so i was thinking we could have a "citadel" format, where factions would have to battle through all 3 bottom zones before progressing to the middle two and then to the top zone. however, to prevent all the stacking from happening on just the bottom 3 zones, players would need to launch into the top zone to earn launches for the middle two, and launch into the middle zones to earn for the bottom. that way zones will be tougher the more you fight for them. i am thinking that launches could be earned at a rate of 15 for every 10 launched, maybe a little bit less. it should probably be more than a 1:1 ratio as then the other tiers of zones will be less than half as strong as the tier above. attacking teams can hit the bottom zones until all three have been flipped away from the original faction. and then repeating the process for the middle zones.

to add another tier of complexity there can be rules that lock out formations on an entire row like no seekers and no nanos on the middle row, and then deflection and ZA only on the bottom, where as the top zone will be completely open to formations apart from support which will still be blocked everywhere as usual. this way the higher zones will not only have more bots but they will be tougher to crack.

I like this idea, in part because I think it could open up new strategic possibilities. I had a similar idea I called “chain Atlantis” where you’d have to move through all six zones from left to right and bottom to top. Basically having different mixtures of ordnance rules so teams could decide how best to build up a defense. In my concept the next zone wouldn’t be targetable by the enemy until the zone cap had changed hands. Also Prime wouldn’t unlock until some faction had their top zone capped (in retrospect this may not be a good idea since it kind of encourages picking on weaker opponents, even double teaming them).