Cyclopean

Cyclopean is pretty cool. Nice mix of open areas, hazards, and urban warfare.

It would be my favorite map if it weren't for the NF favoritism.

In the Northwest, NF gets the high ground, easily making it onto the ref Tower and securing an easy platform to shoot any BE's rushing for the area.

In the Southeast city, again, NF gets the high ground, being much closer to the only safe spot in city to place a barracks on top of the roof.

Their refinery between NF-start and NW is also much safer than the BE-start SE refinery. Theirs is up high on a platform, BE's is on the lowest part of the map on a small jutting area in the middle of nowhere.

Just checking in to see if there was some BE advantage on this map I was missing, because it seems that in both main contested areas, NF has a solid advantage that's certainly not helping this map cope with the current balance woes.

 

Of course Cyclopean is NF sided. All the maps are NF sided. all the Gameplay mechanics are NF sided. The whole game is NF sided

 

I heard you like mudkipz.

 

Another slightly related issue is the fadedistances on the trees in the map, which are ridiculously low. This results in trees disappearing pretty damn fast, and looks very strange.

 

Omneh hasn't realised that games happen in empires maps, but believes that they are there to be looked at. even if it means looking at a slideshow.

 

City roof racks is fail unless your on a server with parachutes. Also, its generally easier for BE to get to the NW first. I don't think the map has any inherent balance issues, but appears unbalanced due to OP LT's.

 

plus it is eaier to rush across the water as BE than it is to do as NF. it all works out

 

yeah, people weren't so dumb it would actually be useful

 

2 reasons why BE rocks at city.

Also, a couple of things that makes it more BE sided.

Bases are easily turtleable.
BE tanks sit higher above the ground and can go through deeper water.


Any competent commander could make his main base more or less unassailable except to a group of well organized players. Easiest method is to drop the VF right diagonally between the 2 entrances, and then make walls from the edges of the VF to the corners of the entrances, essentially protecting the CF from attack, making it difficult to drive right into the VF, and making tanks always in the firing path of the main turrets. Also, placing com turrets in front of the walls, a couple of MG's next to the VF then several MLs, and you can pretty safely make a cheap and quick turtle to protect against those pesky light tank rushes.

Also, cyclopean has terrain. This is heavily BE sided, as cannons work better for most drivers than ML's on terrain. Cannons arch, are faster, and shoot faster. Also, homing can lose it's lock if you get anything between it and the tank. As well, you can dodge behind or down a hill with rockets much easier.

as long as BE can survive to medium tanks, the light tank advantage is pretty well gone. Heavy tanks definitely make it totally BE sided to all but the most experienced light tank drivers.

With many veteran players not playing much right now, it seems more often than not it is difficult to find a decent com. Trust me, with someone competent in the commanders chair, there is little that those stated (and supposed) balance issues could throw out of whack.

on a side note: those really aren't balance issues. Racks being 400 makes it impossible to rush both locations at once. NF can't get into any position faster than BE that would make it "superior" in any case. since "if I can see you, you can see me" is in effect, it's hard to say that high ground or cover is in someone's favor.




As far as the trees are concerned, i believe that in this case, the fog distance is much further out than the max draw distance for the source engine. To fix that and display the map beyond the draw distance, you leave the miniature of all the displacements when you make the 3d skybox, and that way once you hit the max draw distance, it'll start drawing the 3d skybox. If the map is still in the 3d skybox, then the game will draw the map in where it's no longer drawing. Hope that makes sense. That is why there are no trees. 3d skybox is 1/16th scaled normally, and trees won't scale.

 

and be can build a difficult to notice barracks under the bridges.

Also, given the proximity to the base, it's not a disadvantage. Only a disadvantage if you completely ignore it for the entire game.

 

The issue about NW is very real. When NF gets to northwest they have a hill they can climb up which leads directly to the ref platform. From there they can bomb the BE rax and generally cause havoc up there for quite a while. BE could theoretically go up to the other ref point, but from there its pretty hard to grenade the NF rax which would be way on the other side. Plus you dont have any cover other then some trees while you run there.

As for city, the roof rax is fail. Yet, in a rax on rax fight, roof-rax beats middle-of-the-street-behind-that-pyramid-thing-rax, if for no other reason then you can sneak up on the street rax, but one guy with a turret and a brain pretty much seals off the roof.

Edit: Oh yea, and that rax outside the BE base is a pre built castle. Litterally, its inaccessable from 3 sides, in a forest, and the 4th side can be walled up easy. And its the high ground.

 

fyi its 41 nf wins to 14 be wins atm

 

lol, but slightly true


unrelated, i love cyclopean and its been balanced pretty well actually compared to other maps

 

Nope.

Source can draw things wee far.
That said, Cyclopeans' fade distances never bothered me.
The huge reflective water brush in the middle that turns my lowly 8600GT inside out, however... =P

As far as balance issues, it's all the LT's fault.
And maybe a little of the LT's fault, too.
Not to mention there's also the LT's fault to consider.
The LT is at fault too.
(And if you like repetition...)

 

Roof barracks "USED" to be win. Till rockets stopped hurting building, hopefully this will be returning in 2.24 with the new damage resistances. As BE you could hold the city and 5 refineries with 2 people (engy,gren). Engy would drop ammo as the gren rocket sniped the 4 middle refineries from the corner of city.

Most comm's ignore city now days which is an easy 2 refs if you send 1 or 2 engys while your main focus should be on middle/pressuring NW. Even now,city is great since you can deny two of the middle refs while holding two of your own

Also it still amazes me as how people think NW is such win

 

Because when a team cap the NW, they go for your main. When a team caps the city, they usually drop into the middle and go for that instead. There is far more access to your main from the NW.

 

If NF positions at the hill just west of BE's main with a few light tanks, it's very difficult to wrest control of it from them. BE can do the same to NF but the open area north of NF's main is more in favor of light tanks. The trick for fighting these sieges is to hook around and attack northwest from behind, but again it's easier for NF since they can sneak an apc past and catch northwest from behind without having to drive through middle.

If you have NW and don't bother to siege the other team's main, then it's not nearly as pivotal a position... At least until they take it from you and siege you in your complacency.