Diversifying the Lines of Battle

Currently in PA I feel the lines of battle are just that lines, strait to the enemy's base. Sure you may attack from different sides but, its all the same.

This base centric combat comes about because the metal points are scattered far and wide, making any attack on the metal points ineffective. As your army must march from point to point allowing the enemy to respond. The grate spread of metal points and the inability to do massive economic damage over a short time as a result of the spread out metal points, creates a situation in which the only strategic point is the base. There is little worth in attacking any other point.

Important part
To fix this problem I purpose metal points be grouped 4-5 ish per group. this would create points other than the main base witch have massive value. Imagine losing a group of 5 t2 metal extractors that is 140 metal gone! Under this system the battle will spread to the rest of the map; victory will be won, by effectively attacking and defending strategic resource nodes, not by throwing wave after wave at your enemy's base.

Some are grouped. Some are not.
Attacking individual spots can be done with bombers if not defended.
Large clusters are worth sending an army if defended.
Send an army at the enemy base to hurt their base.
If your point is about making everybody just have one place to send an army then we are going backwards from where we started.
Metal placement did have a change recently, and for the better. (more expansion and broader tactical gameplay)
It is still going to see more changes to improve one where it is now. (Jon Mavor is not content with the grouping, and Uber is aware that alot of metal spots are not able to be built on due to terrain features in the way)
If you really want to hurt a players economy, hit their energy which is most likely made in a cluster. Negative energy means lower metal extraction efficiency, leading to even slower build times than they where without power. Knock out enough power and you take out the entire metal grid.

We have plenty of threads on Metal amounts and placement.

Mike