As the title says. What factors makes a good, satisfying empires map that almost everyone can enjoy and play empires as it is best played?
Rain and blimbz! And lots of stones where you can get stuck /sacasm No srsly, you made silo already and this is one of my favorite maps (rain is fine there and only there)
places where infantry dominate and places where tanks dominate not too much resources, a 1/3 people has a tank when the refs are equally divided is a good scaling no annoying geometry (things you get stuck on, or places where some engines can get but others cant) prettyness choke-points for tanks, not for infantry no ultra large distances to snipe people
+1 also, balance is crucial, just look at slaugh, its both ugly and imbalanced, too much open spaces that favors vehicles too much and only two boring chokes
Everyone says that but I really don't think its that simplistic. If you just make the map realistic (as in maybe cyclo compared to slaughtered) the problem kinda solves itself. and asymmetry is really important to have a fun map
2 choke points, not more and not less. (For a map focused on pub gameplay). Give the players the illusion the choke points are not predefined but "naturally" evolving out of the advancement of your team. (example for what i mean: emp_canyon, example for what should be avoided: emp_blah) don't put too much detail into the map where infantry can hide, camp or get lost.(e.g.: bunker, shacks, cities, etc) keep ref nodes out of the major battlezones. avoid using rain and dark colours, after playing the map more than 60 minutes you will be in a bad mood. optimize your map so it will even run on a 5-year-old PC with 512 MB ram. - One guy screaming how bad his fps are is enough to start a bandwaggon whine effect.
make a long flat brush, then pop some ramps on it and slap on rainbow textueres everywhere ... ... oh wait
Lol no. Money is one big chokepoint and you always have the frontline at the exact same spot unlike canyon. But money is popular with some people that means it must do some things right.
Open maps with 0 choke points (like duststorm, cyclopean and mvalley), but places for tanks and infantry to separate themselves (such as the duststorm hills, cyclopean roofs, mvalley dam and cliffs). These maps also have some interesting features which make them great, such as the cyclopean city and water paths, the mvalley bridges and dam, and the duststorm ruins. Tropical vendetta would fall under the 'great map' category if you started off on the ground allowing the cv to move.
Maps where chokepoints funnel the opposing factions into areas where they must directly fight each other to take terrain, but the chokepoints are designed well enough so that breakthroughs are possible and it is not easy for one or both sides to switch to 100% defense mode. Maps like this are canyon, crossroads, slaughtered, and homeland.
I agree with some of what blizzerd said... I think I like to see 3 routes. More can be good, but less is not. I also like an area where infantry can fight tanks but where it's not tilted too highly in either the tank or infantry's favour. It's good to have one infantry-only route. Open bases seem to work a lot better - so try to have a main base area on top of a hill, rather than in a ditch (sof NF, cyc BE?). Some other stuff that I can't think of right now :p
emp_arid has sperated tank combat/ infantry combat.Infantry fight on the hills and bombard bases from them while tanks go in and jump into the action. Good maps have both tanks AND infantry useful at all times, or at certain points. see xroads, at first its this infantry tug of war in the middle until one team pushes and then thats where tanks go in on an assault on the enemy base. Other things that make a mad good are ways of getting to the enemy base without obstruction(an example of doing this wrong is money where you can hardly get through the 5 layers of walls and all the Brenodi tank traps(the walls put sideways).
Have you ever played slaughtered or crossroads? The only way someone breaks through those chokepoints is if one team is fucking retarded.
Basically, mvalley, cyclopean, midbridge, silo etc are all fantastic maps. They're open but with separate areas for infantry fighting.
I kinda like dustorm because there is never an unchanging front line; the tide of the battle can be very fluid (except for maybe in ruins)
