While building a custom strat setup for my latest AvA terrain, the thought occurred to me that this would be a good idea for the AH strat game as a whole, bringing it into the fight like never before. The huge mega city strat complex, while jaw-droppingly beautiful, took the strat game out of the overall game worse than it was before. There are probably 50 threads on the subject, so I won't bother discussing it here. My idea to bring the strats into the overall fight is this:
Each strat factory is contained in its own mini-city. When a map loads, all these small strat cities are located 2-3 sectors behind the front line(s), making them instantly worthy causes for attacking & defending, i.e. promoting combat. If a strat factory is reduced to 0% or the field closest to it is captured, then that
individual strat factory moves back 2 or 3 sectors. This way, instead of all the strats being grouped in a small cluster that all moves to the rear together, we would get more of a leapfrogging chess-like strat game, where the factories are always near enough to the front to make them points of conflict. Bomber pilots would now have more to do than ever before & wouldn't have to fly for an hour to reach the strats.
To avoid splitting up the factories to cover both fronts for a country (and denying enemy countries from half the strat targets), we could slightly go back to the zone system. Each country would be split into two zones. Each zone would have its line of factory mini-cities on its corresponding front. Let's say the Bishops blast the strats of the Knights on the Bish/Nit front. The Knights would suffer the downtime effects on Bishop front, but the half of the country facing the Rooks would not be effected, since that front has its own strat factories. The Bishops would be rewarded for their efforts without giving the Rooks a freebie advantage against the Knights. Each side would have to
earn its reward.
So that's my idea. A compromise of all the strat systems we've had mixed with some new ideas. The factories would always be 2-3 sectors from the front, providing continuous targets and points of conflict besides over airfields. Each factory would be pushed back independently, and attacking these tagets benefits your country only & doesn't give the other opposing country a reward they did not earn.
Sorry I did not have time to make a clipboard map to show my idea, but I think you all can picture it in your melons.
I'd like to hear thoughts on this idea before moving it to the wishlist forum. Please try to keep it on the topic of this particular system. Do you think it would work as well as I do? See more benefits or any drawbacks that I have not considered? Let's hear it. I just feel this would finally bring the strat game into the overall game & make it more important than ever before. I think it also gives the terrain a more populated look, instead of a barren world containing nothing but airfields. It gives each country a more realistic look.
