty close together, like 5 minutes. However, the strats only supply bases that are the same country as the strat itself. Since a strat would be somewhat "central" to multiple bases, it means a team would either have to fly behind enemy airfields to hit the strat first, or decide to try to take an airfield that is getting resupplied and rebuilt pretty quickly. It also would make some ground targets (strats) a different importance than others (airfields).

There was more to the concept, but as I said, I don't believe I finished fleshing it out enough to post it. 

[Changeup]

Allow troops to do damage! Lol

Changeup

[Wiley]

High value for war and score is a good way. How about this: Apart from the purely material influence of city & factories on field supplies, and another thing: Country Morale. Enemy capitals had been bombed in history not only to destroy factories and infrastructure, but also because they are a symbol.


In game terms: Tie the number of fields captured requirement to the status of the city. Currently you need 20% of all bases, a few tours back the requirement was 40% Now make it so that if

City at 100% - 40% fields required
City at 75% - 35% fields required
City at 50% - 30% fields required
City at 25% - 25% fields required
City at 0% - 20% fields  required.

As the city buildings have a downtime of 3 hours, you don't have to wait until almost to the end to bomb the city, players can attack the city at any time hoping it will make a difference later.

Of all the ideas I've seen for making strats count, this one is the first I've liked.  It makes them worth hitting and defending, but without impacting the gameplay of people on the losing side just logging on.

Wiley.

[Shuffler]

+F3  mode in Il2

 

[Raptor]

I like the ideas you posted. I think that AI Missions would be good, maybe every hour to 2 hours instead of 30 minutes.

No ENY, but some sort of numbers balancing system so that the amount of aircraft in flight for all countries is roughly equal.  This keeps ENY away, yet allows those who beg to be with their squaddies the chance to BS on tac while waiting for things to adjust so they can up.  Maybe use the AI birds developed for CT to fill out the balance issues?

I think a simple time limit to change countries might be good. Lets say it takes 1 hour max to switch teams after changing teams? However if there are 150 bish, 125 knights and 90 rooks. You can switch from Bish to rook after 15 minutes, or knight to rook in 30 minutes. The inverse being it takes 1 hour to switch from rook to bish, and 45 minutes to switch from rook to knight.

[NatCigg]

way to many whines. the game is fine because most all ideas have been thought about and dealt with by HTC.

In a perfect world everyone gets exactly what they want when they want.

We can not always get what we want but,.....

In aces high the planes always fly, and the guns always shoot.

[Shuffler]

way to many whines. the game is fine because most all ideas have been thought about and dealt with by HTC.

In a perfect world everyone gets exactly what they want when they want.

We can not always get what we want but,.....

In aces high the planes always fly, and the guns always shoot.

Never attempt to quash ideas. There will alway be one that comes along new and possibly better.

[Krusty]

Guppy I don't like your ideas. They would move the game to the point of stalemate. Don't forget that while adding more FHs in various spots might be more "realistic" but the base layout and the gameplay mechanism (base capture) are gameplay balance issues, not realism issues.

Doing what you suggest favors defenders against attackers every time, making it harder and harder to take fields. Don't forget the only reason we have flags now is because the new town layout was too hard to capture fields with!


Now Lusche has a very interesting idea. I like that! Something along those lines would give you a reason to down the HQ. Perhaps remove the "all radar goes down" bit and make it this "morale" ratio instead. Also remove resupply of "morale," and have it return at a fixed rate of rebuilt (like a hangar?)

Also, I would like to see 1 of 2 things. Keep the mega strats and somehow tie them in to the big picture, but return zone strats. Either use 10 or 15 "mega" strats across these large-size AH maps (they have more than enough space for them!) and link them into zones, or return the previous individual strats. Or find a "middle-strat" new option halfway between both extremes. This would bring the war to a front, rather than to just a field on that front.

With the above suggestion (return of zones) you might just as well make the "mega strat" tied into this morale. The more it's hit the less the base capture ratio has to be.

OR

Change it so that TROOPS in the zone don't affect resupply, but that the MEGAstrat affects resupply.


Mega city: resupply outlying megastrats around it
Mega AAA: resupply all zone AAAs
Mega troops: resupply all zone troops.


So if you bomb a zone strat, it will resupply. You bomb the zone strat AND the mega strat of the same type it takes longer. You bomb the zone strat, mega strat of same type, and mega city, it takes longer still! This is nothing new and you can do it already if you know the exact order to hit the strats, I'm simply suggesting a more logical and helpful interaction between them all (and by extension suggesting zones be tied to the mega strat)

[Lusche]

Now Lusche has a very interesting idea. I like that! Something along those lines would give you a reason to down the HQ. Perhaps remove the "all radar goes down" bit and make it this "morale" ratio instead. Also remove resupply of "morale," and have it return at a fixed rate of rebuilt (like a hangar?)

I was having the city in mind, not the HQ.

[Krusty]

Ah, my mistake!

I still like it, or some variation of it 

[ImADot]

In game terms: Tie the number of fields captured requirement to the status of the city. Currently you need 20% of all bases, a few tours back the requirement was 40% Now make it so that if

City at 100% - 40% fields required
City at 75% - 35% fields required
City at 50% - 30% fields required
City at 25% - 25% fields required
City at 0% - 20% fields  required.

What if a side has 30% of the fields with the City 100% up.  Then they mass bomb the City down to 50%...do they automatically win the war because the field requirement is now 30%?

[Lusche]

What if a side has 30% of the fields with the City 100% up.  Then they mass bomb the City down to 50%...do they automatically win the war because the field requirement is now 30%?

Yes.

So at that point you even have an option: Try to capture a few more bases... or do one big raid on the city. The city is only a single target... but bases are easier to grab NOE style.

[Stang]

AI fighters even set on the lowest, dumbest setting would still shoot down roughly 80% of the pilots in AH in a 1 on 1.  Ruuunnnn people ruuuunnnnn!

 

[Krusty]

The AI cheat. Anybody that's flown against them in the same plane knows this. Even if you're in a superior plane they defy the game physics somehow and turn tighter, float at slower speeds without stalling out (seriously, I had a mission with 190s where I was trying to stay in formation with other 190s... They were doing 100mph level, following their waypoints. I had to pop 2 to 3 notches of flaps and really be careful to stay that slow, but they were making level turns quite easily.


AI is never the answer for AH woes IMO.

[Raptor]

The AI cheat. Anybody that's flown against them in the same plane knows this. Even if you're in a superior plane they defy the game physics somehow and turn tighter, float at slower speeds without stalling out (seriously, I had a mission with 190s where I was trying to stay in formation with other 190s... They were doing 100mph level, following their waypoints. I had to pop 2 to 3 notches of flaps and really be careful to stay that slow, but they were making level turns quite easily.

I seem to recall besting the AI fairly easily in less capable planes. Have you used the Mission editor or tried to fly against AI? Also, AI bombers would not be that bad