Post by alert on Oct 17, 2022 9:49:12 GMT -6
We have AI controlled airbases for balance and gameplay reasons. It could make the game too easy, allowing players to dominate with a large and coordinated land-based airforce. But this solution is a little unsatisfying, especially in the Baltic and Mediterranean.
If you invest heavily in land-based air to maximise the chances the AI will do something useful, it never really produces interesting coordinated attacks and you're just passively observing with the fleet. Alternatively, you can try to use carriers in places where they are unsuited and go heavily into CAP and AA, but this is ahistorical and artificially suboptimal - we want to use Malta as our carrier! Also, there are several techs and entire aircraft classes which only operate from land, including some cool stuff like guided bombs. Players would also have more incentive to create new aircraft variants for use on land, i.e long-range fighters.
I suggest adding a game setting, doctrine and/or tech that allows players to control their airbases directly. This could be balanced with a VP penalty (like Captain's mode, which is conceptually similar) and/or additional costs for maintaining airbases. I don't see why we couldn't do the same for zeppelins too.
If you invest heavily in land-based air to maximise the chances the AI will do something useful, it never really produces interesting coordinated attacks and you're just passively observing with the fleet. Alternatively, you can try to use carriers in places where they are unsuited and go heavily into CAP and AA, but this is ahistorical and artificially suboptimal - we want to use Malta as our carrier! Also, there are several techs and entire aircraft classes which only operate from land, including some cool stuff like guided bombs. Players would also have more incentive to create new aircraft variants for use on land, i.e long-range fighters.
I suggest adding a game setting, doctrine and/or tech that allows players to control their airbases directly. This could be balanced with a VP penalty (like Captain's mode, which is conceptually similar) and/or additional costs for maintaining airbases. I don't see why we couldn't do the same for zeppelins too.