Battle of Berlin

[araxis]

Hi everyone !

I would like to present my WIP map for COH, and hopefully for EF. I submitted this WIP to Apex on RelicNews forums, and he talked me into presenting it here, so, well, here I am.
This is my first map, and it it settled in 1945, during the bloody battle of Berlin. More precisely, it is focused on the battle for the Regierungsviertel, the ministries and Chancellery area.
I have tried to reproduce the exact geography of Berlin Mittel, and whenever possible the look of the buildings.

Some pictures, to start with :

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Overhead Map : (with street names, so that you get to locate the streets on the caps)
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When I first began to work on this map, OF was still at least 6 months ahead from release. At the time, I decided to pick up Berlin because I really wanted to build a map after an iconic WW2 battle, and I had always been passionate about Stalingrad. But in my opinion, a Stalingrad map without a Russian faction just did not make sense. And after all, the US were about to make it to Berlin (and all it took was a gigantic bluff on the part of Stalin to secure a Russian only influence over all the Berlin area) so I thought it wasn't such a big shame to replace the Russians by the US.
And when Relic issued OF without a Russian faction, I was sooo disappointed that the moment I heard about EF, I became an instant fan : I knew I would, at last, have the chance to play Berlin with the Russians.
Now the problem is that I designed the map with an overall project ignoring every single rule for EF maps. I thought about trying to build it after the historical situation, that is to say, have the Germans spread all over the map, armed and entrenched, and give the attackers a good deal of units and resources to balance the thing.  Apex and I talked a bit about, how it was forbidden to have any functional MG/AT gun emplacements, in order to ensure a perfect balance.
It is such an honor for me to have a map chosen for EF, that I can consider the possibility of abiding by the rules and make a compromise with my vision of the map. Maybe I will make two versions... I still don't know.

Anyway, I wanted to hear your comments and suggestions about the map, knowing it is still really WIP. (roughly 50% of the map built - yeah I know I am slow, but I am always perfecting things...) By the way, the screens are "old", and things have changed since I made them, and among other things, I altered the weather. No more of that wet look (I was sick of a bug which added the sound of the rain, without any actual rain in the map)

Enjoy.

A.

[Tyler4170]

not to be pushy but, when can we have a beta?  I love the looks of this map!  Especially it will be good when the mod is released!

[TheAllMihtyOne]

ah! i love it i realy hope your mao comes in the mod.. or atleast another berlin map cuse i want to fight in berlin!

[Apex]

Silence, mob!    We are not here to ask for unfinished betas.

I fell in love with the map the first time I saw it, especially because I am from Berlin myself.

Now if we can work something out to properly balance it, I think this map should be really fun.

How many players do you intent on putting the map?

[vengefulnoob]

4V4 WITH REICHSTAG!!!!!!

[araxis]

@Vengefulnoob :

unfortunately, the map does not include the Reichstag area. At first, when I started the map, I considered doing it, but I soon realized that I couldn't render a realistic Reichstag. Now I am more into WB, I will explore the question. I would love to do sort of a 2-part map, one with the Reichstag, and one with the Chancellery. But as for the Reichstag part, doing it without entrenched and deadly armed german units would be senseless, as it is the essence of that battle, just as it was the essence of D-Day and D-Day maps. I'll think about it.
I would love to build a Stalingrad map too. Actually this has always been my fantasy...

@Apex :
I thought about 1v1 or 2v2. I don't know how computers will handle 4 armies. The map is quite heavy by itself. We'll see that in a test phase anyway. And it's a looooong time ahead, believe me. I've still plenty of things to work out, weird behaviours to solve etc...

When you say "if we can work something out to properly balance it...", do you mean you could consider following my idea, providing the whole thing is more or less balanced ?

A general question :
I read that placing an HQ too close to the border induced a lack of aggressiveness on the part of the AI. Is it true ?

[Apex]

Dont worry about AI. It should at least be a 2v2. IMO, it looks more like a 3v3 or 4v4.

[TheAllMihtyOne]

well your idea of this map, reichstag and stalingrad would be awsome for campaing and then some one culd also make a skrmish friendly version of them. u culd also meybe make a scenario like the D-Day CooP map.

[araxis]

@Allmighty,

Actually I had in mind something quite like a whole array of maps that would cover essential phases of the war, from the first drawback in Stalingrad, to the very end in Berlin. I would like to do things big. It's a pity there wasn't a Russian faction in OF, or even that EF did not come out sooner, 'cause I would have started by Stalingrad !

@Apex :
Actually I worry about the AI, because I would like the map to be playable in skirmish mode either, since I never could get my Relic account settled. And Relic and THQ don't seem to give a s... .
And I know there is a bunch of people out there, that prefer to play skirmish.

I'll see what I can do for the number of players...

[Apex]

Hey man, whats the status of this map?

Btw I might have a solution for ur dilemma. First, you should make a normal single- /multiplayer skirmish map.
After that, you can make a special version for our campaign. How does that sound?

[araxis]

Hello Apex,

I'd say the progress on the map has been slowing down a bit due to personnal matters, but I intend to get back to it as soon as I can. Building it the way I see it is a very time consumming process, and I don't want the things to be half done. Please be patient.

The idea of a multi-version map is the wisest I can think of, and I resolved to it a few weeks ago.

To be continued...

[Apex]

Alright. Please just make sure that you can finish the multiplayer version first, cause thats the one we are gonna pack into our inital release. After that, we can work on a singleplayer version for our scenarios.

[araxis]

You are talking about packing the map in the first release, but when exactly is Eastern Front due out ? I know you still have plenty of things to do, but I'm not even sure "Berlin" will be ready the moment you come out.

[WartyX]

Araxis, please change your Map Name to $18010109 and your Map Description to $18010110 and also post a menu description of the map around 50-100 words long on this thread. 

[Halftrack]

You are talking about packing the map in the first release, but when exactly is Eastern Front due out ? I know you still have plenty of things to do, but I'm not even sure "Berlin" will be ready the moment you come out.

be sure, it will.