divided land map

It's quite glorious to have spent many hours creating something very few will ever see or experience, if only for your own peace of mind. I've just finished such a project and felt inclined to share it with the world. What is it?

It's a map for the game Company of Heroes (a real-time strategy game for the PC - if you haven't tried it, you should). I call it "Divided Land," which is creative and descriptive because the land is actually divided by a huge river. The beauty of the map is that the two footbridges on the sides can be destroyed by engineers in order to force all action to funnel through the center of the map. There's a lot of cover for infantry to sneak around the periphery but the center of the map has some large open pastures which lend themselves well to large-scale battles.

What made designing this map so much fun was the realism for which the game allows. CoH took the crown of best strategy game graphics from Age of Empires III and it makes the game just that much more fun to play. Allow me to show you what I mean:

The center of the left portion (or top, depending on the angle) of the map is dominated by a large church. Its tower offers a great position for a sniper and, when converted to a field headquarters, it can provide an ideal staging position for attacks on two of the three victory points. Its walls are immediately surrounded by munitions, fuel, and strategic points so controlling this one structure can be key.

The right section of the map is home to a large manor and its accompanying hedge maze. The hedge maze isn't just for show, however, because there's a strategic point within its confines. Infantry will have to find their way around the narrow passageways until the battling armies roll out heavy armor which is capable of leveling the thick hedges.

The manor itself is interesting because it can, apparently, act as a field headquarters as soon as it becomes occupied (without the need for an upgrade). It also has some odd special ability but since I don't know what it is, why it exists, or what it does, I won't mention anything else about that. The manor can hold many soldiers but since it's on the edge of the map it does not play as pivotal a role. It is, however, close enough to the third victory point to act as a viable defensive position.

And finally, here's my favorite part of the map - a farm located off to one side, near the river. Its picturesque beauty distracts from the presumed embattled farmer who has holed up inside, his cows dead in his field and his apple orchard going unattended. There's little functional reason for conquering the farm and its idyllic pond, but the large barn could be used as a field headquarters for sending troops down the footbridge and into enemy territory.

There...having said all that makes me feel like the last couple of days were not completely wasted.

Download the map (10 MB)

Installation: view the included ReadMe file. Basically, you just extract all of the files to an "MP" folder created within the "Scenarios" folder, nested within the Company of Heroes directory.

Update 2/12/08:

I've made some changes to the map and re-uploaded it. The biggest change is that it now supports up to six players, rather than the original four. Get the new version here:

Download the map (13 MB)