Regarding maps and numbers.

[Bizman]

@ ROC and @ Naughty: As you know there's as many ways to play this game as there is players. If you fly to the enemy field someone might up for defence. Or then not. Sometimes I've circled over three or four enemy airfields during one single sortie until I've had to RTB without seeing a single enemy, apparently not even in the field gun. And if I up near a fight, there will soon be a rant on 200 about disturbing a 1 vs 1 or about a multitude vs 1. I've even been PM'd for interfering a 2 vs 1 practice event near our base on the centre island - needless to say that they all were enemies to me! If there's on average more than one field for every player online, sometimes it looks like people really were sitting each one in their own tower, not to mention if there were three or four. Or all of the fighting is done between the two other countries in a place you'd have to fly all across one of them. Since this game is a social event for me, having the ability to talk with my friends from several squads is quite important. That's the reason I wouldn't like to switch sides, there'd be no way to tell someone looking for company on our channel that I could be find on the other side. Not to mention that switching back if the situation changed has the 12 hours rule.

On a small map there'd be more chances to meet an enemy by accident.

[Edit]Lusche, you beat me again in typing speed. +1 for what you said.

[BnZs]

What makes for fun play in AH resembles what made the first world war so horrible-stalemated attrition.

[caldera]

What makes for fun play in AH resembles what made the first world war so horrible-stalemated attrition.

Fun for furballers.  I think it's more fun when there are furballs in one place, base rolling another, CV battles another, and tank battles another.  I hate it when maps don't move and prefer to fight base takers over any other kind of fight.  There is a context to that fight, not just the fight itself.

[pembquist]

AH2 is at least 2 different games depending on population. This fact should be the basis for making adjustments for the late night late war. HQ being down perpetually for example, just makes the game less enjoyable, not more interesting or complex.

[Guppy35]

Unfortunately the reality is often different. The more room on the front, the more spread out the players are. A single air con here,a singe tank making a town flash there. If one team finally "gets some people together", it's very often that the other team does not, and thus: No defense.
The smaller the actualy front line, the higehr the chance that you get suffient players together in one area to spark a battle. On some small maps I can even fly to a battle in progress between the two other teams, which is mostly impossible on large ones.

This is what makes the most sense. 

I understand the notion of  taking some folks and calling out where you are going and hoping someone will want to fight.  The problem is often the guys willing to do this are also the guys who are better at fighting so the odds are folks won't rise to the challenge.

Until folks get over the fact that they don't really die and learn that there can be fun in even getting shot down a few hundred times while you get better, they are more apt to take the path of least resistance, which often means fighting no one.

Combat does imply force meeting force, not force avoiding force.  If it's late night and there are 30-40 people on some huge map condensing the area a bit so the forces have a better odds of running into each other seems like a good thing.