Idea for Naval Maps

[raventhefuhrer]

Hello.

So I played a few games with a friend earlier today on D-Day in Paradise, on the premise of exploring the options of amphibious combat. We put in house rules like limits on ship size, limits on air force, and generally agreed that we wanted to test how fun it would actually be fight over the islands on that map with infantry and other marine forces.

The conclusions were that the conditions for amphibious combat to work at all were laughable, and necessitated such heavy restrictions on the forces used that the conditions could never be repeated in a serious game. And besides that, I didn't think the island warfare was very fun...you're just spamming units into tiny spaces, hoping to overcome your opponent in what was basically mountain warfare. Had I been using the MLRS on the back of my transports, I could've wiped him out at any time though because of how small and hemmed in the islands are.

So I had what I feel is an epiphany that would go a long way to saving naval combat.

In any, or at least almost any map with naval combat, the zones at sea should not be able to be controlled by ships at all. Instead, there should be significant land masses out at sea, big enough to have 1-2 regular sized zones on them. Big enough to also have varied types of terrain, and room for tanks and armored vehicles to maneuver. This would add more importance to the ground warfare component of your MAR section, because it would relegate ships to a means to an end rather than the main focus of naval warfare. I think that with this system, it'd be more important to save your ships for protecting your amphibious supply line to the island, rather than overwhelming the enemy navy and then sitting unopposed on the zones. Someone who went all in to establish naval dominance would still have a hard time securing the island interior against someone who'd invested more points on ground forces without subsequently bringing in a large invasion force.

Thoughts? Refinements? I know it'd be a lot of work, for example erasing the three islands on D-Day and designing a new, larger one, and perhaps doing the same on other maps, but I think it'd be a pretty worthwhile idea.

Edit: Erm, sorry I actually meant to post this on the Beta forums. A mod could move it if they think it's appropriate.

Edit Two: Now with example pictures!
Original D-Day with unit shown for scale: http://i57.tinypic.com/1jkc2p.jpg
Proposed D-Day changes with annotations: http://i60.tinypic.com/16qoli.jpg

[Mad22]

Does seem like the maps would need to be enormous. Possibly for marine/naval only maps if they are to be introduced.

[Nerdfish]

Agreed on island with different terrain. Hillfights tend to be dominated by a one or two types of units.

[Mike]

Does seem like the maps would need to be enormous. Possibly for marine/naval only maps if they are to be introduced.

The maps I've seen are definitely bigger than the ALB maps.

[Beowlf]

Does seem like the maps would need to be enormous. Possibly for marine/naval only maps if they are to be introduced.

Not necessarily. Imagine D-Day heaving one big island with, for example, 2 control zones, instead of 3 small ones. I hope that this would allow to accomplish two things.

1) Lessen the influence of naval victory on the whole map. Especially if you wouldn't be able to cap a zone with CV ship.
2) Make amphibious forces a choice worth considering.

Right now, as Raven said, amphibious landings are viable only upon agreeing on heavy restriction in using any other type of unit. And even then, they are not that interesting and heavily favours Pact, with better armed landing crafts.

[Mako]

Agreed on island with different terrain. Hillfights tend to be dominated by a one or two types of units.

SMAW...

[cramble]

+1 even do i didn't play the beta i saw already allot of rounds just being focused on ships and not on land units.
I need to say i really like the island idea landing forces is the way to do it ships should be there only as a support unit.

I really love the idea +1

[raventhefuhrer]

This thread hasn't gotten much attention, which is too bad because I thought it was a pretty good idea. Was going to do a mock-up in MS Paint later today of how D-Day could be changed.

[teslars]

The main problem of D-DAY is that if you win the naval fight, you win the battle because :
-You'll lose your only marine/air spawn to the enemy. That's basically mean no way to counter the enemy marine force anymore
-If you take all 3 islands plus the coast ( easy with ships that shot at 8000m ) you earn more points than your enemy even if he take all the ground sector.

A way to balance this would be to increase the values of every sector on the ground except those on the coast for D-Day.
Another way to address this marines spam issue would be to add the same limit of units as planes

[Darkstar387]

Sound's like a good plan to me, I hope the developers notice this and consider your suggestions.
I always enjoy reading you'r posts Raven, they are always well thought out.