I would respectfully disagree that the current CM meta is the best CM has ever been. It is ok, but I think the meta immediately preceding the nuke readd was measurably more enjoyable.
If someone asks me what a proper CM meta should be, one key principle is:
A. In the first hour of the round, xenos should not be strong enough to brute force through the entire marine force or even assault the FOB.
Marines just like xenos want to win the round and:
B. As long as the nuke is a marine victory strategy, marines are going to play for it.
But, since there’s nothing in the game design that forces marines to even leave the FOB apart from the command and the unga gene:
C. Marines are going to play for the nuke(B) and drag the rounds out, while the xenos are too weak to stop them(A).
There were many suggestions how to correct for this problem. The original xeno endgame was a hack originally suggested by yours truly, but it was admittedly too strong in the end. Elsewhere I suggested that xenos should still be getting a small free larva drop one hour in…
Your solution unfortunately seems to be too much of a hassle for what it is - would require all maps to get those nuke spots and this seems a bit too xeno biased. But, I see where you’re coming from.
Now, I also have another suggestion. What if we make B false? What if the nuke was a true wildcard round ender, that would always have as unpredictable a result as possible? Here’s the idea:
- At 2 hours in and every 30 minutes after that marine command can fax the high command for a nuke.
- Faxing for a nuke starts a vote that requires 60% of surviving players on both factions counted independently to vote yes.
- If yes wins marines get the nuke that they can just blow up in the FOB in X minutes.
- Xenos get an evo boost and as many larva to repopulate the hive in relation to the surviving number of the marines at the ratio of 1 to Y.
- Maybe xenos get the King too.