are you trying to tell me that in 99% of games you're able to do a regular transfer to prevent your teammate from elimination? that doesn't make sense. I would say it's extremely rare that i happen to share a border with the territory owned by a teammate that would benefit most from a transfer. the airlift allows better strategic transfers to help your teammate battle back, but a transfer is just gonna prolong the inevitable if they have to spend multiple moves getting those troops to the front line.

happy to do a team game! we prefer 8v8 for maximum fun if you wanna get some pythons in on the action :) I can have pooncrew create the game if you just give us the names of the players you want to invite

I can't explain it better than already did, so it's probably indeed best if I show you. What's the smallest team template size you'd be up for?

The way you are using it is not "wrong" in the sense that it doesn't benefit you. What I am saying is that using it to make your opponent run into a stack is almost always the most effective use of the card.

The advantage you gain from that is in a completely different league than helping out a teammate, except, as I wrote above, in rare individual cases where it might be the best play to airlift to keep a teammate alive.

i see what you're saying and interested to see what i can learn from you. 4v4?

i think alex thought of a 2v2 lmao

As for *an* airlift card game to become strategic..
I think thats definetly possible, just not with the current Airlift card. Ergo with a Mod.
Really all you have to do is figure out what makes it so problematic right now and change those things.

The main problems are...
-The ability to Airlift everything
-Airlifting befor Movement orders happen. (and even befor Emergency Blockades happen

These 2 things combined create the problem of just crashing into a stack out of nowhere, causing the game to become a much more luck based game as you literally cannot predict it.

We dont have to solve both problems necessarly as removing either would already increase its useability in strat games.
One way to go about it is adding a setting that limits the amount you can airlift.
Lets just say we limit it to 4.
This would create the ability to either return missplaced units back to the frontline, or save some units from an enemy stack.
But crucially, you can now actually properly plan with it in mind. Now you dont have to worry about an airlift with 20 units coming from the other side of the map, instead you know that at any given time only 4 more units will arrive.

Another way could be to move airlifts to happen at then end of a turn.
That way we also completly remove the chance of us running into a stack, and instead we can have it act like a blockade, if you airlift to a territory that gets taken befor you airlift, you lose your airlift.

You can also add features to the airlift.
Like lets say the ability to be able to start an airlift from a territory you dont own yet.
That could allow for some plays where you could airlift units while expanding if the bonus doesnt allow for efficient units left over.
Or for plays where you have a double border, This version of the airlift would allow you to smash the bonus and then airlift your stack to another part of the map where they are more valuable.

How exactly any of these will play out i cant tell from head alone.
Tho they all would make airlift far more useable in a strategic setting. If they would make templates more strategic than without them in the first place tho, i wont even start to argue about.

Edited 11/10/2023 20:38:23

Another way could be to move airlifts to happen at the end of the turn

Been completed with the Late Airlifts mod. Is a “standard mod” so tournaments, quickmatch and maybe ladders can use it.

Currently there isn’t a mod that limits the amount of armies an airlift can transfer or airlifting from a territory you could own at the end of the turn.

Instead of transferring from any territory where you have a double border, how about anywhere where you are facing the same opposing team or a territory just before making it to bordering any opponent?

*Instead of transferring from any territory where you have a double border, how about anywhere where you are facing the same* *opposing team or a territory just before making it to bordering any opponent?*

I just wanted to present an example of where such a play could make sense.
You could use the airlift anywhere however you like. The double border example was just one that came to mind where the mechanic would make sense and could be used as an advantage

I agree that either of the two suggestions Joi made would fix the problem, limiting the number airliftable to 4 armies or making it happen at the end of the turn, ideally both though.

QueefBalls, I believe a smaller game than 4v4 would serve our purpose better. Would you be up for a 2v2 game against Joi and me (if Joi says yes, otherwise somebody else)? I could probably find a third player for a 3v3, but most players in the strategic community reject games bigger than that. It will be more difficult to show the point too.

Should it be a new template no one has seen before so that only advantage is how well players understand the settings/mechanics?

sure

I don't think Joi and I are reliant on the concrete template to demonatrate what we mean, Dan :)

If you include the "Random settings generator" mod the template should be unique and give no one an advantage. You only need to edit players and change map as the minimum.

I think one of the main reasons for the disagreement between alex and queefballs is that they have entirely different ideas of what a team template is. In a 2v2 or even a 3v3 you are more likely to border your teammates that are in trouble, so it becomes more likely that you'd be able to save them without needing a reinforcement card. Or alternately, since you have fewer opponents, you may be able to pressure the specific opponent(s) who are threatening to eliminate your teammate and save them that way. In the sorts of games that queefballs plays, which are on bigger maps with bigger teams (like the proposed 8v8), it is much less likely that you'd be able to save your teammate in that manner.

@queefballs, the more common way "strategic" team templates provide facility for teammates to support each other is through the use of gift cards, rather than airlift cards, which enables you to gift a territory near the threatened teammate to a player who has a large income so that they can support them. This has some similarities to the airlift approach, but some important differences. You can't save them immediately, as the teammate won't be able to transfer until the next turn, so you need to be able to plan ahead. Also, the transfers will happen as part of the normal move orders (not beforehand as in an airlift), which makes them a bit easier to account for. And finally, since the teammate will retain the gifted territory, they can continue to support their teammate, rather than it being a one-time occurrence like an airlift, allowing the template creator to provide fewer of the cards while providing a similar ability to save teammates on the other side of the map.

An aspect I left out before is that if a template's strategic value is extremely low in the first place (which, frankly, a 8v8 template is likely to suffer from), my whole line of explanation is kind of defeated as adding an airlift card (or any other rule you cannot tactically account for sufficiently) will not have much noticeable impact anymore, or none. The basis of comparison must be adding an airlift card to an existing strategic template, as otherwise the comparison will have no value for the underlying question. It can't be a surprise that adding an airlift card to an unstrategic template will create an unstrategic template.

You are making it yourself too easy, imo.

8v8 or whatever bigger teamgames is not necessarily unstrategic. It is more complex, yes. But is this solely a reason to be unstrategic. I would go that far that it is only not used in strategic events because it is hard to manage a this big communication and the chance is higher that someone ruins it by boot.

Airlift card. Has some surprising factor certainly. But imo only because you dont want to play it and thus have no experience in how to play it strategically.

I definitely agree with LF here: there's nothing inherently unstrategic about an 8v8 game. It's just more difficult to organize a strategic game with 16 players than one with 2, 4, or 6 players.

I came to conclusion that any setting might be considered strategic if it is well put together with other settings. This is the hardest part for template creators, since if you reach any small imbalance then it becomes rock-paper-scissors.

I completely agree with this from Rufus, with the additional caveat that a template creator also has to be concerned about the situation where a single strategy is overpowered, meaning that players are forced into using the same strategy. Examples of this are SEAD/SE1W or picking on China, where the order of the first four picks is usually forced.

Edited 11/24/2023 16:26:24

Let's play a strategic 8v8 template, does anyone have one saved? :)

How about a 7v7?

https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer/Tournament?ID=20661

love that the finale perfectly illustrates the problem in that its decided from a boot ^^