America Homefront 2.0: A Map Review

As you may have heard, Bytro developers are working on a new version of the America Homefront map. The new map will have rivers, doctrine changes, new nations, and other differences from the OG version. A couple days ago, I joined one of these new maps, and today I will be reviewing the map. I'll share my in-game experiences with the new features and give comments and suggestions regarding them.

Disclaimer: Any opinionated statements in this review are directed towards the map, NOT the developers who created it. This review is NOT a criticism of Bytro or any of its employees or volunteers.

P.S. In this review, I will only be discussing the parts of the map that are different from the OG America Homefront map.

Rivers: Neutral

The addition of Rivers in Call of War has been one of the most suggested features over the years. This map is the first to implement Rivers. I feel that the Rivers, specifically on this map, created an added sense of realism and freshness to the map. However, the way they were introduced seems very odd. For one, the rivers are not continuous, usually having several artificial "land bridges" to connect the provinces on both sides. To me, this shows the necessity of a Bridge structure, one that, when built, can allow land units to cross the river from one side to the other. Maybe this is being planned by Bytro, but just hasn't been created yet. Another thing is, you can't travel down most of the rivers. Apart from a few deltas and small streams, the rivers are largely unsailable, which makes them chiefly a hindrance to land traffic. When I think of rivers being implemented in the game, I think of naval units being able to travel up and down the rivers, bombarding cities and coastal units along the way. Since the rivers are (for the most part) unsailable, this cannot happen. There needs to be a way to allow both land and naval units to utilize the rivers, which can be achieveable by creating Bridges as I mentioned above. But for now, the addition of Rivers is a nice new step in the game, and I'll be excited to see them become traversable.

New/More NPC Nations: Negative

One of the things I liked about the OG America Homefront map was the balanced spread of player and NPC nations. Sure, there were a few areas (namely the Caribbean and Appalachian areas) that had more than their fair share of NPCs, but for the most part the ratio was well balanced, and since most player nations had several land borders, most players found themselves bordering multiple fellow players as well as NPCs. However, in the new map, 4 player nations (East British Colombia, North Dakota, Missouri, and West Mexico) are no longer player nations, dropping the total player count for the map from 50 to 46. The decision to balkanize West Mexico seemed very odd, and in my opinion is one of the worst things about this map. In the OG map, West Mexico bordered 4 player nations and 2 NPCs, which seems fair given that other nations like South Quebec also bordered 4 player nations and 2 NPCs, and they were kept as player nations. Now, instead of the West Mexico player nation, we have a clump of 5 useless 1-city NPCs that serve no other purpose than being a giant K/D farm for the player nations around them. I also don't understand the decision to degrade Missouri and North Dakota to NPC nations; in the OG map, both of these countries bordered 4 other player nations. If you're going to remove the North Dakota player nation, in my view, then you should combine them into Dakota. No need to have two NPC nations there. If they were combined, the resulting nation would be no bigger than the Canadian nations above it. As for Missouri, I can't think of any reasoning behind the choice to remove a player nation in the middle of the map in favor of creating (yet another) useless NPC. I agree with the decision to make East British Colombia an NPC, as W.B.C. also has Alaska (and potentially the Northwest Territories) to the north, and Washington to the south; their forces would be spread too thin. But I think E.B.C. should be a multiple city NPC, as other 2-city NPCs like Louisiana and New Brunswick are way smaller than E.B.C.

Starting Unit Diversity: Positive

I like how the starting units aren't just your boring infantry, anti air and armored car. Now we also get 3 anti tanks (in place of 2 anti air and 1 armored car, if I did the calculations correct). The amount of starting troops on this map is still higher than other balanced maps, but that's not a big deal.

New Nation Colors: Negative

I think the decision to color all NPC nations as shades of grey is not great and makes the map ugly and dull, especially in areas with lots of NPCs.

Doctrine Rebalancing: Neutral

People have complained about the doctrine spread on this map (with most player nations being of the Allied doctrine). This has led to most players who don't like the Allied doctrine to avoid this map. The new America Homefront map comes with significant doctrine changes and balances, most notably the introduction of the Pan-Asian doctrine, which hopes to encourage more players to play this map. I like the idea of adding the Pan-Asian doctrine, as well as adding more Axis and Comintern doctrine nations, but some of the nation choices were pretty odd to me. I'm not a US History expert, so there could be some historical background behind some of these changes, but to me they seem silly. Among the silliest ones are Florida as Pan-Asian, Kansas as Comintern, Manitoba as Axis, both Californias, Northwest Territories, and Ohio as Comintern, and Pennsylvania, Saskatchewan, and South Mexico as Pan-Asian. To me, it seems like the developers just chose random player nations to switch to Pan-Asian. For me, if I had to switch some nations to Pan-Asian, I would pick the ones on the West Coast (i.e. closest to the Orient) like the Californias, Washington, W.B.C., Oregon, etc. Florida as Pan-Asian just seems silly. Also, I noticed most of the NPC nations (apart from the ones NOT in the US or Canada) still retained their Allied doctrine, and none of them were switched to Pan-Asian.

Research Times: Neutral

I don't know why the research times were changed. In the new map, Barracks, Ordnance Foundry, and Tank Plant each take only 5 minutes to build their first level, while the other production buildings remained 30 minutes. (The construction times for higher levels remained the same). While I like the idea of having these buildings be able to be constructed quickly, I think they should standardize the same time across all the production buildings. No need to keep the Aircraft Factory, Naval Base and Secret Lab lagging behind.

Resource Spread for New Nations: Negative

I looked at the resource spread for the new nations, and the spread of resources is not ideal. Some, like the Sonora, have no rural resource-producing provinces at all. Other multi-city NPCs, like E.B.C., have multiple production spots of certain resources but none of others. Missouri, a 3-city NPC which has multiple production spots for Food, Goods, Oil, and Rare Materials, doesn't have a single production spot for Metal.

Well, those are just my opinions. Feel free to comment on my comments (or the map itself). Who knows, maybe a Bytro dev will read this and take heed to my suggestions? We shall see.