Gameplay: Continent Benefits & Differentiation (or Why should I fight on Hossin?)

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Treerat

I can agree with just about all of this (even if you're the stinking NC who made Emerald VS miserable with the A.S.S.).

Lol sorry. Amerish was the hardest fight for NC settling in on A.S.S. because before that patch it was a VS home continent (but it was a NC home continent in beta, so there!). Solsar was formerly NC home continent and searhus was pretty natural, so the key was consistently holding Amerish...which required forcibly re-educating the VS that it was no longer theirs. It was tooth and nail on Amerish for about a week and a half.

The A.S.S. strategy is actually an important one to learn from. It was successful because it solidified lattice links and reduced the surface area of attack. That enabled the empire who held it to consistently hold 4-5 continents every day because those continents protected each other. I now have a new appreciation for the uncappable bases on each continent for each empire because those uncappable bases are roughly equivalent to having a lattice link on every continent. This means that A.S.S. can never happen in PS2 because as you gain more territory your surface area of attack increases due to the uncaps.

Additionally the uncappable bases allow you to fight on whatever continent you want so you aren't stuck fighting on say Ishundar every single day. If you want you can go take the fight elsewhere.

Control of certain continents could allow more efficient usage of resources. For example, if control (ie holding the most territory) of Amerish reduced the cost of Auraximum needed to upgrade each tank by 1 unit and domination (51% of total territory) further reduced the amount of Auraxium needed, that would be incentive for a tank-loving outfit to work to maintain a strong presence for it's empire on Amerish. If the benefit applied globally as well the under-manned side could chose to concentrate it's efforts on holding those locations that would allow them to stretch their existing supplies longer and thus possible outlast the "seige".

1) Good idea on the efficiency bonus. The benefits dont' necessarily have to provide raw resources - instead they can make consumption of resources more efficient. That means nobody is awarded resources they don't already have. I like this idea better than awarding raw resources because that enables continents that are resource-starved or with varied abundances intentionally to not get unbalanced due to continent benefits awarding resources that the continent doesn't normally provide.

2) I like the idea of scaling the benefit on the level of dominance. Thinking on this more, the difference between "majority" dominance and 51% dominance depends on how many empires are fighting there. If only 2 empires are fighting over the entire continent then majority dominance and 51% dominance are identical. I think that a simple majority dominance would be sufficient for the vast majority of cases, and 51% dominance might be detrimental in cases where only 2 empires are involved by providing a larger bonus. However, one way to add scaling might be "super dominance" where you have 2x the territory of any other empire on the continent. So for a 3-way that would be at least 51%, possibly 67%. For a 2-way that would be 67%. So the idea then becomes:
* Minor benefit = Majority dominance
* Major benefit = 2x Majority dominance

What qualifies for each depends on the other empires' territory holdings.

That would encourage empires to do more than simply have a majority but rather push for more. It also enables the other empires to revoke some of the benefit without dominating the continent themselves.

Put specific facilities on certain continents that provide specific benefits. In the manner that Lodestars and Galaxies could only be made at dropship centers, these particular facilities could also enhance the amount of a particular type of resource extracted from that continent or further reduce the amount of that material needed or used to carry out upgrades. There could even be "exchange" facilities where those with an abundance of one resource and desperately short of another (say due to the dominate empire making a concerted drive to control all territories producing it) could trade what they had in abundance for a smaller amount of what they needed.

I had some other thoughts on facilities, but giving resource bonuses for specific facilities seems like a good idea. One idea is a "Refinery" facility that might give resource efficiency bonus. I'll save further discussion on that for a thread specific to facility benefits, as this one is more on the continental motivation. Good ideas though.