Profile of Hux

Lord Lovat, please stop your bitching. The guys creating the worldbuilder tool for the community (Programmers) are most likely not the same guys who create maps (designers). Both parts are being worked on, the WB tool will be released once it is stable on every machine. Most dev tools are usually not optimized etc. I am sure they're polishing the tool and release it when its time.
In the meanwhile let the designers do their job and release maps. Don't mix up both processes, cause they are not correlated too much.

please don't attack me personally - I have mentioned nobody directly and am just expressing my opinions on a company policy and how I feel it could be approved upon. take your personal views on 'bitching' somewhere else, they are not needed here.

In response to the rest of your post. I agree, I would much rather have an optimises version of the WB than a buggy one - we all used the original one, right?

As I stated before in my post (I am not at odds with designers making maps so in the meantime i am happy for them to 'do their jobs' as you say)

My point was (if you missed it) was that the maps are surely being created on a version of the WB - which seems to be stable enough to create maps good enough for competitive play so why not release it. Now, you say you 'are sure they are polishing the tool' and that may be the case - but even that implies that you know as little about it as I do...

its the secrecy that is baffling.

The lack of competitive COH2 1v1 maps is a problem both in multiplayer automatch as well as in tournaments and leagues. Relic porting in tried-and-trusted map formats from COH1 (Sem, Ang, Lang) is a smart move. Even Blizzard ported "Lost Temple" into SC2 at launch. Here's why porting competition maps from COH1 into COH2 is a good idea:

1) It is incredibly difficult to build a balanced, non-symmetrical map for Company of Heroes. In the 7 years that we had COH1, only that tiny handful of maps (Sem Ang Lang) proved they were good enough for competition.

2) COH2 Balance between the armies is in its infancy. The armies themselves are very challenging to balance. This process is complicated by the fact that we are not sure if the maps are balanced. At beta, the only real decent map we had was Kholodny Winter. How could we balance the armies on that map? For one, it's cold tech, which complicates things even further. Porting these old map formats will help Relic and top players balance the actual armies.

3) New maps take months and months of testing to perfect. Semois, Angoville, and Langres are the products of almost 7 years of balance testing. Each one of those maps has changed a great deal since its inception; in pathing, house positions, and even sector layouts. New COH2 maps will go through this process as well, but they are starting at zero.

4) Porting old maps does not mean that new maps are not being developed at the same time. They are.

5) Not only do you get a map layout that is tried and true, but as we saw with Langreskaya, you also get that layout in a Winter version. This will help balance and develop the cold tech mechanics, if they can be looked at independently of map balance. It's one less variable to worry about when you're looking at Cold Tech.

6) Porting old layouts that we know work for COH is cost-effective.

With Kholodny Summer, Langreskaya, and Semois in a map pool, for the first time I could imagine a large $$ eSports event for COH2. Hopefully Angoville and a host of new maps will join them in the future.

I would generally tend to agree with you here if it were not for the fact arguably the best map from the old game was user created as part of the WorlBuilder competition.
I have no doubt that relic is capable of creating it's own really good maps but I am also certain that the community can provide (probably) much much more. I fail to see how keeping us in the dark and periodically releasing recycled maps with 'skaya' tacked on to them amounts to a sensible policy - at least when providing new maps and balance is concerned.

I can only hope that a WB release is going to be part of this livestream event tomorrow. And not just Semoiskaya *shudder*

Forgive me for not viewing the replay (cannot right now)

It seems to me that going for T2, Maxim, Maxim, script, script means that you sacrifice a lot of early game capping power. You say your job was to 'hold fuel and push from the north' yet I cannot help think that you could have captured and held said territory a lot earlier in the game with a much more aggressive capping force (I.e more scripts)and then instead of voluntarily adopting a defensive you could have already been forcing your opponent to be defensive. Now, I am no expert player myself but I have really embraced the idea of being offensive in this game rather than defensive (I dunno if I actually heard him say it or not but I always has Fatal's voice in my head when I think about the merits of being offensive, for some reason...)

Anyway, secondly you make an odd choice in your teching later on in your post. You talk about getting only 2 scripts then researching AT nades THEN building an ATG. Again, I am not an expert player myself but that choice strikes me as odd, i.e building two things -one after the other - to both achieve the same job.

I may be disregarded by other, more skilled players in here, but I feel that the Russians (just as the US in COH) have to assert themselves early on and dominate through their aggressiveness - which is something that your overall strategy does not appear to capitalise on. I guess just try a few more games with different strats - create your own (or stick with the one you have and tweak it if that's what you fancy)

As I said before I have been unable to watch the replay (yet) so if anything I have posted does not apply the please feel free to disregard.

Pass. Get a new Sudden Strike game made ASAP, I will throw my money at that..

aaaannnndddd we're back. If they'd release the god-damned worldbuilder we could create decent maps ourselves. If Relic aren't gunna do it then they should let us. No more of this avoiding accountability bullshit by keeping everyone in the dark on progress and timeframes.