Two new maps should be coming in the new patch.
I am getting a little tired of the same play over and over though. I feel like some of the maps have “best” solutions to them, particularly if you play the same type of tanks.
For example in Lakesville, IMO the best solution is 2 defenders on the valley, 1 defender center, possibly with 1 swing defender to support either valley or center if enemy pushes there, and everyone else goes town. (Unfortunately my teams often seem to disagree and insist on pushing through the valley, I’d estimate this works about 10% of the time and fails the other 90%). It mostly only works if the other team all decides to herd in aother direction and leaves the other approaches uncovered. I’ve seen more success in a middle push, which at least allows fire support from around the lake. I suspect a middle push might be more successful as a possible gambit with a coordinated team. The team could stack the lake edge with shooters and send a few tanks down the middle. The shooters could take out any enemy support tanks defending from the lake edge (since having planned this, they should have temporary superiority). If the push fails, the main thing lost is that the enemy will be further through the town, which doesn’t seem like that much of an advantage.
As we’ve previously discussed here, in Himmseldorf, a medium/light force at least equal to the enemies medium/lights needs to push to the hilltop castle, and deny control to the enemy before zooming down the hill to either cap, or take the enemy to the rear. Mediums (and heavies) can also go trainyard, but only if the castle is covered. Also some of my groups seem to leave the main central road uncovered (probably because it’s just a slugging match, which is no fun, except for for the heavies), but leaving it uncovered is basically game over.
In Malinovka sadly I’ve concluded that if you push hillside, you must go to the top of the damn ridge. I suspect a coordinated team could bypass it if the enemy has control over it. For example, I had one game where 5 enemy heavies plus 3 mediums were on it. I think we should have just ignored them. But in a PUG, enough of your team will proceed to sit out in the town and try to shoot it out with them, that you will be greatly weakened. Alternatively you could just stay defensive, although it’s hard to keep a PUG defensive, and usually you’ll slowly bleed impatient tankers who go out and get themselves killed.
Murovanka the side with the forest should largely stack the forest, although they can send out some feelers to sucker the other side to come in or to scout the town. They also may want some scouts or TDs facing for possible attack on their base from the North-West corner. They should absolutely not send their entire force to the North-West hill to duke it out with the other team (which seems to be my teams strategy more often then not). No idea what the other side should do. I think this map is unbalanced.
Westfield, mediums starting in the north east have the option of either sitting at the top of the aqueduct which controls both the east-side and can support the west-side. Or they can join the battle up on the central plateau area. Mediums on the South-west IMO are a bit screwed. They can stack the edge of the forest along the south-east side of the map, but this doesn’t provide as much fire support for the fight on the main plateau as the aqueduct top position does. I’ve tried setting up on the ridge overlooking the town, but that position is pretty exposed and you can die very quickly if the enemy is on top of the aqueduct, there’s a bit of cover, but not enough to have any alternative firing positions to withdraw too. My latest attempt from the South-west is to setup on the plateau but covering the valley. It seems to work okay, but nowhere near as well as the opponent’s aqueduct position. I think this map is also unbalanced.
I’d be interested in hearing strategies for TDs and heavies on Westfield, I really don’t have a good feel for what people starting on the central plateau, other than be very careful around the edges of the plateau, particularly if you are visible to shooters at the top of the aqueduct.
I think the other maps are less constrained, although as always, all approaches must be kept covered by several tanks. Leaving flanks open usually results in disaster.
Opinions? Are these observations sound? The Lakesville one is particularly annoying as my team always ignores me when I tell them not to go down the valley, and it almost always results in our team losing.
