Capture

Capturing Towns and CP / Territorial Gain

This is an example of the capture system currently used in Battleground Europe. The system can be adapted and modified.

• The basic aim of Battleground Europe is to destroy the enemy to capture their territory, specifically, their cities.
• Cities are made up of various facilities. To capture a city, all of its facilities must be captured.
• Only cities that have been designated as an Attack Objective can be captured.

The Capture Process

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. 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.

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.

Contention

A town is said to be "Contested", "Contended" or "In Contention" when the enemy holds one or more of its facilities.

Control

At any given time, a town is said to be controlled by the side who last held all of the city'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. If any Army Brigades are in a town when the other side takes control, they are routed 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)

Main article: Attack Objective

In order for any city to be “captureable” the attacking country’s High Command Staff must place an Attack Objective on it. Once an attack objective is placed, the target will be vulnerable to capture after a short period of time. Initially, all depot facilities are vulnerable. A few minutes after any one of these non-military facilities is captured the military facilities also become capturable. Only cities on the Frontline are candidates for an Attack Objective.

(Bridges can also be the target of Attack Objectives, which makes them destroyable, but also repairable by the defender).

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

• Depots
• City centers
• Railroad stations
• Factories

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

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

Capturing a Facility

Main article: Facility Capture

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.

To capture a facility, infantry must enter and hold the capture building for a specified time. Currently, the number of infantry present reduces the time needed to capture the facility.

Capturing a City

When the first facility is captured, the town is said to be Contested until either all facilities are taken or the enemy recaptures all of the facilities, making the city Uncontested.

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 thereby uncontesting the city (by kicking out the attackers and controlling all the facilities at once). The attackers will then have to re-contest the town again and start over.

Forward Bases

There are forward bases between most cities that shorten the time-to-combat by providing a place to prepare to assault or liberate a city.

If all of the armybases in a town are captured and held at the same time, the capturing side becomes the Controller of the town and the enemy's Forward Bases to this city will open.

Tactics

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.

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.