Ideas for Improved Strategy - Thread

[Bugjam]

Let it come out if you have any ideas of what good strategy is in online simulation.

Here's a few that comes to my mind. IMO these would be great for gameplay and increase the variety of possible targets. When there's a lot of more than plain field capture in the game it would definitely discourage vulching IMHO  

If Aces High is to introduce cities, factories, ports, bridges etc. A nice feature would be to give them different strategic outcomes.

Destroy an ammo train: Less API available. Destroy several trains no API available at all. Must use less lethal ammunition type.

Destroy Aircraft Factory: Certain plane usage limited. eg. Fw190 factory destoyed, Fw190's cannot exceed 20% of country's force.

Destroy City: Slightly Hindered overall rebuild times.

Destroy gun factory: Rebuild times of AAA guns severely hindered.

And maybe a special target randomly set by host. Not too often though, maybe once in about every 5 hours.

ie. on map screen:

"There's 30 minutes time to destroy Factory X. All destroyed elements in the Factory X will have the double impact on enemy activities compared to normal"

Now a well organized country would hastily put up a well escorted buff raid to take the factory out.

Something like that  

Am I only dreaming or could these be implemented (in more throughly designed package of course  )

Let us hear your ideas on Strategy!

Bug

[wcetus]

I don't know if bugjam is dreaming or not, but that sure would be a great addition if possible.  Currently the WB is having problems with field raiders, because it is so easy.

[roblex]

Sound great. What about shipping though? We need a good excuse to sink ships as well  

Another idea is to say rebuild times for individual targets (fields, cities, factories, ports etc) are affected by the destruction of bridges on road/rail links to it.  Maybe rebuild should be totally dependant on how many trains/boats/trucks manage to reach it. I suppose that also means that when a supply truck/train reaches a broken bridge it starts repairing it then continues (assuming it does not get shot up).
We would have to have such trains & trucks generated at intervals inside an inpregnable tunnel. ships would have to just appear somewhere far from port.

Roblex

[jedi]

I think you guys are on the right track.  The biggest difference between the way the real war was fought in the air and the way we fight it is that the real one centered around depriving the enemy of the resources to conduct operations, and ours centers around defeating his air assets in battle.

In the real war, the air battle was a consequence of the bombing campaign, not an end in itself (although there were some exceptions where the object was to lure the enemy air force into battle and destroy it).

Imagine if every day, there were several bomber squadrons online, and their entire objective was to destroy your factories, railheads, refineries, ports, and airfields.

Imagine there were jabo squads who were always on the prowl for trucks, trains, planes on the ground, enemy tanks, etc.

Imagine there was NO way for the players themselves to actually capture an airfield.  The only way to do it would be to kill the planes there, cut off its supply line, reduce the ground strongholds around it, and let the AI overrun it.

Would you want to bomb then?  Would you escort a bomber strike?  Would you stop furballing at 500 feet long enough to intercept the bombers and furball at 25000 feet instead?  

It'd certainly be different, that's for sure.

Start with the supply chain I reckon.  Link "tactical" field operations to having the necessary supplies.  Add in some AI ground forces.

There will always be furballing.  But the furballer who ignores a couple of determined buff squadrons should pay the consequences at some point  

--jedi

[oooo 111th Fighter Group]

ANYTHING that creates a reason for an aircraft to be in the sim is good!!  Ground targets for Fighter Bombers, strategic targets for Heavy Bombers.   If you have Heavy Bombers influncing the score then you need Interceptors, ect. ect.  It builds on it's self and pretty soon you have a REAL Air War.
    What I find so disapointing about WarBirds is that there is NOTHING to do in the Main Arena, or the HA for that matter, but play "Capture the Flag"
    The first online sim that has a real stragetic element is going to draw the crowds and make the money.  I have no doubts about that...

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Otto CO 111th Fighter Group        ziggy2@home.com          
111th Fighter Group     www.cris.com/~ziggy2/      

[Brazos]

Field capture may be boring in WB right now, but imo strategy needs to do more than just hurt the other players. You want to gain something for your work, or you'll have a bunch of AW style "porkers" who's idea of fun is smashing undefended assets. Capturing a Naval base could give you more carriers, an Army base more armor deep in enemy territory. Closing radar stations would leave holes in the enemy SA. Cut bridges or rail lines to halt the enemy AI troops advance. Drop troops near a base and give them air cover as they try to do the actual capturing for you. Having AI forces fighting for assets would give us a taste of close air support, and the struggle for air supremacy that marked WWII.

[Bugjam]

 

AW style "porkers" who's idea of fun is smashing undefended assets

IMO undefended target should be hit. Why bother to hit the target with best defence? It's all part of the strategy whether you decide to leave an important facility undefended, whether you defend anything at all. Maybe all you do is just attack flat out.

If we could decide the strategy elements it would take some 5 years to program them   but hopefully all suggestions are taken under consideration  

Keep up, let HTC hear 'em all!!  

[This message has been edited by Bugjam (edited 07-27-1999).]

[nastee]

BugJam, I think it's a great idea  
 The idea of taking out their supplies do make alot of sense and make the game more realistic   the people who want dog fights would still get them because you would have to protect the heavy's.   You wouls get more squads flying together in the long run more fun more realistic.  
           ~Nastee~
       DOA- Dead on Arrival
         *Flying Aces*
      <Bomber attachment>+

[oooo 111th Fighter Group]

    Brazos, I agree with everything you said.
Any Strategic Model should reward success and punish failure. I'm just not ready  to get into the details till we get a commitment that there will be one.
     Well....  I do have one little idea on how to stop the "Midnight Bombers."  I suggest protecting every valuable target with  AAA.  The accuracy of this Flak would depend on how many members a country had in the arena.  If a countries numbers were low then the AAA would be VERY accruate. If they were high then the guality of the AAA is much lower.
    This way, your strategic assests would be defended by the host if you were not present but YOU would have to protect them if you were.
    But, like I said, anything would be an improvment over what we have now.



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Otto CO 111th Fighter Group        ziggy2@home.com          
111th Fighter Group     www.cris.com/~ziggy2/      

[popeye]

"The  accuracy of this Flak would depend on how many members a country had in the arena. If a countries numbers were low then the AAA would be VERY accruate. If they were high then the guality of the AAA is much lower.  This way, your strategic assests would be defended by the host if you were not present but YOU would have to protect them if you were."

An excellent idea!  Any strategic element will have to incorporate such game play balancing, or the "porkers" will gravitate to the side with the largest numbers, and it'll be a gang bang.

popeye

[Kats]

An air strategy system has to be based on the bombing campaign, period. To have a bombing campaign you have to make it fun for people to fly bombers, or else you won't see any up. How do you make it fun? I dunno, off the cuff I can think of adding more detail and challenge to flying bombers. I would also make bombers the most important tool of war in the game. I like what B17 II is doing and it would be a good thing to try and make buffing a game within a game in this type of flight sim.

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[popeye]

Kats wrote:

"adding more detail and challenge to flying bombers"

Great idea.  Give the "systems management" crowd more stuff to manage in bombers, then make a strat system that really rewards a good buff crew.  If you're gonna have Otto, make him get more accurate with experience.  That'll give the buff guys another "real" reward for flying to survive.

popeye

[roblex]

Popeye, nice idea!

Link the range and/or accuracy of the otto to the bombing score of the pilot. Another idea may be to link the otto ability to the number of planes the pilot or top gunner on the plane has shot down manually from bombers this tour.

Roblex

[GTOJON]

what about if you bomb an "aircraft parts"factory it puts a 2% reliability hit on an aircraft type so if the factories where being bombed alot aircraft would break, you could have landing gear failure like on the ki84 durring the war. or have problems with engines just quiting guns jamming all kinds of problems that could come up, and they would get worse as the factories are bombed more 2%+ 2%= 2%etc etc
I think iot would be kinda cool lifting off in you p38 and haveing an engine quit caues the turbo factory was hit 10 times!!

Jon

[Sascha JG 77]

As Brazos pointed out most of these ideas aren t quite new..they ve been in AW for a long time.
Which doesn t mean I don t like some of them.

*******************************************
Warning: Most of the following are not  genuine ideas, I knowingly stole them from AW and other programs:
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How about damage to airfields affecting the planes taking off from that field?
When you destroy a certain ammount of gas at a field for instance, fuel quality drops and plane performance drops as well on all the planes that need high quality fuel.
Resupplies would be flown in to the fields by players or drones in JU52s, C-47s, etc..
The factory idea is kinda cool (and stolen from AW too)  
Assign a certain value to all important structures (ressource points) like fields, factories, ports etc.
Use these points to determine the outcome of the conflict, not just the number of fields a country owns.

How about including ground troops?
Ok, ok I know this game is not called "Aces Low", but again I think that the AW approach of including certain vehicles is definatly a step in the right direction. ("Electronic Battlefield")

Finally I don t think that having "unguarded" targets would ruin the game. It would add more strategy and be a welcome change from the "Capture all the fields" thing. Besides: There s always the flak to defend targets like that.


Sascha