Mael makes some good points. Here are my thoughts in response.
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One problem with system-wide attacks is the weak-link problem: For the example of attacking a 3-planet system, lets say you attack with 2 players that play quickly, and one that can only get in a turn every three days. Lets say the defender defends with two quick players and 1 slower player, the slower defender defending the slower attacker. So even if the first two finish their games in a short amount of time, the system won't change hands until the slower players finish their game. This could add to the frustration people who play the game quickly already have with the current war.
True but five things: (i) Quite often the results of those last two out of six games will not be relevant. Winning all four or three and winning each way on the largest map will be sufficient to determine the result. (ii) Also since each side does not need to assign the same player to each side (PL/FNU) of the same map, there is no need for the slower players to be playing each other twice. (iii) Slower players should be assigned to the smaller maps (this happens automatically since the big map specialists all tend to be faster players). This is likely to make attacks finish closer together. (iv) The Time-outs rule will control this if you are defending and the limit on the number of attacks will encourage Attackers to take a view on whether the system attack is ultimately going to fail. (v) Given the importance of the result to the team there is a much greater incentive for a slow player to push on with a determining battle - in the current war attacks that start badly tend to be played slowly even by faster players - they don't cost anything to maintain and hold up enemy revenue for a few weeks.
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My second point: More reasonable give and take choices mean more strategy in my mind. The proposed system has limited choices: What system to attack, and who to attack which planet. The choice of what system to attack is already given to you once you've decided on a clan to attack. You just attack the next system closer in.
The second choice is straightforward to. You just put your clan members on their best planets. You don't have to weigh many costs in that decision. Very little strategy.
Can't disagree with the fact that the strategic element of which system to attack is not nearly as deep as the strategy of the battles themselves. Althogh, if you think about the (deliberate) lack of space and bottlenecks in the proposed set-up it is more complex than at first glance. It is possible to block off access to ally clans by enemy clans and/or access more systems of an enemy clan by going via the outer system of a third clan. However, if the lack of choice is an issue then the map can be opened up with three links per system instead of two.
Also there is some element of strategy in denying opponents the ability to sustain a third or second system attack by deciding whether to go for an easier outer system, harder inner system or hardest HW system.
What I don't agree with you, however, is that the current system remotely provides choice or encourages players to play on anything other than there best planets.
The sad fact is that the introduction of the PL attacks rule has meant that nearly all attacks are now PL (perhaps we need to increase the cost to restore balance?) so we have moved from very few planets changing hands to planets changing hands back and forth.
There are few decisions to make in the current set-up beyond which clan to attack. Thereafter there is usually only one or two systems that make any sense to attack and the decision is usually driven by which is the largest planet in any system (since that is usually the right one to attack first) is the speciality of the player available for the systems in question.
Don't know about the other clans but it is hardly a coincidence that Fellor plays Wasserland at every possible occasion and Tiger takes Anubis whenever it is going.
If you wanted to introduce a real element of strategic planning then an irregular star system would be needed to create valuable systems, key transport links/bottle necks (think Masters of Orion et al) to create real strategy at the campaign level. The real problem with this is that not all starting positions will be equal.
The other thing to remember is that what we would be trying to create is a complex and exciting strategy game that merely used MAN for the die rolling to determing the outcome of each individual battle. Whilst this would be a great thing to participate in, writing complex board games is very difficult to get right and even harder to create something of interest that moves as slowly as a clan war.
I would like to think that we could acheive that goal but the rule changes proposed so far will not get us any where near to that - we should ask ourself this, if the individual battles were substituted by dice rolls/some other battle resolution system, would we be anywhere near a strategy game that anyone would play?
I worry that to try to acheive anything other than a context for a series of battles that makes teamwork and a team result meaningful is trying to aim too high. As a result, we should make it as simple as possible.
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So what the proposed system boils down to, is it is determining the clan that is most skilled at MA. I know that is what a lot of people consider as the ultimate goal. My goal is to have a war that is fun to play and interesting in multiple levels. And so I would advocate more of a complex approach that allows multiple level of strategy, something along the lines of the current system.
I think the winner of a new clan war along these lines will primarily be the clan that manages its alliances best, secondly works well as a team - in assessing opponent ability (both by map and in the way they play the red and green pieces) and advises each other on strategy within their games (partiuclarly on the opening layout) and only thirdly on the raw ability of the individuals.
Mike