Please grade this map concept.

[uzurpator]

Hi.

I recently got back to playing FA casually, like I did in 2007, it turns out I suck just as much as I did then

Anyhow. I had an Idea for a map back then which I would like to make. I present it for your critique.

Concept: 8v8 to 12v12. Make a map that requires the teams to slowly approach a strategic target for which they both fight for both against themselves and against hostile 'civilian' armies. The map would be structured in a way that building a static base would be massively annoying. Players would be forced to advance forward and build armies, because trying to turtle up would be a losing strategy.

The map would be a long, narrow strip of land. 5x40km or similar. Probably with slightly reduced area ( 4x36 km would be perfect ).
Each player starts with 2 mass the spawn point. Then there are 8 other mass spots for each platyer all the way to the middle of the map. On average 3km apart. Those mass spots are passively guarded by UEF PD in an increasingly rising tech levels in such progression:

- first mass - unguarded
- second - light T1 defense, t1 mex for capture
- third - heavy T1 defense, t1 mex for capture
- fourth - light T2 defense, t2 mex for capture
- fifth - heavy T2 defense, t2 for capture
- sixth - very heavy T2 defense, t2 mex with mass storage for capture
- sevent't and other - increasing T3 defenses and t3 mexes with storage for capture

In the middle of the map there is a civilian fortress with T3 mexes, heavy PD and SAM sites. Possibly even shields. Getting control or denying that area would be the key to winning the map. However to get there teams would need to slog through several smaller fire bases.

Thoughts?

[Petricpwnz]

Sounds interesting for claustrophibia mod, in normal FA would be too static gameplay. But I'm not sure how claustrophobia would work with non-square shaped maps or if it would work at all.

[CookieNoob]

If you do this properly, you could make this into some sort of competative mission. You should (as petric suggested) reduce the operational area as soon as objectives (i.e. one team captured the next group of mass spots) or time requirements are met. If you make the map sufficiently high quality, I'd be willing to help you on the scripting side (I made the code for the adaptive maps and a few mods for FA as well as several bugfixes for the gamecode).

I would make the strip of land a bit wider though, that way you can add some natural barriers in some parts, like mountains or ponds of water. Maybe even add some naval parts where the area between two bases is completely flooded and the mass is distributed on islands. To make the naval units not completely useless in the next part, the flooded area could be continued in form of a small river... This type of map allows to include lots of different concepts

[uzurpator]

Thanks for the encouragement.

I'll start with something smaller, but following the similar concept - pissibly a 3x12km trench with a combat area in the middle and implied "push forward" concept. Essentially, thermo without the pointless turtling at the back.

I want to make the land fairly narrow to make T3 air less decisive when it comes to area control. Terrain features such as rivers, cliffs, forests and alike are of course planned. I envision this to give a vibe of an actual military mission in an actual real area. I even think it would be cool if, aesthetic wise, the map would be a desert on one end and arctic on the other and temprate in the middle. geometry wise it would be identical, but would have different aesthetic.

I'll start planning this out

Anyhow - what happens to units that were pushed away from the mission area? It would be quite nasty to get cought in "out of game area" with an ACU, I persume.