I don't want to bitch because I really like this map, but I like it because (apart from getting to play as the Canadians) it has so much potential, but to be honest the God awful truth it this map frustrates me like no other. As Canadians you get mortared constantly, the arty never stops, and for anyone on the Allied side of this map the chances are almost 50/50 (which is ridiculous when you think about it) that you will be killed by an enemy it is physically impossible for you to kill.
I'm not against mortars or arty like some people are, I get that they're necessary and they add to the gameplay, but you are killed by them way, way too much on this map for it to really ever be enjoyable. I played Falaise yesterday and spawned at the middle Lambert flag, and in it's infinite wisdom the BF2 engine placed me in the exact same building four spawns in a row. And guess what? I was killed within 2 seconds of spawning four spawns in a row. It was like watching dominoes fall over, because after the first death, my dead body was still there when I spawned again, making a nice target to aim for when I was killed yet again.
The other main problem I have with this map is that it's in that nasty spot between a push map with a visible front of fighting, and a flag-tag map where you can spread out and attack individual flags all over a large area in any manner you wish. There's strategy in both of those, but Falaise is between them, and thus the same thing happens round after round after round. The first two flags are being fought over, and then one German sneaks through the forest and caps one of the Lambert flags. A couple Canadians go to hunt him down, and while they're recapping the one he capped, he's capping another one of them. Eventually this means the first two flags are defended not nearly as well as they should be, because before long half the team has to fall back and deal with the backcappers, and then the battery and the church fall one after the other and even if the Canadians do manage to get a hold of all three city flags again, it doesn't matter, because now the mortar battery is cappable and there is always a German hiding in the bushes next to it to grab it. It's a frustration battle and not an enjoyable one - I think most players don't mind losing if there's something they can learn from it, something they can do better next time to prevent it, but there is never any of that on this map. There's no cunning to the German strategy, there's never a feeling of having been bested by a better enemy. It's the same people sneaking around the same routes every single time. The Canadians have no time to prepare at the beginning of the round, and whether you die for the first time 10 seconds into it or 10 minutes depends entirely on where the game spawns you. Which doesn't seem right when the whole point of the map is the Canadians need to defend the flags. One of the biggest problems is, again, time - there is no time for the Canadians to prepare at all. The German infantry might as well spawn on the Allied side of the river, because they're all across it within 15 seconds of the round starting. Moving those spawn points back to around the farm in C6 alone could improve this map tremendously.
You can say that a good team could prevent all of this, and that's perfectly true. But public servers produce good squads, not good teams. On Falaise, there's never a feeling of 'Oh shit, they've broken through and they're greying that flag over there, let's all go and send them home' - the feeling is 'For fuck's sakes, this is the third time someone's sneaked around behind us and greyed it this round'. It's similar to the way the round ends, which is always 10-40 tickets for the Germans when the Canadians hit 0. You don't spend the loading of the next map thinking 'Damn, we nearly had'em! Just a little better next time and we can take that map'. What you really walk away thinking is 'If that fucking mortar had ten less shells the Germans would lose this map every time'. You never feel like you've been outfoxed by a clever German side, just angered by the fact you know the three or four tricks they will use to win and are powerless to stop them all at once.
The middle Lambert flag in F4 can be approached by inf almost entirely through trees and brush. Mortar battery can be approached around the outside, again with inf rarely needing to leave cover, and both routes include multiple out-of-bounds paths most people won't think to cover. Hanomags can easily speed down the roads early on in the map as well, before the Canadian tanks can do very much to stop it:
The yellow lines are the usual infantry routes used every single round, and the blue is the APC race.
There are several spots where German tanks can camp for a very long time and not worry about any kind of return fire: the woods in E4 and E5 (and if it's an SL in one of those tanks, the round is basically over), behind the hedge in G4, blowing up every Canadian tank before they can even see it and having a wide open field to MG any inf trying to take them out (all the while spawnraping the entire middle of the map) and especially in G7, where there is a wall there that is one inch low enough for a Panther to sit behind it, hang the gun over the wall, and completely control the battle. In this position the Panther (or Panzer IV) actually offers a smaller target than an infantry soldier would. I actually managed to destroy a Panther doing this the other day, but that was only because I had one APDS round left in the 6-pounder and had rolled it to a gap in the hedgerows, and the Panther didn't see me. I was then knifed by a German who had snuck up behind me, even though in that spot I continuously had to roll the 6-pounder forward to avoid being killed for being out-of-bounds.
So I have two ideas on how to make this map more fair and make it a lot more fun - one idea operates assuming that the map itself could be changed a bit, and the other operates under the assumption that the map stays as it is, but vehicles and weapons on it can be changed instead. I have played Falaise about 20 times so far, so forgive me if I suggest something that is already on the map and I haven't come across it.
Option 1 - changing the map. The first thing I would do is open the out-of-bounds area up on the western side of the map while tightening it on the eastern side. The two red lines are the general idea. I would move the middle St. Lambert flag westwards by two grids to become the Farm flag (or St. Lambert West, whatever). Maybe some buildings could be added, or maybe whatever is already there is just fine. The road leading to the (currently out-of-bounds) farm could be bridged across the river, and either a road made to lead up to German territory or the bridge could be completely independent of roads, even if tanks can still get across it. I would widen up the river slightly as well, to make absolutely sure no vehicles can ford it and infantry can't just super-swim across in five seconds. There was an idea earlier in the thread that I really like, this being adding a flag (white at the start of the round) at the edge of the river on the German side, and once they cap it (in five seconds, it's like a beach landing flag), then they get the spawnpoints right on the river they have now. The removal of the middle city flag is crucial - it is the only one of the three that barely requires a German soldier to reveal himself (the forest almost goes right to it), and once that flag is capped it's only about ten seconds until one (or both if it's an SL) of the other flags is going down because they are so close to each other. Moving the middle flag westwards to the farm in the now totally in-bounds area means the flags are spread out nicely. This also means artillery and mortars from the German side of the river cannot just keep aiming at the middle of the city and killing you over and over and over again - the defense is spread out, while all that shit still plays a pivotal role, it's not the gamechanger.
The main idea here though is to remove part of the crucialness the woods in E4 and E5 play. Right now all they are is a nuisance, no one on the Canadian side wants to sit there all round watching them while the battle is taking place half a map away. With the map opened up, and two different places for panzers to cross the river (but the two bridges are out of sight of one another), this wooded area would still be a key part of the German attack, but it would be an expected part. Allies would know to keep their eyes peeled for Germans in the area, and those Germans can now be attacked from any direction, requiring a competent team to wreak havoc from there, and not just one guy in a Panzer IV that PIATS can't hurt.
This is what I've come up with off the top of my head:
Double red lines - a rough sketch of where the out-of-bounds lines are moved back to.
Green arrow - where the middle city flag is moved to.
Pink - a possible spot for a bridge to be placed.
Spawn circle - the German flag they can cap easily that allows river-spawning.
Blue and white lines - if the eastern boundaries are to remain the same, they should be tightened up to prevent people taking routes that are more OoB than in. Equally fine would be to move them back to incorporate the routes the Germans already take into fair game territory that can be defended as well.
The second idea is this, assuming the map is not changed at all but that kits, weapons and vehicles could be.
1 - Ditch the two Sherman IIs and give the Canadians a Cromwell spawning at mortar battery, and (maybe) a Churchill spawning there as well. Both are on Totalize so that shouldn't be a problem. The Canadians still have the same amount of tanks, but instead of two useless shitboxes that are destroyed instantly, there is a fast tank that can run up the street at the start of the round to support the front flags, and the Churchill so the Canadians have at least one armored vehicle that isn't 1-hit KO'd by anything the Germans have. If the Canadians got both, I would have no problem with the Germans getting an extra Panther or StuG or whatever. Keep in mind these can always be triggered by outside events - say the Churchill doesn't spawn until the first two flags fall, or x amount of minutes into the round.
2 - Keep the 6-pounders we have and where we have them, but make them all mobile. It's too easy for German tanks to sit out of view on the other side of hedges, then rush forward (knowing exactly where the Canadian AT guns are because you can't move them), fire HE at them and then run off again. This would keep German tankers on their toes.
3 - Put an AT mines kit somewhere for the Canadians. The Brits have a few on Goodwood, so I don't see this being a problem. Just one kit would be enough.
4 - Make the St. Lambert flags required 2 to cap, not one. I can just about live with an enemy squad taking those flags, but every round, it's almost always one guy in any number of a dozen buildings, ruining the day.
5 - Move the German river spawnpoints back one grid to the west. Just to give the Canadians an extra 10 seconds to prepare.
6 - Give the Canadians a half-track at one of the first two flags, for MG support. (I know they already have Bren Carriers on this map but no one ever uses them for anything other than a taxi).
I can't think of anything else at the moment. I hope this map is sharpened up a bit because it has the potential to be brilliant, but I've yet to have any fun on it at all.
