Amerish, in my opinion, is THE best map out of the three continents currently provided. There's enough mountains for air to swerve around; enough trees/hills for infantry to advance up; fields an adequate size to limit the amount of tanks. However, on Connery West, hardly anyone plays there. If there ever any battles, it's mainly the TR and NC duking it out. How's it like on everyone else's servers? I think the Amerish population problem contributes to several factors: 1) Indar - The Crown: Now that tech plants have been changed, this is probably the best place to farm Cert points. The areas around the Crown are usually contested, leading to people generally fighting AT the Crown while the opposing factions try to push toward it. 2) Esamir - The Vanu: TR and NC can agree one thing in this continent: It's a Vanu favored continent. Not only that, Esamir shows what happens when vehicles dominate the game. There's not enough air cover for ESFs to fly around when they get missile locked or shot by flak, there's not enough obstacles in between each territory for infantry to safely advance. The fields are SO open and wide giving Magriders the advantage and freedom to strafe as they please. I've checked US West/East/AU servers: It's Vanu owned and they love staying there. 3) Amerish's Bonus: Infantry bonus from Indar is a decent prize since people need to keep resupplying their C4/Nades/Mines etc. Mech bonus from Esamir is just an added bonus for the Vanu due to their heavy reliance on Magriders. The air bonus from Amerish may be less valuable to some. Unless I'm flying in Esamir (which only has +100 air resources even if you have the whole continent), I usually don't run out as fast of air resources as I do with Infantry or Mech resources. That being said, I dont think the air bonus is really a strong factor of what deters people from fighting on the continent, I'm just guessing/putting that out there. 4) Amerish is probably too hilly for the Vanu's Magriders.
In Beta before it was available I expected Amerish to be my favorite map, imagining rough terrain and lots of tree cover and thus great for Infantry. Reality is I find it the least favorable to good Infantry fights (yes Esamir is better), there's not that much cover and the terrain heavily favors Air not Infantry, and as such it is my least favorite map, add in the Vanu factor, and I almost never play there.
Same thing on cobalt. Esamir - Probably number 1 on the population count. Lots of large battles but vanu tends to conquer the map once a day. Indar - TR has 80% of the map, while NC and vanu fight over their corners, and clash near the crossroads. If they ever venture north out in the desert they get hammered by TR fighters and liberators. Amerish - Completely deserted, if anything, NC and TR are going around capping empty bases using fighters or libs. Occasionally the vanu will conquer the map at night when everyone is sleeping.
The VS doesn't like play in Amerish because thier starting location and the surounding geography works against them, and it isn't because Magriders do not have room to maneuver. For one, Vanu has the farthest distance to travel on foot to secure a tech plant. The closest one for them, Heyoka, is halfway between thier base and TR, meaning they are MBT-less for most of the major pushes more than three or four territories out of thier warpgate... and while you may be quick to say NC suffers from the same problem with thier own closest tech plant, the fact is that the NC only has 3 territories between thier warpgate and Mekala to cap, while the VS has take at least *five* very mountainous territories with winding roads to reach thiers. (If you are wonder where TR is in all this, they only have two territories between thier gate and Tumas tech plant, meaning that they have the best position as far as MBT deployment is concerned.) That is the biggest reason, though there are others; there are no open areas out of thier starting region for tanks to go through, only a couple narrow paths. The biggest, easiest to defend base near thier warpgate, Lithcorp Secure Mine, is arguably facing the wrong direction. And so on... You say Easimir favors Vanu more than anyone else (though IMO Indar is better for them as far as resource gain and base locations go; they have no canyons to fight out of like NC does and they're main angle of attack on the Crown is better than TR's) and I say they pay for it on Amerish several times over.
Not only do the TR have a factional advantage with Tumas, there's a bloody straight road to it too. Worse/better, that Chem plant south of Tumas literally sits on the edge of the hex towards Tumas, making it incredibly easy for TR to get back into the fight if they get pushed out of Tumas. I do agree though with the OP. Esamir is much too barren, and any vehicles/air approaching a defended base (Read: Eisa) is going to be spotted a mile away. The base cap points are also ofttimes in jusst plain annoying locations. The Pit is an infantry fight. Crossings (I forget the name, but it's the one near Jaeger's/The Pit whose cap point is the bridge) is a logjam. Jaeger's fist is actually surprisingly good, but it could do more if they removed the anti-vehicle dragon's teeth. Considering maggie's specials are to, well, strafe, it makes them the de facto superior tank on this battleground. It's far harder to juke and jive when there is NO COVER as compared to a maggie on Esamir. Amerish is a barren wasteland, which is a shame really. It has excellent up/down variations and base designs make offense/defense interesting. I don't think Vanu are particularly ill-equipped as their starting three hexes around them are easy to take and hold (And Lithcorp has a really unique base layout that's just amazing to play around in) Instead what happens is usually we might have a good fight at one or two plants, and then steamroll the rest (either TR or NC) And then we come to Indar.... oh Indar. It's like no one ever wants to go north and mess with the TR or something, giving eveyone a threeway at the Crown, Crossroads Watchtower, and Tawrich.....
I've checked several European servers(Lithcorp, Cobalt, Ceres, maybe one two more) and it was same thing there too: NC takes Amerish and holds it with pop advantage, VS takes Esamir and holds it with pop advantage, and the only real action takes place on Indar. SOE simply needs to introduce XP bonus per continent population, not server population, and all continents will be even.
Amerish is still usually TR vs NC, probably because they have roads (with a bit of NC offroading) to their tech plants. Vanu doesn't seem to really have a good path to it. But come on Vanu, you can live without Magriders for one map.
