Profile of MonolithicBacon

(2 – 4) Razing Mozhaisk
- Cast into the smoke and fog of a winter's night, players are left to defend Mozhaisk, for all of its worth. With the centre focused around a claustrophobic, burning village, and outskirts of muddy fields, this map will test the mettle of even the most diverse armies.

(2 – 4) Karelia Winter
- After returning to the wilderness of Karelia, players will recognise the dense overgrowth and woodland, now blanketed in snow. With a central reservation of water dividing the map, Karelia now brings to it an element of defence never before experienced on the Northern Fronts.

(2 – 4) Jülich Winter
- The ruined city of Jülich makes a return, now with its fires extinguished and its rivers frozen. This intimate and close-quarter battlefield favours the most tenacious of commanders, but comes at a high risk: blizzards could strike at any moment in this wasteland.

(2 – 4) Derailing the DR-K320
- By now a year old, this revitalised version of Derailing the DR-K320 retuns players to the partisans' struggle, in the dense depths of the forest. Now, deep snow and occassional blizzards add further risk to those who wish to venture away from the main roads.

(4 – 6) Razor's Column
- A new addition, Razor's Column features a desperate rush through a bare and exposed outcropping, uphill into the industrial centre, where buildings, shelter and cover will solidify victory. Whoever holds the high ground will survive the winter.

(4 – 6) Foy
- Created, tested and released during the Alpha of the Western Front Armies, Foy relives the battle of Foy, in which units of the 101st Airborne left their positions within the Bois Jacques and faced an entrenched foe. With its unique shape and urban/rural combat, players will find Foy a new challenge each time they play.

(6 – 8) Bois Jacques
- Masterminded by Mirage, Bois Jacques is an entirely woodland-based map, balanced and designed for the perfect 3vs3 skirmish. This scarred, yet beautiful landscape has already hosted many an epic battle, and is destined to host many more.

(6 - 8) Schmidt
- Fresh off the press, Schmidt takes the concept of rural warfare and rivives it. With buildings dominating large, exposed roadways and hedgerows dividing the many fields and forests, each turn within the countryside of Schmidt can bring new challanges. Commanders must decide whether to hunker down and defend, or push the advantage, one field at a time.

(6 - 8) Sittard Winter
- Now listed as one of the Top 10 subscribed maps in Company of Heroes 2, Sittard has been reborn during the winter of 1944. With its bridges in ruins, the main crossings through the city feature thin ice, turning the focus of defence away from the main roads, and onto the water's edge.


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=318603951




https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=253238273

(2 - 4) Karelia Winter
- Winter has struck the cliffs of Karelia, and now deep, frozen waters fill the previously empty ravines. Chosing where to make a stand is key in this winter map; while cover is still present, not all of it will work to your advantage.

That's a lot of my maps - but none of these are suitable for automatch. They would all need considerable work before they could be considered competitive.

That's been there from the start! Why have sandbags for cover when you can have gothic architecture?

Here's the territory of the latest version for you, and the Steam Link to boot!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=723237092

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Beautiful map, a few tweaks away from being an interesting urban map that offers some variety.

It was made with a view to allowing urban combat in a 1v1 setting to work, being surprisingly open despite its surroundings. It therefore plays similar to the tournament standard rural map format, or does so a lot more so than most urban maps.

It also offers no road bonuses or negative cover to offset the confinements of an urban setting. It's the perfect example of what a variety map should be in auto-match, and is what vetoes are made for.

Myself and a few other people I know were a bit surprised it got removed. It didn't perform that badly in veto statistics or in the original polls to remove the map, and only got a higher percentage in the later rounds of voting.

I believe with a few tweaks to make the cutoffs easier to defend, and to possibly remove a few sight blockers and open it up a bit more, it could be ready for re-introduction.

I'm glad there's still some interest in the map!

There were a very large amount of changes made before the last iteration of changes to solve Caen's problems, but it was never given the chance to be implemented for testing. With some testing from the community, it should be all good to go.

The latest changes that were made are as follows:

• Removal of 2 small ruins near southern cut-off to allow better sight to the area.
  
• Improved impass across several "hollow" ruins that allow them to be completely crushed by medium and heavy tanks, opening the map late-game.
  
• Removal of impassible ruin north of the southern base, allowing another route towards the main cut-off.
  
• Gap widened between ruins southwest of the eastern VP, allowing all vehicle sizes to traverse the area faster.
  
• Additional staircase and removal of some ruins northeast of eastern VP, to expose the area. This area was previously littered with cover, whereas its counterpart was not.
  
• Ruins south of the western cut-off have been opened up considerably to allow larger vehicles access. This area will be crushable to medium tanks, and will open up similarly to the opposing side (which is walled instead).
  
• Small ruin replaced by green cover northeast of the central VP to allow better firing lines for the northern player approaching the centre of the map.
  
• Redesign of territory to reduce the "all or nothing" nature of the cut-offs.
  
  

In all, Caen is still very much an urban map, but much of the indestructible cover has been reduced where it is not needed. If there is enough interest, I can update the workshop file for people to test, should they wish to give feedback.

This approach of running to fix maps before a tournament is a less than ideal approach. Your rolling the dice when you rush map development like this before a major tournament. I've warned people about this and I've dealt with this type of situation during the SNF COH1 days.

Reasons this might not be ok:

1. Not enough time to properly test maps
2. Not enough forum debate among experts to hammer out details
3. Not enough time for mappers to filter bias from debate and hone in on features that really need changing
4. A major tournament is about to happen so people will need to adjust on the fly to changes
5. Some of these changes are not minor.
6. Is this ok w the tournament organizer? or are we stepping hard on toes?

Hey Whiteflash.

We completely understand your concerns regarding the changes on display here, especially so close to GCS2. However, having worked closely with A_E, Sturmpanther, Capiqua, Tric and a host of high-rank players, I wanted to reassure you that we have every faith in the changes that have been made, and would not have made any of them rashly.

We appreciate that there is an ideal process for making map fixes, which we successfully used in the previous map patch, but with time against us, and only a few small-scale quality of life changes on the list, this seemed like an opportunity we couldn't pass up.

I should also make it clear that no changes were made without complete consent and unanimous support from the entire team, including A_E, who had the final word as to whether a change would be acceptable in GCS2. You yourself were included in the changes to Crossroads, as you are one of the few active mappers to have an asset in automatch and didn't wish to take that honour away from you.

Needless to say, if bugs do arise (which they always do), we can easily make fixes and changes, as the pool of maps in question is so small, and should the need arise, changes can be reverted completely.

Rest-assured, this was a Relic commissioned venture, and was carried out with more secrecy than before to reduce unwanted exposure after recent, unfortunate leaks. Nevertheless, I have complete faith in the team that identified, managed and tested these changes.

******

On the topic of KFS, we should make it clear that this map featured the only case of dramatic changes - these changes were of my own design, with support, discussion, advice and guidance from Sturmpanther, and testing from the other members of the group. If you have particular problems with this redesign, please direct them to me to allow me to collate useful feedback. It is very daunting to change a map that has been present since the release of the game, but we are confident that it will reduce the imbalances of the map without damaging its soul - we urge you to give it a try!