New Improved NDSIsles

[oboe]

The positioning of strats on a map must be one of the more difficult decisions a mapmaker deals with.   

As a part-time bomber pilot, I enjoy upping a flight of B-17s to hit strats, but only when they are spread out as targets, as on the ETOMA map.  With a map like NorthCo, where all the strats are clustered together as far away from enemy bases as possible and well-protected by multiple flak bases and a large permanent airfield, I wouldn't even consider a strat bombing mission.   For me, that type of strat placement negates one part of my game play, so on those maps, I revert to fighter-puke or attack pilot mode and simply concentrate on more tactical gameplay.  I assume designers have in mind to discourage bombing missions to strats with this design choice.  Maybe the dedicated heavy bomber groups still mount strat raids with maps like that, but for small bombing operations like mine its not worth the time.   Tough to please everyone, so its probably best to have a mix of map design philosophies overall.

BTW, last night NE of A45, there was a long train on the eastern side of the mountain.  There were no train tracks, just the train on the flank of the mountain.  It wasn't moving, but was firing on us flying over.  I went offline and tried to find it just now but I couldn't find it again.     

[mERv]

I am open to any workable suggestions for future maps. On the maps currently in the MA, defending strats is a joke, even with flak bases. IMO strats should be the hardest target to hit, and the best defended. In real life, WW2, great effort was expended to destroy strategic targets by the Allies, and defended by the Axis. Ultimately the destruction of the Axis strategic targets, is what ended the war.

I agree. My concern for the "newer" maps has been the ability to quickly resupply a strat from a flak base with c47's. When a player invests 30-60 minutes one way to get there just to have the strat resupplied  in 10-20 minutes that is a big problem. Please make the strats difficult to attack. Please do not disrespect a players time investment by allowing unrealistic, nearly instantaneous resupply from c47s spawned from flak bases. 

NDisles has been the worst map in the game for a very long time. Much worse than buzzsaw. The improvements to this map are welcomed by the strategic players of AH.

These flak bases are not a problem. If anything they are providing an element of defense to a countries island while it is being invaded. A player just has to adjust their strategy to avoid the danger. I would share my suggestions but I'm no6 giving away strategic advice so easily on the bbs

[Dadtallica]

Now I want to capture flak bases!!!

[Lazerr]

Flak bases can be designated as capturable or uncapturable. If the Flak base is capturable, it is part of the calculation for base captures. If it is captured, as we have seen on Buzzsaw, the local strat in effect becomes captured as well.

Remember, with just the strat, you still have puffy ack and auto ack. Admittedly the Flak base does increase the ack substantially.

I am open to any workable suggestions for future maps. On the maps currently in the MA, defending strats is a joke, even with flak bases. IMO strats should be the hardest target to hit, and the best defended. In real life, WW2, great effort was expended to destroy strategic targets by the Allies, and defended by the Axis. Ultimately the destruction of the Axis strategic targets, is what ended the war.

Perhaps an adjustment in strat down times might help. I usually post my maps as I develop them. I am not deaf to suggestions, be they positive or negative. While I greatly enjoy working with the Terrain Editor, my goal on any map is to provide an end product that the majority of players enjoy, and hopefully increase the number of players in the game.

I mentioned moving the strats back to the furthest island, and I thought about that some.  I still think it's beneficial for people who enjoy air combat without getting blown out of the sky by AI.

Maybe by adding another port where the strat used to be would add another target, along with a few more ships on the map for those that enjoy that aspect.  Or two close v bases like are currently on some other maps.

Just thoughts.  Anything would be better than AI puffy in-between bases for guys that just want to play the game as it's been played for 20 years.  If it was consistent with the density of cv puffy, I wouldn't even cry about it, but it's obviously way more potent.