I dont think that that is the answer. I dont really like the idea. If you are going to do that, why not just have separate arenas, one a CT for early war, one for mid war, one for late war etc. The answer is obvious, if you split up the current CT crowd even further you would only have a tiny handful of people, if any, in each of those arenas. If you had the same map, but with sections for pre, mid, and late war, all that would accomplish is to split up the few people that are playing into different areas of the map. The CT as it is now, usually only has action in one or two focused areas. For example, in the "fire in the sky" setup, which is playing now, the allies usually are all in the same area trying to take one Japanese base. The Japanese side, naturally gravitates towards that base to defend it. So usually, all 12-20 people that are online are in the same area. At least this has been the case when I have played, which is mostly at night on the weekends. A split map would split up those people with a few in the late war section, a few in the early war section etc.
I dont consider the CT a failure, in fact I much prefer it to the MA most of the time. I still play in the MA plenty too, since it is fun as well. However, I prefer the more historical nature of the CT (just always get this guilty feeling when I shoot at a B-17 from a P-51 lol). I do wish that more people played the CT, it would be nice if we had at least 30-40 people online most of the time. I dont advocate forcing it on the MA though. Let people play where they want to play. I do think that there are a lot of people in the MA that would like the CT better though if they gave it a try.
The CT needs some slight tweaking that in my opinion would probably increase the numbers at least a little. The different setups each week are an excellent start and I have really enjoyed them. However, I think that slightly smaller maps would be better, and I am happy to see the announcement that some are forthcoming. I also wish there was a way to completely eliminate the 3rd country from the map, and redesignate the sides as Allied, and Axis instead of Rooks/Knights/Bishops etc. The CT should make every effort to stay historically accurate within reason. I dont think that the BoB setups should have field capture enabled, and there should be a way to remove the CVs from the BoB map. On the other hand, if its a scenario set on the Eastern front, field capture should be enabled. I think the type of person that likes to play in the CT is easily annoyed by small unrealisms, I know I am. Its not a big deal but it makes it a lot more enjoyable for me. I know that most people dont feel this way and thats fine. I am just grateful that HTC provides a CT for those of us that like a little more realism. I know its just a game and it will never be completely realistic but the closer it is to realistic the better I like it, thats just the way I am.
I know I know, I am a nerd, but I have always been this way. Even when I was a kid, I was fanatical about realism when we were playing. One time I got in trouble with my parents because some of my cousins and I were playing soldier, and we were pretending it was the Civil War. We only had a few toy guns that were civil war era enough to suit me, so we ended up being one gun short. We had a rifle that was bolt action, but I refused to allow it, since they didnt have bolt actions then! My cousin complained and my parents made me allow him to use the bolt action. They told me to "pretend" it was a muzzleloader. The very thought! I could pretend that it was 1863 and that we were surrounded by 1000s of imaginary soldiers but not that a toy rifle was a muzzleloader! lol
I was probably only about 12 or 13 at the time, and you can see the old realism streak is just as strong today, 15 years later.
What a geek huh.
