If you imposed this restriction here are just some of the things you would no longer be able to do as a captain:
1. Turn enemy shields.
2. Lure enemy Ai away from a fight.
3. Distract a group of archers.
4. Annihilate enemy troops while your Ai remains in superior positioning.
5. Bait skirmisher units into wasting ammo.
6. Capture flags while your units remain with the rest of your team.
7. Utilize high ground to gain a tactical view of the battlefield and command your troops remotely.
8. Hold off enemy units so that your archer units can create distance to kite.
9. Distract enemy captains, preventing them from getting kills and commanding their units.
I think you're grossly underestimating the range of the "follow me" limitation. I'm thinking 30-40% of most maps. Which would allow:
1. Still possible within effective range.
2. Still possible.
3. Possible if the archers are within reasonable distance. This prevents players from splitting off completely from their cav to have 1 player unit distract an entire regiment of archers.
4. I don't know what this means.
5. Irrelevant because no one lets their troop waste ammo like that.
6. Still possible unless there's a huge distance between you.
7. Dumb.
8. Still possible; but irrelevant unless the enemy is sleeping on charge.
9. Still possible.
The problem isn't that skill can exist within certain gameplay parameters, but rather the parameters of gameplay are harmful to the concept of the game. Captain should be about tactics and troop movement rather than watching players 1vX an entire army.
That's not just cav: that is the optimal way to play as any class, it's just that most of the players currently suck. Watching (some people) play was painful because they hit unmoving allied bots half of the time. You can with practice rather easily 1v10 or 1v20 entire swarms of bots, it's just that no one does because they don't know how. I haven't seen any of the basic strategies used in Full Invasion utilized in Captain yet, but 2 players would be able to decimate almost any number of infantry bots just by themselves and proper movement.
You could take any game and broaden it's parameters to allow the players to have more freedom and "skill" but the games quickly break down. In CSGO or Valorent you could allow walking through walls. More skill and more freedom? Yes. But the concept of the game would be broken down. You could allow players in MOBAS massive windows where towers don't damage them to allow teamfights at any point of the map at any point in time. More skill and freedom? Yes. But the flow of the game would be destroyed along with any sense of progression.
Games exist within certain boundaries for a reason, to curate gameplay to a specific experience. Allowing players to 1vX entire armies is a clear breach of the boundaries that make sense for Captain. Captain won't grow if people start to watch a tournament (which is impossible by the way since everyone deletes their f****** VODs) and what they see is players gallivanting by themselves around the map whittling down armies by themselves. They want to see tactics and strategy.
If you want to have skilled solo expression look to Skirmish. Let Captain be about controlling bots.
Captain is looked down upon because the current meta is giant shock inf infantry blob of brainless death. Has nothing to do with a single player making your guys face the wrong way.
Fix the meta and captain honestly has extreme spectator and esport potential. The most Mount&Blade has seen.
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