The supreme map balance debate -Purpose of units

I just have to :)
Summary;
-The map pool in supcom2 is boring and repetitive and due to that some units becomes useless as they cannot reach fully potential.
-Possible solutions;
Make the maps "more tight" and "enviromental intense", make asymmetric maps with strategical spots.

In the "great naval debate" thread this was stated;
The real concern with Navy balance has less to do with multi-role units and has more to do with multi-arena units. LEGS and Hover tech can take the battle out of the water. UEF is left in the distinct disadvantage of not having land-ocean units. For this reason, UEF should keep a slight advantage in the naval arena. This advantage should be slight because the Mastodon and the Battleship can rip apart your base from a very long distance into the water.
I have been thinkg about this for a long time, mainly because I am very interested in map modding and when I am twisting my head in order to find a supcom2 map to do something interesting with, it just falls out that they are all the same in that sentence that you can basically have same inital BO without any special disadvantage whatever map (talking about the symetric MP maps now). In most cases it turns out that Cybran is up, Illuminate is rushing and UEF takes control over sea and air.
Then we have this debate from now and then about unit balancing and I think a lot of us can agree that there are many units that doesnt have a purpose or are up/op. So lets turn it around, what will happen if the maps were changed/updated? Have this i mind when posting;
Strategy, a word of military origin, refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. In military usage strategy is distinct from tactics, which are concerned with the conduct of an engagement, while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked. How a battle is fought is a matter of tactics: the terms and conditions that it is fought on and whether it should be fought at all is a matter of strategy,
With maps with more shallow water (passible for legs and hover but not subs), unpassible mountains, hills (shotjas) and islands and different strategic mass spot positions (asymmetric maps), we will see that some units actually make sense.
A commander is not supreme if he blames his units to be up/op if he choose to fight on places/enviroment/maps there they are not suitable/intentional for.
Here is a map link to the standard map for reference;
http://supcomdb.com/sc2/maplist|||In my opinion each faction should be balanced equally in each theatre of battle and each faction should be able to move from any one theatre to attack any other. No faction should be disadvantaged on any map.To this effect I would welcome amphibious units that could be built on land or sea that are fully capable of taking back the land or sea from an opponent that has previously captured it. I also believe that equal amounts of resources should be available on both land and on the sea to provide clear benefits to holding both with greater complexity than the ability to shell the opponent with impunity.
I don't see this being implemented in supcom 2 as it would require fairly drastic re- balancing along with the creation of new models. However it would be nice to see more amphibious units and naval resources in any sequel. I think that factions should achieve strategic goals in different ways but should be no better or worse than each other at achieving those aims.
As for balance consider an example in the context of KnC. Faction A has a powerful battering ram that can knock down walls but is very vulnerable to the garrisons on those walls. It therefore has a second incendiary catapult which can force garrisons off those walls to allow the battering ram to knock it down. Faction B could have a catapult which can destroy walls from a distance and would not need help dealing with the garrison on the wall. However, it would lack the incendiary catapult's ability to retreat quickly from melee units and would need support of a different kind. In this example both faction achieve the same goal of knocking down the wall at similar expense but have to plan it out in different ways.
I agree with the idea of making naval terrain more complex. Maybe some basic environmental hazards could also be thrown in. As for some units making sense or not I think that mostly comes from a "this is cool, let's include it attitude" without defining the actual role of the unit.
Personally, I think the maps are fine. They could be improved by redistributing resources. I think that faction design is a more important factor. In a situation of equal economics a player should always have a resource with which to deflect or harass the opponent. It is a matter of skill as to whether or not they use it. It is the nature of rts that some units would be unsuitable for certain situations. Asymmetrical resources usually favour one side over the other. However asymmetrical terrain can be interesting. CoH pulled that off fairly well.|||Knowing GPG's resources are somewhat low (and their ability to derp is high due to the open endedness (so many options!!) of their strategy/physics engine I would tread very carefully here.
Chances are there will be unit balancing, but map balancing likelyhood is almost zero. Besides, there will be a map editor, so why not give the community the opportunity to submit maps to become official.
TA had far more of these map qualities that effect strategic advantages considerably than any game ever made, and for the most part Chris Taylor and Cavedog succeeded, but there was still plenty of derpage. Check them out in the SupComFA forum. Core Commander posted them in a thread.
Setons and Rigs are basically what you described. However, that shouldn't be the standard. Riggs is nice, because UEF's strengths are presentable their too.
Most of us want a Bigger Weddells map that looks more like Finn's, because it's prettier. Also it reminds us of the Pacific Theater which is cool.
Having some asymmetrical maps would be nice too. I think they improve best replay value even if they are harder to balance economically/strategically.|||I really like some the maps used in spring rts. They really show what a good map editor can do.
What I ask for can be summed up in two points.
-Please distribute resources equally between land and sea in future games (As in TA).
-Please create units that can be built in one theatre and move to another.|||in supcom2, a lot of maps are imba due to favoring certain theatres of war. On top of that, factions are both globally imbalanced AND imbalanced on individual theatres. Faction diversity? It results in certain positions HAVING to be filled by certain races, and Cybran usually drawing the short stick, unless they get to turtle for MC/Arty/Megaliths. UEF do decent most of the time due to naval/air superiority, and aeon do well in land rushes. All factions should be almost equally viable for every position/theatre, even though tactics dont have to be the same. Cybran dont HAVE to win in direct combat naval, but if their ally has bombers, bombers + naval should combine well against naval + air, since the cybran ships have AA too. In this case, team play could still make cybran a viable race for naval.
So, IMO, to determine map balance, the game itself should be balanced first. All we can say now is *this map is weven more exploitable by TML than other maps*, not *this map is imbaaa*, because most of that imba stuff was imba anyways. There are a few exceptions, like Open Palms and Arctic Refuge(considered balanced), or Markond Bridge and Clarke Training Center (considered horribly imbalanced)|||In general any map with only a choke point tends to favour the faction with the longest ranged unit available at the crisis point of the match. Markon's bridge is mostly imbalanced due to the current strength of aeon land. You yourself showed me why several months ago in two 1v1s. If navy in general was balanced with land and air Markon's would become a competitive map.|||I do not believe so. Naval will never stand a chance against aeon mobility on that map. The lakes simply arent big enough. On that map, the problem is the map size. If the map was, a factor 1.5/2 bigger, naval would be way more viable because you could actually try n kite aeon land as you are supposed to. You wont ever beat tanks there, you will too easily be overrun.|||I agree with you in so far as reasonable balance changes are concerned. However, if naval was completely overhauled so that it had comparable cost, range and dps to tanks then the story would be quite different. That map isn't balanced within the current structure of the game. However, if the gameplay was fundamentally changed it could be. Unfortunately this can only really be proved by demonstrating it so the argument is moot.
A 2v2 I played earlier showed that cybran navy suffers a similar problem against aeon on Rigs. I secured the land in the centre with yenzoos while my teammate pressured the uef air player with his salems. After that it wasn't a big deal to for me to destroy both of my cybran opponent's naval facs and push into his base. Unfortunately I forgot to save the replay though so I can't actually show you atm.|||AngryMacrophage