Profile of Rosbone

I think there are some positives to the CoH2 system over the CoH1 one, a map is a lot more "Readable"

I agree. When I spectate games I constantly see people who have no idea a cutoff even exists so they cap half the map but have ZERO resource income

Coh2 players tend to just "play". vCoh required some map review to fully understand a strategy. So it could be deeper but just punishes new players. And I think we really need to cater more to new players or we will always be stuck with no player base.

As far as maps I have made go, I think even more emphasis should have been placed on cutoffs. But the main focus was to make a map with some meaningful, but not overpowering, buildings.

So a map like Road to Arnhem has great cutoff design. But the buildings in the middle create an issue where Soviet Urban Defense can become way too strong. So the cutoffs had to be moved too far away from the center. They are still strong but are too close to the enemy base, so they cant be held for long. You may only pull one or two squads away from the fuel, but not the whole army.

So there is a balance between buildings and cutoffs.

But my advice to future mappers would be:
- focus on point layout and movement blocking.
- make balanced and accessible cutoffs.
- then try to make fun building placements.
- focus on how units will retreat when a flank fails. Again Red Ball makes you retreat thru the entire enemy army if your flank fails.

I am a bad person to ask about 4v4 maps because I dont like playing on some of the maps we already have. But they are included for variety.

4v4 MAP OPTIONS
Since there are only two fuels per map, you will always have the 2v2 situation on each fuel.

In order to force the players away from a normal fuel layout:
- Put the fuels far away from the front line (Lienne Forest).
- Move the VP to be away from the fuel (Steppes).
- Have a good fuel cutoff(Road to Arnhem).

The fact that Lienne has safe fuels probably drives how dynamic the fights are on that map. It is probably the secret sauce that makes it fun that no one has thought about. The city fights are around the VP and the forest fights are around the MUNI in general. Neither point are win/lose game breakers.

Steppes rewards players for going north instead of focusing the fuels. You get a VP and possibly 2 MUNI points. And at some point players have to move North or lose on VPs.

When Road to Arnhem was being designed, Sander93 really wanted to focus on cutoffs. Arnhem has the VPs moved away and separated by movement blockers and has strong cutoffs in the center. This rewards having a mobile army composition and reduces camping/turtling. Since there is a lot of green cover around the fuel, players who like to camp can still employ that tactic to some degree. It tries to fit both styles of play.

CUTOFFS
I think this is what is missing on many maps. Meaningful cutoffs. The best 1v1+2v2 maps have good cutoff placement.

For 4v4 maps, we usually have no good cutoffs or cutoffs that are too strong. the west side of LaGleize is an example of cutoffs that are well designed. Both North and South have to defend the fuel and the cutoff to get resources.

One of the great mappers of all time, MonolithicBacon, has tried on several maps to make good cutoffs. Hill 400 is an example of that. All fights take place right on the cutoff. The fuel is almost ignored. To me this cutoff design is a little too strong. And on Hill 400 it only punishes one side of the map which creates issues with team balancing. My point is, Mono realized that the best map design uses good cutoffs.

WIDER MAPS
NorthWeapons main point was making wider maps. This would give us play styles closer to 3v3. Where the biggest blob wins. The maps closest to this size are Steppes, General Mud, and Road to Arnhem. So the short answer to the question is we already have 3 maps like this. City 17 and Vielsalm could almost be lumped into that category as well, bringing the count to 5. So the short answer is 4v4 should not play like 3v3 and we already have some maps close to that design.

Some possible issues with a wide short map:
- Players will still gravitate to the fuel no matter what.
- If the map is too short, snipers and artillery become OP as hell.
- A larger map may hurt FPS.

The fuel placement is what drives the 2v2 feel of 4v4 maps. No matter how wide the map is it will always be a camp on the fuel situation. About the only thing you can do is try to layout the sight blocking around the fuel to allow better flanking attacks. This is where Red Ball falls apart. The long hedge walls stop flanks. This is why White Ball has blockers that let you push the flanks much better.

The distance between the bases needs to be pretty large in a 4v4 due to the large amount of artillery present. You also want a decent amount of distance between the base and front line because snipers can retreat and be back shooting too quickly. The only thing worse than BRIT emplacements is snipers.

Again, I think Mono's Hill 400 was trying to be this style of map. It has a shorter distance to the bases and is very wide in general. I think the layout of the grove movement blockers makes it play smaller than it is. But I think it is a good template for size. Nordwind to me was the next great evolution of this design. Good size and great cutoff play. But again the movement blockers force it to play a certain way. For example the trains in the north force play into the fuel buildings where MGs will be camped. The South plays much more open and flowing. So you can look at it like it has best of both worlds: North=campy, South=mobile.

If you make a map really wide, it may need to be pretty short or you may have FPS issues. Maps like General Mud and Steppes do not seem to have too many FPS issues in general. However maps like White Ball seem to degrade pretty fast as the game progresses. This may be due to how LONG and OPEN the map is. The pathing calcs may be getting overwhelmed.

Once again I think I wrote WAY TOO MUCH, but its good for future readers looking to make maps.

Awesome! Had this page open the last 3 days to wait for a new version. Thank you

Sorry, with the state the game has been in, I have lost all motivation to work on this. Feels like a huge waste of time.

But the last patch gave me some hope, so I drug it open again

I rarely play PFs unless I go against a Brit player. And when I do, the PFs get absolutely rekt. Models drop like flies. I have since started only making one set of PFs.

I have heard people say PFs are trash until vetted. Most likely the case for me here as it is the early engagements where they are useless in many instances.