Territory Idea: Countries

[cryosin]

**I posted this in the official forums, but these seem to be more active so I'm going to re-post it here.***

I have a neat idea for territories that I think fits really well with planetside 2's capture system. I'm going to call them "countries", but you could call it whatever you want really.

My idea is that an empire should be awarded a "country" status after gaining enough territory in a given location. This country bonus will make it harder to re-capture those bases as well as give certain benefits to that empire.

There would be two ways to implement this.

1) You could pre-design the world to have a country contain certain hexes. If an empire captures all the hexes in that area, it gains control of that "country" and gets its bonuses.

2) To make the game feel more sandboxy, you could assign a country after a pre-designated amount of adjacent hexes are controlled. So if the number of hexes is lets say, 6, then the first six hexes are considered a country. Anymore adjacent hexes become a part of that country.


I personally feel that the first method would be better. It would give the world a sense of purpose and make the fights more important as a whole.

This also keeps the idea of continents and control from Planetside 1 alive, while still allowing for the fast paced movement of planetside 2's capture system.

There would be multiple countries that could be captured, and you could watch as empires encroach upon the country. Certain hexes would be designated capitol hexes(usually placed in the middle), and the country does not fall until that capitol hex is captured.

So how it would work:
- One empire must first capture the capitol city.

- After an empire contorls the capitol and ALL hexes of that "Country", they are given complete contorl of that country and its benefits.

- Any empire may attack surrounding hexes, but control of the country is not taken away until the capitol hex is taken over.

- Each country would give different benefits. The dev team mentioned how certain parts of the world would benefit vehicles/infantry/air etc., so maybe countries in those locations would give bonuses to those types of units. Ie: A location that favors infantry combat would give bonuses to infantry if its local country is captured.

- The bonus would not go away until the capitol city is taken over(or maybe more than 50% of adjacent hexes lost for balance reasons).



Thats a quick summary of my idea. If anything sounds confusing or you find any flaws please post them. I think its a great idea and would like to know others thoughts(as well as the dev's =D).

[Mechzz]

Interesting idea, would go some way towards replacing cont locks as an over-arching goal. Pre-defined groups of hexes being assigned as "countries" would appeal to most folk's idea of territory control, I think. Getting a bonus to some aspect of your empire's war effort by holding a whole country for some period of time makes holding a country worthwhile.

Whether it works or not may depend on how footholds are mananged. If footholds are rotated, then a country you could hold today may be totally undefendable tomorrow.

So may be just calling groups of hexes "countries" and assigning each country to one of the empires, but not giving hold-bonuses would make more sense. Back story could be developed as to why each country is claimed by whichever faction it gets assigned to. (e.g. VanuVanu belongs to the Vanu because the first alien artifacts were found there, Terraria belongs to TR as it was the old capitol of Auraxis, etc, etc.)

We are a very competitive species by our nature, so simply drawing a line in the sand and saying "this country is mine" would be enough on its own to spark a full-blown invasion?

Cue global war!

[headcrab13]

I think PS2's hex map is already well-suited to accommodate an idea like this. Great explanation, cryosin.

Possibly adding the ability to drop a "capitol" base from orbit could add some unique long-term objectives (post-launch). Imagine an entire empire fighting for weeks or months to amass the resources for a new super-base that would strengthen their front lines until the enemy factions could push in far enough to take control of it or destroy it.

[Bazilx]

Originally Posted by Mechzz

Interesting idea, would go some way towards replacing cont locks as an over-arching goal.

Agreed.

[cryosin]

Thanks for the responses.

If you guys have anything to add or other ways to go about it feel free to post. I would love to see a similar model make it into the game.

The idea of an army fighting around a capitol and then getting beaten back(like Germany vs Russia WW2) would be pretty epic.

[Lonehunter]

I really like the idea of combining hexs to make additional territories. This could be a good way to bring base benefits back too, but attach them to a country

[Malorn]

I like the idea of a benefit for capturing a certain amount of territory in a certain continent, but I don't think that should be split among the continent. It's too easy for a foothold placement to give an empire more of an advantage that simply geographical if there are different benefits.

But I like having this on the continental level. Get 51% or so of a continent and you get the benefit. Or take the most territory on the continent and you get the benefit. Would provide incentives for two weaker empires to team up on a dominant empire and also provide a benefit mechanism for fighting on specific continents.

It's similar to the idea I had here
http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=36627

[Papscal]

Countries? Seriously man.

[Malorn]

"Provinces" is probably the better term but reading the post always helps.

[Xyntech]

These countries or provinces or whatever could be done in such a way that none of their borders touched a foothold and that there were multiple countries/provinces on each continent. Maybe 4 or more per continent, so that each empire had one relatively close to them, and the rest of them were more up for grabs closer to the center or far edges of the maps.

I personally like the idea of multiple ways of getting various benefits. Maybe each continent has a singular benefit that any empire can get by having 51%+ of the territory, but there are separate provincial benefits for holding a certain cluster of territory, completely separate from the continental benefits.

Having provincial benefits would also add a more dynamic layer to choosing which warpgate you wanted as your empires foothold on a continent if anything like my idea in this thread ever came to be. Picking which provincial benefit is most important to you would dictate which foothold was most ideal, although presumably benefits close to footholds would have to be balanced enough that one side never had much of an advantage just because of their footholds proximity.