[mooxe]

Lets try to have a constructive debate.

The topic is Map Sizes - Large vs Small

Rules

- Post one advantage and disadvantage for each type, large and small.

- Keep your reasoning short and to the point.

- Do not take a side.

- if you don't follow the rules don't be suprised if your post dissapears.

[mooxe]

So I'll be 1st to go...

Small Maps

Advantage - Small maps tend to help playing vs the AI as they do not spread out as much.

Disadvantage - Engagements tend to be brutal and more decisive in a short period of time.

Large Maps

Advantage - Large maps give the weaker battlegroup a better chance to survive.

Disadvantage - Many weapons of Close Combat are not effective at long ranges.

[schrecken]

Small Maps

Advantage - Quick single Battle head bash
Disadvantage - No room to maneouver

Large Maps

Advantage - Maneouver
Disadvantage - May have difficulty finding the enemy occassionally if you choose different goal priorities.

[Senior_Drill]

A definition of "Large" maps, please.  Is this about the larger CC4 and CC5 maps (along with the larger WaR and TLD maps) which most here are familiar with, or the largest type maps from CCMT - the 1km X 1km and 1km X 4km maps, which fewer are familiar with?

[schrecken]

tLD can run CCMT 1km x 1km sized maps

[schrecken]

Definitions


1km x 4km = HUGE

1km x 1km is my large map

GJS/CC5 = medium

cc4 = small/medium

CC3  = small

cc2 = tiny

[southern_land]

Ok i'd disagree slightly with Andrews terminmology

Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 12:25 pm Post subject: Re: Players Debate #1 - Map Sizes  

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Definitions


1km x 4km = 4800 x12000 px = HUGE

1km x 1km = 4800x4800 px   large map

GJS/CC5 =  3720x3720 px = medium large

cc4 = small/medium

CC3  = 2880x2880 = medium

cc2 = tiny

okay not sure of the exact sizes of the cc 2 and 4 any more

pros of the small maps is that it gives the AI a chance through simple lack of space to do anything else
con for the small maps, either against a human or the AI its a bit of a slug fest.  Pretty much a case of "over the top lads, tally ho!" and the battle is engaged, last man standing wins.

medium and large medium maps (up to cc5 max) give a combination of scope for AI initiative, room for a H2H battle to develop where the ability to set defences in diferent areas and to consolodate for an attack and maneouver against or around defences.

In larger maps is where the AI becomes a shambles on attack but still gives great scope for H2H especially when facing the dileema of 15 units or less and the old old maxum of "he who defends everything defends nothing"  A decent h2h on a large map can become what Rowen Atkinson referred to as "searching for a black in a dark room, that wasn't there" untill suddenly battle is engaged

Of course this breakdown applies more to square maps, rectangular maps are fundimentally different where the "glass side walls of God" forces the battle within the confines of the map projecting the battle into a direction.  Lets face it a defender is going to set out his troops differently on a map 2400x4800 that one of 2400x2400 and differently again to one with the sides 4800x4800.  different size maps also affact battle timings and exhaustion levels of troops on foot so inevitably affecting the length of battle per map and the time required to take the whole thing.

I could take any one of the 400 odd maps I've made, make a few strategic alterations in geographic structure and the fight would be massively different irrespective of size.

conclusion all map sizes have their good and bad points, vareity is the spice of life they say and the same thing applies to map making, peoiple would get bored fighting on the same map, or same small selction of maps or same sizes of maps.  there was a guy recently on one of the forums who suggested all cc maps be flat with the difficulty of accurately projecting elevation   ~YAWN!  Wouldn't that be frigging boring!

[mooxe]

Breaking them down into more than two catagories waters the debate down. Just compare and size small map to any size large map and think of the advantages and disadvantages (theories) of your attack or defence.

[Spinlock]

Small Maps:
The biggest advantage I see is they force the combat into certain 'choke points' where truly brutal combat takes place. A single team can make a decisive change in the tide of battle. (well placed MG team or AT gun) If you ever played Counterstrike, this is why maps like 'Dust' are so popular, the choke point.

The disadvantage is lack of variety in team placement and the chance that your opponent can setup a meatgrinder that you have little flexibility in dealing with.

Large maps:
 I always thought that large maps would be great idea, until i got a chance to play them when RTB came out. Turns out its a lot less fun than i imagined. The number of teams
that CC gives you is just too low to effectively control any territory (forget holding any units in reserve too). But on the other side if you were given 30 teams instead of 15, would that overwhelm the player with micro managment? Effective management gets hard when you have 5 or 6+ firefights to handle simultaneously.  
I guess the advantage would be variety of tactics to employ when attacking. there are a lot of flanking options ect.

[southern_land]

[schrecken]

Addendum

The smaller maps tend to degenerate into a clickfest of rapid micro management of of your woefully placed units.

[diggin.robat]

Well, when considering which map size is better, then I would say from a pure gaming point of view small maps are more fun to play for most. Think of the glory days of CC2, when it was an inching forward in the street fighting. Bigger maps are more for chess players, but only without gametimer. A hectic of nerveous H2H-opponent is sometimes beaten only by time consuming careful and wise manouvering. I tend to the latter.

When concidering a more realistic approach to the historical battles the size of map is of greatest importance to the mod or vanilla game in displaying historical features (Feldmarschall Paulus´ cellar, Pozieres´ Gibraltar bunker, Reichstag in Berlin, Arnhem-bridge, Trois Points etc.) or the historical progress of an operation. Since except CC2, TLD,  both sides were roughly of same size (max. 15 units) and without a feature of reserves entering the runnig battle a realistic gaming "reenactment" of an historical operation is not easy. How broad was the attacking frontage of company, battalion in WWII? After breaking through defences more room for manovering is normally encountered, does this means bigger maps? How about certain weapon systems? 150mm infantry gun is well suited to frontline combat (in vanilla CC3 map sizes), a 120mm mortar not? Do smaller maps negate the mid to long range battle values of tanks? A detemined AT-infantry squad can taggle a Tiger or Stuart equally. How big must a map be to have authentic distances between a Mathilda and a 88 on a flat desert map?
So if the modder decides well on his choices of map sizes and by this it is working well to show the difficulties during the historical battle, my personal preference about map size is unimportant.




diggin

[papa_whisky]

Some really interesting points, I think a stimulating game needs both larger and small maps. As previously stated the size of the map dictates certain different tactical styles and choice of units. What I liked about CC3 is that you needed to maintain a roster that was multipurpose or else you might find yourself in big trouble, with the compromise the roster is rarely perfect for any particular tactical situation. I also liked how sometimes you find yourself having to give up certain maps to regroup and acquire extra units before you can go on the offensive. This interesting facet of the game would be made better if a CC3 game could have some larger and some smaller maps which would make a potential roster for one battle unsuitable for another which if you have low points makes life hard.

With CC5 this is not longer an issue with the ability to swap units in a force pool allowing you to optimise your deployed forces for the map and the enemy faced. Strategically though you might wish certain battle groups to occupy certain maps that they are most suited to.

With CCMT the maps can be tailored to the tactical situation you want to simulate and lock the force pool, and choose the enemy force that will make it challenging. If you want more of a manoeuvre battle make the map large and the number of units deployed small. AI is somewhat disadvantaged as in CCMT AI wont mount vehicles, but against a human player it would be very challenging.

Playing CC3 Vietnam mod I had a very difficult time with one map where I had a small number of strong units, and AI had filled its roster with a lot of smaller units. The number of victory locations was such that I could not defend them all and attack. The Vietcong were sneaking around all over the place retaking victory locations that I had previously gained, a bit like the reality of the situation in the war itself but within one small map rather than over the vast areas where this occurred. It took a number of days to win the map by adding smaller teams and destroying the enemy out when ever I found him.

[Pzt_Crackwise]

Small Maps

Small maps such as CC5 Invasion Normandy stock maps (yes, they are small in my opinion) limit the tactical options of both the attacker and the defender. It limits the attacker's flanking and manaovring ability and the defender's initiative. Also battles fought on these maps tend to become carnages and more unnecessary deaths happen.


Large Maps

By large maps, I mean the maps of GJS. I dont have CCM or CCMT, but i would refer to their maps as huge maps as far as I know.  Large maps first importantlly gives the attacker a lot of possible attack objectives, more tatctical choices. Flanking manoeuvres are easier.
As for the defenders, maybe the defender now has a wider line to defend, but this means that the attacker also has a wider line to leave reserves for defending. Thus according to the progress of the battle, the defender can grasp the initiative easier than in a small map.


So my choice GJS type maps. They are my favorite

[Stwa]

Players expectations regarding playability, realism, and mission scope, will vary enormously, therefore discussion regarding map size can never be concluded to any one players satisfication.

These are the factors that guided us, when selecting map sizes.  

The resolution of the overview and mini map degrades on map sizes larger that 25 deployment tiles square and becomes unacceptable at 40 tiles.

In a CC5 campaign, the attacker or the defender is expected to occupy the whole of a map in depth. The depth is maintained by the forcepools and battlegroups that supply the unit. You can only have 15 teams, therefore on a 20 tile square map, each team must defend or control a space of 16,117 square meters. Each side of the square being roughly 129 meters in width.

Based on the above, and depending upon you force mix and mission, it could be concluded by some that a 20 tile square map is too large.

[Stwa]

Sorry for the repeat but I gomered a few things in the post above, and couldn't edit the message for some reason.  

Players expectations regarding playability, realism, and mission scope, will vary enormously, therefore discussion regarding map size can never be concluded to any one players satisfication.

These are the factors that guided us, when selecting map sizes.  

The resolution of the overview and mini map degrades on map sizes larger that 25 deployment tiles square and becomes unacceptable at 40 tiles.  

In a CC5 campaign, the attacker or the defender is expected to occupy the whole of a map in depth. The depth is maintained by the forcepools and battlegroups that reinforce the unit. You can only have 15 teams, therefore on a map 20 tiles square, each team must defend or control a space of 16667 square meters. Each side of this area being roughly 129 meters in length and width.

Based on the above, and depending upon you force mix and mission, it could be concluded by some that a 20 tile square map is too large.

[schrecken]

You don't need to have a team occupy every part of a map to control it, both in real life and in the CC games.

[Stwa]

But that would depend upon the map, the teams present, and local circumstances.  

Didn't you really mean to say, "You don't need to have a team occupy every part of a map to CONTEST it, both in real life and in the CC games."

After all, control of a map, is eventually decided by battlegroups during strategic movement.  

Simple force to space ratios, like the one provided above, have been used by militaries since the beginning of time.  

Modern day equivalents, are supplied in field manuals for small unit commanders (i.e. companies, platoons, squads), so they may determine the proper frontage and depth required to defend themselves from attack.  

These recommendations vary based on terrain, weather, and other factors, already enumerated by several posters of this thread.


P.S. At this point, are you stalking me     You keep showing up after every post.

[Profetkaninen]

I think the biggest problem with the current small and medium sized maps is they don't give much room to manoeuvre. This gives both the defender and attacker very few options. The attacker can't encircle or flank very well and the defender cant use hit and ambush tactics in any real sense. The fight use to be concentrated on a few key locations on each map and tends to get fairly static.

Though a large or huge map with more units 30 or more would hardly be enjoyable because of the extensive micro management that would require. Introducing a boosted AI that could control your forces on the map while you focus on the most important area could help. But that will in a sense change the scope of the game to a level equal to what you see when hitting the zoom out (minus) button.

A reasonable fix in my opinion is to greatly enhance the macro level of the game that you control in the "Strategic" view. This part of the game is the weakest link giving very few options. I've only played CC2 and CC5, but between them CC2 at least gives you some connection between the battles and the strategic map. In CC5 it's fight till the end, in CC2 you could as germans ambush the allies blow the bridge and leave the map. Or as allies if all your AT teams are gone and the germans come after you with tanks you withdraw from the map and reinforce.

If the strategic level of the game would give more of the options that you would have with huge battlemaps and those options would affect the battles then fighting small maps to get a strategic advantage would be more enjoyable.

[mooxe]