Man... this is heavy stuff under debate, glad to see it is getting a good going over.
Let me begin by saying:I'm against capturable strats.
I'm for a strat system that encourages a more multi-faceted aspect to the game. (escorted bomber missions, furballs over strats, in addition to the standard base defense)
A strat system should encourage balance, not imbalance.
On the effect of strats:I personally couldn't agree more with Baumer's observation... Feedback to the players is crucial to encouraging players to understand that aspect of the game. When you're flying and lose an aileron, you get feedback in the form of sluggish controls. As such, you are encouraged to learn to fight with the limitation, or flee. As he so deftly pointed out, there seems to be no real feedback to players regarding the strat system. I really liked his suggestion of how the radar worked, because upon bringing up your map, you instantly notice an effect upon your country when somebody hits your strats. Although some of his suggestions may be a bit harsh, there is definitely a well defined "cause and effect" coming from the act of attacking or defending strats, while still providing sometimes subtle, sometimes flagrant, reminders that your country is not 'firing on all cylinders'
On the implementation of strat targets:I have always felt that a countries primary strat targets should be closer to HQ, behind friendly lines. I never knew of the previous system, but I like that aspect of it. I also know that on a large map however, that this greatly changes the effect of strat targets vs a smaller map. To solve that, I think the zone system had great advantages, but perhaps it was implemented in a too inclusive fashion. I would like to see your main strats be hedged closer to your countries 'heart'. These strats would affect the country as a whole. Whether it be the standard strat targets we have now, or perhaps new ones like some have mentioned here (i.e. Fighter Factories, Bomber Factories, etc). However, a distributed strat system also has its place for large maps, or even just maps where you have 2 front lines (see all main arena maps).
On the effect of strats upon balance:I also like the suggestions I've seen that seem more like an economy of supply and demand. While this may be too complicated, it has its benefits. In this system as a team begins to be beat back, the supplies available become greater to the demand (fewer fields to support). This would have a net effect of stalling any steamrolling unless the steamrollers also begin to attack strategic targets.
Swatch's Suggestion for a Strat System
What I picture is a hybrid of the current system and a country-wide system. This system makes the repercussions of attacking and defending strats more apparent. It also clarifies the 'supply chain' issue a bit.
Premise
Your country owns a set of '
main strats' which always belong to you, and can have far-reaching effects upon your countries war-making ability, but they are well defended and difficult to knock out with respectable automated defenses. Within your country are a series of '
secondary strats' that affect only the bases closest to them. These strats are also uncapturable but have more limited effects upon these bases. It should be noted that secondary strats would be more weakly defended and not too difficult to damage, relying more heavily on human intervention over automated defenses. Finally, each base has it's own strat system that only affects that base.
Strat Targets
- HQ: One per country. The root of your country. In addition to the current effects taking out HQ has, all regeneration of your strat targets is suspended while HQ is down.
- Fighter Factories: One per country. Main Strat. Responsible for fighter availability (As their %destroyed goes up, low ENY fighters (0-10?) become unavailable.)
- Bomber Factories: One per country. Main Strat. Responsible for bomber availability (As their %destroyed goes up, low ENY bombers (0-10?) become unavailable.)
- Vehicle Factories: One per country. Main Strat. Responsible for vehicle availability (As their %destroyed goes up, low ENY vehicles (0-10?) become unavailable.)
- Radar Factories: One per country. Main Strat. Responsible for Radar Range of all country bases. (reduction of up to 50%?)
- Ammo Factories: One per country. Main Strat. Responsible for Ordinance Availability at all country bases. (possibly disable 1000/500k bombs?)
- Refinery: One per country. Main Strat. Responsible for Fuel Availability at all country bases. (reduction down to 75% fuel?)
- Shipyard: One per country. Main Strat. Responsible for Respawn Time of CVs. (possibly as much as double respawn time?)
- Ammo Depot: Multiple per country. Secondary Strat. Responsible for Ammo Downtime for local bases.
- Cities: Multiple per country. Secondary Strat. Responsible for Field and Town Ack Downtime at local bases.
- Fuel Dump: Multiple per country. Secondary Strat. Responsible for Fuel downtime for local bases.
- Troop Training Camp: Multiple per country. Secondary Strat. Responsible for Troop Downtime at local bases.
- :
- Local Base Strats: Same as what we currently have, Fuel/Ammo/Troops/Radar on base that can affect that base specifically.
Strat Target Regeneration
(A bit complicated, but mostly in the background)
A strat target's natural regeneration rate is directly related to the number of bases within that strat target's
initial Sphere of Influence still owned by that strat target's owner. Once an enemy force has taken all of the bases within the strat's initial sphere of influence, the strat no longer automatically regenerates, but the effectiveness of the strat still affects all these bases at whatever level the strat is currently at. (Enemy occupation has to manually resupply secondary strats, whereas friendly occupation gets the benefit of an automatic regeneration)
Primary strats automatically regenerate at a constant rate, independent of all but damage to HQ. Of course, any resupplies accomplished by a human player to either a main or secondary strat will also accelerate the regeneration process, just like it does now.
Example: 10 bases are within Ammo Dump 1's Sphere of Influence at the beginning of the map and it is owned by the Rooks, along with those 10 bases. The Bishops come along and take all 10 of those bases. That Ammo Dump no longer regenerates naturally if any damage is caused to it and the (now Bishop-owned) bases must resupply it if it is damaged since it will not do so on its own. If the Rooks take back 5 of those bases, the ammo dump will automatically regenerate at half the normal speed.
Secondary Strat Sphere of Influence
(Not too complicated)
A secondary strat applies a limited area effect upon a country. This effect is similar to the current 'zone' system, but can be generated automatically as part of the terrain, instead of needing to be set up manually.
A base is only tied to the secondary strat of a specific type that is CLOSEST to that base. Those bases that are closer to a specific secondary strat target than any other make up that strat target's 'zone of influence'. Any limitation caused by damage to that strat target is applied to these bases, similar to how the current zone works.
Secondary Strat Effectiveness
This is basically unchanged from the current system. Let's return to Ammo Dump 1. At full strength, this Ammo Dump is able to resupply the number of bases initially in it's Sphere of Influence (10 in this case). If it is damaged down to 70%, then the ammo dump is also dropped to 70% effectiveness for all those fields within its sphere of influence.
Projected Effect on Game
Under normal early battles (just after map reset/start) there should be little or no obvious change from the current system.
As a team gets pushed back into their territory, the attacker must spend more time focusing upon resupplying the strats they've killed, or else take the bases without killing strats.
The benefits to be gained by attacking a country's main strat targets should be enough to encourage a slightly different gameplay style, including 'strategic' bombing.
Attacking the supply chain of a country (secondary and main strats) will limit that country's ability to fight.
That long-winded thought is just a sizable portion of what I was thinking of. I hope you all at least get some food for thought from my ideas, and feel free to agree or disagree with any of them!
