Probabily one of the best things about 1vs1 is that you can flank and encircle the enemy if he isnt paying attention or guarding his flanks.
Bottle necks lead to vire noob river type games.
It requires minimal effort to hold the line an its even more costly to try and break it.
Of course i recognize the playstyle that you like, and it is a beautiful map, but for the most part, the player that has the better support spam wins in maps like these, and it becomes a meat grinder for normal infantry
Yeah, I understand where you're coming from, but a lot of people like Vire River, even though most call it a noob map.
We playtested it today via Tales of Valor, and it was a real meat grinder, but it was really fun. The battle line was going back and forth, back and forth. The suspense was killing me! We made a couple of changes too:
1. A little less concrete guard rails, but not to much less. It's perfect now.
2. I replaced the Bridge with a land bridge, like a lagoon of sorts, that way there's no bridge destroying.
3. We fine tuned the manpower/muni/fuel points, not that that matters in EIR. but the territory lines are PERFECT!
For me, I was surprised at how much the map was playing out like EIR, even though it was vCOH. While I understand about Vire River, real war was more like this. You had battle lines that were fought for very intensely. And because in COH, you don't have the sheer amount of soldiers that a general in the real world would have, if a map is too wide, then your flanks can be too hard to cover with too little troops, or poor micro (i.e. someone who doesn't play RTS's as frequently as a hardcore RTS or EIR player does)
Personally, I like a skinny map, having to push the other person off their position through guerilla tactics: exchanging mortar fire, sniper/soldier rush, and managing the angles with your atg's. The building placements are just right for this too.
Dude, I'm really excited to have you guys play this, because (and I hate to toot my own horn here), it was the most fun I've had on a vCOH match, for both me and the other guy. I hate having to worry about my flank, overly too much, because it becomes more about who can micro back and forth the best, which isn't what real war is about, per say. It's about the macro, and the CHARGE!