although I believe Aces High is loosely based on a chess game-it is not chess. your first idea would make longer to get to a base to take, defend, resupp. if a base is hard to take, it's because it's being well defended, which if I'm right is 1 purpose of this game. it's not made to be easy. it's made to fun, and contrary to a previous post I made-lol is fun most of the time.
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The biggest complaint I hear over and over is it takes to long to fly between bases. I got to agree with that one. op said this not me
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^^ that is probably from kill hungry pilots-fighter and bomber pilots- who want shorter distances to land their kill quickly before they get shot down..besides flying long distance give a pilot a chance to become an astronaut-20-25k for their pick attack.just watch the rooks-they good at that..and if you had shorter distance bombers could not get altitude to drops bombs before getting shot down.
if I wanted to play another game, I would because I can, but I don't so I won't. AH-AH3 is the best.i'll play it till I die or my puter burns up.
but no offense -1 to your idea