No More Home Command Stations For Players

[Cinth]

AIWC (are we calling it that now?)

The AI War forum has been renamed AI War Classic, so it's official for terminology purposes

[PokerChen]

Mobility to the HQ? How does an emergency warp drive sound? Say, automatically trigger at 40% health, teleports your home command to a friendly command centre in an adjacent system. Has cooldown.

[skrutsch]

What if we decouple/separate the concepts of "lose this immobile thing and you lose command of this planet" and "lose this thing and you lose the whole game"?

Put your HQ on a mobile ship (decent defensively, no offense so "commander rush" tactics in the very early game are discouraged) and also have a normal command station on your starting planet.  This makes things easier conceptually for newcomers -- "You start with one of these command structures, you'll build more as the game progresses."  And now you can explore ideas that reduce HQ effectiveness while moving, etc.

Finally, this suggestion supports every other suggestion made in this thread, so it should be an easy sell to all of you. 

[Mánagarmr]

What if we decouple/separate the concepts of "lose this immobile thing and you lose command of this planet" and "lose this thing and you lose the whole game"?

Put your HQ on a mobile ship (decent defensively, no offense so "commander rush" tactics in the very early game are discouraged) and also have a normal command station on your starting planet.  This makes things easier conceptually for newcomers -- "You start with one of these command structures, you'll build more as the game progresses."  And now you can explore ideas that reduce HQ effectiveness while moving, etc.

Finally, this suggestion supports every other suggestion made in this thread, so it should be an easy sell to all of you. 

Not a terrible idea.

[Sestren]

What's wrong with commander rushing in the early game? Why is everyone on edge trying to prevent it? Its not like you hardly ever lose the early game anyway, it would only help speed things up.

[skrutsch]

What's wrong with commander rushing in the early game? Why is everyone on edge trying to prevent it? Its not like you hardly ever lose the early game anyway, it would only help speed things up.

I dislike encouraging micromanagement, and I find it less elegant to have a tactic that works well early in a game but not late in the same game.

I'd be more willing to support a commander which got stronger as the game progresses, more elegant at least!

[Mánagarmr]

What's wrong with commander rushing in the early game? Why is everyone on edge trying to prevent it? Its not like you hardly ever lose the early game anyway, it would only help speed things up.

I dislike encouraging micromanagement, and I find it less elegant to have a tactic that works well early in a game but not late in the same game.

I'd be more willing to support a commander which got stronger as the game progresses, more elegant at least!

Except if you do that, the optimal strategy is to bring it to any battle, makeing it extremely easy to trap the AI, as the AI knows it can win simply by killing the "commander". So it's the gap-in-the-wall problem all over again.

[Tridus]

It'd be okay in the early game, but as the game goes on the AI is going to have more firepower to bring to bear against it, increasing the risk of it being blown to smithereens (and a game over) very quickly in an engagement, so you won't want to bring it at all.

That makes bringing it kind of a newbie trap, where they learn early on that it's useful to bring, right up until it gets them killed.

[Pumpkin]

It'd be okay in the early game, but as the game goes on the AI is going to have more firepower to bring to bear against it, increasing the risk of it being blown to smithereens (and a game over) very quickly in an engagement, so you won't want to bring it at all.

That makes bringing it kind of a newbie trap, where they learn early on that it's useful to bring, right up until it gets them killed.

Avoiding a learning-curve trap could be an interesting thing to weight in the "weapon or not" balance.

[kasnavada]

It'd be okay in the early game, but as the game goes on the AI is going to have more firepower to bring to bear against it, increasing the risk of it being blown to smithereens (and a game over) very quickly in an engagement, so you won't want to bring it at all.

That makes bringing it kind of a newbie trap, where they learn early on that it's useful to bring, right up until it gets them killed.

Avoiding a learning-curve trap could be an interesting thing to weight in the "weapon or not" balance.

I don't know for you, but that kind of sells the flagship into "not weaponized" territory to me. Also, should it be giving bonus to an entire battlefield, then I think it should require a command station to relay the bonus. Or to fire its weapons, it weapons are to stay.

I had not realized the implication that people would bring a win or death mecanism in danger for the extra firepower.

[Pumpkin]

I had not realized the implication that people would bring a win or death mecanism in danger for the extra firepower.

Play Supreme Commander Forged Alliance.
Beside, it's a great game.

[kasnavada]

I had not realized the implication that people would bring a win or death mecanism in danger for the extra firepower.

Play Supreme Commander Forged Alliance.
Beside, it's a great game.

Finished both years ago... but irrelevant IMO. AI War is asymetrical, too complex already, brutal in its mechanics, and units are going to be waaaay more numerous now. And, the commander in SC rarely rushes or attack anything. Last thing I want is newbies learning bad things.

[Pumpkin]

Finished both years ago...

Last thing I want is newbies learning bad things.

That makes bringing it kind of a newbie trap

I completely agree.