OnkelSam, a prominent member of our community and a Map Reviewer for the
Company of Heroes section for over 2 years has written a guide for developing and reviewing maps for
Company of Heroes.
Hello
GameReplays,
This is OnkelSam. As a reference, I have been a Map Reviewer here at
GameReplays for over a year and have been making
Company of Heroes maps for almost 2 years now. With this article I want to give those of you who are interested in the
Worldbuilder and mapping, a chance to benefit from my experience. This will be a collection of important points when creating maps for
Company of Heroes, but it can also be read as a guide for map reviewing. I will not go too much into detail about certain
Worldbuilder tools, but rather give a widespread overview of what is important, when creating or judging the quality of a map.
The article will be structured in the way that a map reviewer would use to evaluate the quality of maps. This should be useful for both eventual map reviewers and map makers or even just interested readers. I will divide it into the four parts of a review
1. Technical aspects
2. Design
3. Balance
4. Fun Factor
The first 3 points should be more or less independent of each other, while the last point, "Fun Factor" is influenced by them. However,
Company of Heroes is a game that is influenced by map design more than any other RTS, so that even the first 3 points are connected in some way. Still, one should try to keep them independent as much as possible, especially when judging.
1. Technical Aspects
The most important thing when talking about the technical aspects of a map, is the optimization part. It is pretty easy to lag even on high end computers if a map is poorly optimized, but it's especially important to optimize your map for users with a computer at the lower side of the spectrum so that everyone can play and enjoy it.
The first thing to look at when creating a map is to choose the set of tiles carefully, so that all the areas are covered with a minimum number of different tiles. My suggestion is to use not more than 5-6 different tile setsfor the whole map, but be careful to never use more than 3 different tiles for each chunk. One can monitor the number of tiles per chunk by going to the "tiles" tool and then activate "layer counts" on the top right. In general, it is recommended to use tiles only for the rough painting. The details should be drawn with splats and splines, because they produce less lag and take up less memory.
While splats and splines are a good way to create most of the detailed parts of a map, stacking too many of them in the same area should be avoided. Sometimes, it is useful to combine two or three of them, but it’s not good to use stacks of splats all over the place. The intention is always to try to reach the desired result with the minimum number of splats and splines, but the limitation here is not as harsh as it is for the number of tiles: we still want nice looking maps in the end. While one should already try to use a minimum number of different splats, it is definitely necessary to take a look at the splat list, when the map is almost finished. The splat list can be opened via the "Scenario" drop-down menu at the top menu bar of the
Worldbuilder. If there are splats that have been used very few times or even just once, then they should be replaced by ones that are similar and have been used more often, if it is feasible. Also, keep in mind that it is possible to use the same splats with different colors, rotation and size, so that they don't look like copies.
The same applies for objects. The object's equivalent to the splat list is the "blueprint list," which can also be found in the "Scenario" drop-down menu. The number of different objects should be kept at a minimum. Trees, for example, can be used in different rotations to have a different look at a certain perspective. While it’s hard to monitor the memory usage of splats, splines, tiles and the like, this does not apply for objects, as they are monitored by the "render count". The render count can be monitored by choosing "StatGraph" out of the "Advanced" drop-down menu. In the "game aspect ratio" view, the render count should not exceed
300 at any area of the map.
Bodies of water do a lot to increase the render count. One thing to know is that the reflection map has to be calculated independently for each water source, and so each map should try to use only one water source. If it’s not possible with just one, then at least keep it at a minimum and always try to prevent the player from being able to see the surface of two different water sources on one screen.
Another very important technical aspect is the "impass map". One can have a look at it by choosing the "Overlay" drop-down menu, then choosing "draw Overlay map -> draw impass map". Every map is divided into small square sectors, much like a chess board, but with a higher density. If there is an impassable object that touches one or more of these squares, that field is declared impassable. Obviously there are different ways to align objects on a map so that some position will create 3 squares of impassable ground, while others will create 10. With this in mind, the intention is to create as few impassable squares as possible.
Another bad thing is to sprinkle an area with little objects, that all create small impassable areas without enough space between them. This will result in very weird vehicle pathing, because the AI runs mad every time a vehicle touches those small clusters of impassable ground. A way around this issue would be to group several of these objects together in bigger clusters, and leave enough room between those clusters to maneuver vehicles.
Even though the optimization is the most important technical part, there are still more things to know about. One should add a loading screen that somehow draws a picture of the map and for information reasons there should be tactical maps for the lobby which show the starting positions for random and fixed positions, etc.
2. Design
The design is what makes a map different from others. This is where the map maker can, and should, be creative. Like I said earlier, this part is not completely independent from others, like balance for example. However, within the limitations that the balance part creates, there should be enough room to create something unique and innovative.
One key design part is the sector layout. There are many different ways to distribute the resources, so there is plenty of room to be creative. The sector layout plays a big role for the character and play style of a map, but at the same time it should be consistent with the map' topology. The sector borders should fall together with walls, fences, roads, rows of houses or other visible markers. This makes it much easier for the player to instinctively pick up the map's characteristics.
Another important design aspect is the overall coherence of a map, ie does the map design feel natural, or do the styles of certain areas not fit together? For example it would be odd to see a farming field in the middle of a city. This aspect does not only include the composition of certain environments, but also the composition of colors.
One thing that's important for this aspect is the way how splats and splines are used. Both tools provide the possibility to customize a given splat or spline in many ways, like colorization or transparency effects. If they are used properly, then they should not look like a splat/spline, but like a part of the world. The borders should be fluent and the colors should match. This automatically leads to another important thing for this aspect; how well different areas or objects are connected with each other. Is there a smooth crossing from one area of the map to another or are there clear borders? This also includes the way bigger objects, such as houses, are connected with the map. A house should not just be placed somewhere on the map, but there should be other small objects and some grass around. This makes the house look like a part of the map, rather than just being placed on it.
Another aspect would be the size of the map. The size of a 3 vs. 3 map should be bigger than the size for a 1 vs. 1 map, for obvious reasons. If the map is too small, then certain key aspects of
Company of Heroes gameplay are redundant, like flanking for example. If the map is too big, then the game loses a lot of its action, and in team games the team aspect might get lost. If there is too much ground to cover, combat takes longer to encounter, and reinforcement takes much longer. In addition, it goes hand in hand with balance problems, because certain factions benefit more from forward HQs than others.
As a last design point, the out of bounds (OOB) area should not be left behind. The overall feel of a map feels much more natural if the OOB area is designed as well, so that a user that is looking around does not get the feeling of playing on an island.
3. Balance
This aspect is the most difficult one.
Company of Heroes is a very map sensitive game, where even small changes make a difference in gameplay. Because of this complexity, it is impossible to guarantee balance for a map just by covering the theoretical aspects. Indeed, balance testing against real opponents is needed to finally judge on balance. However there are still some rules to fulfill, which are the minimum requirements to achieve balance in any form.
There are some "formulae" for determining resource distribution. The number of Victory Points (VPs) should be uneven and the number of sectors should be something around 20, slightly dependant upon the map's size. The amount of munitions should roughly be twice the amount of fuel. This is needed to even out the effectiveness of factions that rely on munitions for individual infantry upgrades, like Wehrmacht and those who rely on fuel for global upgrades. This is also necessary for the overall balance between infantry, teching and vehicles. There should always be at least 4 strategic sectors, to generate enough population cap for both players, to field enough units. The remaining sectors should mainly be +5 resource sectors, with some few +10 resource sectors to emphasize specific areas, if needed. High resource sectors, with an income of +16 are very tough to balance these days, because the British faction gains a big advantage, by parking their initial truck on those sectors to collect an enormous amount of extra resources.
Since the invention of the British, with their movable Headquarter trucks, there are also some further limitations for the resource distribution. Important resource points, VPs, and in general important areas should not be clustered together in a way that they are easy to cover by a forward HQ position. Those important points are meant to be contested. This is the key of
Company of Heroes gameplay. If the layout allows a British player to cover enough important areas and he is not forced out of his position, then this becomes a balance issue.
Not only is the resource layout important for game balance, but also the topography of the map. An open map with farm fields and lacking many obstacles obviously plays different than a map with a big river in the middle and just one bridge connecting one side with the other.
Certain factions have different strengths than others. The Americans and the Panzer Elite are mobile armies with strong units that highly benefit of their mobility, while British and Wehrmacht (WM) are more defensive, with strong stationary weapons and defenses. An open map therefore favors the mobile armies over the defensive ones, because it is hard to build up defenses that cover all possible directions, while the mobile armies can take full profit of their mobility and flanking power. On a map with strong chokepoints, the favor goes the other way around.
Therefore, the goal is to find the balance between open areas and some chokepoints. Rivers with small bridges are a no go in this context, because the chokepoints are way too strong. Only using open fields with some hedgerows is not enough either, because the flanking possibilities would be too powerful. It’s good to have some areas that form dead zones for machine guns, but at the same time don't let them become invulnerable. Good examples for this are buildings with blind spots, but always keep in mind to not let them cover very important areas.
There are many other aspects that affect the map balance, like holes in base defenses and other minor things. It’s impossible to list them all, because most of them are highly situational and affect different maps in a different way. They are subject of balance playtest games between human opponents.
4. Fun Factor
This aspect of a map is the most important one! It’s basically a result of the previous three categories, but also has some additional influences, that are hard to describe in words.
It’s obvious, that technical problems reduce the fun factor of a map. It’s also obvious that bad balance drops the fun factor. But to some extend the composition of unique design and all the other aspects can make the fun result bigger or smaller than the sum of the individual scores.
For more information, be sure to check out the
Company of Heroes Mapping and Modding Section.
