Stalingrad Idea
 

Hi, (total newb here)

First off, i'd like to express my gratitude towards the developers of this great mod. I never play vanilla bf anymore.
anyway, the idea is (and i apologize if this has been posted before) for a new map of Stalingrad, involving the Russians having to cross the river Volga to get to the city. (Obviously i've been watching too much "enemy at the gates" and I hope it was historically correct) that the Russians would start at the far side of the river, load into barges to cross. Borrowing from the call of duty trailers, I thought it would be interesting to have a few barges spawning less regularly so that people would get in in groups. and make the perilous crossing. The stuka in my opinion never reveals its glory in normal maps because it's always shot down pretty quick by fighters. So simply have 1 stuka spawn somewhere farther back. The Russian barges should have no collision mesh for the cloth roof of the barge but the barge itself should be bulletproof to prevent it from being destroyed. The effect of this would give the stuka a chance to make it's dive-horn known and also give the Russian team a sense of danger that the soldiers went through (or at least in Enemy at the gates...) at the same time, Russians on board the barge would be scarmbling for cover. The plane campers would also reduce the amount of Germans defending the greater city area while the buildings would make it almost imposible for the stuka to wreck havoc once the infantry are fighting street to street. On a final note, I'm not suggesting that the Russians start on the other side of the Volga but have a point at the base of the hill that may be captured by the Germans.

anyway, that's the basic idea.. comments welcome. Sorry for the long post and if this has been suggested before. Thanks for reading

Re: Stalingrad Idea
 

Well slap my butt and call me Harry!

A few hours ago I made a scetch of how that map should be. I had about the same scenario in mind. The level also looks a bit like the one from Call of Duty (which after that looks again like the scene from Enemy at the gates). Heres my view on how the map should be:

I plan on making this map in the future, if someone else doesn't already, heheh.

Click here for the full size picture now!!

Artillery backing up the soviets crossing the river with artillery. Once crossed, they get "handed out" their weapons at the docks. Spawnable kits will appear there (Mosin Nagant), offcourse the soviets will spawn at their base, without ammo.

They need to work their way up the hill, from crater to barrels, from crates to sandbags. Their first mission is to take out the MG42's, the three of them. Once cleared, they can approach the Red Square from the far left and straight on from the right.

Once the soviets have secured the Docks, the attack on the Red square can begin. They need to fight their way from one rubble to the other, eventually taking out the last MG42, and capturing their last stand (spawnpoint).

After this a new level should proceed the battle into the inner city. In my opinion it is always better to make smaller levels, concentrated on particular scenarios rather than stuffing lots of content into a map without much detail.

For example, the sniper scenario, high tall wrecked buildings, many rubble, dead silence, only a few sniper shots to be heard. Would make a great sniping map. Or how about making a map about a house complex. Switching posetion from sides every few minutes, building up the body piles in the corridors.

Hey, I could go on like this.. it's just that a skilled mapper should eventually take the time to create such a map!

Re: Stalingrad Idea
 

Nah you need to have the river a lot bigger!

Re: Stalingrad Idea
 

you didnt prevent the axis from camping hte landing zone. you are going to need to install some anti camping measures

Re: Stalingrad Idea
 

Well I had to keep the river small as I wasn't working with a too big drawing area. And about the camping, I have offcourse thought about that. I know it'll be hard to get rid of the MG42's. You will probably need to take those out by providing sufficient artillery support. Also, did you notice the player balance I suggested? It's all only historically accurate.

Re: Stalingrad Idea
 

i thnik you should make the landing zone a neutral spawn poiunt, that becomes pernmanet once the ruskies get it. like on dice maps

Re: Stalingrad Idea
 

I was thinking of, once the Russians captured the dock spawn, and hill spawn, making the axis unable to conquer those flags back. Like on the Omaha beach map, just like you said. Maybe it would be best to make the dock spawn neutral indeed. But hey, I haven't even started it yet. I want to complete my Berlin mappack first.

Re: Stalingrad Idea
 

*looks arounds scathingly*

1: actually (at the start of the battle at least) most troops had rifles (although it is true that people were sent charging at tanks with only their fists once the german artillery realy got zoned on the crossing points)

2: the russians nevery really lost the whole of the city, and to my knowlege there was no huge uphill charge like in CoD (although iv never seen EatG so i couldnt judge here)

3: there was very few military barges in the volga flotila, troops were mainly sent acroos in requesitioned pleasure barges or industrial boats ect.

4: and, or course, there isnt much point of starting on the other side as, once u take a single point in the city, there goes all the exciting dangerous volga crossings

sorry guys, dont want to break hopes, i mean its a good idea but i enjoy ranting about historicle acuracy :sleep:

Re: Stalingrad Idea
 

I propose here that there be no dock spawn point. The kits should spawn on the barges once they hit the shore. Also, for those of you who haven't seen the map suggestion I made, the Germans should start out outside the city, to include the seige of the city. The Germans pounded the city with their 25 inch cannons. That could be cool.

Re: Stalingrad Idea
 

Well this is a dilemma isn't it? I don't see a realistic way to include an German airbase either, as it was located in a village outside of Stalingrad. So there goes the stukas strafing the boats.

Re: Stalingrad Idea
 

Well obviously you're not going to get real scale in, so i think it wd be ok to have the airbase on the outskirts or whatever. And I think people would still spawn on the other side of the river. In my experience of the Omaha map, people still spawned on the destroyer after the beach flag had been taken, partly to take the destroyers guns (which wd be the artillery in this map), and partly because it gave a bit more protection to start off with.
Plus I can imagine the whole river crossing thing being quite good fun, so people might keep doing this anyway, spawn or not. The limited kits thing wdnt really work though I dont think. Too much of a disadvantage for Russians methinks.
Harry

Re: Stalingrad Idea
 

Ok, so no kits to pick up, I could agree on that. The Stuka raids can probably not be done either. If you create a small village on the outskirts, than he must be able to have space to fly in, which means there would need to be done a lot of object placing, basically for nothing.

What if the Stuka get's shot and he needs to bail out outside the combat area? We could remove the no combat area, but how would he get in again? Because the actual combat scene is always locked from the "outside area", so that wouldn't be possible. Wouldn't be fun for the Stuka flyers to ahve to suicide themselves each time.

Also, the boats can be too easily shot anyway (by the Stuka's), it would be realistic, but lame. It would be smart to attack in waves, to avoid concentrated MG fire. Swiftness is required also, as the Germans would start a little more back on the map (they need to position themselves as fast as the Russians).

What can balance the map is the following; flags should be easily capturable, a few seconds to make it neutral. This makes it vital for the Germans to keep the flags at all costs. Just like in real war; once the lines have been breached, you retreat.

Re: Stalingrad Idea
 

I don't think a Stalingrad the size of Dice's Kharkov would be an improvement

Re: Stalingrad Idea
 

Yeah the "one liners" are really helpful.. :sarcasm:

Can't you comment a little bit more, rather than whining?

It'd be great!

Re: Stalingrad Idea
 

I think Stalingrad the size of El Al is called for :)

Room for a river, an airfield, and part of the city, although if you want to include the seige part the Russians should start with Stalingrad, otherwise its more of a siege after the Germans lose Stalingrad.