Thu Mar 20, 2014 11:16 am
TLDR at the end of the post
I've had 3 games against the same guy using the same tactics. In one of my games he should have lost but I failed a 90% attack roll.
Anyway, what happens is that he has a 3 man army in 400 pts: One Chimera, an archer and a spark. And he camps in his corner, waiting for you to get to him, then weakens the whole army with the huge AoE spell (chastisement of light should do friendly fire, really, even if it's reduced by 50% or something) and picks off some units with his chimera. Because of the spell, you're forced to attack (can't hide behind walls either)... And it puts you at some sort of a disadvantage.
What annoys me is that this player sucks. He makes tons of basic mistakes, has abysmal target prioritising, and makes bad decisions overall... Which puts him on even grounds with me, an average player, that plans ahead pretty well.
ANYHOW, that was simply the introduction.
What this got me to think off (apart from "do some friendly fire FFS") was a game mode I suggested in the French version of the forum.
Basically, it's "Battlefield (the fps game) - conquest" but slightly converted to this game.
Each player has a "Morale" bar that is equal to the cost in points of the game (For example, for a 250 pts game, each player has "250 company morale points") The CMB [company Morale Bar] is full at the start of the game then drains with each loss your company takes: If you lose a member that was worth 50 activation points, your CMB goes down by 50pts
Then, the map has 3 flags (Banners for the theme) that are more or less on the median line of the map. Each of these flags is in the point that links 3 hexagons (Or between two hexagons, but it doesn't look as good IMO
). To control a flag, you must end an activation on top of one of the hexagons surrounding the flag (So not simply walking through). Once captured, it stays under your control, even if you leave the hexagon. The enemy can recapture them the same way (Ie: Banner goes from blue to red if you don't defend it and an enemy stops near it), and the flags become Neutral (White) when units from both sides are on the hexagons (having numerical superiority dosn't matter: It's still denied).
Every time a turn ends, the player with more flags drains 25 morale points from the enemy morale pool for each flag they have over the enemy (if I control 2 flags while the enemy controls 1, he loses 25 morale. If I control 2 and the last one is denied, he loses 50 morale).
Once the morale bar drops to 0, the player loses.
With such a system, it penalises players that want to camp all day, players that have a runner and go for a draw, and players that have legendaries in too low point games (their ability to control areas is very limited). This would allow maps to be back to a bigger scale and strategy to be equal to tactics (instead of tactics>strategy, at the moment). An average player however could still win because the one that controls more flags is more spread out, so it balances out.
TLDR
1) Each side has a morale bar, maps have flags for capture
2) Morale bar drains with each loss and if the enemy owns more flags
3) Once enemy morale bar drops to 0, you win
4) This favours mobile gameplay and allows bigger maps (No invisible walls like we see at the moment that reduce the combat area)
I've had 3 games against the same guy using the same tactics. In one of my games he should have lost but I failed a 90% attack roll.
Anyway, what happens is that he has a 3 man army in 400 pts: One Chimera, an archer and a spark. And he camps in his corner, waiting for you to get to him, then weakens the whole army with the huge AoE spell (chastisement of light should do friendly fire, really, even if it's reduced by 50% or something) and picks off some units with his chimera. Because of the spell, you're forced to attack (can't hide behind walls either)... And it puts you at some sort of a disadvantage.
What annoys me is that this player sucks. He makes tons of basic mistakes, has abysmal target prioritising, and makes bad decisions overall... Which puts him on even grounds with me, an average player, that plans ahead pretty well.
ANYHOW, that was simply the introduction.
What this got me to think off (apart from "do some friendly fire FFS") was a game mode I suggested in the French version of the forum.
Basically, it's "Battlefield (the fps game) - conquest" but slightly converted to this game.
Each player has a "Morale" bar that is equal to the cost in points of the game (For example, for a 250 pts game, each player has "250 company morale points") The CMB [company Morale Bar] is full at the start of the game then drains with each loss your company takes: If you lose a member that was worth 50 activation points, your CMB goes down by 50pts
Then, the map has 3 flags (Banners for the theme) that are more or less on the median line of the map. Each of these flags is in the point that links 3 hexagons (Or between two hexagons, but it doesn't look as good IMO
). To control a flag, you must end an activation on top of one of the hexagons surrounding the flag (So not simply walking through). Once captured, it stays under your control, even if you leave the hexagon. The enemy can recapture them the same way (Ie: Banner goes from blue to red if you don't defend it and an enemy stops near it), and the flags become Neutral (White) when units from both sides are on the hexagons (having numerical superiority dosn't matter: It's still denied).Every time a turn ends, the player with more flags drains 25 morale points from the enemy morale pool for each flag they have over the enemy (if I control 2 flags while the enemy controls 1, he loses 25 morale. If I control 2 and the last one is denied, he loses 50 morale).
Once the morale bar drops to 0, the player loses.
With such a system, it penalises players that want to camp all day, players that have a runner and go for a draw, and players that have legendaries in too low point games (their ability to control areas is very limited). This would allow maps to be back to a bigger scale and strategy to be equal to tactics (instead of tactics>strategy, at the moment). An average player however could still win because the one that controls more flags is more spread out, so it balances out.
TLDR
1) Each side has a morale bar, maps have flags for capture
2) Morale bar drains with each loss and if the enemy owns more flags
3) Once enemy morale bar drops to 0, you win
4) This favours mobile gameplay and allows bigger maps (No invisible walls like we see at the moment that reduce the combat area)