Picking PBEM QB maps

[Noiseman]

Most of us have been here.

A QB meeting engagement with pick-your-own forces. After patiently and painstakingly picking your force the email comes back from your opponent (Who painstakingly picked also) and the map is something even a mother couldn't love (for either side). All that trouble and several emails, and it's time to start over, or play a pity-date game.

How do most of you pick a mutually acceptable map for QBs?

What I've done with a couple opponents recently is randomly generate maps in the scenario builder with the victory flags preset (Like a centered baseball diamond) before generating the map. If the map looks fair to both sides to me, I send it on to my opponent for his approval, and let him pick which side to play - with casualties set to random for both sides to prevent excessive cherrypicking of forces to 'match' the map. As the mapmaker doesn't know which side he's going to play, he's motivated to send 'neutral' maps for import into a QB.

This usually ensures a good game on an appropriate sized map (At least for ME's, haven't made a victory flag template for other battle types yet). As most competent comanders would have a potential battleground reconned or at least look at a map, it seems fair to let both sides look at the cybermap instead of buying forces 'blind'.

Does anybody else use this method?

[Andrew Kulin]

That sounds like a good system.

I guess the thing that bothers me most of all with QB generated maps is that even with good ones, they still do not look real to me (and by real I mean they do not look like realistic geographic loacations with topographic features that make sense, roads and villages that would be sited realistically, etc.). And don't even get me started on how the QB generator generates Large Town maps! AWFUL!

Have you considered downloading some of the map only designs from the mod and scenario sites or even creating your own for a PBEM match? I'd think you could even just import some of the CD scenario maps w/o units and use those for your QBs and set unit parameters and dates to your liking. At least then the maps you'd be workling on would likely be more realistic than the random QB maps.

[Dirtweasle]

It's a good plan. I sometimes also like to make a generic village map and go from there too.

One thing that constantly amazes me is that the map editor is so easy to use.

[Boo Radley]

I loved making maps! I would spend hours on the buggers, tweaking a road or a height adjustment. Now I'm trying my hand at scenario design. With all the players out there, I'm surprised there aren't dump trucks full of maps out there for people to download.

[Sanok]

I agree with creating a map in the editor and using it for a QB. I've done this myself in pbem games. It makes things more fair for both sides. I'd love to have a dollar for each time I had a major map disadvantage from a random QB map.

[Scheer]

May I suggest my mappack at www.cmmods.com .Six QB maps for 1500 - 3000 ME´s . My handle there is Chrushtshov.

[Noiseman]

Originally posted by Scheer:

May I suggest my mappack at www.cmmods.com .Six QB maps for 1500 - 3000 ME´s . My handle there is Chrushtshov.

I downloaded them a week or so ago, but the one I tried to open didn't work, I got the message 'made with a newer version' or something like that. It struck me as odd as I'm running the latest version of CMAK... EDIT: D'OH, my bad, I was using it on my mac copy of CMAK which I now recall I didn't patch.

Basically I came up with the idea because I wanted to play a scenario with a really deep map so that transport would have to be bought for infantry, as well as recon vehicles. The decision on when and where to dismount the infantry would be intersting because we all know how vulnerable trucks that wander too close to the front are. I didn't want to design a full blown scenario, because I like not knowing what the enemy has.

The one modification one has to make to randomly generated maps of this size is to make sure both sides have road access to the central victory flag area. Also both sides have to be on the honor system to start within a preset distance (say 300m) of their map ends because CM will set huge setup areas on imported QB maps. I'll actually get around to playing a scenario of this type one of these days...

[ April 05, 2004, 11:53 AM: Message edited by: Noiseman ]

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Noiseman:

The one modification one has to make to randomly generated maps of this size is to make sure both sides have road access to the central victory flag area. Also both sides have to be on the honor system to start within a preset distance (say 300m) of their map ends because CM will set huge setup areas on imported QB maps. I'll actually get around to playing a scenario of this type one of these days...

If maps already have flags and setup areas, the QB will use them. So if you change the roads, add those, too, and no gentleman's agreement is needed (even better, you don't need to check that 300m rule manually while setting up).

[Noiseman]

Originally posted by Joachim:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Noiseman:

The one modification one has to make to randomly generated maps of this size is to make sure both sides have road access to the central victory flag area. Also both sides have to be on the honor system to start within a preset distance (say 300m) of their map ends because CM will set huge setup areas on imported QB maps. I'll actually get around to playing a scenario of this type one of these days...

If maps already have flags and setup areas, the QB will use them. So if you change the roads, add those, too, and no gentleman's agreement is needed (even better, you don't need to check that 300m rule manually while setting up). </font>