Is Strat target bombing a waste of time with zone airfields ??

[Sparks]

I really like the new bombing system but I am beginning to think that the zone control airfield concept has killed what the new system is best for - strat bombing of cities etc.

Basically the zone fields have become the key to strat - i.e. when the zone field is captured the strat targets swap ownership.  However this also means that if you happened to have bombed the strat targets and then some enterprising country mates take the zone field then you inherit bombed cities etc - big oooops.

Is it time to maybe make cities and other strat targets (not HQ) capturable so that if say you capture the refinery then the zone control field no longer supplies fuel and so sub-fields don't get fuels re-built ?

Sparks

[HFMudd]

How about if your zone had links to the enemy field which were inactive while the field was in enemy control.  Once you captured the field your zone would take over and begin supplying it.

[Sabre]

Originally posted by HFMudd
How about if you zone had links to the enemy field.  Once you captured the field your zone would take over and begin supplying it.

If you think about it, the zone-control field is simply taking the place of Depots under the old pre-1.09 strat system.  The primary difference being (A) depot's were a lot easier to capture than a large airfield and (B) the zone strat status effects only fields in that zone.  I'd rather see the city become the focus, where it's capture would be what triggers the change in ownership of the rest of the strategic infrastructure.  Cities should include both an airfield and several VH's, as well as numerous A/I and man-able ack and anti-tank guns.  Finally, I'd require more than 10 troops to capture the city.

Having said all that, you're right about strategic attacks being a two-edged sword.  Making the city the capture mechanism wouldn't change that either.  In the final analysis, a country bent on capturing an enemy zone must weigh the benefits of damaging the zone's infrastructure against the cost to the war effort.  On the otherhand, the damage is not permanent, and can be redressed by supply drops.

[SKurj]

noone is really bothering with egging the strat targets...

why bother?

when all u need to do is kill 3 acks destroy a dozen buildings with yer osty and roll in an m3.  You get it all


SKurj

[Midnight]

Zone Strat playing is a huge waste of time.

1. The death of strat targets has 0 effect on fields that are not damaged. No matter how much fuel, ammo, troops, or vehicles are used from an undamaged field, there is always a limitless supply, even if every strat target has been totally destroyed.

2. You can capture the zone control field with far less effort, time and coordination. We did it with 5 guys on a sneak attack run.

[Innominate]

There are so many bases that if something happens to yours, you can move on and go back later.

Bombers can't do any significant damage to a field.
The only thing that CAN damage a field is a swarm of jabos.
When you have a swarm of jabos, you might as well leave the strat up, cap the place, and wait for a goon.

Even without control of a zone, hangars come back up after only a few minutes, who cares how much the strat targets have been bombed?

Strat bombing is good for easy bomber points for rank potatos, thats about it.  In terms of the war, there is no reason to attack them, even less reason to defend them.

A couple of quick, unthought-out ideas...

What if a field's status was based on the zone strat, or the field's facilities, whichever was damaged more.  i.e. kill 50% of the fuel factory, and all fields in that zone are at 50 fuel.  Or maybe some number based on the field status and the strat status...  What about making the times for rebuilding actually matter?  What if a hangar took an hour to come back up?

What about simply making targets denser?  Close in the various bits of each field, so that a carpetbombing pass CAN do signfiicant damage.

[Midnight]

I agree...

Right now, carpet bombing anything but towns, the cities or HQ is more of a hassle than anything else. The field and most factory objects are too spread out to do any major damage on one drop, and the flying out long enough to come back around, recalibrate and bomb again is a major pain and waste of time.

I really think that fields need to have limited supplies that get used and must be resupplied from factories and depots. Having unlimited ordnance, troops or fuel regardless of factory status really makes strat a useless proposition. How can you strategically deprive the enemy of fuel or bombs or whatever if there is an unlimited supply of them?

I suggested a system similar to what is in most strategy games, where resources are built up and used. As planes are shot down, factories build more, if the factory is damaged, it builds them slower. As bombs are dropped, the factory makes more. If the factory is damaged, it makes them slower or can only make smaller types of bombs. I would love to expand on this idea if it was interesting to other people.

I feel that a system like I described would help balance things out more. If a country had huge amounts of players, they would obviously be using supplies faster, and therefore putting a strain on their factories. This would have an effect of slowing them down and allowing an outnumbered country to fight back and not get steamrollered in a huge endless wave of unlimited attacks. As the aggressor advanced, they would have to stock up the front lines so they could press the war forward, rather than the current system where you can kill a town, take a field and have immediate FULL and UNLIMITED resources to advance and attack again. The fight moves much too quickly until one side is cornered and has to endure countless and unending attacks with almost no chance to take a breath and retaliate.

Strategy would be nice, and this proposal could be just the thing that the strat guys and furballers could all enjoy.

[Steven]

Make it so you can bomb out the enemy's Spitfires or plane-types so they can't fly them and I bet more people make concerted efforts to hit those targets.  I would imagine more "missions" with loads of bombers and fighter escort and on the flip-side a concerted effort to defend those targets.  In fact, if factories were by plane-set, you could literally bomb a country "back to the stone age" where they have to fly Wildcats or something.  Anyway, though I like the idea, I don't think it would work.

Strategy in the MA will always be flawed because it's not based on a war of attrition for anything but bases.  The MA can never be a war of attrition anyway, the players would leave.

[Innominate]

You'd never see another nik, spit, or pony in the air=/
Though, it might finally get people defending strat targets  Then again, it'd probably just cause a storm of whining.

[Packy]

Originally posted by Steven
Make it so you can bomb out the enemy's Spitfires or plane-types so they can't fly them and I bet more people make concerted efforts to hit those targets.  I would imagine more "missions" with loads of bombers and fighter escort and on the flip-side a concerted effort to defend those targets.  In fact, if factories were by plane-set, you could literally bomb a country "back to the stone age" where they have to fly Wildcats or something.  Anyway, though I like the idea, I don't think it would work.

Strategy in the MA will always be flawed because it's not based on a war of attrition for anything but bases.  The MA can never be a war of attrition anyway, the players would leave.

Are you saying that there would be one factory producing all models of one plane type for the game?  For example, one factory would be building spitfire Mk1, Mk5, Mk9, Mk14, etc. for flying but if this factory is destroyed then the factory can only crank out Spitfire Mk1's?  Your idea has my vote!

[Sparks]

Well in terms of overall strat I still hold by my suggestion in this thread several months ago - Strat Discussion about usgae rates and availabilty

I still think that would work best

My point here was as Midnight and Skurj agreed - why bother and it can actually be detrimental.

It's a shame that we get good realistic bombing and lose the reason to do it IMHO

Sparks

[Joc]

Simplest thing would be to have depots in the same map square as a field,then whatever depot you hit effects that field,which will help with capture or something like that,or within 2 map squares,I havent even a clue how the strat works now :/

[Midnight]

Strat works like this...

1 Ostwind rolls up to town. Said Ostwind levels the town. 1 M3 with 10 troops rolls into town. Said troops take the town.

Suddenly, the 10 troops that took the town become super heros and teleport to the factories in the surrounding area. They single handedly take over the entire infrastructure, forcing the unions of the factories, trucking, and railways to produce and deliver goods only to airfields that are aligned with them, even if the factory is totally surrounded by enemy airfields.

All of this really doesn't matter to the airfields, even though they are not recieving any more supplies... It seems each airfield has mastered the art of molecular cloning and replication and can generate INFINITE numbers of aircraft, fuel, ammo, ordnance and soldiers as long as they have bunkers still on the field or adjacent town.

Hmm.. seems to me that the 'factories' only function is to make fuel and ammo bunkers, troop barracks and aircraft or vehicle hangers.

Said bunkers, barracks and hangers are actually replicators (ala Star Trek Next Generation) that can produce unlimited amounts of ammo, fuel and vehicles.

So you can go ahead and bomb all the stupid factories you want and you can't effect the enemy unless you can also destroy their entire airfield.

As long as there is at least 1 ammo bunker on a field, that field has UNLIMITED bombs, rockets and ammunition of every type.

As long as there is at least 1 troop barracks on a field, that field has UNLIMITED troops

As long as there is at least 1 fighter hanger on a field, that field has UNLIMITED amounts of fighter aircraft of every type, make and model available in AH.

As long as there is at least 1 bomber hanger on a field, that field has UNLIMITED amounts of bomber aircraft of every type, make and model available in AH.

As long as there is a vehicle hanger on a field, that field has UNLIMITED amounts of ground vehicles and boats of every type, make and model available in AH.

The only element you can effect quantity of is the total capacity of fuel that a vehicle may take from a field. But even this ends up being UNLIMITED amounts of the same percentage quantity of fuel, regardless of how many gallons that percentage makes up. (in a B17, 25% fuel maybe 200 gallons, and every B17 that wants to take off can get 200 gallons. In a spitfire, 25% fuel maybe 50 gallons, and every spitfire that takes off can get 50 gallons, but not 200, even though the B17s can) However, fuel can not be totally destroyed and any vehicle can always get 25% fuel no matter what.

The really is no strategic element in the current system, and IMO never can be if unlimited resources are always available.

Winning a war (or any game for that matter) should mean that one side played smarter and made better decisions than the other side. In AH, the war is simply won by whoever can gangbang the hardest for the longest time. In AH, it is shear weight of numbers that wins, not skill or planning. No matter how hard and how smartly a country defends it's fields, if they are outnumbered 3-to-1, the eventual limitless spawn of the attacking enemy will overcome them.

[Steven]

I don't think a MMOG can ever be a war of attrition.  People will switch sides, log off or quit if they have any hinderence to their fun.  Same goes for my suggestion which I'm well aware of which is where you can bomb out certain aircraft types or clumps of aircraft types.  Could be just Spits or LA7s or whatever, or could be batches of types such as factories for aircraft with ENY of 10-15 and factories of other ENY's which if destroyed remove those aircraft.  Again, I realize this woudn't work for a good many people who can/will only fly a certain type.  I personally would find great pleasure in forcing Spit drivers into something else over capturing a base or taking down DAR.    I'm not even going to try to attempt to validate it or go into any deeper explanation 'cause I know it just plain won't work.

[Innominate]

What if...


All targets on small airfields were lined up so that a single bomber formation could kill one type of target in one pass.  i.e. kill fuel, ammo, FH, BH, etc

Med Airfields would be setup so that it takes two formations.

Large fields would remain the same.

So, a bomber formation headed to a small field, assuming a perfect drop, would be able to completely kill one type of target in a pass.  (Provided it had the appropriate bombload of course)

It would take two to do the same thing to a medium field.  (oddly enough, a med field's fuel is more durable than a large field)

After this, strat needs to be made denser to allow for bombers to actually inflict worthwhile damage to them.  Strat also needs to have a bigger effect on rebuild times, and needs to remain down for longer.  I don't know any of the specifics of how much it affects things but strat should be important enough that people will want to resupply it.