Skirmishes have been the main game mode for War of Rights ever since it was first introduced. They are fun when played in moderation but one thing that bothers me the most about the mode is the repetition. After 3 years of playing war of rights with almost 700 hours put into the game, its not that hard to notice patterns that you'll see with every side on every map. Of course you will get the unorthodox attack every now and then but for the most part, union will go from A to B and confederates will defend C. The capture points for the most parts are just randomly place and forces players to defend weird or nonstrategic positions. Before I rant more on the mode lets get into my proposal.
Evolving Skirmishes
I will use Hooker's Push map for my example of what evolving skirmishes is. Now for any person that is fairly knowledgeable of the Battle of Antietam is that almost every place was fought over for hours with attacks and counterattacks involving hundreds of different units. Skirmishes does represent this but in the smallest scale possible, with only 2 regiments on each side in a very limited time frame from a certain phase of the fight. Campfire Games said they would like to add every unit that fought in the Maryland Campaign and at the moment, we have many units that are in the game but are not on even one map, and this will give them more of a reason to add more units. So I am proposing to have up to six units per side that could be in use to represent the different units that fought in that area at different times. This will coincide with my other two proposals of different deployment and capture point locations. This could be an addition to the skirmish maps or even its own game mode. Heres how it works.
Round starts with 45 minutes. The first 2 playable units for each side will be the first units engaged historically. These units will be playable for the first 15 minutes of the map. When the game timer reaches 30 minutes left in the match, the next 2 historical units that fought will be playable and so on until the match reaches the last 15 minutes and then 2 more units will be playable. If a player doesnt die for over 15 minutes they'll continue to play as the said unit until they die which then they'll respawn as a new unit that would be playable at the next phase. This will add to the variety of the units played during any said map. The changing of the units every 15 minutes would simulate the different attacks and counterattacks that would be played out during the actual battle.
Example for skirmishes:
Game starts 45 minutes on the clock
From 45m to 30m these units will be playable:
Union: 2nd Wisconsin & 97th Pennsylvania
CSA: 13th & 26th Georgia
From 30m to 15m these units will be playable:
Union: 12th Massachusetts & 11th Pennsylvania
CSA: 6th & 8th Louisiana
From 15m to 0m these units will be playable:
Union: 6th Wisconson & 14th Brooklyn
CSA: 1st Texas & 18th Georgia
If we wanted to go a step further, with each new phase and units, the locations of deployment zones and capture points can be changed to show the shift in directions of attacks and counterattacks. The playable area can move and fluctuate with the changing of the capture point to allow for the shifting of attack and defense locations and will keep players on their toes. The placements can correspond with the ground that these units would have fought over just like what is shown in the map that everybody would see at the beginning of the round or if they press f2. Example map:
This can be done for almost any map that is already in the game. I know some maps only feature a very specific attack that took place but there are still many maps that feature ground that would witness countless attacks that would occur during the day's fighting. Another great place to potentially try this out is Bloody Lane.
Frontline
If this would turn into a new game mode i e Historical Mode. It would consist of different locations with each side becoming both the attacker and defender. Both sides would be attacking and they would meet in a center point or frontline. The points would be easy to capture unlike skirmishes which will make rounds more volatile than the regular skirmishes. For an example there are 5 points on the Hooker's Push/dunker church map: Cornfield, East Woods, Hagerstown Road, West Woods, and Dunker Church. Each point would have different regiments playable for both Union and Confederate, once the Union or Confederate captures a point or falls back, new regiments and points would be open to play and capture. Only 1 point closest to the enemy would be open to be captured by the opposing side and when one point is captured, a new point would be open to be capture so there would be no back capping. Players still alive from the last point would continue to play as whatever regiment they selected before until they respawn. If one side is able to capture all 5 they win or whoever has the most be the time the timer ends wins also. This game mode could be up to 45 minutes to an hour long or based on tickets. This will allow for players to explore more of the map and will lead to more unique progressions of gameplay.
This can also work with one side always being the attacker and one side always being the defender.
Example for units playable on each point"
Cornfield:
Union: 6th Wisconsin & 14th Brooklyn
CSA: 1st Texas & 18th Georgia
East Woods:
Union: 42nd Pennsylvania & 114th Pennsylvania
CSA: 5th Texas & 4th Alabama
Hagerstown:
Union: 2nd Wisconsin & 7th Wisconsin
CSA: 1st Louisiana Zouaves & 9th Louisiana
West Woods:
Union: units from this map
CSA: units from this map
Dunker Church:
Union: units from this map
CSA: units from this map