I really Liked the AH2 CraterMA Tank Town.

[BigPun]

I have been playing AH from just about day one.... and this terrain is the best thing that has happen to the GV side of the game in many years. Look at the maps Tanks are back in the "Fight" all over map. Not just setting in some BS TT running up their kill count not doing anything useful.  Tank Towns are dead... let them stay dead.

Cav

"not doing anything useful" So YOU decide what other players should and should not do?
Let me check my credit card statement and see if I am still being charged for my AH subscription, just a sec............
Yep still being charged.

[bustr]

I forgot a basic rule of terrain building, square objects like Tank Town cannot be set down on top of grind lines. The object will favor one side or the other of the line. I couldn't make the 4 one square mile squares that are the tank town object the physical center of the the terrain. So I had to rebuild the center of that island's center caldera depression. I'm not going to quibble about the obvious 2-3 miles off center from the clip board map below on 100 miles of pond. Now it's a ring of 500ft cliffs and slopes into a 2mile diameter bowl. I bumped the flat bottom of the caldera with 50ft hills and laid down several villages with open farmland and trees. Many places to sneak around and shoot back at the higher elevation snipers or, sneak across the bowl and up the other side to sweep snipers off the rim. Or sneak around the behind them.

The primary caldera rimmed by 3500ft eroded crater remnants will hold two GV bases per country close enough to allow for the same kinds of GV combat as those lines of close GV bases on FesterMA. I just noticed in the last picture I spaced the distance from the base of the inner crater remnants two miles out from the edge of the center depression. I should cut some radial seams from the base of those walls to the center depression. There won't be any airfields on the island because the 4 sectors of pond to the mainland will have a friendly CV while I'm thinking of using a 7,000ft cloud ceiling to mess with bombers. Those ack bases on CraterMA are overkill while bombers trying to level bomb under a 7,000ft ceiling will make 37mm and 88gunners happy. And fighters, wirbels can take care of them. There won't be any GV bases out side of the crater near the shore, so LVT capturing a base is unlikely. You will have to do it GV base to GV base or fly in troops. And I used a sparse tree tile as you notice in the close up.

And that big ring 18 sectors across, this is a super volcano with a 17,000-23,000ft rim. I still have to cut the erosion channels on the backside, all 2000 miles of it. Looks like I still have some cutting I need to do to the north to make that part of the pond 4 sectors. As a joke I'm thinking about placing piles of 1000ft tall Back Beer bottles in the four corners. They are available objects in the Terrain Editor for placing on terrains. Still having those on the terrain might hit some PC's for FPS by them being there. Now I know why really serious terrain builders get a copy of L3Dt, hand building 2000 miles of 20k mountains.....

So if you gents have some vision of utopia for our game, feel free to fire up the terrain editor and make us all proud. 









 

[DmonSlyr]

Make the bases 18 miles apart instead of 25.

Make the entire map smaller to about 12x12 or 10x10

Don't include furball island or a TT because it defeats the purpose of "winning the map" type of game play.


Create paths of bases that sort of direct action from base to base

Don't create mountains that are too high. Mountains that block short distance fights only create alt monkies and 24K 190s and P51s.

Add big rivers for CV units to flow through.



These are "suggestions" to make the game play actionable and entertaining. 

When I am retired in 40 years, I'll have time to make a map. I can only be suggestive. But the main issues with maps today is they don't funnel action, and back bases are too far away to defend against the hoard.

[Mano]

I am sorry so much work has gone into unintentionally ruining what was a fun & popular area on this map.
The CraterMA TT is rarely used and is waste of space in it's current form.

Can I do better? No of course not, but that's not really the point.
CraterMA tank town is NOT being used. Try being objective and less defensive.

My sentiments exactly. CraterMA was very popular. Now the center of the map is completely empty of GV'ers.
CraterMA was the best thing in AH2 that ever happened for GV's. Every GV'er could not wait until Crater was up again.
Now when Crater is up, GV'ers log off. I do.

 

[bustr]

Make the bases 18 miles apart instead of 25.

Make the entire map smaller to about 12x12 or 10x10

Don't include furball island or a TT because it defeats the purpose of "winning the map" type of game play.


Create paths of bases that sort of direct action from base to base

Don't create mountains that are too high. Mountains that block short distance fights only create alt monkies and 24K 190s and P51s.

Add big rivers for CV units to flow through.



These are "suggestions" to make the game play actionable and entertaining. 

When I am retired in 40 years, I'll have time to make a map. I can only be suggestive. But the main issues with maps today is they don't funnel action, and back bases are too far away to defend against the hoard.

1. - After building 2000miles of mountain range, no I'm not starting a second smaller map. I will control the numbers of bases instead.
2. - I can control how many bases and follow the HTC placement rule for airfields of .75-1.0 sector distance between fields.
3. - I can control GV spawns and bases to where GVs can go. A rough idea is the prototype reference picture below. I can place GV bases and ports much closer to other bases. And it's not a very good idea to tell someone "Not" to create something that takes 3-6 hours to build. Unless you want to cut me a paycheck.
4. - I will use the existence of CV's as air bases for furballs over the tank town island which won't have air fields. I may give each country 2 CV's but, no AAA bases with 63 88mm. Placing those near the HQ and city will be enough pain for bombers.
5. - This is a super volcano, the tallest mountains are the rim, all 2000 miles of 17,000-23,000ft. Everything else is water cut or remnant walls from later mini eruptions. Note to self, map the water cuts to ports. What is the Serengeti plain and the escarpment surrounding it??
6. - The land at the base of the mountain range is 6,000ft, all 2000miles of it, and it all slopes to the center pond at SL. I cannot see making any remanent secondary and tertiary minor eruption rim features higher then 3500-5000 feet weathered down. Much like the primary ring of the center crater in the screen shot posted above.
7. - Note to self, hmmm, Serengeti, giant herds of sheep in place of Wildebeest?? No this is the Euro tileset so sheep are good..........
8. - Honestly I will loose my freekin mind populating bases into anymore area than defined by the two red rings in the clip board map below. Kinda looks like a 10x10 map filled with bases at that point......  The outer area below the mountain range will hold strats, three un-capturable bases (1 Me163 base), and AAA bases. There are some nice 30,000ft bomber sneeking areas at each map corner. Or NOE runs. But, I can spread out two of the un-capturable bases to use as early warning radar stations.
9. - Note to self, push the north shore 12 miles north to even the pond.......

[DmonSlyr]

Hitech should allow the bases to be .60 to 1.0 for the base distance. Or make all the bases .75 away. I feel a slight change in base distance would make a huge difference in creating action in the map. It would also be a hell of a lot better for the off hours.

[bustr]

I feel you are free to use the Wish List to make your feelings known to Hitech.