This charge that the Knights and bishops do not fight each other is funny. I wondered if the other teams saw that a lot. Here on the Knights there are always people complaining that the bishops and rooks dont fight each other! I have always thought that that was pretty much baloney, and I suspected that each team probably thinks it is fighting both of the others and that the other teams arent fighting each other. Now I know its true. If you dont believe me, switch to the Knights for about 10 minutes sometime when we are losing a reset, and you will see plenty of complaining about how the other two sides are ganging up on us. Remember, just because you cant see the other two sides fighting doesnt mean that they arent.
Now of course if the two sides have a similar number of bases, and the 3rd team is down to <10 or so, of course the two strong teams are going to both try to reset the weak team. This is natural, and its also natural that many people are going to log off from the weak team or switch sides in frustration, because its not any fun to lose like that. However, its the nature of the game and couldnt be fixed without doing away with base capture aspects of the game. Also, its not as uneven as it sounds sometimes. If say the rooks have 30 people on and they have only 3 bases left, they could defend each base with 10 people. The other two teams may have 60 people each, but when you consider that many of those are fighting each other, and that they are on the offense so they have to fly longer to get to the target, the actual numbers at the fighting area arent as lopsided as they might appear at first glance. The real unbalancing factor is the fact that in this situation, the attacking fighters enter with much more altitude and the fight tends to work its way closer to the ground as time progresses, leaving the defenders low when bombers arrive to pork the field. Thats just the way the game works though and there is nothing wrong with that. If you dont like that, play as a team and dont let your team get down to only a few bases.
The best way to help numbers on a team in my experience is to win a few resets. This will attract people from the other sides because there are always some people that want to be on the winning team more than anything else. Personally, I have developed quite a strong attachment to the Knights, and I wouldnt consider switching if we only had 10 players during peak hours, and lost every reset in 45 minutes. Thats just because I have always played Knights, and most of my friends are there and Ive built a loyalty to the Knights just like I have loyalties to certain sports teams. Winning resets isnt as hard as you might think either. You would be surprised how few people it takes working together to really make a difference in the game. You might think that 4 people couldnt impact the game, but if you get 4 decent pilots together with the goal of winning a reset and you have a few hours to play, you can really turn things around if you know what you are doing.
Dont berate the rest of your team for not caring, just plug away with the few people you have and make missions. Dont complain if turnout is low. Well planned missions dont need huge numbers to capture fields if you do it right (timing is everything). After you start capturing a few fields, people will jump on the bandwagon. Remember, all those people that are furballing that are making you so mad are tying down an equal number of the other team that are furballing as well. Let the furballers have fun their way, and those of us that like to win can have fun ours. Thats the beauty of AH, the fact that lots of very different people that like to do very different things, can all find something they have fun doing here.
You CAN turn around a bad situation if a few people work hard at it. Case in point, I logged on the other night and the Knights had the least numbers, rooks had the most and bishops were in close 2d place for numbers. The rooks also had the most bases, bishops were second, and Knights had 6. There were a few people making missions, and about 10 people or so that were joining them. Within 2 hours, the knights were up to 18 bases and what had looked like a certain loss and reset was looking very good. Almost right away the number situation started to shift once we started capturing bases. The rooks lost numbers almost every time they lost a base. Pretty soon, they had least number of players and bases. The bishops were still winning when i logged, but Knights were catching up fast.
Bottom line is, whining isnt going to attract people to your team, but winning might, so go out and try to win some, but remember, if your not having fun your doing something wrong.
