WarMap

[Rokkman X]

I've got a question and a related suggestion.

Are there going to be updates or anything with the WarMap (Henceforth board)?

If there are, maybe we could discuss trying out a slightly different system. More maps on the board, Moving 'capitals' or Fleets.

I had an idea a while back, the different squads and groups on the board would each represent an entity on the board, and they would be moved around like chess pieces. The attacks and defenses may be conducted normally, but adding more maps on the board couples with this may make it a little more interesting and complex, hopefully not too complex as to be counter intuitive, but having this may promote wiser usage of credits (Not just the rock paper scissors of spamming ambush, bombing raid and entrenchment.) and troop placement.
This idea may be a bit too radical, but I would like to see a bigger board at least.

If not thanks for reading!

[Mythonian]

I'm a bit confused. This is what I got:

You want squads (by which I assume you are referring to the units such as BLUE Phoenix), to be individual pieces on the warmap instead of the Brigades?

And you want more maps.


If that is what you mean, does that mean that if a battle happens, the only squads that can play are the ones who had their piece involved in that battle?
1. If yes, then that will likely never happen. We will never prevent people from playing just because their FM didn't send that piece into battle. We focus on having fun, and restricting who can play directly opposes that.
2. If no, then why do you want them to be individual pieces? I see nothing that this will change from having Brigades.


On the maps: how many are you proposing? You didn't explain anything about this, really, so I don't really see how this will improve anything beside make the wars last longer.

[Rokkman X]

Yes.
The movement system would need to be tweaked to where each unit may move independently and each week.
As an example, let us imagine for a moment that there are 4 squares representing 4 maps or spaces on our board. Numbering clockwise from top left 1 to bottom left 4. 1 and 4 are Red 2 and 3 are Blue, anything left of that is Red controlled and anything right is Blue. There will also be arbitrary squad A and B for for each team.
Red wants to attack 2 from 1 so they send RedA to 2. BlueA is occupying the zone so there is a battle at 1:1 odds.

Let us say for another example that the 2 armies are aware of which squad is which,
BlueA gets sent to attack a territory, the Reds see this and think ahead, but are not able to spare RedA, so they preemptively send RedB to assist RedC in defending the territory. A Battle is fought with 2:1 odds in Redd's favor. So the BlueA must fight RedC and B.

The way odds can work is they actually affect the outcome of the battle, as well as earning extra credits at the end. If there are 2:1 odds in favor of a team the opposing team has to kill more of the enemies forces in order to win. Having to kill twice as many enemies may be too difficult, BlueA in the previous example would have to win with a total number of kills that doubled the defending RedC and B combined. This can be scaled to acceptable levels, but I think it may help answer any balancing problems we may have in future wars.

Again, just throwing ideas out there.

[Mythonian]

It's good that you're posting ideas... but I still don't see how restricting participation helps anything.

I think it may help answer any balancing problems we may have in future wars.

You seemed to bring this up out of no where... and I have a counterexample.

Let's say Violent by Design is the only squad participating in a battle. That means the opposing squads will always, each and every game, face VbD. Not only will this cause the battles to last forever (since we cannot set up multiple games simultaneously), but it would be insanely imbalanced.

And then what about situations where there aren't any defending squads?

Or what if the only squad involved in a battle ends up not having enough people show up to the battles? Can they get substitutes from other squads? If so, what are the restrictions?



There are just so many issues with this concept that I don't think it's viable...

[Rokkman X]

Well the last war was pretty darn short. It wasn't a balance problem then, but at some times there seem to be a problem that arises that can't really be solved by saying this squad can't play or whatever. We can't do that, but if everyone has to contend with odds, (that never really applied tactically before they were just for gaining credits) it might change this up a little bit. An A team wouldn't be able to handle contending with a pairing of a B team and a C team, on it's own even though 1 on 1 they wouldn't be that big of a challenge. Command may have to call in support, or another team can attack from a different direction.

As for the substitutions, you kinda got me there. It's just kind of daunting to see the board as a 2 dimensional space with no tactical advantages for doing certain things right. The way the board is now, every piece is the same, there's no difference or big viable reason not to just use ambush all the time. Nothing to make you avoid fighting the biggest fish on the board to strike at the smaller ones and weaken the enemy as a whole. It's very 'Risk'y and its flaws are fairly evident IMO.

Yeah it works and yeah we'll still have fun in Halo, but making more tactful decisions in battle is something that should be perfected and rewarded.

[Mythonian]

Well the last war was pretty darn short. It wasn't a balance problem then, but at some times there seem to be a problem that arises that can't really be solved by saying this squad can't play or whatever. We can't do that, but if everyone has to contend with odds, (that never really applied tactically before they were just for gaining credits) it might change this up a little bit. An A team wouldn't be able to handle contending with a pairing of a B team and a C team, on it's own even though 1 on 1 they wouldn't be that big of a challenge. Command may have to call in support, or another team can attack from a different direction.

As for the substitutions, you kinda got me there. It's just kind of daunting to see the board as a 2 dimensional space with no tactical advantages for doing certain things right. The way the board is now, every piece is the same, there's no difference or big viable reason not to just use ambush all the time. Nothing to make you avoid fighting the biggest fish on the board to strike at the smaller ones and weaken the enemy as a whole. It's very 'Risk'y and its flaws are fairly evident IMO.

Yeah it works and yeah we'll still have fun in Halo, but making more tactful decisions in battle is something that should be perfected and rewarded.

Why wouldn't A be able to contend with B and C? Do you mean in the same game or something? If it's one game after another, they'd have little difficulty if they'd be fine in any normal game. I don't see your logic in the odds, since it still isn't affecting the games.

There are several reasons not to use ambush all the time. (1) your probably won't have the credits to do it, (2) it will use up all you have if you do manage to have enough, (3) it's easy and cheap to counter, (4) if countered, you are left exposed and out of credits to get reinforcements, (5) as long as the defending team plays smart, they should win the war easily.

Even in your proposed system, I still see nothing to make you avoid "fighting the biggest fish" or to promote striking at the smaller ones or anything. All you are doing is changing Brigades to Squads and restricting who can play in games... That doesn't make it any less viable to attack a territory or anything.

[Rokkman X]

Well if A, attacks B and C then they've got to fight them both, and win with a greater margin of kills to do so. In a battle, It's obvious that no matter how good a group of soldiers are, they can't contend with being outnumbered. This would encourage weaker squads to gang up on stronger ones. They might lose a battle or two in the process, but win the war because they were simply unable to match the team that ran the right play on the war map. If you only have a limited number of squads at your disposal you're going to have to do everything in your power as a leader to make sure each of those squads enters a fight they are capable of winning. It promotes thought more in the mind of the commander as to where from and how soon they should attack instead of just playing rock paper scissors and hoping the enemy will all for it.

Say for a moment that the entire army forms a battle group to fight to get the numbers advantage, well the other will just split up and attack everywhere the army isn't, cut off lines of supply ad attack the capital, 1 giant entity cannot win against many smaller entities.

[Mythonian]

Well if A, attacks B and C then they've got to fight them both, and win with a greater margin of kills to do so. In a battle, It's obvious that no matter how good a group of soldiers are, they can't contend with being outnumbered. This would encourage weaker squads to gang up on stronger ones. They might lose a battle or two in the process, but win the war because they were simply unable to match the team that ran the right play on the war map. If you only have a limited number of squads at your disposal you're going to have to do everything in your power as a leader to make sure each of those squads enters a fight they are capable of winning. It promotes thought more in the mind of the commander as to where from and how soon they should attack instead of just playing rock paper scissors and hoping the enemy will all for it.

Say for a moment that the entire army forms a battle group to fight to get the numbers advantage, well the other will just split up and attack everywhere the army isn't, cut off lines of supply ad attack the capital, 1 giant entity cannot win against many smaller entities.

What? Seriously?

They have to win with a large margin for it to count as a win? So, let's say we said they need to get at least 50 more kills than the other team, but they win with 49 more. Does it count as a loss? That's be crazy! No one in a situation like that would be happy. It would be a totally undeserved victory by the other squad.

And then what about situations where there aren't any defending squads? Do we not play a battle that night or something??



I understand that you want to add more strategy to it, but you're doing it completely wrong. You cannot sacrifice fun to add a little strategy. That doesn't work.

[MedeDust]

This system is a good idea but full of flaws, I'm working on an idea that will hopefully be tested during the Beta War.

[Rokkman X]

Yes, but it needs to be tweaked so it isn't something game breaking like 50 kills. Even the worst games aren't near that. (Are they?) But it would address the skill gap between players. 'A' teams can't just go around raping everything because odds against them don't mean shit. The commander has to think and decide where each team will go and with whom, and the team leaders have to ensure the survivability of their squad. In addition, handicaps are used in many games, people use, understand and accept them. This would be no different.

I know it has flaws, but maybe after a bit of work we can get the bugs out of it and have the system work well.
As it is, I know this will probably never see the light of day.

On to something more plausible in the near future. More maps and a moving Capital ship. If there are more maps the war would last longer. This may not be necessary because I doubt either side will get swept this coming war, so it may not be needed. As for a Capital ship, this can present a few new interesting board tactics and strategies.