Capture

From Battleground Europe Wiki

There are three states of occupation through which a town progresses during the process of capture, they are termed "contention", "control" and "ownership". Much of the game's tactical, strategic and supply systems are dependent on these three states.

Contention

A town is said to be "Contested", "Contended" or "In Contention" when the enemy holds one or more of its facilities. You can use the "/own" command to determine the contention status of your current town.

Ownership

Ownership of a town indicates which side last had complete ownership of a town. To take ownership of an enemy town you must capture and hold all of the facilities until the town becomes uncontested with no enemy flags remaining in the town.

Control

At any given time, a town is said to be controlled by the side who last held all of the town's Armybase facilities. In a town with a single Armybase, this is clearcut - whomever holds the Armybase controls the town. In a town with multiple army bases, control can be non-obvious. You can use the "/own" command to see the status of your current town, or you can select a target on the map to query a specific town. Also, any Army Brigades in a town are routed if they do not own an armybase in the town and cannot return to the town until their side retakes control of the town.

Ownership & Control Effects

1. You must own and control a town to have use of the military facilities (armybases, docks and airfields) or to move a brigade into it.
2. When a town is owned by one side but controlled by the other, "Defensive Firebases" will open to it.

Attack Objectives (AO)

In order for any CP to be “captureable” (or bridge to be destroyable) the attacking country’s High Command Staff must place an Attack Objective on it. Once an AO is placed on a CP, it will be vulnerable to capture after a short timer expires. Initially all non-military facilities will be vulnerable. Once any one of these non-military facilities is captured, the military facilities follow suit and become capturable. Only Frontline towns are candidates for an Attack Objective.

Capturing a facility

This is where the rubber meets the road; it all comes down to taking what the enemy has, and denying him the chance to take what you have. All capturable facilities will have a flag hanging either directly on the building, or on an adjacent “capture building” indicating ownership. Capture buildings can be a small house, a Castle tower, a boat house, or even bunkers as seen in armybases and air fields.

The Ubiquitous Capture Building

There is a capture table located in each flagged building. This table will only be present when an Attack Objective has been placed by the other side indicating that the facility will soon be capturable. Once the radio tables are present, any enemy infantry poses a threat to the ownership of the facility. By entering the building and locating the table, enemy infantry can initiate a capture.

The Capture table (radio up)

Infantry of any type are the only units that can capture anything. Infantry begin the capture process by walking up to the capture table in an enemy controlled facility. When infantry contact this table, a two-minute capture timer starts, shown by a popup indicating the facility you are capturing and a progress bar. In a hotly contested town it will seem like a lot more than two minutes. At the expiration of this timer, control of that building switches to the nationality of the soldier that captured it changing the external flag on that building to that of the capturing side.

When capturing a facility you must remain immobile during the capture – any movement or firing will reset the timer to the beginning. You can turn and look in all directions, but may not change stance, move, or fire a weapon. Obviously, this suggests that capture of a building is most likely to be successful when the capture building and ‘capping’ infantryman are at least reasonably secure.

Once a table has been captured, the radio will not reappear for 60 seconds. The structure cannot be recaptured until the radio is once again present. No radio means no capture is possible.

Capturing a town

Until an Attack Objective (AO) is placed on a town, the capture buildings will be empty. Once an AO is placed, empty Capture Tables will be drawn in the non-military facilities (depots, city, factories, etc). An empty table denotes that a facility will be capturable within the next 10 minutes.

10 minutes after the AO has been placed, radios appear on the tables. These facilities can now be captured. When you capture a facility, the radio disappears - preventing the enemy from immediately retaking a facility. After 60 seconds, the radio reappears.

When the first facility is captured, the town is said to be "Contested" until either all facilities are taking or the enemy recaptures all of the facilities and the town is "Uncontested".

As soon as a town becomes contested, empty tables are drawn in the military facilities (armybase/airfield/docks) and a 10 minute timer begins until the radios are drawn on these tables; this timer continues to count down for as long as the town is contested.

To secure the entire town, the armybases must be captured from within the central bunker building. Note that during this time the defenders are able to re-capture any fallen facilities that have radios present thereby un-contesting the CP (by kicking out the attackers and controlling all the facilities at once), and resetting the table timers. The attackers will then have to re-contest the town again to get the AB tables to come up and start a fresh 10 minute timer.

In a single AB town it is undesirable to capture the AB until all other facilities are held, since this will provide the enemy with Defensive Firebases. Typically, an air field near a CP will have its own armybase as well. The job of capturing multi-AB cities is far more challenging. The attackers must fight their way into multiple ABs, shutting down each to the defender in turn and hold them all from recapture. They can only gain ownership of the city when all ABs and facilities are held at once. Yet, there are so many facilities that it is extremely difficult to defend them all. Fights for large multi-AB cities are very long and bloody battles.

INTEGRATE ABOVE AND BELOW

The basic aim of Battleground Europe is to destroy the enemy to capture their territories.

There are two types of capture in BE - the capture of a facility, or the capture of a choke point.

Before any capture can take place, an Attack Objective must have been placed.

Facility captures

After the AO has been in place for 10 minutes, then the radio tables will appear in all the non-AB/AF/Dock facilities, and the individual facilities can be captured. When the first facility is captured, the choke point enters a state called "contested", meaning that at least one facility is owned by the enemy of the CP owner.

The following facilities will be capturable once the AO has been up long enough:

• Depots
• City centers
• Railroad stations
• Factories

The following facilities require 10 minutes of continuous contention to become capturable:

• Army bases
• Airfields
• Airfield Army bases
• Docks
• Naval Ports

Town captures

Once a Town has been contested for 10 minutes, the radio tables will appear in the military facilities (armybases/docks/airfields) belonging to that town, and these key points can be captured. If all of the ABs in a town are captured and held at the same time, the capturing side becomes the "Controller" of the town and the enemies Defensive FBs will open. To finally take Ownership of the town, you must uncontest the town leaving no enemy flags.

Tactics for offense

• Capturing all the AB's before owning the other facilities is very risky. Until the town is uncontested (completely owned), the new AB's will not generate any supply, and the FB's that the attack had been launched from will have vanished. Conversely the defending sides FB's will appear and they will be able to use this supply if they have Brigades available in the connecting CP's.
• If a CP is being held only by a naval brigade (on a riverfront), then capturing the docks will cause the brigade to be routed. This can often be a rude surprise to the defenders, who thought their AB was secure.

Tactics for defense

• Capturing all the facilities will reset the timers that have to count down before the AB/AF/dock timers appear.
• Defence of the CO's is critical, especially those that link to enemy held towns as these will be come spawnable to the enemy if they own the FB between the towns or there is no FB.