Murovanka forest side unbalanced?

[woodman663 1]

Reading here and elsewhere, Murovanka seems to be one of the WoT community's favourite maps, or should I say 'least hated'? At first glance, it seems to be a map where no class is king and no class is useless, which is a rare quality among WoT maps as we all know. Being the relative noob that I am, I often struggle to play well on it, so I went to wotreplays.com and checked out a bunch of ace tanker replays. It's always fun to see different approaches to playing a map by all the different players out there, I love the diversity. But then I noticed something: from south spawn almost no successful medium player ever starts out going forest. The north spawn seems to have some relatively safe positions overlooking the forest and allowing for damage farming, but south doesn't seem to get those.

So then I looked at quantity of ace tanker replays uploaded by spawn position. Turns out tier 9-10 mediums have 38 ace tanker replays uploaded from north spawn, while there are just 18 such a replays from south spawn, that's more than double! Then I looked at every other map in the game, and found out that this 20 replay difference was the biggest of all maps in the game. The closest were the expected offenders Mountain Pass and Mines (south and north favoured, respectively) with a difference of 19 replays between spawns, and then Pilsen at 18 (no idea what's up there, but not the focus of this thread).

What do you folks think, is south spawn horribly disadvanted, at least for mediums? Is forest a death trap or do people just not know how to play it?

[Rexxie 10,753]

Yes, the forest is a deathtrap for south spawn. I say this as someone who played forest exclusively pre-rework when I was a superuni.

Murovanka is one of the three maps that are single handedly annihilate my winrate, and, after checking 1k replays, has the lowest winrate of any game in the map for me. Muro is only slightly less frustrating than Himmels, which went from my best winrate in the game to the 2nd worst after 1.0.

South for me probably wins forest once every ten or so games, and that's usually with me trying to help. It's exceedingly rare. There's just so much working against south spawn there - the sight line are trash, there's barely any hardcover, you can't disengage, you can't push out of it, you can't do anything.

On the other hand, South has an extremely solid base camp. Its just very hard for me to convince myself to do that, so it's still trash for me after 6mo of practice.

[woodman663 1]

My favourite play that I've watched so far that was actually proactive was going 1-line, specifically this position that allowed this player to absolutely murder the enemy heavies. I think with this play south can probably win the 1-line with plenty of time to get back into position to defend their cap from the enemies who went forest.

I am wondering if this guy was 'lucky' or if Murovanka played optimally would turn into an east vs west battle.

[Private_Miros 2,929]

I always play forest when I can North spawn, and almost never play it South spawn. South spawn the best option is to camp the left bottom quarter but maintain vision on the middle and the South.

(I should check with the replay analyzer, but my feeling is Murovanka is one of the maps I win more on than average.)

[Bobi_Kreeg 356]

If you are in a fast tank, you can camp bush at J9 to support your guys in the forest. But only if there are 4-5 tanks going there. Anything less than 4 is usually doomed. Try to make 1-2 free shots on the scouts, they sometimes come down 7 and 8 lines.

If your team is doing well, you can always join them. But if they  start dropping ded, hug red line while driving to base. But you have to be quick. If team dies in forest, and you're still in that bush, you're not gonna make it.

 

It's an easy map to play from South. My biggest problem is slow tanks on North side. Like Jagdpanzer. Too slow for forest, no gun depression for fighting on the hill. If there is arty in the game... Ayayayayaya

 

[ZXrage 1,307]

Of the few times I've won Muro south spawn through the forest, it's because I had an overwhelming numbers advantage and/or I got to smash into it fast enough that I could snowball a win out of it. If the forest fight stops dead in its tracks it usually means we're gonna lose it. This means you have to commit to it hard which isn't ideal for a flex tank like a medium. Unfortunately the winning play here is to hug the redline at the bushes south then retreat to the hills/even more forest SW so you can punish any invaders.

[sohojacques 270]

9 hours ago, woodman663 said:

My favourite play that I've watched so far that was actually proactive was going 1-line, specifically this position that allowed this player to absolutely murder the enemy heavies.

My experience of trying this play for a while: it definitely can win the flank. But it can also leave you in an inescapable cross fire if your pubbies don’t follow your lead and support you. And if you do win the flank pubbies will, no matter how much you beg otherwise, then continue to push towards the enemy base and die in the middle of an open field (instead of falling back and attending to the other flank). So you lose anyway.

[SchnitzelTruck 3,585]

12 hours ago, woodman663 said:

My favourite play that I've watched so far that was actually proactive was going 1-line, specifically this position that allowed this player to absolutely murder the enemy heavies. I think with this play south can probably win the 1-line with plenty of time to get back into position to defend their cap from the enemies who went forest.

I am wondering if this guy was 'lucky' or if Murovanka played optimally would turn into an east vs west battle.

From my experience that guy got lucky. You need good camo, mobility, and pen. No enemies going into the the valley between the two hills/wheelies randomly running across the the hills or allies that instantly die. It's an all or nothing play where you gamble a good game or going to the garage quickly as you have no escape if something goes suboptimal. Once you're there you're stuck until you either win or lose.

[kolni 69,670,761]

15 hours ago, SchnitzelTruck said:

From my experience that guy got lucky. You need good camo, mobility, and pen. No enemies going into the the valley between the two hills/wheelies randomly running across the the hills or allies that instantly die. It's an all or nothing play where you gamble a good game or going to the garage quickly as you have no escape if something goes suboptimal. Once you're there you're stuck until you either win or lose.

No. 1 line has trees you can knock right near building corners and double bush (with hard cover if you get blinded) as their 1 line has to overpeek to shoot you so they get lit by G3 and can't actually attack you - sure you're stuck there for a while but you can easily get out once people stop poking. It's similar to the Ruinberg middle rush in that sense, it's a play that literally makes you pinned but the position is still strong so being pinned isn't really as bad as it looks. (That one actually sucks though, there are ALWAYS better ways to play that map but for weak players it's a strong option since they just need to keep track of two directions to play the game - but for Muro that's not the same as you can actually get out, the pin is MUCH stronger and you have bushes to vision abuse so it takes much longer to deal with you)

It's a play that locks the lane down completely if you know what you're doing (double bushing is a must), problem is if enemy starts moving through middle and into the ditch (you get boxed in) but by that point enough time has passed that I've already dealt my expected damage share and can start trading my HP for damage and end up with a good game. This is all under the presumption that you have enough pen to farm any tank in the game (TVP etc aren't great there, but put a 907 there and it's going to solo win that flank)

 

Entire K-line has so many bushes that you can also kite that push out days on end if it doesn't happen too quickly, and as it's such a passive position you can always run west if forest can't be defended anymore

 

South side has the advantage on the map IMO, but the game revolves around whether north wins forest faster to box south in to bottom west quadrant or not, if yes, north wins but there is so many easy ways to slow that down - or focus on winning west and you are again on even terms

Literally a free good game south spawn for me, north spawn less so as you are forced into trading much sooner to gain ground and that means you open yourself up to retard yolos that end your game - and you need a high HP count to prevent italian/BC/TVP shitters throwing their game away to kill you and you generally need to respect that if you want to stabilize your gameplay quality

 

 

 

[8_Hussars 348]

On 1/5/2021 at 11:58 AM, woodman663 said:

I am wondering if this guy was 'lucky' or if Murovanka played optimally would turn into an east vs west battle.

iyouxin - detailed that spot in a vid.  I like it and have not really had problems getting out.  Go dark, use the buildings to conceal los and you are good.
   

[ProxyCentauri 85]

6 hours ago, 8_Hussars said:

iyouxin - detailed that spot in a vid.  I like it and have not really had problems getting out.  Go dark, use the buildings to conceal los and you are good.
   

I believe it was Felicious who made me aware of this position in another thread. On this account, the only tank I couldnt make it work with there has been of the O-Ni/ O-Ho size. They are so tall that turret is visible over the truck to the left of broken bush at all times== you are never ever really able to go fully dark. Astute enemy artillery can also be a problem. If I click and spawn north I often go A0 with other clickers in the team if artillery is fast,
like a M53/55. I easily splash you both on western and eastern side of that building then.
I have smoked out more than one guy from there with pesky clicking. 

 

[8_Hussars 348]

14 hours ago, ProxyCentauri said:

I believe it was Felicious who made me aware of this position in another thread. On this account, the only tank I couldnt make it work with there has been of the O-Ni/ O-Ho size. They are so tall that turret is visible over the truck to the left of broken bush at all times== you are never ever really able to go fully dark. Astute enemy artillery can also be a problem. If I click and spawn north I often go A0 with other clickers in the team if artillery is fast,
like a M53/55. I easily splash you both on western and eastern side of that building then.
I have smoked out more than one guy from there with pesky clicking.

Agree,  "Astute enemy artillery" clickers can be a problem in that spot but not more so than many other spots.