.professional / Company of Heroes

Project
Company of Heroes
Role
QA Lead (Credit Designer)
Platform(s)
PC
Release
2005
Metacritic
93
TABLE OF CONTENTS

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Built out 12 of the 16 shipped multiplayer maps
  • Maintained multiplayer maps through course of development
  • Worked with Environment Artists on beautification passes
  • Collaborated with Balance Team to ensure map balance and fairness

2P_Semois

The map that started it all for me - the design process wasn't so much a process as it was me learning how to carve terrain, place objects, paint territory, etc. While it may not look balanced, Semois is actually a very balanced map; but unlike a lot of RTS maps of that era, Company of Heroes didn't want mirrored map layouts - too artificial.

Map Layout.
The Central Victory Point and Church. Getting control of this Church early was critical to holding the point.
The Northern Victory Point.
The Southern Victory Point.
Entrance to the eastern base. It was popular for the opposing player to place an HMG on this path or the same one leading to the western base in what became known as the 'Semois Pin'. This forced the opponent to take the long way around to the central part of the map at least early on. It didn't take long for players to learn how to counter it, however.
A lone Fuel point on an island south of the central victory point.

2P_Lyon

Lyon was my first attempt at making an Urban environment. The problem is that the first version of the Essence Engine didn't handle the density of urban well. Too many objects, too many garrisonable structures, not to mention fighting players in garrisons is not the most fun - now imagine dozens of those structures. In these instances, we would fall back on destroyed urban which luckily made sense in WWII. Lyon is was never too popular as a competitive map due to the chokepoints, but it became a favourite for Comp Stomps. Some interesting parts include a few resource points locked behind walls (You'd have to blow them up to gain access) as well as 'Flanking Hallway' which is the infantry-only island that runs the length of the map.

Another issue was the map was a bit too big for 2 players, so we actually cloned it and added two more spawns post-launch. 4P_Lyon felt better, but we left this one for those who enjoyed it (At the time I believe there was some odd legal issues around removing content in Steam).

Map Layout.
The Central Victory Point. Being on a land bridge meant holding it required constructed defenses, otherwise you were out in the open with no cover to speak of.
The Southern Victory point near the train station. Fun fact: a Call of Duty 1 mission actually inspired the design of this area.
The Northern Victory point.
One of the enclosed fuel points. In order to access it, you had to destroy part of the fence either with explosives or running a medium sized vehicle through it.
Flanking Hallway - a long stretch of land connecting the northern landmass and the southern. The footbridges prevent any vehicles from crossing.

2P_Achelous River

Achelous River was a bit of an experiment. I wanted to try to design a map around some geometric shapes, so I started with three square islands. Admittingly, while the map artists did their best, this map was a little too close to 'classic RTS map'. It did have another interesting mechanic - bridges connected to the islands, but all large bridges started out destroyed. This meant early game players had a choice: Run down the map to the foot bridges with infantry, or spend time repairing the larger bridges to gain a more direct route.

Map Layout.
The Central Victory Point.
The Northern Victory Point themed around a logging camp.
The Southern Victory Point themed around a ruined church.
One of the footbridges connecting to the islands.
Looking down one of the base areas towards the footbridge in the distance. Note the ruined bridges closer to the HQ.

4P_McGechaen's War

For a map that bears my name, McGechaen's War is fairly generic in terms of CoH maps. It's got Hedgerows, it's got a church and graveyard, it's got some farms and a small village. To be fair, that's most of Normandy anyway, but there wasn't a whole lot here that made it stand out. However, it was one of the more popular 4 player maps perhaps due to all the shot blocking hedgerows. My personal favourite spot was the larger graveyard on the sloping terrain.

In my defense, the name was NOT my idea. One of our producers chose it.

— Ryan
Map Layout.
The Central Victory Point.
The Eastern Victory Point.
The Western Victory Point in amongst a graveyard.
Small village next to the Northern Base.
A small farming hamlet amongst the hedgerows.

4P_Point Du Hoc

What would a WWII game be without a beach landing map? Well, due to the nature of RTS, an actual beach landing skirmish map wouldn't work - one side would be at a severe disadvantage not to mention it would be odd having a base in the ocean. We built Point Du Hoc based around the actual location (Right up to point jutting out from the rocks), gave the beach a lot of tank traps and barbed wire, some trenches along the cliffs and the rest was standard French countryside farms. I especially liked the village down by the beach, something about the way the artists treated this area with the seaweed makes this Pacific Northwest boy feel right at home.

Map Layout.
The Central Victory Point.
The Northern Victory Point.
The Southern Victory Point on the beach, surrounded by 'hedgehog' tank traps.
The fishing village downn by the high tide mark.
Some of the trench defenses along the cliffs.

4P_Drekplaats

One of the driving pitches behind Company of Heroes was "Every battle tells a story." This was something I kept in mind while building Drekplaats. At first glance, it's a swampy map dotted with some crashed aircraft - but what happened here? I'm a big fan of environmental storytelling and this tells a story of a daring night-raid by allied forces. Gliders and downed P49 Thunderbolts suggest airborne attempting to land (or pass) while Germans shot them down with AA guns from the ground. I believe this sort of thing is important even in multiplayer maps where you don't necessarily think about it too much; it seperates a good map from a great map.

Map Layout.
The Central Victory Point.
The Northern Victory Point.
The Southern Victory Point.
A downed P49 Thunderbolt - did the pilot managed to escape safely?
Craters mixed with fuel canisters - did one side attempt to deny the other gas?

6P_Hedgerow Siege

We did something a bit different with Hedgerow Siege. Normally we always have an odd number of Victory Points in a map; the reason is simple, the side who controls the most Victory Points causes the opponent's tickers to count down. If you have an odd number, then tickers are (generally) always counting down. If you have an even, you run the risk of a stalemate - and stalemates in CoH can last hours.

We decided to try putting this to the test in Hedgerow Siege because the map was a 3v3 and was smaller than most. The hope was that this would ensure fighting would be fast and fierce and the two sides wouldn't lock into a stalemate. For the most part it did work, but I do remember a particularly grueling matchup on here that lasted an hour and a half one day.

Map Layout.
The hill at the center of the map. Though there's no Victory Point here (There is one directly north and south of it), it still had a tactical importance as it was a great spot for artillery and reinforcing armies.
A control point near one of the Base areas.
A fuel point and munitions point with a fair bit of defensive cover.
Small Hamlet to the north of the map.
The Central (Southern) Victory Point at the base of the hill.

6P_Hill 331

If I had to pick a favourite map (behind Semois) it would be Hill 331. I love this, not only in terms of something I created but it's also one of my favourites to play on. Who doesn't like King of the Hill, and this map has 3 of those

It's three hills separated with roads between, giving you flanking opportunities to get around them. The central hill has a very "Hamburger Hill" asthetic with lots of bombed out craters and trench walls, barbed wire, etc. The two flanking hills are more intact and at the base of the main hill are several small clusters of houses, perfect for forward bases.

This map got even more fun with the British in Opposing Fronts, as you could now REALLY bunker down on the hills, though competitive players were not big fans of this.

Map Layout.
The Central Victory Point - lots of pre-existing defenses make early fights over this chaotic.
The Eastern Victory Point - note that in contrast to the central point, this is relatively untouched and not a lot of cover.
The Western Victory Point.
One of the roads that passes between the hills - you can block these off with mines and barbed wire, or use them as flanking routes or ways to attack the player bases without going over the hills.
One of two hamlets at the base of the main hill - these are crucial as staging grounds for assaults on the central Victory Point.

6P_Montherme

Montherme is a 3v3, but in all honesty it's a 2v2 + 1v1.

The layout is almost 1:1 the actual geographical area of Montherme, France. If you take the tac map and overlay it over Google maps, it lines up well (with a few additional bridges for balance reasons). I think it has some really interesting terrain we once again wanted Urban but had to settle for ruined urban, got some wide streets for large armies and the whole map slopes up to a hilltop.

The problem is that for each team, two players start on the main section and one player starts on the opposite side of the river. Unfortunately, due to the nature of gameplay, this means the two players in the southern half of the map are going to spend most if not all their time fighting each other over control of the Victory Point in back and forth tug-of-war. So while you're on a team, it doesn't really feel like it.

If I were to go back and re-visit this today, I probably would have either made this a 4 player map, or squished all players together on the main landmass.

Map Layout.
The Central Victory Point.
The Northern Victory Point.
The Southern Victory Point where two players will live for 45 mins - 1 hour.
A lone fuel point in a ruined plaza.
An example of how we had to fake Urban - note that there are a lot of destroyed buildings as well as world objects placed to suggest buildings at one point.

6P_Seine River Docks

This takes the problem of Montherme and really puts it to the extreme. Now we have 3 1v1s.

At the very least, it is unique in CoH - and I think we did a good job at making each island at least somewhat unique, so fighting over them was actually fun. Basically you have three strips of land with bridges connecting them and at the end of each strip is a player. The bridges connecting the landmasses are blocked just enough to prevent light vehicles but not infantry. This means early game you could support your allies if you have the capacity with infantry.

Map Layout.
The eastern island was themed around a railyard. Note the massiv skeleton of a structure in the background suggesting large warehouses at one point.
A small power substation on the central island.
The northern part of the central island had a bit of a lumberyard theme to it.
The western island was theemed around mining and logging. The artists really got creative - those piles of gravel were at one point just greybox shot blockers.
An example of one of the bridges with a gap large enough for infantry, but blocking jeeps/motorcycles.

8P_Montargis Region

So in CoH, we have a territory system - basically there are three points that generate territory: Control, Munitions and Fuel. The latter two generate their related resource and the former only acts as territory connectors. This means that if you want to stop a player from gaining a resource, you can either capture the point or attempt to cut points off from their supply. Montargis really plays with this concept; we have islands of industry scattered around this lightly forested map. Each island contains Munitions or Fuel (or both) but the islands themselves are connected with Control points. This means you can skirt the islands and capture the roads, thus cutting off resources without braving the harder to attack islands.

This is a really fun map to play in a casual environment; I don't think I've ever seen a game played the same twice on it. Fortifying a fuel point means nothing if the opponent just goes around it and unplugs it from your resource income. Lastly, the 5 Victory Points are more or less placed in areas that hold no real strategic value. In fact two of them are way off in the corners of the map, so you have to choose - resources or VPs?

Map Layout.
Central Fuel - two high fuel points in the middle of the map. Very easy to defend, so most teams rush them early. Generally by the end of a match, there's nothing left here but craters and ruins.
My favourite part of the map - a little raised space to the north with only three entrances. If you get here fast enough, you can close those entrances off and really fortify the compound, making it near impossible to assault.
Railyard to the south of the map with the Southern Victory Point.
A power substation.
The Eastern Victory Point.

8P_Route N13

Since we made one 8 player map industrial, it made sense to have one farm. Because you'd have up to 8 players, each with 200-ish units on map, these larger maps needed to be a bit more sparse. Hedgerows and shot blocking copses of trees are cheap, so it stood to reason to do that here.

Route N13 has a defining feature of a single road that runs east-west from one Base location to the other, and another road that runs north-south from the northern corner to the southern corner. Whoever controls these roads has a massive advantage in movement.

Map Layout.
The Central Victory Point att he crossroads where the two main paths meet.
The Northern Victory Point - a really neat little mansion grounds inspired by places like the château of Versailles.
The Southern Victory Point - in the middle of a wet swamp, making it hard to assault.
The two northern most base locations had these small holes plugged with Hedgerows. Hedgerows can be crushed, but only by late game vehicles. This meant that later on in the match, teams could open up shortcuts direct to the Northern Victory Point (rather than having to drive up the long, narrow road that could be covered in mines and AT guns).
Monastary directly beside the Central Victory Point. A key location to hold and upgrade with forward barracks for reinforcement/creation of additional squads.