Achiles Posted May 23, 2002 Share Posted May 23, 2002 First off let me start off by saying I love this game. i would pay $30-40 for this game if it came out for the Mac or I am able to get it to work reasonably well on my computer using a PC emulator. However there is one thing that really bothers me. The map. It's too small. Now I'm not talking about stretching it to Japan or any thing. Or even to the position of the real US east coast. However in IMHO the map is to small. Mainly in the west, north, and south in order of severity. In the west the Atlantic is just to small and to crowded. Performing raiding operations with subs is near impossible. In order to do it without your subs being obliterated you have to basically defeat the entire british surface fleet which kinda defeats the point of using subs in the first place. Stretching the map out to the west by about 20-30 hexes should largely alleviate this problem. The other thing about the western part of the map really has to do with the shape of the USA. This isn't really a "dealbreaker" so to speak for me but more of a pet peeve. When I first saw the map and I saw Russia one thought went through my head. What a bear of a country. It is VERY big. Then I saw America. I was unimpressed to say the least. Though the US is cramed full of cities, mines, oil, and lots of other goodies she is pitifully small and mishapen. I also thought that if I could slip about 8-12 armies and TGs(tank groups) by their fleet I could, with a some luck and daring, take all that wealth for myself fairly easily. I was never actually able to do this as I still had many pressing affairs in Europe I was unable to take care of before the demo ended. You see all those things are cramed so close together that a rapid surpise invasion could theoretically overwhelm the americans by taking most of their cities and such in one fell swoop. In addition to their stategic vulnerabilities the blob that is America just isn't all the impressive. It's only about the size of mainland France. If you stretched it out along almost the entire western edge of the map and thickened it, it would be less vulnerable to invasion. Except of course a direct strike on the capital which would still be very close to the sea. This however is a somewhat historical weakness. It should also hopefully be much more impressive. Which would hopefully help it to weigh more heavily upon the axis players mind like unto the USSR. Anyway on to the northern edge of the map. The problem with the north ties directly into the problem with the Atlantic. It's darn near impossible to slip subs along the Norwegian coast and then either south or north of Iceland into the Atlantic like it was done historically. Right now the only way to get subs into the atlantic is by building them at Brest or Bordeaux which is IIRC rather unhistorical. Most subs were built in Germany and either made it into the Atlantic through the channel or by going around Iceland. The latter is obviously impossible because there are only 2 hexes of water north of Scotland and these are right next to a major allied naval base. personally I would like to see the map stretched north to about 6-10 hexes north of the far northern coast of scandinavia. However just 6 additional hexes should rectify the problem. The last area of contention would be North Africa. The area is just to thin. There is a thread allready started about this particular subject . In some places it is only 1 hex wide. this obviously precludes any form of maneuver warfare and is very ahistorical. In fact the whole mideast is malformed. The thing I noticed the most was the complete adsence of the Cyrenaican Bulge. IMO you need to completely redo the mideast and north africa before release or it's probably going to look real bad if you don't. I also think you should stretch the map east a bit to include the western third of Persia up to Tehran. It would be real cool to have Iraq and Persia join the axis later on. It would be near impossible to actually defend them against the british and russians but it would be fun to try. Anyway that pretty much covers it. Cya, bye! [ May 23, 2002, 12:31 AM: Message edited by: Achiles ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Achiles Posted May 23, 2002 Author Share Posted May 23, 2002 My previous post may have come off to strong. I wasn't trying to demand anything or issue an ultimatum or a threat. I was simply trying to offer some advice on something I felt was a major fault in the game. I was simply trying to offer some friendly advice. Obviously it is completely up to Battlefront wether or not to heed this advice. I hope they will atleast consider it. Now if I'm getting the "cold shoulder" so to speak, because Battlefront has already announced at some previous point that the map has been finalized then I would appreciate it if someone would chime in and fill me in on this as I have missed such an anouncement, if there ever was one. Anyway I'm just trying to do my part to contribute to an already great game. P.S. I just recently noticed that the northern coast of France is mishapen. 1) Normandy and the Cherbourg Peninsula are complety, and noticeably, absent. 2) Brittany really should angle down instead of up, or atleast point straight out. Although map distortions could be playing a roll in the Brittany thing but they appear largely absent elsewhere. However I don't really see how they could play a role in the disappearing act of Normandy and most particularly the Cherbourg Peninsula. Just a few more friendly observations. Cya, bye! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Achiles Posted May 23, 2002 Author Share Posted May 23, 2002 I was just sifting through the forums when I found a thread telling why the map couldn't be enlarged. What a major bummer. Oh well. Assuming I can get the game to work using Virtual PC or they release a Mac version I am defianately going to buy it. Even if it doesn;t work out i may still buy it although the chances are slim. Anyway I'm going to drop this whole map subject. I've got one last suggestion. Allow people to build fortifications. You could have them place them like units except they don't move and they take 2 turns to complete. On the first turn they could offer only maybe 50% of their normal defence bonus. You may have already added these things in or were planning to. I just thought I might mention them just in case. Cya, bye! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hubert Cater Posted May 24, 2002 Share Posted May 24, 2002 No cold shoulder just can't get to every question all the time, still have a game to make Yeah the map is pretty much going to stay as is, I believe that there was also another post with respect to adding in city names, this was considered as well, but it was a little too late in the development cycle to add in. Hope this helps, Hubert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pzgndr Posted May 24, 2002 Share Posted May 24, 2002 I understand the memory limits with the map. However, given the scale of units involved and the overall size of the current map, would it be possible to downscale the map just enough to add another hexrow north of Britain and in North Africa? Letting each hex represent 55 miles instead of 50 shouldn't make too much difference. This would require completely redrawing the map, so I wouldn't expect any changes prior to release date. But hopefully an update at some point in the future might be possible. It would be nice to have a more accurate looking map of Europe presented, with some more maneuver room for North Africa and the North Atlantic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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