Capping in EIR

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[Hicks58]

Refer to cloaking dual shreck Storms.

They never stopped being an issue, people just came to the conclusion that it never would change as it was "Just how it was".

You should always be questioning if something is right or wrong, regardless of how long it has been around. If it is supposed to be there, then it will easily stand on it's own merit.

Capping has always been missing something, and for me it has been two things - The ability to see how far a sector is being capped (Which is possible, refer to Blitz mod) and for a higher number of infantry to simply cap-over a lesser amount. Sending one man squads to sneaky back-cap is smart, but for them to be able to dance around you when you've got a full squad in the same sector is punishing a player for paying attention and trying to stop the sneaky cap.

Mediums being able to hold cap though? I'm not sold on that, and that's coming from somebody who favours tank/vehicle usage.

[Mister Schmidt]

1-2 man capping is rewarding for the guy that keeps his half dead squads on the field instead of retreating.

It's an underhanded and intensely intelligent and successful tactic. I don't think it's any more of an issue than it's ever been.

The main counter to this tactic, is usually a light vehicle. But the issue with this is, that light vehicle cannot cap the sector back, unless it's a halftrack with dudes in it, or an Armour doctrine LV.
Why can't they? Why can't all LV's cap by default?

Would it cause an issue with LV spam causing major backcap issues? Possibly. Why not decrease the speed at which they cap even more? Again, I don't think 1 man capping is a problem. I think the lack of a decent counter, is the issue.

[PonySlaystation]

1-2 man capping is rewarding for the guy that keeps his half dead squads on the field instead of retreating.

It's an underhanded and intensely intelligent and successful tactic. I don't think it's any more of an issue than it's ever been.

1-2 men squads should be retreated to maintain vet, not used to gimmick cap and hold sectors, it has always been an issue, people have been complaining about it on and off but little has been to remedy the issue.

As for how much skill is involved: Sending a single soldier to the ends of the sides to cap and hold those sectors for a long time is not skilful and it takes away opportunities from real flanking maneuvers which are done with more than a single soldier. it's more about exploiting obvious faults in the game mechanics to your advantage.

The issues are:

1: A single soldier can cap just as effectively as an entire company. This has been an issue since day one. In vCOH, you can't cap with a single soldier because the capture points are in the middle of the sector, so trying to do so will result in it being killed, before capturing the sector, in EIR you can capture the outskirts of a sector and hold it for a long time with a single soldier. Players are not rewarded for sending part of their army to do a skillful flanking maneuver, they are rewarded for sending a single soldier.

2: They can hold an entire sector and halt an advancing army. This may even be used to cripple the enemy team and win by timer. After a successful push, you don't need a large amounts of units to cover much of the map, but if you have a few 1-2 man squads you can win by timer.

3: While holding a sector they can hide behind buildings and other obstacles, a full health squad is much easier to find and requires a much higher investment if you want to capture territory all over the map. Very little pop or manpower is used but a lot is needed to hunt them down and take back the sector. Which is ineffective because a full health squad will be prevented by a single soldier on the other side of the sector.

4: They are not retreated for vet but instead used to effectively cap. This defeats a lot of the purpose behind the mods concept of persistent units.

In areas of the map where the gameplay is proceeding fluently, the current system works well, the enemy team will be pushed back after a successful push and your team can advance. But the fewer units that are involved, the more visible is the issue, a larger army cannot capture territory from a smaller single-man army.

[tank130]

Imagine  repairing medium tanks sitting in farthest corner of a sector holding that sector while it repairs. To gain back that sector you must send a tank capable of killing it or some sort of AT asset.
Very valuable pieces to be sent away from the main battle field to seek out a repairing tank that is stopping you from capping.

Vehicles capping territory is already stupid and annoying - now we want to add medium tanks holding as well? Insert flipping table image here [  ]

I agree with the idea of larger infantry section has more capping power, but only if you can figure out a way to balance it between 3 man squads and 6 man squads. Not really fair if a vanilla rifle squad can out cap a KCH squad is it?

[Hicks58]

Balancing it by pop present would easily gloss that one over.

[GelezinisVilkas]

I agree with the idea of larger infantry section has more capping power, but only if you can figure out a way to balance it between 3 man squads and 6 man squads. Not really fair if a vanilla rifle squad can out cap a KCH squad is it?

Unfortunately you can't. If you favour capping by number of men it is bias inherently in favour of allies.

If you favour by number of squads then it promotes stupid strategies like pio spam with mines or goliath.

At any rate if you allow people to cap by having superior number of men, what you will have is no fighting occurring but the brit blob sitting on the opposite side of the wehr support (e.g. MG, mortar, Pak) capping out the territory with no fighting at all.

I don't think that is any real improvement over existing gameplay where under normal circumstances people are motivated to attack or push.

The whole problem with one man holding cap is not a real problem if you have jeep or motorbikes. It also isn't a problem if you don't take stupid maps which rewards such a strategy. It also isn't a problem if people don't cluster all their units together and move as one giant death ball (happens very often on forest... and these players are the one who gets backcapped hard). It also isn't a problem if people don't suddenly spam a huge influx of vehicles cause the opponent to scatter to the four winds, rapidly capping any territory cause they don't have enough AT to fight back the vehicles.

1-2 men squads should be retreated to maintain vet, not used to gimmick cap and hold sectors, it has always been an issue, people have been complaining about it on and off but little has been to remedy the issue.

As for how much skill is involved: Sending a single soldier to the ends of the sides to cap and hold those sectors for a long time is not skilful and it takes away opportunities from real flanking maneuvers which are done with more than a single soldier. it's more about exploiting obvious faults in the game mechanics to your advantage.

I doubt anyone "flanks" to cap territory. People flank to exploit vulnerable openings to attack a position. You're really backcapping with the whole army than "flanking" per se.

1: A single soldier can cap just as effectively as an entire company. This has been an issue since day one. In vCOH, you can't cap with a single soldier because the capture points are in the middle of the sector, so trying to do so will result in it being killed, before capturing the sector, in EIR you can capture the outskirts of a sector and hold it for a long time with a single soldier. Players are not rewarded for sending part of their army to do a skillful flanking maneuver, they are rewarded for sending a single soldier.

A more effective way to backcap is actually to use 2 man or 3 man squads and sit them right at the corner of 2 territories and hold them simultaneously...

2: They can hold an entire sector and halt an advancing army. This may even be used to cripple the enemy team and win by timer. After a successful push, you don't need a large amounts of units to cover much of the map, but if you have a few 1-2 man squads you can win by timer.

3: While holding a sector they can hide behind buildings and other obstacles, a full health squad is much easier to find and requires a much higher investment if you want to capture territory all over the map. Very little pop or manpower is used but a lot is needed to hunt them down and take back the sector. Which is ineffective because a full health squad will be prevented by a single soldier on the other side of the sector.

This is where the problem should be theoretically solved by good mapping and not in the game mechanic of capping itself...

4: They are not retreated for vet but instead used to effectively cap. This defeats a lot of the purpose behind the mods concept of persistent units.

In areas of the map where the gameplay is proceeding fluently, the current system works well, the enemy team will be pushed back after a successful push and your team can advance. But the fewer units that are involved, the more visible is the issue, a larger army cannot capture territory from a smaller single-man army.

Not everyone plays with an entire persistent army. They could have a few core persistent units that have vet (e.g. officers, reward units, elite infantry) but everything else can be cannon fodder.

I thought there was always the oft raised argument of: Preserving Vet vs Winning the Battle. You take your pick.

[GelezinisVilkas]

A better evolution of gameplay is to shift to objective capping. In vcoh, you have the option to go for victory points instead of map control and I have won many games by sufficiently controlling the VP even though I did not have map control and may even be losing the attrition war.

[Hicks58]

Unfortunately you can't. If you favour capping by number of men it is bias inherently in favour of allies.

Ya know, I did kind of highlight the easy way around that...

Balancing it by pop present would easily gloss that one over.

[tank130]

Balancing it by pop present would easily gloss that one over.

Thanks Hicks, that seems like a pretty good balance.

[Smokaz]

Axis doing a Deathball is largely irrelevant if you have doctrines with faster reinforcement timers.

[XIIcorps]

Axis doing a Deathball is largely irrelevant if you have doctrines with faster reinforcement timers.

LW goes alright.

I think we can just close this.
Capping hasnt changed in what 7 years and there's a reason for that.

[PonySlaystation]

What exactly is the reason? Is it a flawless system? If a lot of players are complaining about it, then it's an issue.

With the slow development of times of EIR, the fact that nothing has been done for 7 years isn't exactly a good thing. Those are some pretty bad stats. The capping system has always been flawed and it has always been frustrating but no one cares enough to improve it, until now when people realized how you can go so far as to win entire games with this strategy. Now that the issue has been highlighted there is no reason why such preliminary and crude mechanics in EIR can't be improved.

[GelezinisVilkas]

I propose a poll with the following options:

1) I am in favour of keeping the current capping system.

2) I keep the current capping system because I don't see any viable alternatives or I believe alternatives are worse than the current implementation.

3) I want the system changed.

[Mister Schmidt]

Go ahead, make the poll

[XIIcorps]

What exactly is the reason? Is it a flawless system? If a lot of players are complaining about it, then it's an issue.

With the slow development of times of EIR, the fact that nothing has been done for 7 years isn't exactly a good thing. Those are some pretty bad stats. The capping system has always been flawed and it has always been frustrating but no one cares enough to improve it, until now when people realized how you can go so far as to win entire games with this strategy. Now that the issue has been highlighted there is no reason why such preliminary and crude mechanics in EIR can't be improved.

Id say its remained untouched because its the one thing that worked when implemented.
Ever faction has numerous LVs, which are a hard counter to those less then full strength back capping squads.

The only thing to fail our system is poor sectoring.

[nikomas]

1-3 men should not be able to hold a territory in the face of 16 men, that's dumb and should be changed if possible... Hell, I'm sure it can be but I'm not sure how to do it myself.

[Batgirl]

If the capping is changed toward bigger blob caps over smaller blob, it sounds like were just gonna see stupid spam every game. If the system could be tweaked so that squads with casualties capped slower and 1-2-guy squads a lot slower and that would be fine, but not sure if its possible to implement. Some support squads like engies/pios could cap slower at full health too.

1 guy holding a territory is needed i think since if you have a TA and 1 guy in territory well you should be able to hold it and if you dont have any support for your 1 man hes dead soon anyway. The 1-men flankcapping squads is whats annoying for me

[aeroblade56]

I think capping is fine. its not like there is much choice to win when a Tiger ace of Superderpshing come on the field.

[nikomas]

I think capping is fine. its not like there is much choice to win when a Tiger ace of Superderpshing come on the field.

A mass of weight capping system would make it easier to beat a Tace/SP than the current capping one, not sure why you're dismissive towards the idea if that's what you think tbh.

Mass of weight(or pop) can also favor the defender more, as the closer the territory is to your border the easier it is to plob out a countercap infantry charge on it.

[nikomas]

Tbfh I say bring back objectives in some limited respect to, maybe objectives could be worth population points making them important but not game losing vital?