Which maps do you prefer?

[Garlyle]

So, I got curious again: which maps do you like better - small and simple, or big ones with more things to do, which sometimes you cannot complete perfectly. I know we had big maps which offered little in Fire Emblem history, but probably nobody is interested in those. Personally I like a good challenge, and big maps with side objectives ensures that I don't get bored with them. On the other hand, small maps with challenges still have their charm. So I'll make this poll and let you guys decide.

I am not expecting any votes on Genealogy, but I just added that one there - just to make sure I don't mean big maps by Genealogy standards.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Garlyle

[Maddie]

I personally enjoy the defensive maps the best such as those in Radiant Dawn as it is fun how you can make use of all your troops and even have the option to send a stronger troop to eliminate the boss and end the map prematurely. While it was grating at times I actually really enjoyed the Genealogy maps as there was so much going on at once and it felt like a big scale conflict all occurring at once rather than over a few chapter in other games.

[Humanoid]

I don't read anything but the FEH and 3H subforums so just as well. 😛

I prefer maps on the smallish side, say a benchmark where armoured units could reasonably bait an enemy unit at the end of the first turn. Only having room for one engagement is fine, because typically there's only opportunity for one truly engaging battle per map due to the existence of healing magic and essentially unlimited vulneraries.

Think XCOM1 abduction maps where typically you come in, carefully set up one engagement and make it as clean and lethal as possible, and that'd be pretty much it. However, this relies on there being interesting terrain elements to create chokepoints, or backs-to-the-wall type stands, not the prevailing map design in 3H where essentially both you and the enemy can surround each other at any time as far as layout is concerned.

Maybe a Civilization-style zone-of-control type mechanic might be required to make positioning more important than just physically  blocking and kiting. Actually come to think of it, that already exists in the Obstruct skill in FEH. Maybe it should just be inherent for all melee units. The tradeoff is having to engage a significantly higher number of active enemies than is usual in FE since movement would be much more limited for them. Pulling packs of 3-5 enemies at a time just doesn't make for a "fair" engagement.

[Fabulously Olivier]

None of the above. My favorite maps are defense maps, of which the franchise has tragically few.

 

Let me live out my Battle of Helm's Deep fantasties!

[Flere210]

I would say "gimmickly" maps, of the kind Thracia and conquest have. 

Basically, maps that are about bullshit you can't overcome by throwing an overleveled paladin at it and so you have to adapt to the circumstances.

As a matter of flavour i prefer large maps, but only if they have save point or a Turnwheel, because repeating 80 minutes of gameplay because i forgot about the healer the last turn is not fun.

[Ertrick36]

Depends on the mechanics present.

If there's no option whatsoever to save in the middle of the map or to turn back time so that you don't have to retry an hour's worth of gameplay, I'll opt for smaller maps.

If such options exist, larger maps are okay as long as the maps don't become big slogs where the overall objective is essentially just moving your army around from point A to point B.

Generally speaking, smaller maps are for the best.  Because any other map size, and you only exacerbate the problem of Horse Emblem.

 

And to be clear, when I think of small/big/Genealogy maps, these are what I think of, respectively:

Spoiler

 

Small; not a tiny little rectangle, but also not a long-winding hallway or gigantic field, there's a lot of wiggle room for what you can put in these kinds of maps.  Cavalry are still strong units, but the difference is that other kinds of units can be fairly viable in these maps as well.  In the map on the left, units will come from all sides, and your army will spend most of their time in that little throne room; plenty of places to defend that even the slow-moving armored knights can reach.

Big; roughly twice the size of the "small" maps, you'd probably much rather bring horses and wyverns to these places, yeah?  Sure, there's a lot going on, but usually the ultimate goal is just moving your mass(es) of troops from place to place, or else covering lots of ground with OP troops that can solo hordes of enemies.  In the end, they're actually not all that well thought-out.  I think the devs got way to ambitious with these levels and couldn't figure out how to make the flow of these maps fun.

Genealogy; this is literally the smallest map in the game, I think this is all that really need to be shown.

Good luck trying to make use of Arden here.  Imagine if this was the map where you recruited Gwendolyn.  The four people who defend her and say she's a solid unit would become two, if not zero.  She'd have as much support for her viability as Arran in Mystery Book 2 does.

And yes, I used maps from Blazing Sword for the "small" maps and maps from Binding Blade for the "large" maps; I generally think the former is a better designed game than the latter.

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

Small; not a tiny little rectangle, but also not a long-winding hallway or gigantic field, there's a lot of wiggle room for what you can put in these kinds of maps.  Cavalry are still strong units, but the difference is that other kinds of units can be fairly viable in these maps as well.  In the map on the left, units will come from all sides, and your army will spend most of their time in that little throne room; plenty of places to defend that even the slow-moving armored knights can reach.

Good choices for what you mean, though I'd call Talons Alight small myself.

Good pick for a large in C8 Binding, that map might be exceptionally bad, but we're not judging the average of all of Binding's maps here.

7 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

I'll offer a GBA contrast to this:

Grado Keep. Same color scheme but darker, same great big castle of the big bad. But, there is practically no excessive hallways, unlike Bern. Though trimming Bern down would curtail the fierce throne room clash a little.

12 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

She'd have as much support for her viability as Arran in Mystery Book 2 does.

At least Arran could stack four Starsphere fragments to become sorta awesome, Leo, Libra, Cancer, and Scorpio/Gemini/Aquarius, that'd salvage him.

[Boomhauer007]

I think small maps are generally easier to do more with, it's hard to make big maps anything besides rout or capture. I don't have screenshots, but I think conquest did some interesting things with bigger maps.

Example A is Ignatius paralogue; it's still rout but the added dimension of Ignatius essentially being a sitting duck forces you to race to rescue while simultaneously holding off the force arriving through the forest.

Example B is Percy's paralogue; also still rout but the huge enemy density is balanced by the dragon veins that reward you for grouping them up and allowing one unit to wipe multiple enemies from the map.

Since this is the 3H board, I'll add that this game's big problem is that it's full of small maps that are also unvaried objectives. Only a very small amount of maps force you to approach anything differently (white clouds 11, silver snow 21 come to mind), and almost every single map is trivialized by fliers. It's crazy to think the map design went from conquest to this, it feels like a completely group made them.

[FoxyGrandpa]

14 hours ago, Etheus said:

None of the above. My favorite maps are defense maps, of which the franchise has tragically few.

 

Let me live out my Battle of Helm's Deep fantasties!

Yeah, defense maps are my favorite as well. Chapter 10 in Conquest specifically is one of my favorites because of how many twists it through onto reinforcements. Haven't played Tharacia or Hector Hard Mode, but the defense maps in those games look really fun too. I'm really disappointed with Chapter 12 in this game, since it set itself up to be a defense map, but ended up not delivering and just ended up being a standard "kill the boss" mission.

Outside of defense missions, I'm a fan a big open maps with some difficult to pass through terrain to hinder Cavalry movement and strategically placed reinforcements that give some of the slower units like Armor Knights something to do in the back (no ambush spawns though). Maps in Three houses generally follow this trend, but have a bit too much impassable terrain for infantry and Cavalry units, which is part of the reason that fliers are way too good in this game. 

[Garlyle]

23 hours ago, Etheus said:

None of the above. My favorite maps are defense maps, of which the franchise has tragically few.

 

Let me live out my Battle of Helm's Deep fantasties!

I guess in general we can say that defense maps are small, but challenging by nature. I mean you don't need to defend multiple points and march through the map to reach the key points to defend.

Edited October 4, 2019 by Garlyle

[Fabulously Olivier]

6 minutes ago, Garlyle said:

I guess in general we can say that defense maps are small, but challenging by nature. I mean you don't need to defend multiple points and march through the map to reach the key points to defend.

I suppose. But it is a very different type of map. And my absolute favorite - Elincia's Gambit is rather large with multiple chokepoints.

[KelluPato]

Personally, I love maps that force the player to play well, and/or reward the player for playing well.  For example, the goddess rite of rebirth chapter on hard is a good example of this.  You have to beat the chapter in 25 turns, but that only constitutes killing the frail boss at the back of the map.  Of course, you could just stride sneak strat to get your bosskiller to the boss, or you could get the two chests, the other experience, and even sacrifice a few turns to get the ultra-rare dark seal from challenging the terrifying Death Knight.  However these are optional side-objectives. 

[JAZ_2002]

i don't really care about size as long as long it doesn't bore me and keeps me interested the whole way through