more territories

[Necromancer]

i thought maybe the campaign map should have more territories.
enlarging the campaign map (so we can see what we are doing) and then splitting most of the territories in half or more.
to keep the board balanced, increasing the number of divisions, but allowing less divisions per territory, three or maybe even too.
this will result in more maps/types played every battleday and more territories changing hands with the same WCP and "HQ distance" values - meaning controlling 2 small territories would be like controlling one territory now. to get an inch closer to enemy HQ you will still have to win about 4 rounds like now, but playing two different maps.
the number of divisions may vary, like allowing more divisions in the HQ territory, or some kind of "fortifications" won in BO allowing you to move in one more division for defense (its the opposite of assassination), temporary, or until you move out a division, or maybe even permanent.
it will also allow a little bit more strategies on the board.

what do you think?

[Hitman47]

Whatever ideas on campaign system you may have, the earliest they can be applied is next campaign.

That being said, after playing 7 rounds of Sharqi last Saturday, less rounds and a geater variety of maps sounds good. However, always changes to the campaign system draw subsequent changes with them. Rules, how to enforce it, what could be a minus of the new system and so on...For example a minus of the system you propose I could say would be going through the maps too quickly, however with the addition of aftermath (hopefully) this maybe won't be a problem. Also, officers having to prepare a lot of strats per battleday.

My suggestion would be, sit on the idea until the end of this campaign, and resurrect it when it ends. There are too many "ifs" to discuss it now, and it can't be implemented now anyways.

[Necromancer]

the reason i brought it up is to actually have a discussion now, and if you like it, start preparing.
because between campaigns there isn't alot of time.
we can discuss it now, think of drawbacks, throw ideas, prepare the map, write the rules, and make it ready for the next campaign.
i also took into account the new aftermath maps, which would add to the variety.

officers having to prepare a lot of strats per battleday.

every army has its strats discussion for every map as it is. yes, there will be more strats per battleday, but you will also be playing it more often... "do like you did last time"

[Cheesy]

Would you add more maps in, or just duplicate some of the ones we have now? The main constraint right now is just that there aren't that many fun, balanced BF3 maps (unlike BF2 or BF42, which had active modding communities).

We're already putting most maps down 2-3 times on the map in slightly different modes to add diversity. But sometimes it doesn't feel very diverse

[Necromancer]

well, first of all i guess having alot more territories makes every territory less significant, and then you can add some of the maps we don't use somewhere mid-land. HQ cannot be set there. even if you can't take metro from an army controlling it, you can take all the territories around it and move forward. it will be little use to the enemy, if he attacks for there, he'll eventually will get to the point of having one division there that can no longer attack. yes, 1 "free" WCP, but its impact is smaller, and you should have a biased map like that on your side as well (at least at start).

secondly, the same maps will be spread apart as much as possible, and with attacking being restricted in linear movement, the battleday should be more diverse. attacking in several directions hitting the same map - well, its just like playing lots of rounds of the same map now. and thats worst case scenario , so the average is better. and with aftermath itll be even better.

we could also try to include more game mods in the battleday, like rush. not sure how, because rush isn't balanced (tickets and number of player based). but thats what this thread is for. to post ideas and discuss them.

[V_]

I'd have to agree with Hitman there. Even though the max-army limit was lowered since last campaign (5 -> 4) it's still a little high. The only way to keep the campaign from not lasting long enough is more territories. Keep this in the back of your mind - hopefully it gets implemented when we're drawing the map for C5.

Although it's not a bad idea to start talking about it now.

[Necromancer]

actually it shouldn't change the amount of time of the campaign. it might even make it longer...

[StarfisherEcho]

I think what people really want is more diversity in maps played over the course of a campaign. The problem now is that there are chokepoint territories which become important, so they attract the most biased maps from either side, which also happen to be the least fun maps. End result: up to 8 rounds on a map that was chosen because it's hard to win, not because its fun to play, and attacked because it had to be.

Hopefully Aftermath adds maps which are both fun and balanced. But right now we're kind of stuck with a limited selection of B2K and Vanilla maps (AK seems to make people grumble about walking distance).

edit: I should say that more territories could be a great way to address this, because with less divisions per territory and maybe some leniency on blitz/attack rules we could cover the same "ground" that we do now, but do so over two or three maps instead of a bazillion rounds on one.

[Arcturus]

I agree with the idea that there will be fewer divisions in an attack/defence next campaign. As you could see last week, we had a whole lot of rounds on a single map, just because it was needed. But if that is the case, then the amount of divisions on the map should be smaller.

I'm going off on a bit of a tangent here, but if we want more map variety, we could look into replacing all infantry-only maps with Aftermath maps. Those maps don't have vehicles anyways, so then we have a good balance between infantry and vehicle maps with more variety. Then we don't have to get more territories in.

[Bock]

I haven't fully thought out the consequences of this, just sort of throwing it out there...

What would happen if we randomized map placement before the territory draft?

[Necromancer]

the HQ is placed on a biased map. --> HQ might be in a bad spot which will lead to a short campaign.
or the HQ will not be set on biased map, it will be easy to capture --> same result.
it might also turn out as several versions of the same map next to each other.

[Shrapnel]

More territories is always good, but as Cheesy said this is difficult to put into practice due to the limited number of maps.

The only way to get more territories with the same number of maps is to place the same map on multiple territories.

This is problematic for two reasons:
1) It works against the goal of more variety as it isn't really more variety just the same thing repeated.

2) It could result in the same map having to be played twice (or more) on the same battleday depending on which territories the army decides to attack.

You can attempt to work against both of these by spreading similar maps to different points of the campaign map, but you can never be sure which army will own which territory at any given point in the campaign so just because they are spaced physically doesn't mean they are spaced operationally.

After last Saturday I am leaning toward reducing the max attack/defend to three divisions. This will at least allow us to move onto a different map sooner. The drawback is that it could shorten the campaign by allowing armies to take more territory during a battleday.

We have done the split territory idea in the past. In BF2 we ran a couple campaigns where 32p maps represented the territory and the 16p maps represented the capital city. 32p maps were attacked on main battledays and 16p maps were attacked on BOs. An army had to own both to hold the country and get the region bonus.

I think the best idea to add variety voiced so far is the idea for greater number of connections and fewer choke points. The drawback to this is it removed some of the strategy from the campaign map and it makes it more difficult to plan defensive weeks. While this may seem trivial a great portion of the team building within the army comes from discussing strategies and tactics. We have done campaigns with hex maps in the past, but vets tend to describe those camps as being "uninvolving."

Maybe hex maps give too many connections and our current map gives too few. Looking at the current campaign map, most territories only have 3 connections, a few have two and a few have four, and there are several that have five or more. Maybe we could work with the map to make all countries have at least three preferably four connections? I'd be interested to hear Ghoul's thoughts on this.

We shouldn't feel tied to a map of the world. We can manufacture connections by choosing cities/zones in a region and making "roads" or something. I'm sure Cheese is happy to read this.

[Hitman47]

or instead of making limit of 4 divs per territory, just cut down on the total amount of divs per army allowed. So that each army has to carefully think where to place 4 and where 3 divs, and has to pull troops from somewhere in order to attack.

[Necromancer]

that will lead to situation where the "bigger" PMC won't be able to defend all the territories, while the smaller one will. (from a RISK point of view. on battleday 1 division can hold 4 round of attack, but its not probable). so it will result in a standstill or almost standstill. everytime one PMC gain territory, the other one will be able to snatch undefended territories.



btw, Blitz option is in the rules, yet i've never seen a Blitz going.
Blitz rules aren't clear. whats clear is that you can attack with up to 4 armies. now, obviously the front line defense will also be 4 armies. even if you win with 2:1, you have 2 armies on the new occupied territory. if you want to blitz in, you can do so with only 1 division. even if you win, you can't go further because you are out of divisions (you have to drop 1 division for every occupied territory).
can you stack divisions for a blitz? rules state you can stack them for "defense", but if you loose 4 times they are killed as well. what if send 6 divisions and loose all 4 rounds (on the first territory), do the 2 stacked die as well? (my opinion is that they stay in origin territory, as they didn't actually fought, its like reserve units at the back).

This is problematic for two reasons:
1) It works against the goal of more variety as it isn't really more variety just the same thing repeated.

yes, overall its the same thing repeated, but its more variety per battleday.

2) It could result in the same map having to be played twice (or more) on the same battleday depending on which territories the army decides to attack.

yes, but its the worst case scenario, and thats equal to what we have now. so the average will be better.

[Shrapnel]

btw, Blitz option is in the rules, yet i've never seen a Blitz going.
Blitz rules aren't clear. whats clear is that you can attack with up to 4 armies. now, obviously the front line defense will also be 4 armies. even if you win with 2:1, you have 2 armies on the new occupied territory. if you want to blitz in, you can do so with only 1 division. even if you win, you can't go further because you are out of divisions (you have to drop 1 division for every occupied territory).
can you stack divisions for a blitz? rules state you can stack them for "defense", but if you loose 4 times they are killed as well. what if send 6 divisions and loose all 4 rounds (on the first territory), do the 2 stacked die as well? (my opinion is that they stay in origin territory, as they didn't actually fought, its like reserve units at the back).

The TAs ruled no. You can only attack with 4 and then blitz with the remaining.