Strategies are cool. I'm by default for anything above "just go killemall" tactics.
Unfortunately, "hide in your drop zone" strategy in counterattack is too illogical for me to like. It straight up makes no sense AND it tips the advantage in a wrong direction (CW gamemodes are impossible to be made perfectly balanced because different objectives)
Wouldn't mind this "tactic" if it at least made sense it terms of logic. Unfortunately it doesn't.
The defenders abandoned their base and hid. They refuse to go out and engage the forces that now station in the base they suppose to defend. So they've lost right? Nope, they have 1 kill advantage after one of the clashes so now the (counter)attackers have to leave the base they were supposed to win back (and they did!) and go rush the enemy who refuse to defend its own base and resources because killcount. Not exactly a believable war simulation I would say.
Another basic stupidity of having this "tactic" available is that it is another thing making attacking and conquering planets actually easier than defending them. In a hypothetical situation of perfectly matched opposing teams, the attackers will always win the planet in the end, and that's a problem that plagued CW from the very beginning. In history, it always was easier to defend than to conquer, for thousand of reasons. For plausibility, CW should mimic that universal law of war.
Whether invasion mode is now easier for attackers (because destroy 4 immovable objectives using 48 expendable mechs and win) or defenders (because tons of turrets) is up for debate, but the counterattack mode significantly favours the invaders. Objectives make it easier to defend a mobile base you've set up half an hour ago than an actual base with walls, turrets and whatnot.
Simple solution - set up a big conquest-type cap zone in the back of the base. This zone grants (counter) attackers victory if it stays capped for over a minute. This cap would be a good indicator if the defenders are unable or unwilling to actually defend what they were supposed to defend.
Edited by Prof RJ Gumby, 13 March 2016 - 12:44 PM.