From the desk of Casp3r

[blitzkrieg]

How about the ability to airlift your army(s) to a city, thereby making the travelling quicker - at a price of course.

Different types of armies - infantry, mechanised etc.

The ability to create navy vessels - transports, destroyers, cruisers, aircraft carriers etc. With the ability to attack (or defend) coastal cities.

And one I'd really be in favour of, and it has already been mentioned - email notification if an army is on it's way to one of your cities.
on http://www.googleearthhacks.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3758&page=2

I think the different classes of attackers needs to be looked at again. Well done in suggesting it, casp3r.

If my memory serves there was a thread about trying to make armies have to follow certain routes to get to certain areas so that they couldn't just fly over water or across the ice caps and that it was very difficult to implement. Having said that, it would be REALLY COOL! Imagine if you had some european cities and you wanted to attack north africa. You have the option of a land assault by going around the mediterranean, with a high chance of being intercepted near the Middle East bottleneck (see attacking armies enruite to a city) or you can move a transport vessel and ferry them across the sea. You wouldn't be able to move troops from the Americas to Europe or Africa without a warship convoy. Honolulu would be a pretty safe city.

If this gets implemented it can change the way assaults happen in the game dramatically and lead to even more strategy.

One solution which doesn't implement the different classes or warships would be to put waypoints on every continent and a few coast based ferry waypoints and you have to choose your route. If the game notices that your chosen route will go over a body of water (major sea or ocean only, creeks and small lakes shouldn't matter) it will send you an error message or the army will stall at the last checkpoint. This also makes attacking an army enruite possible too. You could say an army must remain at each checkpoint for 5-10 minutes before automatically moving on to the next, this allows your opponent to sit in waiting at the checkpoint and if they are fast enough, take a dent at your forces. Of course the owner of the moving army can change direction and avoid that checkpoint at any time aswell.

If you need to travel by water you must go to a coastal waypoint and choose your next coastal waypoint, again avoiding land in this situation if you have a fair way to go.

If you were in russia wanting to attack in Europe on one side of the world to the other, you may not have to use the checkpoints as there wouldn't be a major body of water to avoid, it's only if you need to go around a major sea. But if it happens that the game wants to send your army the wrong way around the world to reach the european city (across America) it would be better off to give it at least one waypoint to head the land based way.

Ocean travel should be slower and more expensive than land travel, remembering that land travel also should be more expensive then normal static upkeep.

remember this suggestion - http://www.googleearthhacks.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3759

And using that ocean travel could be a 2.5 or 3 times upkeep multiplier and should move slower.

Examples:

1. See above Mediterranean example which would require lots of land based waypoints and a high level of attack enruite probability. So you'd be quicker (even though ocean travel in more slower) to go to spain and use the ocean waypoint to travel to Morocco and attack from there.

2. If another alliance or some of your enemies controlled a large part of Central America that land route becomes very perilous to use to get from North to South America (or vice-versa) so you'd use an ocean waypoint move out to sea and come back in around Central America and avoid the armies.

Another use of the startegy aspect would be that if I clicked on a moving army it only shows me the next waypoint it is heading to and I'd have to guess the final destination.

Thanks casp3r for opening this issue up, but it seems I went a rather large tangent.....

Thoughts?
Did anyone read all of that?

:)
blitzkrieg

[cowtreky]

One additional thing caspr, along with the waypoints if two or more oppenents meet there we should be able to attack that opponent.If this were to take place then I could see waypoints being an extra added tactic or advantage if you will.

[Timmetie]

this is all pretty meaningless, considering it only adds waypoints for which we could use homebases now.

unless we give the waypoints a considerable speed bonus, and make them "controllable".

Say i've got this waypoint, my alliance would be allowed to pass on it, but noone else would. Or maby there'd be a setting they could pass, but be assaulted by you (funneling everything to that spot and destroying it there).

This would inmediatly create the first real advantage for alliances, and add some more strategy to the game.

ofcourse the penalty of going "offroad" should be pretty big (or the road-bonus large ofcourse)

[blitzkrieg]

Timmetie - In most cases you could piggyback around cities to avoid water so there probably wouldn't be much need for many land waypoints - just through particularly narrow stretches of land (like central america). And most coastal cities can be used as start points for traversing the oceans although more ocean waypoints would be needed if you have a fair way to go around land.

cowtreky - yes I proposed that you could wait and attack an army at a waypoint.

This also makes attacking an army enruite possible too. You could say an army must remain at each checkpoint for 5-10 minutes before automatically moving on to the next, this allows your opponent to sit in waiting at the checkpoint and if they are fast enough, take a dent at your forces. Of course the owner of the moving army can change direction and avoid that checkpoint at any time aswell.

[Timmetie]

yes i know, so going to a waypoint would have to be faster.

[blitzkrieg]

Why not, that's an even better idea another tangent for blitzkrieg

We could create a freeway network between certain cities to expediate travel. travel on these routes would be fastest. Then a sealed highway network as secondary to other cities with amries on this going at normal speed and a unsealed network for home bases where travel would be slowest.

It all adds extra depth to the game.

Example 1; If I want to move an army from my homebase in Australia to Harare, Zimbabwe, I first have to move it to the nearest city to me (In my case Darwin) sea travel is slower than land travel so I'd then move the army to Perth then travel via sea to the closest sea port to Harare which appears to be Cape Town, South Africa. There might be one closer that I can't see as someone made our cities invisible on GE :lol: . The route to Cape Town will go over land so I have to use the navigation waypoint below cape town to avoid land. Upon landing in Cape Town my army has to follow the road network. There is no direct connection between Cape Town and Harare, so I have to get there via Johannesburg.

So; home base to Darwin, Australia. to Perth,Australia. ocean travel to navigation point below South Africa. Ocean travel to Cape Town, South Africa. Travel to Johannesburg, South Africa and finally Harare, Zimbabwe.

Example 2; I want to go from home base to Vienna, Austria *jeez it would be easier to work out if I could see the cities*

Home Base to Darwin,Australia. Ocean travel to centre of Indian Ocean navigation point. Ocean travel Chennai, India. Land travel for rest of way to Mumbai, India. - New Delhi, India. - Lahore, Pakistan. - Kabul, Afghanistan. - Tehran, Iran. - Ankara, Turkey. - Sofia, Bulgaria. - Budapest, Hungary and finally Vienna, Austria.

As you can see this involves a lot of chances to be attacked enruite as I am passing through probably a few enemy controlled cities so who knows how many troops would be left by the time I got there? Probably not worth the effort in travelling.

Remember I mentioned before that the army should have to stay at each stopover for 5-10 minutes before moving on the next.

See how this adds depth and extra strategy aspects? I like it anyway.

blitzkrieg

[blitzkrieg]

Oh I forgot, my travel to vienna example may be even faster if I get on the freeway route to speed my troops up...... By the time I got to the bottom of that post I had forgotten about that.

Also I think extra cost for travelling would be easy to intergrate with my example of multiplying army upkeep while army is travelling.

It's all depth, baby!

[blitzkrieg]

More blitzkrieg examples.

Army with upkeep of 57.6 geos a day "static upkeep" is travelling

There are 288 5 minute intervals in a day so that army costs 0.2 geos per 5 minutes (57.6/288).

Travel on designated freeway; upkeep multiplied by 1.5 = 0.3 geos (57.6/288*1.5) per 5 minutes travelling and speeds up by double.

Travel on other intercity roads; upkeep multiplied by 2 = 0.4 geos (57.6/288*2) per 5 minutes travelling and travels at same speed as now.

Travel on unsealed roads (between home bases or home base to city) upkeep is multiplied by 2.5 = 0.5 geos (57.6/288*2.5) per 5 minute interval but also travels at same speed as now.

Ocean travel is more expensive and slower. Upkeep is multiplied by 3.5 = 0.7 geos (57.6/288*3.5) per 5 minute intervals and travels at half normal speed.

With these examples, it should be better to get on the freeway to get faster, cheaper travel but this may end up being a long way out of your way to get to (there should only be one freeway per continent). and ocean travel is slow and expensive, but at least you can go a long way and not get attacked. For instance australia to austria example could instead go around africa and around England to Hamburg, Germany via ocean then only a few cities which you could be attacked at. It would easily be the safest route, but slowest and most expensive.

Blitzkrieg

[maxxxheimer]

oh, i get dizzy when i try to read all that stuff, blitz.
when do you have the time to write all that? :whoa:

[blitzkrieg]

Hehe - the workings out are for Mickey if he wants to add my idea as I suggest and I give examples for each suggestion on how it affects real play. If the numbers become a jumble, skip to the writing.

I get an idea and I think, a couple of lines, then a couple of papagraphs, then an hour of my life is gone that I'll never get back :).

I would like a response from Mickey though from time-to-time, for the direction he wants the game to go in.

[cowtreky]

cowtreky - yes I proposed that you could wait and attack an army at a waypoint.

Sorry blitzkrieg I did not realize you had put that suggestion in before.

[Timmetie]

all right blitz, but i still think one should be able to control waypoints and fortify them. Attacking people on waypoints has no use whatsoever as the troop kill ratio is still 1:1 wherever you are.

and an alliance would be able to "fortify" a continent, by not only taking all cities, but also all waypoints. and if normal travel outside waypoints is slown down, it will be a major bonus. it would also add something of "front lines" to the game.