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True, it does cost credits to capture a base, but if you decide not to capture a base you hand your opponent that advantage. However, if used wisely, a base definitely pays for itself over time even if you untied base control from credit income.
A base provides you with many economic advantages:
Units you build can spend more time attacking / defending and less time in transit.
Bases further back in your line now have a buffer between them and the action.
Gain the ability to build certain units (wharfs) / Deny your opponent those same unit options.
However, because bases are no longer cash cows:
It is not necessarily a good idea to capture a base if you cannot / will not defend it.
You are offered new strategic uses for bases (such as sacrificing a base to defer an opponents force and buy time).
Think of it this way; you'd gladly pay 100cr for a unit that could be deployed allowing you to build units at its deployed location, right? Even if the deployed unit didn't pay you 100-250cr each turn, that strategic option would be worth having for only 100cr. If bases no longer give you income, then that is exactly what is offered to you.
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@NatSelection: your profile shows you've only played 21 games of uniwar. Go play several hundred games and then come back and share your thoughts.
If you think my reasoning is flawed, I'd love to hear why. However, the number of games I've played is irrelevant when our topic is so blatantly obvious or conceptual.
If you think the number of games I've played is relevant, please demonstrate your expertise by explaining why my game reasoning is flawed.
You are correct, however, that I shouldn't have been so harsh or even critical about your idea. I regret doing so because really I'd love to see the credit/base issue addressed. Perhaps your hundreds of games worth of experience can shed some light on how less credits per base -> less predictable games, but income disconnected from base control is not a better step forward.
As far as your instructions to me:
Lighten up, this is a thread about new feature ideas. Take an idea and think of how it could be made to work and share that instead of being all negative.
That is exactly what I did. I took your idea, showed how it could be made to work (avoid it, for reasons given), and I shared that with the rest of the forum. I didn't intend to step on your baby or have you take it so personally. I did mention that I loved your idea about "toxic bases."
"toxic bases" is a fantastic idea.
Which I'm really surprised wasn't implemented already in some form (because it is such a great idea). So don't get so upset, sandymac. I'm not trying to break your heart. I'm just trying to think critically about a strategy game.
Don't worry though, I can change. I'll start by not giving my opinion of this:
And yes "very best" perks will will be found but that is no different that the fact that currently sometimes one races is the very best for a map. This can be made a non-issue by simply designing the game data so each map has a list of banned perks in ranked matches because they are too powerful. Over time these lists can be tweaked much like past tweaks.
Can I get a gold karma star now, sandymac? Positive reinforcement is the quickest way to create change in your target subject.
Edit: I find it strange that all of a sudden every individual post I have made in every forum received a single one star rating. Real mature. You at least could have posted a reply with your opinions about the ideas expressed in those posts (that assumes you even read them).
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You've got two boats, so this really isn't a losing scenario. Boats weaken the garudas, and you could build any combination of land units on the upper bases. You've got two boats.
I'd probably build a mecha on each base and move the current mecha down to weaken the garuda. Use your 8/10 boat on the weaker garuda and your 10/10 on the strong one. Build more boats. Win.
Btw, how do you only have two boats? That map is just a boat building map. If you weren't building boats the whole time, maybe that is why you got stuck in this predicament in the first place. Especially with Titans. Why build anything else? (unless you let this happen)
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As most people know, the person who takes an opponents base first usually wins because of the income gap. Some new maps have been created which minimize this issue by lowering the amount of credits per base. However, there is a VERY simple solution (also simple to implement) which builds on that progression...
Don't tie credit income to base control!!! Base control is a desirable task in and of itself. On a linear map you couldn't sustain your army at your opponents end if you don't have a way to produce new units closer to the front line. You don't have to tie credit income to base control - thereby eliminating entirely the inflated importance of a single base. Bases offer strategic options by allowing the player to produce units at a new location. You don't need to compound the advantage of a player who captures a base by increasing the number of units they can produce.
Just try playing without it and see how it changes the game-play. I bet you'll find that players are still motivated to take bases in order to stop their opponent from producing units, and so that they can reinforce their own position.
Credit income is a good function. Different maps can set different credit income to dictate the pace and breadth of the battle, but tying credit income to base control is what causes most games to be determined in the first few turns.
Can anyone give a clear and logical reason why this wouldn't absolutely solve the issue of games being determined by who takes a base first?
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Sandymac, do you not agree that very quickly the best perk/race combos will be determined and instead of the seemingly interesting system you have proposed, we would just have a patch that gave a flat bonus to each race? The only way to avoid having 1 (or 1 per race) ultimate perk would be to balance them extensively. Wouldn't you rather have more units and tactics rather than a set of arbitrary bonuses? Most perk systems fail because 1-3 of the perks are objectively better than all of the others. It isn't intentional, but to avoid having this flaw, the perk system would need to go through extensive testing for each race itself as well as each race v race match-up. So either you'd get a flawed set of perks, or they'd have to devote a great amount of resources (time and energy) into balancing the perk system. Why not spend that time and energy making more units and unit abilities which can be used by all players (of that particular race).
Especially considering we're talking about a strategy game here, and not WoW, CoD4, or Battlefield. The perk system would be cute and a bit trendy, but overall I think they devs could develop much more strategically deep game if they spent their time developing the sea and aerial units necessary to round out those unit classes, instead of on perks.
As far as negative perks, who is the audience. If the main motivation for negative perks is bragging rights, wouldn't you need somebody to view your bragging? Would that come across through bonus rank points for winning? Maybe if you play your friends a lot that could be fun, or a great way to lose friends, but most of my opponents are random people and I suspect that this is true for the majority of Uniwar players. Unless I'm beating Alon with negative perks, I doubt anyone is going to care, and if I don't know my opponents skill level walking into the match, I certainly wouldn't hamstring myself before the battle even began. Maybe that's just me. If so, all players willing to hamstring their forces before battle please send me an invite so we can play - thanks.
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Just untie credit income from base control. Problem solved. Can I haz my commission?
Nobody can win without capturing the bases, so it isn't as if players will just ignore capturing bases.
Bases offer strategic options to the players by allowing the creation of units at location X.
Capturing opponents bases frees your line from defending against that direction.
If more credits per base increases the win-predictability of a game, and less credits per base decreases the win-predictability, then doesn't it follow that 0 credits per base would nigh-eliminate the win-predictability (concerning the capturing of a single base).
In this way, a player increases their advantage by winning skirmishes rather than by capturing bases. An effective attack can easily wipe out 2-3x as many credits as it took to pull off. If you make gaining the advantage about commanding your troops well, instead of holding bases, then wouldn't that push the emphasis toward strategy?
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Don't tie credit income to base control!!! Base control is a desirable task in and of itself. On a linear map you couldn't sustain your army at your opponents end if you don't have a way to produce new units closer to the front line. You don't have to tie credit income to base control - thereby eliminating entirely the inflated importance of a single base. Bases offer strategic options by allowing the player to produce units at a new location. You don't need to compound the advantage of a player who captures a base by increasing the number of units they can produce.
Don't tie credit income to base control!  Don't do it!  Just try playing without it and see how it changes the game-play. I bet you'll find that players are still motivated to take bases in order to stop their opponent from producing units, and so that they can reinforce their own position.
Add new naval units and aerial units to balance out the unit types (so that naval wont dominate all, and aerial dominate ground).
Don't tie credit income to base control! 
Also, to steal sandymac's idea:
Toxic bases (makes your bases deal two units of damage each turn an opponent camps on them.) (this would prevent your opponent from camping their way to victory)
Although I must say, random or even selected perks sound like one of the most awful ideas for Uniwars I've ever seen.  Aside from being a nightmare to balance, why give one player an advantage for doing nothing? How about we leave the advantage to players that utilize their units and tactics correctly, instead of giving an advantage to players who roll a natural 20 on their initiative. To sandymac's credit, "toxic bases" is a fantastic idea.
Adding special abilities to more units would be a nice touch, but most importantly...
Add more aerial and naval units to diversify strategy and dismantle the current "Naval > Air > Ground" imbalance, and...
Please! Don't tie credit income to base control! Credit income is a good function. Different maps can set different credit income to dictate the pace and breadth of the battle, but tying credit income to base control is what causes most games to be determined in the first few turns.
Don't do it!
Please... 
You could also fix this for Uniwars 1 Just take the total income of each map and divide by the number of suggested players and untie it from bases controlled. Done
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The naval unit is by far the most critical unit in any map where you are able to build one. They are basically mobile artillery units with defense to protect them fairly well from the small number of units capable of damaging them. If a map has harbors, then the focus of the battle is going to be who can build and maintain the larger fleet until a crushing victory is within grasp. I've seen land units stare each other down from 3-4 hexes for 10 or 20 turns as both players build nothing but their one naval unit. The main factor for these tactics is obviously a lack of counters. Aside from naval units of their own, a sapian or khralean player only has 1 viable counter to naval units (chopper/garuda) and the titan has none (lacking an air unit). I didn't count artillery for 2 reasons: 1) Sap and Titan arty can't attack after move (owned) 2) Khralean arty doesn't have the range to attack and survive. Even though I have taken down ships with choppers/garudas it is not efficient or even reliable. For these reasons, something must be done to eliminate the advantage naval units currently possess.
The aerial unit is definitely the next unit on the list when it comes to overall superiority, however, this case is a bit more nuanced. For instance, SapVSap games become chopper wars from the get-go just as KhraVKhra games become garuda wars (not because the garuda is over-powered, necessarily, but because if you lose in the air you will lose on the ground).
The Titans obviously get the shaft because they have no way of overcoming a naval force if they lose ship v ship, or, lacking harbors, they are unable to participate in the aerial competition.
I enjoy Uniwars very much, but something is seriously wrong with the balance of Naval > Air > Ground. I think there are 2 main reason for this imbalance.
1) Naval is untouchable except by Aerial, Aerial is untouchable except by a select few Ground units.
2) Not enough unit Naval / Aerial unit types.
Consider if your ground forces were comprised of only your race's tank, or tank and infantry. The strategies and options would be very limited, essentially amounting to who built the most / maintained the most. Each race has between 7-9 ground units. That is why ground combat is strategically diverse and well nuanced. It follows that Aerial combat would be strategically less diverse, with Naval following suit. Compounded with Naval > Aerial > Ground, games devolve to their most mindless level of strategy.
Opinions?
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