When I read the tile of this thread I thought it was going to be a suggestion to ditch chess piece countries in favor of card suits - the Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades. In a game named "Aces High" using a Spade as part of its logo, it always had a certain logic to me. But I understand the arguments in favor of the supposed more natural player balance of 3 vs 4 countries.
In a sense, can't a country is basically be thought of as a mega-squad. I think Bruv's interesting angle is to break up communication between the entire country and force it to smaller groups working independently, with the hope that would promote smaller actions all over the map. I don't know if they would work or not.
His mention of "grey" or "neutral" bases reminded me of an idea about a "build out" arena - the game starts with countries having smaller territories (a roughly contiguous group of controlled bases & strat sites like cities, factories, facilities, etc), with all the other bases and airfields on the map grey, and the field structures invisible. Countries send out truck convoys or make supply air drops at these "grey' sites and the airfield structures will start to appear - first in an unfinished, framed-in version and then the finished structure after 10 minutes or so. The site itself be predetermined by the terrain maker as a Vbase or small, medium, or large airfield - but it would just be inactive and its structures invisible until "built out" by the country. And maybe only plane types that have been "flown in" and landed by players should be available at that base.
Eventually the map would reach a steady-state, fully built out - but there might be some interesting variations introduced as the map is built out. The more organized countries would definitely have an upper hand.
Also just an idea, just thinking out loud, and haven't really critically thought about all the negative possibilities.
