I have no problem with the idea of balance. I would be of the opinion that as long as people are involved, you won't be able to program it in. As you pointed out, in the past it was two sides vs one. How often do you see one country now with overwhelming numbers and the others half that.
Folks want to be a part of the winning team. They want success. They want to feel that sooner then later. How do you program that in? At some point it's on the player isn't it?
Has there been a time where there hasn't been 'something wrong" with the game based on the words of different players?
I think people are over thinking this
A lot of the points made are good just to complicated IMHO. I like the new town set up & I don't think we should go backwards,how ever it makes it near impossible for the dedicated GV guy to take a base any more.
What I think that would help new people who GV to begin with,because it is the gate way drug of AHII & is the easy mode until they transition to other things. Also the old guard who wants there former town & port & v/base back for the base capture portion of what they like to do.
Time is the enemy with the take a base crowd currently they spend most of the time looking for buildings & never really know if they got the entire town down. So they tower get troops & return & they missed a building or took to long & town has started resetting while on the way back.
Now the old town had a couple of elevated areas where you could situate yourself & give you a birds eye view & hence proceed to destroy buildings you may have missed.
So put a couple of grassy hills either end of town & that will allow GV guys to get a better view of the surroundings & at least see what may be up or down. Also slightly thin out the hedges so it is not so much of a maze,to try & find your self around the edges of town give it a more line of site & direct drive to the point your heading for.
Now with Ports & GV bases leave them as is except for the manned ack guns. With those get rid of the auto ack option they default to when no one is in them so they don't start shooting at you when your back on base with your troops. With only 10 minuets to work with it is just not enough before they come back up.
Any way my two cents worth.