Just an idle thought from the peanut gallery, "this is my opinion, nothing more". Base building is a pretty interesting tool and can be used to enhance the game or it could be a silly, boring thing that's kinda dumb and maybe takes away more than it adds. It depends on how you do it. If you've always thought it's the latter then maybe you've just not seen people doing it right. Silly/Dumb: You make a base in a pit in the mountains where nobody goes. It generates VPs for the team, which is good, but it's so out of the way that nobody wants to go there, which is bad. I mean yes, if you want to win the map, this is a good idea, but ultimately you helped the map close with LESS combat, which is bad, and you didn't help your team in any other way than those few VPs. It IS fun sometimes, especially when you know there are 30-man base-stomping platoons going around destroying HIVEs and your secluded base might actually resist them pretty well, but a lot of times it's just boring. Much more better: You make bases which can generate victory points but ALSO overlook (or straddle) interesting, strategic areas, like overlooking a permanent base that's normally hard to defend. Now you're generating victory points while supporting your team in a fight. (And yes, I realize there is an area of exclusion around permanent bases where you cannot build, but Phalanx range is REALLY long and there are a lot of places you can build where you can effectively fire into the neighboring base.) I also enjoy "Checkpoint Charlie" bases -- bases that straddle a road. I always leave the road open for friendlies but enemies will pretty much have to kill my base to proceed across the map. Often this results in me getting squashed by a zerg but there have been times where I (along with other people at my base) thwarted an enemy advance. They never got to the next base in line because my base blew them all up. In summary, I think a lot of people see bases as lame. They don't have to be. That's really up to how, where and why you build a base. Even the grumpiest of tankers will enjoy it if you put a silo, a vehicle ammo station, a skyshield and an AA turret in a good spot where ammo is hard to come by. It's a lot more durable than an ammo sundy and gives them a little protection from liberators at the same time. Not every base has to be a huge ordeal. Or stuck in the mountains.
Personally my sole problem with PMBs is how VP generation makes for such quick capture of continents; a continent locking pretty much puts the brakes on the game for a while. Instead I'd like to see them provide other benefits- maybe tied to resources or vehicles, such as building a base in a vehicle hex will provide a small discount to pulling aircraft or whatnot.
I do think they should consider making a team lose Cortium if there are not enough bases generating it. Like keep the VPs generated but if a team has 9000/10000 Cotrium towards the next VP and all HIVEs get wiped out then that starts going down and eventually will sit at 0/10000. Maybe the break-even point is 1 HIVE at 100%. More than that and you gain Cortium towards your next VP. Less than that and you will lose Cortium down to 0. This would make "base stomping platoons" more than just a way to pause VP generation. If they keep stomping bases, they can make it to where nobody is able to generate a single VP this way -- nobody manages to reach 10,000 to generate a point. As it stands, though, you can stomp bases all day long and eventually they will still earn VPs from the new ones that pop up and mine a little more Cotrium before you get around to blowing them up again.
