Maps. What maps are good in each mode and what aren't.

Personally I don't see many topics on maps especially when it comes to balance. Most topics are on specific units and or faction or strategies that are abused.

Maps need to be looked at very closely when it comes to balance and can play a huge role on how games play out in multiplayer.

One faction could dominate another on an open map, but that same match up could be the opposite out come on an urban map.

I invite players who play all different modes 1v1s to 4v4s to help weed out the bad maps in automatch by discussing which ones are good and which one are not. This isn't too hard to tackle if we look at the specific maps that have been around for a while and have witnessed multiple relic patches and not been affected by the unit balanced drastically.

I'm mainly a competitive 2v2 player. Maps that I find not 100% balanced, but seem to have always played out relatively well across multiple patches for 2v2s are:

Moscow Outskirts, Lierneux, Vaux Farmlands, Minsk Pocket.

Now none of these maps are perfect, but I've had some of my most entertaining games on multiple occasions on these.

Personally maps that are to small seem to be the worst. These can include maps like crossing in the woods, and semoskiy ( although its size isn't small, the ice creates a negative feel of crossing it and the overall clusterness of the map seems to shrink it.)

Both of those maps however seem to play very well in 1v1s, but I'm not totally sure about that accusation so I invite a real 1v1 player to say otherwise.

I could go on and on, but I hope this gets the point across to get a discussion going about more map balance to implemented based off the type of game modes.

agree with Moscow Outskirt, Vaux and Lierneux. i have not been able to get Minsk after they changed it... i vetoed it because i felt it would still be too small for 2v2.

the things about Moscow (85% open), Vaux (70% open) and Lierneux (50% open) are that they all have a lot of routes and amply sized.

crossing and kharkov, it is even painful to see 2v2 cast because it is just constant clash and so called "good attack" is attacking from 3 corridors that are all from one direction. I also think Across the Rhine is an excellent 2v2 map for its openess and size.

but i do think that bad maps have a place as long as they are not atrocious (Vielsalm, Montargis..). maps like .Dusseldorf and Gelsenkirchen Refinery are absolutely not tournament worthy. they are maze like, made up of chokepoints. but they are absolutely huge. and that creates these weird moments of cat and mouse game and tension when you dont see the opponents for a while. you think where could they be? to some extent. i think that kind of different experiences earn these bad maps their place in the automatch.

i even enjoy Ettelbruck even though it is cancerous.

So when does maps become so bad that they do not deserve a place?

- Hill331, using extreme height differentiation which this game engine handles with extreme shittiness.
- Montargis, bad resource spread, bad direct translation of coh1 map that had different resource point system (muni hill to fuel hill) that has only 2 access points from each sides.
- Lorch Assault (4v4), when there is not enough space and the castle.... we joke that a map maker made this beautiful castle in the downtime first and tried to make a map around it so everyone can see his pretty castle.
- Vielsalm, ambient mines, forcing extreme 2 2v2s across the map
- Lazeranth Ambush, extreme imbalance.

some maps i enjoy and have good setup are (except for the ones you mentioned)

- Hill400 (3v3 only)
- Across the Rhine (2v2 only)
- Hamlet
- Oka River
- Rzhev Winter
- General Mud
- La Gleize
- Port of Hamburg (3v3 only)

dont even get me started.

1v1 map pool is 8/10 right now in terms of quality

2v2 map pool is 3/10 right now in terms of quality

EDIT: ive been ranting about this stuff in coh2 for years. ive stopped because relic lost interest, they tried one community backed map initiation and then stopped cold turkey.

Want to see what map balance should trend toward? Read this https://www.coh2.org/guides/5478/worldbuilding-with-whiteflash

Angoville and the Lost Glider;




State of the art, topkek map design.