New gamemode: Supply lines

Discussion in 'Feedback' started by Silk, Sep 30, 2017.

  1. Silk

    Silk Mapper

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    So this is something that struck me, while messing around in hammer, as something i'd love to try out playing. It would basically be combining the core empires gameplay with conquest map gameplay.

    Each team has a CV and base building is available in this mode, with the exception of the VF and barracks. Radar (with research), armory's, repair pad's, walls and turrets will be available for placement.

    So just like with conquest the map is filled with capturable points of interest. There is however not just a single route, but many options to plan your attack route. Just as with conquest these cap areas can only be captured if you own at least 1 adjacent cap area. Every captured area offers ammo and health boxes for your team immediately on capture.

    Each area also has a spawn point and something of strategical interest. This can either be a steady income of resources, or a vehicle spawn option. This vehicle spawn option will be limited to what the commander has researched, AND to the vehicle spawn point type, which would be a certain type of chassis, for example the heavy tank chassis. If you control a cap area with a heavy tank spawner, but your comm has only researched mediums, you won't be able to spawn a vehicle there.

    Player and vehicle spawning can only be done in safe areas however. An area is safe if ALL adjacent cap areas are under your control. Spawning anything on the edge of no man's land is therefor impossible

    Eventhough only adjacent cap points can be captured, ANY point can be uncapped, even across the map. Any areas the enemy had already captured beyond that point will be lost to them, as you've cut their supply lines. By infiltrating and uncapping a strategic cap point, you might be able to cripple enemy control and superiority.

    Example #1:

    layout_1.jpg

    BE starts with cap area 1, which allows players and jeeps to spawn at the starting base. NF starts with cap area 6. If BE moves east and captures area 15, nothing would change yet. If they then capture area 14 and 16, they'll be able to spawn and spawn AFV's at area 15 (however the comm will have to research AFV's first to spawn vehicles)

    layout_2.jpg

    Later on in the game BE has map control. They captured each area touching a blue supply line (image), and can spawn at the starting base, area 1, 2, 9, 15 and 16. NF can spawn at the starting base and areas 6 and 12.

    NF can try to buy enough medium tanks at area 12 to drive straight towards area 1 to uncap. If succesfull BE will lose ALL areas and will have to spawn at the starting base. (the start base spawn will work when the first cap area is uncapped; to win the game the last cap area has to be fully captured or the cv has to be destroyed). Uncapping area 1 won't be easy though since BE can spawn nearby at areas 1, 2, 9, 15 and the starting base.
    Better would be for NF to try to uncap area 15 for which only 1 spawn has to be dealt with (area 15 itself). If succesull BE would lose access to heavies (point 16) and 3 of their 6 spawns including area 1, which can now be reached through area 15 without having to pass any BE spawn point at all.

    Example #2: king of the hill map

    kotm_layout_2.jpg

    BE took a risk and went straight for the hill. NF went for map control. Results:

    NF:
    - base spawn + 6 safe area spawns on the outer circle
    - base res income + 2 safe area res income
    - access to jeeps, lt's, meds, heavies and arties

    BE:
    - base spawn + 1 safe area spawn (area 17)
    - only base res income
    - access to jeeps and apc's

    BE chances look hopeless, however with access to apc's, they can roam around freely and uncap NF's area with ease. If all they succeed with an apc rush is to uncap area 5, NF will still lose 4 of their 7 spawns and access to LT's and artillery vehicles while BE can use their APC's to claim the entire western area.


    Thoughts?
    I know i'd like to try it ^_^


    Edit:
    To avoid making uncapping unadjacent areas too easy, perhaps this could be limited to full squads? Or one of each class: an engy, rifleman, scout and gren? Shoot one of them down and they won't be able to uncap your precious safe area that controls half your territory. It would encourage revive and squadplay. Would need 'Empires 2' amounts of players though ^^

    Another option would be to add 1 second to the required uncap time for every minute a cap point is in your possession. Areas closer to your base would be more difficult to cap, but not undoable.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2017
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  2. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    Reading this I was reminded of advanced war, that strategy game on the gameboy advance, and all I could think was it would work really well with empires's aesthetic and gameplay. In that you could cap points anywhere, and I think I would like to see a version of this map with all points cappable, but I can understand why your choosing not to do that here.

    About uncapping points, I feel like just having a flat timer and person count is enough, possibly make the more valuable nodes, like the apc node or some excessively high res node, require more people or time so it's a serious investment of personal and not just some guy squad reving a dude to cap it. I say this partly because complicated ideas like uncapping taking longer based on how long it was held for might go over quite a few heads and just make people feel like it's bugging out, and because there's a commander. With the commander on field your team has much greater awareness of things happening around the map, along with him being able to add defenses where ever. Sure turrets don't stop anybody, but they can be pretty great detection systems which is all a half decent team needs. So I wouldn't worry too much about ease of uncapping things.

    I just thought of something, can the game tell if a person is in a tank or not? It might be cool if a person in a tank counted as an extra person, like if a flag needed 3 people to cap a guy in a medium and one on foot would be those 3 people. Consider it like investing resources to cap or uncap a point. It's also a bit harder to sneak a tank around the field, so they wouldn't work well to uncap faraway points, but might still be able to do it. It will boil down to how the team operates, but it could be a nice extra tactic of sorts, plus help medium pop games a bit if you set the number of people to cap high.
     
  3. D.D.D. Destroyer

    D.D.D. Destroyer Member Staff Member Moderator

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    The capture point entity only detects players.
     
  4. Ranger

    Ranger Member

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    Vehicle Training flags detect tanks me thinks.
     
  5. Silk

    Silk Mapper

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    The vehicletraining map uses the standard cap system. So it only detects the players inside the vehicle.

    Still amazed that people still know that map, 10 years after i made it purely for training sessions with : ][CW][ :
     
  6. -=[Combine Soldier #43]=-

    -=[Combine Soldier #43]=- Member

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    This idea sounds really interesting, I definitely want to try playing a map like this.
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2017
  7. MegaMLGgaming

    MegaMLGgaming Member

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    Well, lets get a raw map out using the flag based system, and work on that?
     
  8. .Oktay.

    .Oktay. Member

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    Hmm overall i find this idea great but how do you want to build a customised tank ? there are no vfs ? or does it spawn tanks with weapons in it ? also i think the jeep as a starting vehicle is to op the res is low and you can capture the enemy flags really fast.i like that the apc is in the middle and is only 1 flag because the apc is the most op vehicle in your game mode but jeeps should be not in the starting flag in the base.anouther thing is what if the enemy fortifed all tank spawning flags with walls and turrets ? you got no tank to snipe the turrets of course you can do it with grens but grens are a easy target and are slow.artys would be usseles in normal empire you got a main base so the artys can target that but in this game more you dont have barracks and vfs only a radar and you can build mutiple from it against infantry would suck because the enemy can squad rev or just use a different path i really dont see use from a arty in this mode.
     
  9. -=[Combine Soldier #43]=-

    -=[Combine Soldier #43]=- Member

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    In a more or less balanced match it would be very difficult to secure all vehicle spawns and it would take too long to set up a lot of turrets on all of them and would split the team, while the other team could focus on 1 side and get to their flags just as fast as their enemy before taking them out with superior numbers. About vehicle customization, I think that if it's possible, we could put a rep station at the vehicle spawn flags, so that ppl can change the vehicle they spawn there, maybe when you spawn a chassis, it will be completely empty? No armor, weapons, standard engine... not sure. Btw, is it possible for the map to detect research to enable tank spawns? And how do you research AFV's? Custom research tree?

    Arty does seem less useful in this gamemode, but I think it still can be used against large enemy concentrations, both maps look like they will force ppl to clump together quite a bit.
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2017
  10. Silk

    Silk Mapper

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    "...what if the enemy fortifed all tank spawning flags with walls and turrets ? you got no tank to snipe the turrets of course you can do it with grens but grens are a easy target and are slow. Artys would be useles ..."

    Actually the first sentence there is an answer to the last. But yeah arty usefullness would depend on the map, which is why i had the artyspawn area also generate res income in this example. Anything can be balanced with this mode, it's just a matter of what gameplay you want to achieve with specific maps.

    Jeeps from start was just an example. If both teams start with jeeps, both can capture areas quickly, and both can lose them quickly as well. Depending on the map teams could also start with very little resources, and with only the base res income you won't be able to mass spam jeeps. And would you really use all the res to buy multiple jeeps instead of radar and research? You might be able to cap faster early on but you won't be able to cap everything, and the enemy will have their radar up faster and will have access to meds or heavies faster. Choices that can win or lose you the game.

    But yeah this gamemode requires extremely optimized maps, and lots of testing. That's no reason not to do it, ... just a reason for me not to do it :-p

    As for spawning vehicles, i never meant to make a map like this as it would require coding to do it right. In my mind the vehicle spawner would actually open the vehicle customization window you get in vf's, but with limited options based on research and captured areas. I also have no problem with spawning heavies or whatever in for example a captured med area, if heavies are unlocked in another captured area. The repair station would also only allow those filtered options.

    Games would be over much quicker though, but that's fine for such a gamemode. A few wrong decissions and the game can be over in a few minutes, even later on when you seem to have everything under control. Making cap times depend on the lenght of the shortest supply line to the base could counter that a bit: the closer to the enemy you get, the more difficult it becomes. However criticial choices that make you win or lose the game in minutes is exactly why i'm interested in this. I would however NEVER command a game of this type :-D

    Obviously this wouldn't play like regular empires. And there's a bunch of ways to focus even more on pure strategy and tactics, and turn it into a gamemode for the true tactician. Full of rewards or penalties you'd want to consider while planning your route.
    - Having activated two similar vehicle spawners (for example 2 med spawners) their price could drop, or the chassis could become available even if not researched, or you get a +1000 res team bonus on capture of the second area, ...
    - What about capturable areas that unlock research? As well as give res and / or unlock a chassis. The middle of capture the hill could be a heavy spawner with instant heavy + nuke research.
    - What about penalties? Areas that when captured allow the comm to camouflage a captured area (and with it all areas that rely on this one) as uncaptured on the enemy minimap. You'd never be sure about enemy map control in maps with decoy areas without visual confirmation of your team. Perhaps engy/scout camera's hidden in a bush somewhere could counter.
    - What about an area bonus with the option to fortify 1 captured area by choice, making it uncapturable to the enemy (which would be shown on the minimap). They'd have to capture the area that allows the fortification first, or cut the supply line to the fortified area (this would still uncap it). Stuff like this requires an instant, massive rethink of your battle plans.
    - What about areas that control level design stuff? Lowering a bridge over a river, enabling fortifications all across the map only buildable by your team, spawning some turrets at every cap area on capture (once), ...
    ... The possibilities are endless. All those bonuses and penalties could be combined in areas. What route would you take? ;-)
     
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  11. Thexa4

    Thexa4 Developer Staff Member Moderator

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    You can do this without code support by giving and taking research to the team that captures / loses a flag. Then people can build vehicles in vehicle factories you can spawn when a flag is captured.
     
  12. D.D.D. Destroyer

    D.D.D. Destroyer Member Staff Member Moderator

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    You can't lock Jeeps/APCs/light vehicles from the VF, and you can't restrict the commander building of individual buildings.
     
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