Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Tilt on September 20, 2004, 07:18:47 PM
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I hear lots of stuff about bases being closer or further apart..............
Thinking out side the box lets think how conflicts can happen between bases...............
How could conflicts be focussed away from bases at fulcrum points that progress/regress the local war without being directly attritional for bases?
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would need something like a tank town for a group of enemy and friendly bases. This would cause Jabos to kills gvs. And fighters to kill jabos. And Bombers to kill FHs. And the food chain continues.
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Originally posted by Tilt
I hear lots of stuff about bases being closer or further apart..............
Thinking out side the box lets think how conflicts can happen between bases...............
How could conflicts be focussed away from bases at fulcrum points that progress/regress the local war without being directly attritional for bases?
What if half the bases were replaced with the cities from the other half the bases. Then add a map room to each remaining base. To take a base, you need to first capture it's associated city, and then take down all hangars and get troops into the base's map room. You have half as many bases, but it requires two captures to take it - and one of these will be a sector away to remove the vultching.
You could also obviously have nice tank battles around these cities and there'd be enough distance between bases to remove the base spawn-camping threat.
-DoK
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Interesting Idea
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Seems like we agree on a lot of stuff!
I've also given a lot of thought about this as well - AH MA is in essence territoral combat. But what if the territorial occupation and advance, was achieved by something else than airfield captures? What if it revolved around cities and more Vbases and road systems and etc??
IMO that'd make the MA really fun.
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Yup my thinking too............
populate the terrain with towns which must be taken to advance a front...............
Think of a way of making it so that taking a base is only interesting if you hold several towns around it.......or key towns feeding ..... ie you have moved the front to a point to where the base may be captured.
There are several ways of tackling this depending upon how much work HTC would wish to put in..............
My favourite right now would be to make "spawn roads" for GV's such that spawning along a road is amatter of clip board clicking on a town (when in the tower). to arrive at a town periphery. This town must be on a road connected directly or via other towns (belonging to your country) to your field.
Once you have captured towns enroute to an enemy field you can then capture it (or if you already have done it with para's you can now use it)
But ideally IMO the target is to move towns away from fields and make their capture a requirement to "win the war"
AC's spawn the usual way and conduct an air war over towns where air fields are further apart.
Naval stuff is as before but we add towns between fields on islands.
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Here is a comprehensive compilation of all of the ideas I've suggested about the strat over the years. In a sense, it is simular to the current strat system, and yet, radically different in some areas.
I don't expect anything like this might be implemented anytime soon(perhaps never), but this will give a good example of how the overall map, and the strat system can be placed in a more logical and "realistic" manner.
The key points of this suggestion, is the "pathways" one may follow to advance or retreat, and how a battle might occur somewhere outside the individual field, revolving around the capture and occupation of strategically important key points of the map, rather than bases themselves.
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1. The Default System
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/232_1095772381_zone1default.jpg)
The above, is the current strat system in work. An individual "zone" is very large. Penetration into the strat objects such as refineries and etc, are almost impossible.
A central "Zone Field" commands the strat resources, and the capture of the field will enable the controlling side the command of the strat objects - which means the deprived side, will be unable to replenish strat objects on individual fields for a much long time. However, there is no true logistic concept as well as a logical road system.
The V-Base spawn points are quite arbitrary and illogical in many aspects.
Then, how would one introduce a logistic system as well as a logical road system without hurting the overall gameplay of AH MA?
2. The Building of the Road
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/232_1095772433_zone2roadsystem.jpg)
We start out with the building of the road system. A logical, but quite simplifed and not very complex network of roads is placed over the whole area.
In AH2, there is already a "road" in work. However, this is a very limited implementation placed in only small areas near fields. However, in a more or less realistic warring environment, the most important aspect of territorial combat revolves around the control of the roads.
Essentially, the laying of the road network is expanding what is already present in AH2 - and with perhaps a few more extra goodies, to encourage people that the roads mean something. For instance, only at these roads, will GVs travel at its full speed. A Panzer will travel its full 25mph when over a road. Over a flat stretch of bare land, its speed will be limited by 3~5mph off the top speed.
3. Laying out Vbases and Towns
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/232_1095772465_zone3placingvfields.jpg)
This is in essence, the heart of the new system. While my intentions clearly remain with AH2 as an air-combat sim, that does not mean the basic system cannot be modified to resemble much m ore of the real warring environment.
Basically, the whole field lay-out begins with a ground-war as the most important aspect of them all, when it comes to territorial capture and occupation.
As you can see in the picture, VBases are first laid out in key positions of the road. Major junctions, mountain passes, bridge heads, and etc.. Vbases, are always near the road.
Between the Vbases, exists a chain of towns along the roads. These towns are the most important terrain objects so far. These towns, are the limits of where a Vbase can spawn vehicles to. In other words, only upto the point where the town is under a country's direct control, may a Vehicle spawn to.
For instance, imagine the attacking side launches vehicles from the green Vbase at 10.12 sector to the Vbase at 9.12 sector and captures it.
Where would the attackers go next? At this point, the attackers that have captured the Vbase at 9.12.8, will only be able to spawn upto the town at 9.12.2.
Only when they attack this town, and capture it to gain control of it, will they able to gain more options in their advance. Once the control of the town at 9.12.2 is gained, they may spawn to the next "link" - the town at 9.12.1, the town at 9.13.2, or drive further into the Vbase at 8.12.6.
The town, has detached itself from the airfields, and has been transformed into a link between the road system, which the players must gain control over to allow further advance.
4. Placing Airfields and Cities
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/232_1095772492_zone4afandcts.jpg)
Once the basic road network, and spawn links via towns have been finished, the airfields and cities are laind out. You will notice that a total of four cities exist in this area, where in the default scheme, only one city existed.
The airfields are laid out roughly 25 miles apart. Some are near roads and towns, which means those airfields may be attacked from enemy GVs if the enemy advance gains control of nearby towns. Others are relative far(7~8miles+) distances from the town, which in MA gameplay is considered too far a distance to travel with GVs.
The Cities, are laid out in important junctions where multiple roads join, or in the midst of an area where a lot of vbases or airfields are places. Total four Cities have been placed in this area.
(contd.)
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(contd.)
5. Building the Logistics Line
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/232_1095772540_zone5logisticslines.jpg)
The Cities are important. They are essentially upgraded, heavily fortified versions of towns.
These cities, are at the heart of the logistics line to the combat fields. The green dotted line, overlapping much of the road system, is the logistics line.
From the cities, departs a truck convoy to each of the fields. When these convoys arrive at a field or town, damaged objects and hangars and such, are repaired.
The logistics line, follows the road system in 95% of the case. The logistics lines, will be cut off, if the enemy gains control of the corresponding towns that provide the link to the city.
For instance, the logistics line to 9.12.8, will be cut off, if the enemy captures the town at 9.12.2 before capturing the Vbase itself.
The airfield at 9.12.4, has two logistics line coming into it from the east and the west, following the road. If the enemy manages to capture the towns at 9.12.1 and 9.12.2, the logistics line will be cut off at that field. Objects, including hangars and stuff, will stay down for a very long time when that happens.
Ofcourse, the airfields and vbases can be captured independantly. But the towns are as much(if not more) important - as they not only provide a road link to allow advance, but also control logistics. A field where the logistics lines are severed, will be soon dried up and dead.
The City itself, may also be captured.
If the city is captured, the side occupying the city will control the logistics, to the extent of the logistics line. If by some miracle, an attacking side captures the city at 8.13.6, that alone will not do them any good, if there is no logistics line stretching outwards from the city, that they control.
The cities, are the heart of logistics and the road system. It is essentially a gigantic town combined with a VH.
Preferabbly, the city will have multiple VHs inside it allowing defenders to spawn. It will be much more heavily guarded with flak and ack. Whether one side advances or not, will be determined by if they can capture the city or not.
An alternative, is razing the city to the ground. If a city is 100% destroyed, the logistics function will stop for a set time, until the city is rebuilt.
It will require something like 50 troopers inside the map room of the city within 5 minutes, (all the city buildings need not necessarily be down, unlike towns) to be captured.
The extent of the logistics lines from one city, forms a zone(white dotted line). In the default strat, this whole area was one zone. In this suggestion, this area is divided into four zones.
Large battles will revolve arround the city under siege. (I hope..) The city is the most important center of an individual zone, that directly controls rebuild times in the form of logistics.
The logistics can be disrupted by destruction of the whole city, or be captured for the attacker's use, if the city is captured.
The road to attack, leads to the city.
6. Implementing Overall Strat
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/232_1095772578_zone6depotsandrails.jpg)
In the above pic, you can see an old relic of AH1.
Depots(Squares with "D"s, highlighted in yellow) are again, here. These depots, control the respawn time of the city buildings.
It is not shown in the picture, but the old country strats like the refinery and radar factories and etc, are grouped near the HQ. When these factories are fully functioning, the depot will automatically collect the resources and move it to the city by rail(light blue line).
Then from that point on, the resources at the city, when the city is functioning well, will be distributed by the logistics line via trucks.
Thus, another way to stop a city from functioning well, is to destroy the depots. But you will notice that the depots are in the deepest parts, at a position where its closest to the HQ. It will not be easy to reach.
When a City is captured, the control of the depots change to the side which captured the city. The resources from the capturer's country strats, will be collected at this depot.
The clever thing about the depot position, is when the attackers capture the city, the depot is now at the furthest from their own HQ - making it vulnerable to attack, from the defenders trying to liberate the fallen city.
So, if the country strats, grouped near the HQ is busted, the depots cannot collect resources, and the logistics are also disturbed(but this is highly unlikely unless a reset phase).
Most usually, logistics will be effected by above mentioned factors - road systems and town links.
....
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Basically, the above idea is a map designed with focus to how a real war might transpire.
Like I said, I have no intention of transforming AH into a GV sim. It is only meant to give some basic logic to attacks and defenses, that the advance and retreat of a country, is achieved through control of key positions in the map - which are roads and junctions, and logistic centers.
The numbers of fields, compared to the old system, may have decreased a bit. However, this will not in anyway make an advance any easier or defense any harder.
The whole aim of it all, is to make the target of air strikes, and places for air superiority, somewhere else than airfields. GVs will not spawn some clandestine, 30, 40, 50 miles via a weird, long, spawn indicator. There's no such thing as capturing obscure bases thanks to wierd spawn points.
The advance from the ground will need to catch up with the advance of the air, in order for a side to advance well. And the key locations which needs to be suppressed/destroyed, in order to advance, will not be the fields.
It is the towns, and most importantly the master city, that needs to be captured in order for a side to really drive into the heart of the enemy lands.
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My only issue with your idea is it still allows for GV attacks on airbases. Which, while realistic, provides just too great a risk of giving us back the things we dislike in the current MA.
If the only bases are airbases with GV's which can spawn out towards the nearby cities, then that lets GV's duke it out over there. It allows for the food-chain to work itself out someplace other than over an airfield.
Once the city is taken, then obviously an airbase is at risk. But at least the conveyor belt won't be right on top of them. The defender will need to maintain control of the airspace and then try for a counterattack.
It's also a simple system. YOu can't take A23 until you first capture C23. Easy.
But overall I think it's the right direction. The gripe about reducing the number of bases all along is that it's "too far to get to a fight." Well, not if you put the cities where you took bases away and made those required captures before you can take the base.
-DoK
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Very much my thoughts kweassa.......
I think it would be unwise to "leap" to such a system but essentialy the spawn road is the key..........
I think that given GV's will thern only be able to spawn along the spawn road to, or via ita own towns (until clearing a road for acces to a base) then all bases should also be on roads or near enough that they can be accessed from the spawn road.
Then its up to the terrain designer to space stuff out appropriately.
Further bases captured without routes to other freindly bases should be unusable......... indeed they could be made uncapturable until such a logistic route was present.
Re your use of cities and strat depots............ I must admit I mourn the loss of depots. They sort of did what we try here.
However a 1st stage implementation could leave stuff just as it is with present zone masters and strat in place.
Cross roads would be fun areas...........
Some towns could be situated next to bridges...........
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Map concept
I’ve been working on a very small two country proof of concept map but it’s slow going while I learn the terrain editor. I’m staying within the constraints of the existing system and figure additional bells and whistles can be added when the new editor comes along. Obviously the map isn’t ready.
Visually, the first things you will notice is most of the small airfields have no town or map room near them and the small fields are mostly along the perimeter of the territory (zone).
The next thing you will notice is the zone master looks something like a real City. It has a large airfield, port, factories, at least one City tile, the zone master town plus most of the towns and map rooms from the small airfields and a supporting GV base with no remote spawn points.
All medium size fields and all the large fields, except the zone master, are the familiar standard field + town setup. The medium and large fields are primarily spotted along the access line, or roads if you will, between zone masters of neighboring territories.
Vehicle bases are placed along the drawn map supply roads and the roads actually connect between the bases. The vehicle bases provide an alternate ground assault route to the zone master as well as branches to the capturable fields. All vehicle spawn points are placed on/near the roads to reinforce the idea of travel.
Convoy spawn point are placed near the large and medium airfields or any small field with a town along the way but not in such a way that a single player can camp and stop supply shipments to all the small airfields. I don’t expect many attacks on the convoys and I’d like it to reinforce the idea of supply. I’m concerned about the length of time it will take the first supply trucks to reach their destination as this would leave a very large gap in the supply chain when the map is first loaded, I may have to abandon the idea.
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Game play:
The concept is to capture a whole territory and then mop up the enemy’s remaining large and medium size bases. The zone bases are a bear to capture with all the AI ack and flack but that’s as it should be and as the attackers begin capturing the towns linked to the small fields, the territory begins to fall. The zone base provides a phased, stacked, focus for all the strat guys, bomber raids and then Jabo and GV battles among the buildings.
When I said phased, stacked focus, I envisioned large bomber groups hitting the zone base and it’s strat targets early while jabos, GVs and fighters work to capture the bases leading up to the approach to the zone base. Initially, the gameplay over the zone base would be at higher altitudes but as the attackers move in, I would expect huge furballs as the base is laid to siege. There is a risk the attack would stall but I think it would provide enough gameplay to keep everyone happy.
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Other details:
The medium and large fields along with the vehicle bases are captured to form a push into the enemies territory and access to attack the zone base.
The small fields and uncaptured medium and large fields provide the means to counter attack or launch fighter sweeps in defense of your territory. They also provide the radar towers to find fights and give advanced warning of attacks unless suppressed.
Small fields without towns can spawn GVs from the hanger but have no remote spawn points and have no enemy spawn points in the neighborhood. These fields are safe from GV vulching and capture to balance the heavy activity aimed at the zone base and can be used to launch counter attacks to threaten the neighboring enemy territory.
Solo players can up jabos or bombers and suppress the frontline bases or cap or attempt to help capture one of the enemy medium or large bases just like they do now. I expect some of the small fields and all the medium and large fields to be the focus for the furballers and b&z players just as now until a zone base is in play. Groups of players can organize large bomber missions to flatten the zone bases and if they don’t see enough players in the mission they can divert to a medium or large field. Groups of fighters can organize escort or fighter sweeps. GV battles should remain as they are now until a zone base is in contention and then it should provide a heck of a battle similar to tank town except there is actually something to capture.
Once the attackers take the zone base, the defenders are faced with suppressing the newly captured small fields that just changed sides and trying to recapture the zone base from the fields they still own inside the captured territory.
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My biggest concerns right now is whether I can place the towns and factories close enough together to look natural, then how it will play out.
Road, Depots and the other ginger bread could be added if the system works the way I expect it too.
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Well I can't put the towns and factories as close together as I'd like with the current editor but it still look pretty good and should work alright for the test map.
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kweassa.
1 thing.
to many objects on on a map causes bad fps.
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Not really!
The only real increase in object numbers are the cities. The towns have been detached from the airfields.
Count the numbers of towns in the suggested scheme, and you will see that they are roughly the same with the default scheme. Only the City has been increased; one city to four citites, but all of the refineries and stuff have been grouped moved towards the HQ - their overall numbers have decreased.
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Local object count (which effects FPS) will in fact be down as there will not be towns and fields within close proximity. Hence both need not be rendered together.
Total object count for the whole terrain would be marginally up IMO.
As above I would urge a first step by adding the spawn roads and moving/adding the towns with their own map rooms (and I presume towers). The strat model could remain exactly as it is whilst HTC reviews the game play..............
I guess they would "look" very much like the old depot did ie a town with a tower and maproom.
For me the clipboard would only show the map room dot. With a small colour ring around it (red or green) the dot would flash when under threat as now. This to reduce clutter. Roads would be just like the yellow spawn lines now except they join stuff together.
Towns would not need to show numbers/alts/country icons etc
(side note.........if you now have towns flashing every where there is enemy close do we need darbars where there is no tower radar cover?)
(another side note....... as the main "struggle" is away from air fields [until the front reaches them].................. we could re en force the AA at air fields)
(another note on ports.... for PAC type terrains ports become the logistic source to islands hence often a GV field will have to be replaced with a port........... which does not have to have a fleet attached.............. ports, when captured will always be presumed to have logistic supply by sea hence to capture an island its port must always be captured first. Again this focusses initial game play away from the airfields)
Easy
any chance of a clipboard type map of your terrain thoughts?
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FWIW, overall I'd like to see a somewhat sparser map tried. If we switch from a map with 60 bases to one with 30 bases and 30 cities, it's the same basic target density. It's just so easy for a side to lose focus when there's so many other bases to go try to get. I'm not saying make it like the Sahara desert, but maybe drop it from 60 bases to like 48 or 54 - that kind of ratio. It's going to be a considerable amoung of work to actually capture a base, it should at least gobble up some ground.
-DoK
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The bit map I'm working from doesn't show the field types and strat placement, unfortunately it doesn't look any different from a screen shot of a clipboard in a H2H room. That's why I was trying to build a map, so I can distribute it and let people take a look at the layout and test the game play.
Ideally some form of the setup would end up in the SEA on off nights for testing the concept.
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Originally posted by Tilt
Easy
any chance of a clipboard type map of your terrain thoughts?
If you're still curious, checkout the H2H room "Team-Northwest Passage". Best way I can think of to test it and see what people think. Course, it’s a highly compacted terrain and was my test terrain while learning AH TE2.
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Originally posted by Easyscor
If you're still curious, checkout the H2H room "Team-Northwest Passage". Best way I can think of to test it and see what people think. Course, it’s a highly compacted terrain and was my test terrain while learning AH TE2.
Looked in the H2H BB...... could not see it.......
could you provide a link to the terrain?
I have never used the H2H facility in AH
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Originally posted by Easyscor
If you're still curious, checkout the H2H room "Team-Northwest Passage". Best way I can think of to test it and see what people think. Course, it’s a highly compacted terrain and was my test terrain while learning AH TE2.
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Wow kwassa. thats alot of work and is an interesting idea.
What would it look like on an island map?
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Kweassa,
That is very much like what I'd like to see AH move towards. Have cities and towns, which are independant of airfields and vehicle bases, be the object of the "war" section of the game.
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Pongo my view would be that on an island map the entry point to every island would be its port . Hence capturing any other base first would be possible but would not give any access until the road was cleared from the port (presumably via a few towns).
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(http://www.tilt.clara.net/pics/sproads.jpg)
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Stealing kweassas pic and addingf some stuff my take would be very similar.........
The key is the development of the "spawn road"
The concept is a dual purpose road that provides logistic links and multiple spawn points.
The road provides logistics from a logistic source such as a "city" or "port" via the road net work to fields of various types.
Along the road are towns. At major cross roads are GV Fields. Air fields are off spur roads
Vehicles may spawn at any point along the road (no more spawn camping) provided a properly equiped (intact VH's) field is linked to that point via towns owned by your nation.
Consider the map above.
The green country is invading the red via two pronged attack. one from the north and one via the port at 7.15.9.
Ports are logistically linked to any other port which has access to a city. Hence once captured a port recieves logistics and can be used as a base for further invasion. I have shown ports here as having their own towns. In this invasion the greens have captured a Vehicle field and are pushing SW and W. They will not have any local air fields until they capture the Airfield at 7.15.7.
The reds have had their airfields at 8.14.7 and 8.11.9 cut off from logistical support. These air fields are accessable for reds but they are not renewing. the Airfield at 8.11.9 cannot be attacked by land untill the town at 9.12.1 is taken by greens......mean while the reds can launch GV's at the Vehicle field at 9.12.6 provided 8.11.9 has VH's.
Should the reds retake the town at 9.14.2 then the airfield at 8.14.7 will recieve logistics and re build.
The greens have taken a towns at 8.12.2 and 8.13.4. This must have been done via C47's or via very long cross country GV missions (possible). This has isolated the GV field at 8.12.6 which is no longer recieving supplies until it is captured and supplied by greens or/unless one of thes two towns is retaken by reds.
The greens have also similarly captured the airfield at 8.13.5 . Again isolated from green logistical supply this field will not be re supplied until (in this case) the GV field at 8.12.6 is captured.
A city complex is located at 7.13.6. Infact its a GV field linked like a zone master to local strat and surrounded by a cluster of towns. Hence capturing a city complex is a gradual process.
Cities provide the land based flow of logistics across the road network to the various facilities. However this is no longer zone based. Even with a local city complex lost to the enemy any valid road net work will provide supplies from Cities further away to local facilities still not lost or isolated. Or ideed to ports to support activities across the sea.
Towns would each have a tower type facility where they could be accessed and they may have a few fixed mannable gun positions to put up a slender defence.
I think capture conditions should be valid when say 60% of a town is destroyed. (but this could be adjustable in the arena settings)
The layout could be better designed than the one above...I have just used it to give an example as to how it would work
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Implementing destroyable bridges would be a nice addition to this concept.
Roads would also have to be navigatable. Many of our maps just lay a gray line over impassable terrrain. That would not work if you really intend to move along the road.
You might also make scheduled supply runs along a road of advance to drop off ammo and fuel. Such supplies could be interdicted but you can be sure if you make it back to your road head the trucks will arrive in 30 min if not destroyed.
Ya. this concept needs to have river bridges and mountain passes on the map.
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Uh ... I think I understand ... what if you simplify it this way:
- Each port/field has a number of cities associated that's related to the size of the field (small's have 2, ports and meds's have 3, larges have 4).
- These cities are layed out along the road network kind of like you've done.
- Each city has a vehicle base in it - so you could theoretically capture the cities from the ground if you wanted to. There should be enough distance from the cities to the associated airbase than taking the airbase by ground alone is not a time-effective tactic. However, city-to-city land battles should be frequent.
- When these cities are captured, then the associated field can be taken.
- AAA cover at fields is doubled since the action is to take place over the cities and only when that's all done is the field capturable - meaning it'll need to be a serious and costly assault. Defenders can only hug ack when the field capture is immenant.
- This obviously means you need fewer airbases since there are 2 to 4 peripheral targets to fight over for that sector. So fights wouldn't necesarily get spread out more, but the overall number of objectives would shrink. The "world" we fly from gets smaller because there are fewer bases.
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Originally posted by Tilt
Yup my thinking too............
populate the terrain with towns which must be taken to advance a front...............
Think of a way of making it so that taking a base is only interesting if you hold several towns around it.......or key towns feeding ..... ie you have moved the front to a point to where the base may be captured.
There are several ways of tackling this depending upon how much work HTC would wish to put in..............
My favourite right now would be to make "spawn roads" for GV's such that spawning along a road is amatter of clip board clicking on a town (when in the tower). to arrive at a town periphery. This town must be on a road connected directly or via other towns (belonging to your country) to your field.
Once you have captured towns enroute to an enemy field you can then capture it (or if you already have done it with para's you can now use it)
But ideally IMO the target is to move towns away from fields and make their capture a requirement to "win the war"
AC's spawn the usual way and conduct an air war over towns where air fields are further apart.
Naval stuff is as before but we add towns between fields on islands.
Brilliant!:aok
Bazi