FFA in BattleDex just doesn't feel right and I think I know why. These are the primary problems I run into:

1) Very often two players will get into a battle with each other over resources. These players will remove each other from having any chance of victory without really ever battling over the primary necessity to win: control points.

2) If I decide to concede the resources between myself and an opponent next to me, in order to avoid said conflict in the preceding point, they may decide that since they haven't encountered any opposition, this is a free pass to march to my base and steal my starting factory. This of course will draw a counter-attack on my part, again removing two players (myself and my attacker) from any chance of victory without them fighting over the primary necessity to win: control points.

Why do these sorts of situations constantly re-occur, when what is clearly in each individual player's best interest is to take control points? Perhaps it is because in one-vs-one, a common strategy is to go for factory's first, and players translate this strategy subconsciously to FFA when this strategy will generally cause you to lose in FFA. I really don't know...

But what I do know is how to solve this problem. Create specific FFA maps, which have multiple control points (perhaps as many as 9-12) and remove all factories. Perhaps bases on this map should produce more gold per turn, or perhaps players should start with more gold to make up for the lost gold from the factories. If you do this, suddenly there is no choice between whether to fight for resources or control points. The goal to get victory points is a lot more clear and focused. The strategy stops including an aspect of gold production vs victory points, and rather becomes a pure race to get victory points. I think this would make FFA a lot more fun and intense.

I'm really over FFA as it currently exists and don't think I will play as long as the maps are in their current form, because too many players get caught in side battles over resources, and it completely ruins the battle over control points. Too often a player will fight for factories, at some point realize he has no control points and is well behind somebody else in VP, and simply "give up" by deciding to "make a point" by attacking somebody other than the player leading (who they should be attacking).

The idea is this: With many control points, and those being the only thing to fight over, players will naturally stay in contention longer, will have more incentive to fight until the end, and will have more incentive to attack the player with the most control points. Currently, very few players adhere to the strategy of fighting over control points, as the game was intended, and this makes for ugly FFA incidents.

I'd tweak your suggestion a bit: you don't need to remove factories, you just need to make them clearly for each player, so that there are no factories in neutral ground (at the same distance between two players).

That way, they become less of a factor.

Exhibit A: http://battledexgame.com/game.php?game_id=17375

1) Watch FIDO in the lower left, completely ignore the CP between him and ice, and instead move towards middle factory. In the meantime, soundwave and myself had a skirmish over the CP between us, which kept it neutral for some time. Ice of course won. This is why, as Geral agrees, middle factories should be removed.

2) Watch FIDO, after taking the middle resource, push towards the resource by my base instead of going for any of the middle CP's. This is why, as Geral disagrees, all factories should be removed.

If FIDO has a boner for attacking me, so be it, but this could have been any player. Your instinct is to grab factories, not control points. Only good players realize that focusing on factories will lose it for you, and it is only this conscious thought which overrides my natural inclination to grab factories. Many players, had they started just like FIDO, would have at least sent the bottom infantry towards my factory.

As long as factories exist by a player's base, other players will have an inclination to grab it somehow. They will think, "with so few factories on the board, what an advantage I could get if I sneak or airlift an infantry and grab it, then airlift some troops for protection." This may not be correct thinking as far as a winning strategy, but I contend factories grab people's attention, because we love the idea of having more or better troops than our opponent.

One of the best FFA games I ever played was the Myth series, most notably Myth 2. The FFA game mode had flags on the map, which functioned as control points based on seconds of control. But the catch was this: while you could slightly adjust what type of units to bring based on a points system, the units you started with were the only units you received. All anybody focused on was trying to capture flags while keeping their army alive. This is rather non-existent in BattleDex, because: 1) Control points seem to be rather ignored; and 2) Players are willing to lose troops in order to control a factory, with the expectation that the extra income will allow them to replace the troops they lost.

I'm not lobbying for a set amount of starting gold with zero income, but whatever income players receive on a per-turn basis should not be capture-able on the battlefield, or else we will continue to get the same results we have now, players giving thought to taking, controlling, and protecting resources, while we should be in heavy battle over control points.

That's up to the player, not the game itself

Well it turns an FFA game into slop.

What is easier Bubbles? Removing the temptation by removing factories or getting in touch with all the BattleDex players and convincing them to battle over control points instead of factories. Because whenever two players get in a battle over factories, the game becomes garbage.

come on dude, it's a STRATEGY game. Meaning everyone has different STRATEGIES. You don't see anything wrong with trying to remove their ability to use some of the strategies they do now when theres nothing wrong? Or, you don't see anything wrong with trying to tell the community "shame on you for not playing MY strategy!"

sorry if this sounds angry or derogitory, i don't mean to at all just didnt know how else to word it