(6 - 8) Red Ball Express

Workshop Link: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=369210409

Description:
"Between August and November 1944 the Allies operated an enormous truck convoy system between Cherbourg, one of the key strategic goals of Operation Overlord, and the forward logistics base at Chartres. Primarily manned by African-American soldiers, the Red Ball Express was a last-minute concept designed to provide a constant stream of fuel and supplies to the advancing Allied forces until larger ports such as Antwerp and Bruges could be recaptured. SHAEF knew that without such a supply network, the Allied advance would stall and eventually collapse -- a fate that seemed very real indeed in December 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge."

This is a remake of the popular vCoH map Red Ball Express, originally created by Yojimbo252 and patched into the game as a community spotlight contest map.
Rather than being a basic port, this version of the map has been designed from scratch by Zupa and myself, and reimagined so as to take CoH2's newer engine and faster game pace into account; some areas have been adjusted for improved gameplay -- such as generally lowering terrain elevation so as to avoid issues with certain ranged weapons -- but the original author's theme and layout have been retained.
We have spent a considerable amount of time designing, testing and reviewing this map, and feel that it is now at a point where it is ready for release.

As mentioned above, certain things had to be changed to ensure smooth gameplay as a number of gameplay mechanics function differently in CoH2 than they did in vCoH. Thus, the sector layout is noticeably different to in the original map, the heightmap has been altered to reduce the amount of terrain-blocking, and various areas have seen pathing improvements. Finally, the visuals have of course been updated to CoH2 standards!

Our aim is to recreate the Red Ball Express experience we have sorely missed from vCoH; with any luck, we'll have succeeded and you too can relive memories of such a wonderful, enjoyable map.

Zupa and I are both fairly new to the mapping game, so please feel free to post any constructive criticism you may have.

Regards,

Zupadupadude and Acinonyx

Glad to have this map for coh2

Nice work. Yojimbo was a friend of mine and I can remember helping him test the original version of this map. Cool that we can play it in COH2 now too.

Great map, glad to have it in CoH2 now.

Those -sb- guys sure have alot of talent.

Great work, guys!

This map is me favorite!

Great map and nice work.

We need this in automatch

Looks like small map, is not true?

This map needs to be implemented between official maps in Coh2, in order to be available in all game modes. It's a well constructed and balanced map. At list, that's the way it was in vCoh.

Glad to see the positive response. We really hope you enjoy the map.

Looks like small map, is not true?

It is designed to be a 3v3 map and is therefore a bit small for 4v4s. However, we wanted to give players the option to play 4v4s on it if they want to. We also played a few 4v4s in our test matches and were positively surprised how well the map worked considering that it was not designed for 4v4 gameplay.

Its size is comparable to maps like Ettelbrück Station or Rzhev, but as Redball Express contains less Buildings and no movement impairing elements like rivers and instead consists more of open fields maneuvering should not be an issue.

+1

this map deserve a news post

Thanks for all the positive comments guys!

LOVED the original - one of my favourites... looking forward to having my computer set up again to play...it's been too long.

relic, put this in automatch, pronto.

thx in advance!

Played a few games with sib + viewers on this map tonight. Great map, looks very nice too! can tell its not a boring Relic map

Would love to see this one in the 3v3 ladder rotation! make it happen Relic!

Map plays and looks great! defenitely would love to see this in the automatch .

we need more classic maps from CoH1 with a high quality port:

Angoville Farms
Sturzdorf
Wrecked Train
Duclair
McGechaen's War
Point Du Hoc
Wolfheze
Montargis Region
Route N13
Steel Pact



http://www.ign.com/wikis/company-of-heroes/Maps