campaign proposal

["Morton, Sean" <smorton@deerfield.edu>]

First of all, greeting to the developers and fellow players of this wonderful (addictive) game.

Now that that's out of the way, down to business.  As you all most likely aware, it takes a little while to pick up on what all is going on in the game if you start knowing nothing (like I did).  To add to the single player experience, and to make it easier to learn the game, I propose adding a few campaigns, each consisting of a sequence of single player maps.  Rather than merely restating what has already been said here, I would like to go further.  Following are some ideas for intro campaigns..

The Basics
1)  Moving, Attacking:  How to select, move, and attack with ground units.  Very small map with 3 or 4 each of infantry, medium tanks, and heavy tanks for the player, a couple medium tanks and a heavy tank for the computer.

2)  Air units:  Intro to units.  Player starts with a 2 each of: fighter wings, gunships, anti-aircraft guns, anti-aircraft tanks.  Computer has 3 fighter wings and 2 bomber wings.

3)  Bases:  How to capture a base/depot/etc.  Player with some assorted tanks and a few infantry (probably 4-6, so they don't lose them all), computer with the same idea, but less.

4)  Crystals, Construction, Repair:  Intro to the crystal system.  Player has a small army with two factories, each loaded with 2-3 hundred crystals, and a repair depot or two.  Computer starts with a much larger force, but no factories  (thus forcing the player to actaully /use/ the factories).

5)  Transportation:  This goes for both crystals and units.  A medium-sized map, the player starts with base loaded with crystals, a few transport planes and some infantry on the bottom.  Above that, a river with no bridges runs accross the map, isolating the base.  Just north of the river is a small ground force for the player, with a factory nearby.  At the top of the map is the computers army, small, but again larger than that of the player.


Tactics
1)  Ranking System:  Show how when a unit kills a lot, they get jacked.  Have a long, narrow map, with the player starting at the bottom with, say, 8 heavy tanks.  The computer has a dozen medium tanks in the middle of the map, and some heavy tanks at the top, all of them spread out in a vertical line, so the player can take them on a few at a time and get lots of ranking.

2)  Pinching:  How to locate pinch points in maps and force the enemy to come through them one or two at a time.  Each side has some tanks and maybe infantry, but no artillery yet.

3)  Artillery:  How to, in conjunction with pinch points, rip the hell out of the other side without taking much damage.  Player starts with half a dozen medium tanks and half a dozen artillery, the computer with a dozen or so medium tanks another 8 or 10 heavy tanks.  Obviously, some sort of pinch point in between the armies.

4)  Air Strategy:  How to effectively use interceptors, bombing wings, and anti-aircraft guns.  Player starts with some tanks and anti-aircraft guns, three interceptors and 4 bombing wings.  Computer starts with assorted tanks, three artillery, two anti-aircraft guns and two to four bomber wings.  The key is to get the player to knock out the artillery and the anti-aircraft guns with the bombers, and get the bombers with the interceptors.

(Any other ideas for strategy??)

- - -

The current missions could be pretty easily put into a coherent seccession of missions, but that can be later...

Anywho, I regret to say that I haven't looked into the map system, but if no one has any objections, I would happily construct these maps, and any others afterward if the campaign system were to be implemented.

That's my $0.02 USD for the night.  Cheers.
-Sean