CanalZone 2

Description

Canalzone 2 is yet another completely different style of map. In this scenario, teams gain points by how long they control a certain area of the map. In Canalzone 2 there are 5 distinct "zones" to control. To gain control of a zone your team needs to take a flag from your base and bring it to the capture point located at each zone. Your team will gain 1 points for every 30 seconds your flag is held at a zone. The enemy team can take control of your zone by bringing one of their flags to the capture point. As you can imagine, the difficulty of playing the map comes from defending your zones while at the same time capturing the other team's zones.

The real snag in capturing zones is that anyone carrying a flag has their movement speed cut in half. So a scout carrying a flag will only be able to walk as fast as a soldier. What this comes down is that flag runners will need escorts in order to make it to a capture point alive. At the same time, every zone is hotly contested over, so the enemy team will be actively defending the zones they control. The balance your team needs to strike while playing Canalzone 2 is that of dynamically allocating enough forces to protect the zones you control, while attacking and overtaking enemy zones.

What's New?

Where to begin? First of all, this isn't a direct port of Canalzone from TF1, rather a completely new map. As such, I can't compare the two maps directly. There are some obvious game play issues to discuss, though. First off, there are now only 5 capture points (cp's for short), compared to 8 in the old version.

Not only that, but the whole map is symmetric. Symmetric!!! I couldn't believe it when I realized this. I thought that the whole point of the original Canalzone was that the map was purposefully asymmetric to enhance the game play. It is true that there are some balance issues in the old canalzone, but I think the asymmetric aspect of the map really made the map more fun. Balance is more than just making everything equal, and as Kenn put it, sometimes the most unbalanced maps are the most balanced.