Game Play question.

[BaldEagl]

I already spend 80% of my flight time flying high cap defense.

[grizz441]

Here's the fundamental issue with defense.  Inevitably you are forced to take off from an adjacent base when they destroy your hangars.  Most of the time it seems, the sheeple have your base captured by the time you can even get there from the adjacent base.  After they capture your base, they land and go fly elsewhere leaving you with nothing but an enemy base with full ack up and no enemies.  So basically, before you end up deciding whether or not to take off from the adjacent base you are forced to ask yourself, "Is it even worth it? How close are they to capturing this thing and leaving the area"?  That is a problem.

The solution is for the auto ack to not automatically pop up once a base is captured.  They should be regenerated based on the same timer they were on before they were captured, but allow the other side to resupply the base with goons.  

[Raptor05121]

YOU CANNOT STOP THE BISHOP HORDES.

ALL YOUR SHEEP ARE BELONG TO US

[The Fugitive]

YOU CANNOT STOP THE BISHOP HORDES.

ALL YOUR SHEEP ARE BELONG TO US

Another guy PROUD to hide in a horde 

Here's the fundamental issue with defense.  Inevitably you are forced to take off from an adjacent base when they destroy your hangers.  Most of the time it seems, the sheeple have your base captured by the time you can even get there from the adjacent base.  After they capture your base, they land and go fly elsewhere leaving you with nothing but an enemy base with full ack up and no enemies.  So basically, before you end up deciding whether or not to take off from the adjacent base you are forced to ask yourself, "Is it even worth it? How close are they to capturing this thing and leaving the area"?  That is a problem.

The solution is for the auto ack to not automatically pop up once a base is captured.  They should be regenerated based on the same timer they were on before they were captured, but allow the other side to resupply the base with goons. 

Agreed, many a time once the hangers are down that is my thought process. If I up now and fly all that way, even at only 4-5k will I be in time to slow them down or will I be fighting in "their" ack by the time I get there. More often than not I'm off looking for another fight, it's just not worth the trouble.

I'd love to see something put it in to make the capturing team have to stick around to defend for a bit.

[Lusche]

I'd love to see something put it in to make the capturing team have to stick around to defend for a bit.

I'm not too much away from this.


The reason for hitting here and there (preferably where no resistance is expected) and not staying to defend is mainly the way the war is win, the absence of any geographical strategic goal. It's just about number of bases, no matter what or where they are.
The old "capture order" was a try to fix that, but it was too limited.

I've been cudgeling my brain for quite some time how we could change that in a practical way. I've mentioned it before, a "captial" that would have be captured (or destroyed, details not that important at this point) as part of the victory requirements. How your country would get close enough to the enemy 'capital'  wouldn't matter, so there would be a lot of room for different strategies/approaches. But in the end, once a faction would have pushed a wedge into the enemy territory towards that ultimate target, they would have the highest interest to hold that territory and to push even further. Diversions, sidestepping and securing of flanks will all happen, but both attacker as well as defender would know where the music truly is playing.... instead of trying to keep track of NOE's all over the map.

I'd prefer such a thing highly over any other mechanisms. which do not touch the core problem.... a lack of a strategic goal.

[RTHolmes]

the instant ack resupply is a problem, I'd just get rid of that. let them pop depending on downtime as usual, like all the other strat objects on the field.

nothing more annoying than evading a bunch of vulchers at 50' only to be nailed by what was your own destroyed ack a second ago when the town gets captured.

[DarkHawk]

I have a possible solution, a captured base does not regenerate any hangers, ords, fuel, barrack or ack with out the newly captured have to be supplied either by the truck system, goon or m3, would take a large number of resupply being delivered, This way the captured base will have to be defended until at least the hangers are up, change the down time equal to the current town time of 45 minutes.  without being resupplied recapture will be possible,  if recaptured up time will depend on how close to the owning city and stat it will take, the closed to the stats, then down time is reduced.
Just a thought, so lets hear any other ideas. This would give lot more reason to stay and defend a base once captured. plus give many targets such as the trucks, goons and m3 attempting to resupply the base, from either side.

There are other options to add, so give us some ideas.

DHawk

[grizz441]

See rule #4

[wil3ur]

I've become more and more defensive in nature of flying.  I've gotten extremely tired of just rolling bases, I hate doing a ton of work to get a pony low and slow, moving in for my kill, and having 10 guys dive in to clear my 12.  Base defense normally offers up a much more target rich environment, and is faster paced, but even this gets to be discouraging when there's 1 or 2 people trying to defend against the mass of an entire country on a roll.

...so, it's now come to 'predicting' where the horde's going to come from, getting in position, trying to get a jump on Goons and Buffs before they have a chance to form up, and trying to cause as much havoc prior to the attack.

I've found that is fun, and people tend to get a little more angry at being shot down prior to their mission arriving at a base.

[Tilt]

The debate here begins to focus on capturing air bases and how the capture model disables flight from a base as a result of game play vis the horde.

Yet if we look at WWII capture we see it was about logistics i.e capturing logistic points such as bridges, roads and most commonly towns. We have an ancient capture model that focuses on capturing the very fields we deploy from.

Of course there were WWII attacks on airfields but there are very few circumstances of such attacks ever actually closing them til the point of capture (Barbarossa 41?)  let alone them being the focal point of the enemies advance.

As the "front line" approached an airfield its ac were deployed to the rear and it would only be of use to the opposing side once the "front line" had passed it.

In AH the front line could be defined by the capture of vehicle fields and towns and when this "line" approaches an air field it is rendered in operative. It is deemed captured when the line has passed it.

Then we can harden hangers and make it much more implausible that an airfield can be simply knocked out. The fight then moves over towns and vehicle fields (air fields no longer positioned so close to towns such that air cap on one means air cap on both!)

On top of this we could factor in the requirement to take and hold such towns and vehicle fields as are taken to form the front line. In this manner a capture has to have been successfull for # time before such defences are in place (gguns) and the "front line" redrawn.

Would this stop hordes................. NO the only way I have seen that limits hordes is the zone limit as applied for a while in AW.

Would this stop hordes killing game play............... well IMO it would reduce it as the land grab objective is no longer the air field....they could horde a town or a Gv field but then in this model I would anticipate that the GV element will always decide the final outcome of any capture (the winning side will need both air superiority and ground superiority) and this will be decided by gv fields spawn access to  "front lines" and if they have not (split their forces and ) closed down the now harder local air fields then the defenders will still have access to the fight even if they are outnumbered at the combat zone.

[PFactorDave]

If there is even the smallest chance that simply leaving the guns down after capture will force the hordes to defend and change the game dynamics in a positive way, I say HTC should give it a try for a couple of weeks.  Seems like it would be a simple change to make, and worth giving it a try.  If it doesn't have the desired effect, change it back.

[The Fugitive]

The debate here begins to focus on capturing air bases and how the capture model disables flight from a base as a result of game play vis the horde.

Yet if we look at WWII capture we see it was about logistics i.e capturing logistic points such as bridges, roads and most commonly towns. We have an ancient capture model that focuses on capturing the very fields we deploy from.

Of course there were WWII attacks on airfields but there are very few circumstances of such attacks ever actually closing them til the point of capture (Barbarossa 41?)  let alone them being the focal point of the enemies advance.

As the "front line" approached an airfield its ac were deployed to the rear and it would only be of use to the opposing side once the "front line" had passed it.

In AH the front line could be defined by the capture of vehicle fields and towns and when this "line" approaches an air field it is rendered in operative. It is deemed captured when the line has passed it.

Then we can harden hangers and make it much more implausible that an airfield can be simply knocked out. The fight then moves over towns and vehicle fields (air fields no longer positioned so close to towns such that air cap on one means air cap on both!)

On top of this we could factor in the requirement to take and hold such towns and vehicle fields as are taken to form the front line. In this manner a capture has to have been successfull for # time before such defences are in place (gguns) and the "front line" redrawn.

Would this stop hordes................. NO the only way I have seen that limits hordes is the zone limit as applied for a while in AW.

Would this stop hordes killing game play............... well IMO it would reduce it as the land grab objective is no longer the air field....they could horde a town or a Gv field but then in this model I would anticipate that the GV element will always decide the final outcome of any capture (the winning side will need both air superiority and ground superiority) and this will be decided by gv fields spawn access to  "front lines" and if they have not (split their forces and ) closed down the now harder local air fields then the defenders will still have access to the fight even if they are outnumbered at the combat zone.

The biggest problem I see with this is the defenders are still losing an airfield to use to defend from. As the line moves over you are forced to abandon the field. It's pretty much the same as when the horde flattens it, not much of a difference.

To spread the fight out, maybe a twist on the old "ordered capture" system. To take a field/base you have to meet the requirements we have now, but add to that they must also have 2 adjacent towns down to 25% as well. This would have the horde hitting the main objective, but then it would have to split to hit 2 other towns as well. Giving defenders more time to defend, and busting up the horde a bit.

[JUGgler]

The biggest problem I see with this is the defenders are still losing an airfield to use to defend from. As the line moves over you are forced to abandon the field. It's pretty much the same as when the horde flattens it, not much of a difference.

To spread the fight out, maybe a twist on the old "ordered capture" system. To take a field/base you have to meet the requirements we have now, but add to that they must also have 2 adjacent towns down to 25% as well. This would have the horde hitting the main objective, but then it would have to split to hit 2 other towns as well. Giving defenders more time to defend, and busting up the horde a bit.

Not sure this would do anything cause I think it is the "MASS" of the horde that creates its own gravity that draws more like minded peeps to it. I think the draw to the many revolves around a general sense of being part of something that you yourself don't have to create, the common feeling of safety in the "many" just like herds of herbivores in the wild gravitate to each other for the protective quality of large groups.

There has to be some sort of change that brings these qualities to the defence, or some incentive that rewards defence or punishes a country for not defending. I believe the FIX is in the understanding of simple human urges and tendencies. Just like in the wild most animals travel in #s, so too most people travel and feel safer in herds. Human or animal there are in comparison very few lions! Just like with humans when a mob attacks the few, the few have little chance, with animals the same occurs when a lion gets trapped in the middle of a herd of wildebeests, the lion has little chance. Find a way to make "DEFENCE" like a herd and you will have more folks defending! Otherwise the "lions" will always be stampeded into the mud, the only upside for the lion is, he most likely dies with a full stomach  




JUGgler

[matt]

They need to add more ack and make the town buildings stronger so we have a chance to stop the horde.

[Traveler]

The biggest problem I see with this is the defenders are still losing an airfield to use to defend from. As the line moves over you are forced to abandon the field. It's pretty much the same as when the horde flattens it, not much of a difference.

To spread the fight out, maybe a twist on the old "ordered capture" system. To take a field/base you have to meet the requirements we have now, but add to that they must also have 2 adjacent towns down to 25% as well. This would have the horde hitting the main objective, but then it would have to split to hit 2 other towns as well. Giving defenders more time to defend, and busting up the horde a bit.

One thing that the 113th Lucky Strikes does when we are able to capture a field is to hold in place , defend until the town starts to rebuild or in the case of airfields and Vehicle bases, re-supply.  At times this may mean sending out strikers to take out a VH that spawns into the base or making strikes against Ords at nearby airfields, to prevent them from coming in heavy.

My feeling is that the strategy part  of the game play could be improved.  I’ve love to see more towns connected a road system that actually had an impact on game play, with open areas in which Knight, Bishop or Rook engineer teams could build Vehicle Bases or Airfields, rivers with bridges that could be destroyed and rebuilt, 

Change Airfields so that there are limits to the number of aircraft that can be launched.  There were few airfields in WWII that supported both bombers and fighters.    There was a limit on number and type of fighters that were based at an airfield,   

Any aircraft could refuel but only a limited number were actually based their.  Perhaps if the rearm pad would allow a more flexible choice in rearm.  You could chose a new load out both fuel and ord.  If you had to fly from a base in the rear . You could go with no ord and re-arm at a forward base with ords. 

Perhaps we need to put troops in both places towns and airfields  and when a base is captured it needs to be re-supplied or it stays down.    You need to put troops in the town and engineers on the Airfield to get the base functional again.. You need move troops and supplies to get AAA and Anti aircraft functional.  Or it’s down for the hour.

A town could have a nearby airfield and a nearby Vehicle base and perhaps a nearby artillery base.  One that can put up Anti Aircraft cover over both the town and airfield.   You would need to capture all three to secure a sector.

Some sectors would have all three bases others two and some just one.  Make deploying engineers to build remote airfields or  bases that would need to be supplied with logistics.  Move things to fight over and about.