Operation Uranus - Kalach (?vs?)

On 19th November Soviet forces begun counterattack, nicknamed Operation Uranus. In a few days they encircled nearly 250.000 Axis soliders in Stalingrad and nearby area. Two soviet armies, who lead offensive met themselves in Kalach over Don river.




This is going to be very original map. Soviet forces are going to advance from two sides of map, while Axis is holding central position. The main objectives are:
- Soviets: meet south and north forces and encircle Axis.
- Axis: hold the road as long as possible and try to halt Operation Uranus.




This is how the map is going to look. All VPs will be placed along road ( light gray) and in town of Kalach ( dark grey)


Startegy:
- Axis can easilly annihilate alone Soviet players, but this will cause them to lost on second flank. Holding Kalach is way to win.
- Soviets must capture bridges between both bases and hold them, to have possibility to support each other. Those bridges can be destroyed. Again Kalach is key to victory - the bridge in Kalach is indestructible.


I don't know how big the map is going to be, because I don't know how many players it's going to field. It's up to you, EF fans  ;)

"Go! Go! Go!" (c)  ;D
Finally, the prayers have been answered: a map with a strong historically-based fabula, while a multi-player one!  :D
Great Idea! Looking forward to try it out when it's ready.
If any help is needed on history detail, russian language etc., - feel free to PM. I wish, I could be more helpful, but I'm not into mapping, really.  :(
I voted 3x3, because I'd like to see some decent-scaled battle there.

I dunno... Seems to me more like a campaign level, rather than a skirmish/multiplayer map.

@ IJoe - if I'll need help, I'll ask  ;)
@ pariah - don't worry, it might look quite strange, but believe me, I've made a lot of maps like this ( well those were fun maps) and I promise - it will be balanced.

Well, O.K., if you know what you're doing. But it just seems really imbalanced to me to have 1 team surrounded by the other team...

They aren't surrounded. I dunno where you found that?
The point is that it may look different than other maps, but in fact it's normal map, just distances between HQ are varied.

QuoteThis is going to be very original map. Soviet forces are going to advance from two sides of map, while Axis is holding central position. The main objectives are:
- Soviets: meet south and north forces and encircle Axis.
- Axis: hold the road as long as possible and try to halt Operation Uranus.

Doesn't that imply that the Axis are surrounded by the Soviets? :-\

3v3 I put. I love town-in-the-middle maps like this, having the town as a strategic point so all the fighting converges on it.

pariah wrote:

QuoteThis is going to be very original map. Soviet forces are going to advance from two sides of map, while Axis is holding central position. The main objectives are:
- Soviets: meet south and north forces and encircle Axis.
- Axis: hold the road as long as possible and try to halt Operation Uranus.

Doesn't that imply that the Axis are surrounded by the Soviets? :-\

Oh, I think we have misundertanding here. Encircled forces I've written about are German 6th Army in Stalingrad. Operation Uranus was launched by two Soviet armies - from north and south. They blitzed Romanians on north and Germans on south and finally met in the middle - in Kalach.
Germans are encircled in Stalingrad, and this map shows what happens west of it. It's just a normal map. I wrote "main objectives" just for climate and to show what's the battle about.

Oh, O.K., so it will have each team on each side of the map? So why did you say it's "going to be very original"?

You see, most of maps are made in this way:
---------------------------------------
T                                            T
E                                            E
A                                            A
M                                            M

1                                              2
----------------------------------------


while my map is:

-------------------------------
TEAM 1


                                  TEAM 2 


TEAM 1
--------------------------------

.... or something similiar to this  ;D

O.K., cool, thanks for clearing that up. :) And as for number of players... I have no idea. :-\

3v3 obviously wouldn't work, since it will be uneven on 1 side. ;)

Last edited March 18, 2011 at 10:59 PM by pariah

I have similiar problem. 2v2 looks good, but it would be small battle. 4v4 - too hard to find 8 players  :o while 3v3 will need a lot of balancing, because one of players will be alone, while second team won't have problems like this.

Yeah... So i think your only options are 2v2 and 4v4.

well, not exactly. I can still make northern player this alone guy, while making his position easier to defend - due to river, maybe some forests and trenches. I can also make river really hard to cross north of town. there are plenty ways to balance that  :)

1 player takes the north, 1 player takes the town, 1 player takes south of the town. I don't see why it would be massive problem as long as you have a bridge somewhere near the Team 1's HQ's all should be fine.

IMO 2v2 it's ok! ;)

Orginal idea!!! But i remember one map with that concept. Let's me see. Ah i remembered. That was a C&C 3 Tiberium Wars. There was a map 1v2 where one players was alone on north with many blue tiberium and 2 players were on south with green tiberium.

Are you sure cephalos that is your orginal idea  ;D?
Hahha never mind :D ;D.

Anyway this is first defence map (concept) i ever seen in CoH. 8)

seems like this will be either a 2vs2 or 3vs3 map. I voted for 2vs2 because it fits to your strategic plan(encircle the town). But 3vs3 would be nice also, we have to few.

Can you make the CP for fuel and mun related to map design? im getting bored of a high fuel with stands in the middle of a corn field. Would be nice f.e. if its in a fuel base or the mun is next to a hijacked mun transport.

Looking forward to this!

Been thinking about it, and i decided to change my vote to 4v4. I think it would be best. Still it's hard to be sure without seeing what the map will actually look like.

Killar wrote:
seems like this will be either a 2vs2 or 3vs3 map. I voted for 2vs2 because it fits to your strategic plan(encircle the town). But 3vs3 would be nice also, we have to few.

Can you make the CP for fuel and mun related to map design? im getting bored of a high fuel with stands in the middle of a corn field. Would be nice f.e. if its in a fuel base or the mun is next to a hijacked mun transport.

Looking forward to this!

you can be sure it will happen :)
I'm tired of this too, also maps have diferent climate, when reality is on high level

pariah wrote:
Been thinking about it, and i decided to change my vote to 4v4. I think it would be best. Still it's hard to be sure without seeing what the map will actually look like.

Don't worry, today I'm going to start. As far i'm fighting with annoying bug in WorldBulider which causes PC crashes  >:(

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Post Merge: [time]1300536414[/time]

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2nd post... nah...

This is my "blueprint" how it will look like:




This is historical version: soviet forces ( red arrows) are attacking German supply routes and are trying to cut off entire 6th Army. That's why Soviets will have two bases. Germans must stop this offensive, or 6th Army will be encircled. And destroyed.




And this is gameplay version: VPs are placed on road, which is now only supply route for 6th Army. Soviets attack from two sides. Bridges over Don river will be destructable, excluding this one in Kalach.


Looks like the best fun will be when playing on Victory Points. And that's what I'm trying to achive  :)

Last edited March 19, 2011 at 12:06 PM by cephalos

Isn't better if all VPs can be capped by both factions?

The VP near russian HQs, if the Germans are alone it's un-cappable.

Why don't put it on a vertical line, one in the village and the other two at sides?

Last edited March 19, 2011 at 12:44 PM by Moonwalker

Looks good, but the Victory Point placement is evidently going to be very hard. As Moonwalker says, the 1 closest to the reds is pretty much uncapturable without a large assault, and the 2 near the blacks would likewise be too hard to take for the reds.

You could maybe try adding another V.P. in the corner of the middle of the map, on the largest red island?

I thought something like this:

Last edited March 19, 2011 at 12:53 PM by Moonwalker

Looks to me like the red team will have the advantage...

hmm maybe 5 vp´s? 2 vp´s for each faction (easy defendable) and one in the town (hard to cap and you have to fight for it)

That might work.

pariah wrote:
Looks to me like the red team will have the advantage...

Why? I think it's perfectly balanced...many maps are drawn in this way.

Because the reds have 2 islands, whilst the blacks have only 1. So it looks to me like the red team will have easy access to 2 Victory Points, when the black team has only 1 nearby. But, hey, i'm no expert on balance...

You see, I'm trying to make map as historicaly accurate as balanced.
5 VPs can do, also 4 would be great, If, f.e. I'd put double VP in town.

Point between "red" team is far more easier to capture then point near "black" team. Also the first point is placed nearby bridges, what makes it really important.
This small river doesn't make island. It's crossable in 99% of it's lenght. It's rather dangerous area of red cover. Nothing more, nothing less.

The point of map is to hold or capture supply routes. I don't get it how German or Soviet commanders wanted to capture some piece of empty field, or small island. The road and Kalach is the key to win this battle.


EDIT: I forgot to write, that it's just a plan. It might change. Like adding more VP, or changing map design.

Sure. Maybe you should just focus on the map layout, and then add Victory Points later? When it's more complete, and you've done some play testing, it should be a lot easier to tell where the points should go.

so as i understand the road has all fuel and mun points?

the best of them. Of course there are going to be some small resource points all around...

Well, so long as you don't place too many/too high Fuel Points, it should be alright...

you'll see  :D

Progress Report #1:

:o That looks so delicious. :-*

Bad news, guys. Today this !@#$%^& Worldbuilder crashed, and whole map file is corrupted - and lost  :'(  :'(  :'(
So unfortunatelly there won't be map any time soon  :(

Fuckin' A. :'( Might want to back the file up in the future... :(

cephalos wrote:
Bad news, guys. Today this !@#$%^& Worldbuilder crashed, and whole map file is corrupted - and lost  :'(  :'(  :'(

every 30 min sec save

QuoteIf life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Then use the profits to buy an assault rifle. See if life makes the same mistake twice.

;D ;D ;D

damn it bobby :)

Could this help you? (Unless you don't have windows vista/7)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Copy

I saved every 20 pieces of terrain I've put. It just crashed, and when I want to open this map in WB is says it's corrupted and it won't open.

Do you think you could pass on the flame, as it were, to someone with a computer which is less crash-happy? :-\

can you reproduce the map?

WB is a bitch

@pariah - I guess no. nobody has good enough PC to install CoH

Killar wrote:
can you reproduce the map?

WB is a bitch

I'll try. And can't agree more about WB.

cephalos wrote:
@pariah - I guess no. nobody has good enough PC to install CoH

Huh? ??? I'm sorry, but i just assumed that most people here would have Company Of Heroes installed... ???

pariah wrote:

cephalos wrote:
@pariah - I guess no. nobody has good enough PC to install CoH

Huh? ??? I'm sorry, but i just assumed that most people here would have Company Of Heroes installed... ???

Me for example  ;D

cephalos wrote:
@pariah - I guess no. nobody has good enough PC to install CoH

Killar wrote:
can you reproduce the map?

WB is a bitch

I'll try. And can't agree more about WB.

I remember the days when i made maps for Duke Nukem 3D. That map builder was bugged. You had to save your files all 15 min for security and sometimes even this didnt help (ahh good old Duke  :) )