OpenRA

Great maps are what make a great Openra game. It's not just aethestics like bombardment islands that makes a good map, its the positions of ore. Bad maps have ore scattered too much and you have to move your base too many times. Good maps you only need to build a second base. Ofcourse 'noob-friendly' maps give you all the ore you need from your starting position. I have thought and analyzed what makes 'haos ridges' a 'pro' map. It is because there are 5 center ore patches to fight for. Same thing with Vegetation. Most maps have ore that you don't have to fight for, and then the semi-pro maps like Pressure, Doughnut, Engagemenet, Doubles have 1 ore patch in the middle. In those maps with too much emphasis on the center ore, whoever eats the middle ore patch first wins the game. In Haos since there are 5 patches sometimes eating the center patch doesn't guarantee victory. So while these 'fight-for-the-middle-ore' maps are usually decided early if one side controls the middle early in the game, pro players make the game interesting. Most of my map edits have been 'noob-friendly' with good aesthetics (few exceptions like gulf of grief rich version, and few others) so I am slowly working on a symmetrical map with ore in the center to fight, just need to have the patience for it.

not to mention viable flanking route via the uppermost and bottom path for both east and west side (in team battles) yet the route could be fairly guarded by the nearby players.

Securing those routes are a must in Haos Ridges (3 vs 3), unless you want to get GG-ed by sudden overwhelming attack from the flanks...

But yeah, the central ore is important as well, for the team to secure the central path, but unguarded flank just invite tanya in phase transport / demo truck