moss500:"Overall, we could have used more Germans in the Southern part of the field and we probably could have captured and held the Brit flag. If we were kicking that much but in the city, we should have had some peel off and help out in the woods"
Considering the value of gold, there would be no point in capturing anyone’s flag. The entire team effort should be devoted to gathering gold, not fighting. There's really no point in even defending your main flag once you consider how valuable the gold is. Basically, the negotiators controlled the game. If you had one or two careless people on your team blowing the gold on mercenaries, you lost-this is the main problem I have with the whole gold concept.
I agree that at the beginning of the second half the main objective should have been finding/collecting gold. However, I would imagine that after an hour or so, most of the gold was gone and all that would have been left is a battle for the city and/or flags. If the city was that well controlled, some players could have been sent to help out and rack up additional points by protecting the flag and capturing other flags. I would agree about the spending of gold only being authorized by the Generals. Maybe next time give each of the generals cards or something that can be redeemed for Mercs. That way if they cant reach the Black Market by radio, they can send the negotiator with a card and you know its approved. I guess I am a bit confused as to why anyone would have even been buying the mercs if the Germans were doing that well anyway, or were they doing that well because of the Mercs?
Regarding the gold, how about this as a possible solution? It may be confusing, but might help weight the value of the gold. Give the teams the option of holding their gold at their flag base at one value or keeping it in the bank for another. As an example, if a brick is kept and protected at the flag base for the length of the half or entire game it is worth 1000points/dollars. If it is sent to the bank it is worth only 500 points when the score is tallied. The main risk being that gold held at the flag can be captured by the enemy while gold in the bank can't be. However, if the base is being overrun the gold can be transported to the bank or held by the players if they can make it. If they get shot while retreating obviously the gold can be picked up by the other team and either taken back to their base or taken to the bank with the same value stipulation. The bank would have to be a seperate building, maybe call it Switzerland. And the Black market would have to only take cash or bank notes, not credit. If you wanted something from the BM, you would have to either go to the bank, get the money and take it or carry a bunch of bricks across the field. You could make the money from the bank paper money to distinguish between the value of the money kept at the base and the value kept at the bank. This way the decision would be made to try and carry the 50lb rock across the field worth $20k to buy mercs or carry your lighter paper money from the bank, but it would cost you more due to the lessened value of the banked money. This way the higher value includes higher risk, because if while on the way to the BM, you get caught, the money/brick goes to the enemy. However, this may end up in having to lessen or do away with the value of the captured flags. It might be a bit unfair to not only collect the $40k worth of gold kept at the enemies flag, but to also collect 10k points for putting a beat down on them. It might make it one sided quickly.
With this set up, you could also put in place the concept of the General having "buy cards". In other words, the generals at the beginning of the game would be given a set number of "Withdrawal/Buy" slips. These slips of paper would have to be presented at the bank to withdraw funds and/or with bricks/gold to purchase goods at the BM. this way, if the general trusts his negotiator or squad leaders, he can hand some out at the beginning of the game or if he chooses can keep control of them and hand them out as needed. It might be interesting to leave the deposits part of it open as to give fleeing troops an option of where to go with the gold. Maybe you could even give the BM the ability to accept gold for bank notes, but at a very discounted amount, true to form for a BM. However, the bank notes would still be fair game in the event that the player is eliminated or they could be automatically credited to the bank. Not sure how confusing this would be. But keeping the notes in fair play would encourage players to follow up on their "kills" to see if they have located any money.
