Same thing again tonight, except it was the Knights that were fighting Rooks and ignoring Bish. Apparently one sided battles are the new normal for AH. One thing (among many) that Air Warrior got right was a limited amount of aircraft from a field. There were only so many aircraft at a particular field so the entire side couldn't up from there. When the stock was depleted you had to use another field to launch.
We know this is historically inaccurate because the entire stockpile of a country's aircraft was available at any field in WW2. That's how we beat the Germans at Pearl Harbor. Same thing with the giant bomber missions into Germany. They all left from RAF Duxford.
I've been saying this for the better part of 10 years.
While the base limits in AW it is my understanding was done to out of necessity due to technical limitations. It is however one of the things they unintentionally got right and served to help spread the fight out.
One thing this game AH had right then screwed the pooch on is in moving away from the zone base & strat system which was far FAR better then anything we've had since. Yes we still had the horde all those years ago. But at least you could figure out where they were likely to go as zone bases were more important then other bases and people would actually try to defend them even if only to be involved in a fight
Back in the day yes we had hordes. But they werent the nearly absolute norm we have now. Even if you are willing to change sides the options now are horde...or be horded. I frequently fly outnumbered anyway. And typically I dont mind it all that much as it can be quite amusing seeing how long I can hold out while watching so many put so much effort into killing one plane. But I can only track so many targets before even that becomes not fun. The numbers become absurd and it just gets to be annoying.
Flip side is. Flying with the numbers can also be fun for a while. But even that gets old.
I much prefer a more or less balanced fight. Even in a fight to take a base makes the final capture of a base more gratifying. I'd rather spend all night in a fight to take one base then spend all night rolling up bases one after another nearly unopposed