Lazs, here's the way I see the map design when I said "I think that the biggest issue with furball vs strat is the map layouts. Right now all maps in the MA actively encourage, if not outright demand, furballing as the means to capture fields."
First some definitions so we dont get confused:
Furball: Clouds of planes engaged in shooting each other down in area less than 1/4th of a sector. Usually over or near or in between fields, their purpose is to shoot down other planes as primary objective, field capture or field porking is 2nd in their list..which means that once they manage to furball OVER the field and kill the acks, they set up a vulch.
The Furball is easily identified by seeing masses of green and red icons of all plane types (vast majority being spits, n1ks and la7's) engaged in a free for all melee at all altitudes (although most of them are below 10k). Its the lone wolf/quake arena gameplay: take off, shoot others down before they shoot you down, RTB if you can or care.
Strat: Fighters and Bombers that fly with specific purpose of destroying infrastructure (which includes airfields) that will help "win" the map. Aerial dogfighting is 2nd in their list (fighters being either jabo or escorts).
The strat is easily identified as seeing large amounts of red cons of the same type (for the most part, aka b17s with P51 escorts) that are flying towards a field or factory, its the "historically oriented" gameplay: take off with others in group, each plane type with a specific duty, fly to target, accomplish mission (bomb or escort), return home.
Please note the suicide junkies infect both types of play.
Now, the field layout and map layout is made so that furballing is the de-facto means to move the map, not strat.
All MA maps now have fields with less than a sector apart, which unavoidably result in furballs between them, and its not until 1 side "pushes" the other side over a field and vulch it that the furball ends.. but WAIT! The side that is getting vulched has one or MORE fields less than a sector away! So it doesnt matter if that field is captured or not, theres alway another furball coming up.
Now, the strat players oth, are presented with a HUGE list of "targets". Mostly fields less than 1 sector apart. And unavoidably, that fact alone makes "strategic" destruction or porking of airfields to be rather useless since it wont hamper the other side's ability to fight since by the time the strat players bomb and RTB, whatever they destroyed is BACK UP (especially true in HQ/factories).
And thus, it has become an unspoken alliance between strat and furballers: strat does most of the field porking and keeps fuel down in surrounding fields so enemy fighters dont last long IN A FURBALL, and the furballers take care of swarming the field and keeping the enemy down so another strat player or good samaritan flies a goon in. But for all practical purposes, the strat players affect the map very little since the furballers themselves, given enough time (say, an hour furballing over a field), will eventually pork the field and grow tired of flying in the same place and take up goons and capture it. Compared to the, say, 15 minutes it takes a couple of strat players porking the field and town while furballers furball over it, and then fly a goon in.
Now, to give you an idea of what I think a "balanced" map layout is in IMO; the version of trinity im working on has LARGE airfields spread over 4 sectors apart from each other, and theres lots of vehicle fields in between. This map is to be moved by ground forces supported/protected by aircraft, and eventually airfields themselves will come under fire by ground forces and their supporting aircraft.
The Vbases will launch vehicles as well as BOMBER/ATTACKER aircraft (Il2,Stuka,A20,Boston) and will also launch fighters that have little or no ground attack capability to provide air umbrella support for the ground units & bomber/attacker craft (aka La5, Macchi's, Ki61, 109e/f/g2, 190a5, P40s, 110c4, spit1/hurri1, f4u1, yak9u,zeroe's).
The large aifields will launch all planes, making them vital targets for strat-bombing, it makes factories and supply trains be even more vital to attack since there's so few airfields they resupply (every cargo counts), vbases will be under attack from both ground and air..and air attacks come from the vbases themselves (ground monkeys or furball monkeys) and from the large airfields (launching fighter/attackers like p38s and bombers to help move the front line faster).
This kind of map setup, I believe, will allow the furballers to do what they love: furball from the vfields, it even allows for the vehicle lovers to sally forth in their armed buggies, and the strat players finally get the chance to make an impact on the resources of the game and on moving/defending the front line.
And the suicide dweebs? Hah! I dont think flying 6 sectors or more to suicide will be appealing... not to mention that suiciding on planes taken out of Vbases will be an excercise in frustration thanks to the flaktanks
Carriers will also have their little wars and D-day beach invasions (towns at "running" distance of troops when dropped at the beach from LVTs... imagine the fun of vbases defending beachside property by having to mow down the hordes of running grunts
)
