Serious Question(Not Trolling): Why do so many users love the Syria map so much?

[rfxcasey]

So I was watching some videos the other day and I heard it again as I have many times before, folks gushing over the Syria map. Now, I'm not saying it's a bad map, I just don't understand the apparent overwhelming love for it, especially regarding multiplayer servers. Is it a performance thing? Personally, I prefer Caucuses over it but maybe that's just me. In fact, I think I'd prefer to fly just about anything other than Syria these days. To be honest, Syria was good, as something different, when it first came out, but after flying it for some time I've come to feel it's a bit underwhelming and, quite frankly, boring. Anyone care to share their thoughts?

On a side note, was just looking through the server list after having not flown for about a year. MY GOD, does everyone and their mother run a DCS server? The amount of servers with no one in them at any given time is bizarre, what a waste of electricity.

Edited Tuesday at 06:56 PM by rfxcasey

[d0ppler]

What you mean? 

It's more than 1.6 players in average on each server 

 

I don't know why the Syria map is so popular. Maybe because it got a bit of all features a good map should have? Like some big cities, mountains, sea, rivers, etc.
Personally I also think Caucasus is the best map, but I have a feeling the CC Germany map will be VERY popular once we get some more content and the map gets expanded.

[tikijoetots37]

From someone who plays in VR, with a 4090, 64 GB DDR5 and an I9 14900k, the Syria map just runs miles better than all the other maps. I can crank my settings up higher and it looks Amazing. I have a serious performance drop when on the Iraq and Afghanistan map compared to Syria, Kola is a little better but not much. The Germany map, surprisingly runs quite well, but not as well as Syria. Id assume this even goes for people with lower spec PC's in 2D as well. 

[Beirut]

I prefer other maps than Syria, probably not my Top 5. But it is a very solid map in all regards. Looks good at all altitudes, runs well, and it has lots of detailed objects. Also has a good variety of terrain and countries. It might not do any one thing the best, but it does everything very well.

[Hiob]

54 minutes ago, d0ppler said:

What you mean? 

It's more than 1.6 players in average on each server 

 

I don't know why the Syria map is so popular. Maybe because it got a bit of all features a good map should have? Like some big cities, mountains, sea, rivers, etc.
Personally I also think Caucasus is the best map, but I have a feeling the CC Germany map will be VERY popular once we get some more content and the map gets expanded.

The server count includes all those 1 on 1 sessions between two fly buddies….. Not all are public servers, just not set to private because the slots are limited anyways.

So doesn’t make sense ti average the players on those numbers….

2 hours ago, rfxcasey said:

So I was watching some videos the other day and I heard it again as I have many times before, folks gushing over the Syria map. Now, I'm not saying it's a bad map, I just don't understand the apparent overwhelming love for it, especially regarding multiplayer servers. Is it a performance thing? Personally, I prefer Caucuses over it but maybe that's just me. In fact, I think I'd prefer to fly just about anything other than Syria these days. To be honest, Syria was good, as something different, when it first came out, but after flying it for some time I've come to feel it's a bit underwhelming and, quite frankly, boring. Anyone care to share their thoughts?

On a side note, was just looking through the server list after having not flown for about a year. MY GOD, does everyone and their mother run a DCS server? The amount of servers with no one in them at any given time is bizarre, what a waste of electricity.

I think it has to do with the time it was released. We didn’t have so many great options back then. Just Persian Gulf, Nevada and Caucasus of course. Compared to those maps it was a big leap forward.

[rfxcasey]

2 hours ago, Hiob said:

The server count includes all those 1 on 1 sessions between two fly buddies….. Not all are public servers, just not set to private because the slots are limited anyways.

So doesn’t make sense ti average the players on those numbers….

I think it has to do with the time it was released. We didn’t have so many great options back then. Just Persian Gulf, Nevada and Caucasus of course. Compared to those maps it was a big leap forward.

Yes well, given the limited choices, but was it really THAT much better than Persian Gulf? Maybe because it had more green. I'm glad we have the choices we have today but even with that, Syria just seems to have the players, well, it and Caucuses. Hopefully Cold War Germany starts getting more love, I really enjoy it so far. I see a lot of folks dumping on the Kola map but I really like it. It seems far better than the South Atlantic. Sinai isn't that bad either. I think some folks have gotten a bit spoiled, being a long time flight simmer myself, it's all light years away from what we had for decades. That said, the only map I really think looks rather sub par is the South Atlantic, just from the screen shots I've seen, I don't own it.

[Kang]

I say it's decidedly more diverse than Persian Gulf is, that applies to airfield infrastructure, to built-up areas and very much to landscape. Persian Gulf is a well-done map really, but it struggles slightly from large swathes of its area just not being overly interesting IRL. Well, admittedly opinions might differ on that.

At the end of the day I agree with you that I mostly find myself return to Caucasus, really. Might just be more my climate zone? It also runs the smoothest, I'd say, but buys this with comparable lack of actual landmarks.
Concerning CW Germany, I really enjoy that, but maybe it is because of some performance issues I've had, I mostly end up enjoying flying around on it, and don't really have a lot of missions set there. I honestly can't tell you why otherwise. 

[rfxcasey]

6 minutes ago, Kang said:

I say it's decidedly more diverse than Persian Gulf is, that applies to airfield infrastructure, to built-up areas and very much to landscape. Persian Gulf is a well-done map really, but it struggles slightly from large swathes of its area just not being overly interesting IRL. Well, admittedly opinions might differ on that.

At the end of the day I agree with you that I mostly find myself return to Caucasus, really. Might just be more my climate zone? It also runs the smoothest, I'd say, but buys this with comparable lack of actual landmarks.
Concerning CW Germany, I really enjoy that, but maybe it is because of some performance issues I've had, I mostly end up enjoying flying around on it, and don't really have a lot of missions set there. I honestly can't tell you why otherwise. 

Opinions will vary, but I really don't see that much diversity in Syria. That said, Caucuses isn't exactly diverse either, perhaps it's more of the topography that draws me to it, besides the lush green forests. 

[virgo47]

Syria is a rich map and the places in it just make sense. Of course, as any DCS map, it is sketchy here and there, but much less than most of other maps. It looks good from low and high, maybe not top in both categories, but especially low/mid-low is much better than many other maps - even the modern ones. It rarely shows you blurry textures when you don't expect them.

There are problems, of course... I'm not sure whether the "popcorn" civilian ships are solved, many tiny panels on ground walls very obviously pop into the view (no smooth transition/LOD), but these things aside, it's still a nice to look at, rich map. And it still performs reasonably well (it's more or less exactly between the Caucasus and low-performers such as Marianas and Germany).

[diego999]

It's way better than the other desert maps, and it runs very well. 

[rfxcasey]

3 hours ago, virgo47 said:

Syria is a rich map and the places in it just make sense. Of course, as any DCS map, it is sketchy here and there, but much less than most of other maps. It looks good from low and high, maybe not top in both categories, but especially low/mid-low is much better than many other maps - even the modern ones. It rarely shows you blurry textures when you don't expect them.

There are problems, of course... I'm not sure whether the "popcorn" civilian ships are solved, many tiny panels on ground walls very obviously pop into the view (no smooth transition/LOD), but these things aside, it's still a nice to look at, rich map. And it still performs reasonably well (it's more or less exactly between the Caucasus and low-performers such as Marianas and Germany).

Germany runs great for me so far and I'm pretty much maxed on graphics settings, even have view distant set to extreme. Screen space reflections on too.

Edited Wednesday at 03:10 AM by rfxcasey

[virgo47]

4 hours ago, rfxcasey said:

Germany runs great for me so far and I'm pretty much maxed on graphics settings, even have view distant set to extreme. Screen space reflections on too.

That depends on the card, of course, I'm not bashing Germany, I like it, it just gives less FPS relatively than Caucasus, roughly half FPS depending on the situation. Syria is definitely less demanding.

[draconus]

16 hours ago, rfxcasey said:

To be honest, Syria was good, as something different, when it first came out, but after flying it for some time I've come to feel it's a bit underwhelming and, quite frankly, boring. Anyone care to share their thoughts?

I have a few DLC maps (->sig) but I don't have any favorites. For me it's the mission/campaign and aircraft, not the map, that's most important.

[rfxcasey]

9 hours ago, draconus said:

I have a few DLC maps (->sig) but I don't have any favorites. For me it's the mission/campaign and aircraft, not the map, that's most important.

Well we're discussing maps so, while I appreciate your opinion it's not really relevant here. Or are you trying to learn us all something from up high? Perhaps ED should have just stuck with Caucuses then and called it a day.

Thanks for the ignore list ED!

Edited Wednesday at 08:36 PM by rfxcasey

[d0ppler]

[Beirut]

2 hours ago, rfxcasey said:

Well we're discussing maps so, while I appreciate your opinion it's not really relevant here. Or are you trying to learn us all something from up high? Perhaps ED should have just stuck with Caucuses then and called it a day.

Thanks for the ignore list ED!

 

  Hmmmm...

[Hiob]

2 hours ago, rfxcasey said:

Well we're discussing maps so, while I appreciate your opinion it's not really relevant here. Or are you trying to learn us all something from up high? Perhaps ED should have just stuck with Caucuses then and called it a day.

Thanks for the ignore list ED!

Overreacting much, aren’t we?

[Rudel_chw]

11 hours ago, draconus said:

For me it's the mission/campaign and aircraft, not the map, that's most important.

 

+1 same for me, I truly don't care which map other people use, or what's popular. When I'm starting to edit a new mission series, I simply pick whichever Map strikes my fancy, for example at the moment I'm editing missions for the Mirage 2000 and chose to base them on the Sinai Map, as Egypt is a real user of the M2000 .. it was a close tie with basing them on the Persian Gulf, as the UAE also flies the M2000  

[Yurgon]

On 11/18/2025 at 7:49 PM, rfxcasey said:

Anyone care to share their thoughts?

Personally, I just love the optics and the diversity the map offers. Almost every time I fly there it's this indescribable feeling of "Gee this looks so good!"

You get the desert-like parts of Syria, the full green parts of southern Türkiye and the gradual transition between them in Lebanon and along some of the Mediterranean coast. The terrain has a fine mesh where even in relatively flat areas, there's always something to hind vehicles or (very) low flying aircraft behind, and many areas offer quite some heights.

But most of all it's how the map looks down low for me. The textures just look great, bushes add a sensation of this being actual ground and not a sub-par texture laid on  the bottom, and small details like road signs and railway crossings give it a sensation of being an environment that people actually live in (very much like what we see in the Cold War Germany map as well).

On top of that the cities look really good, with sensible road networks (try driving AI across Tbilisi - there's basically only one road through the Georgian capital!), clear distinction between rural, residential and industrial areas, defined ports and airports, tons of sensible infrastructure, real-life borders and of course dozens if not hundreds of unique objects, some small and hidden, some large and rather obvious.

As DCS maps go, IMHO Syria is a masterpiece.

The Caucasus map (as in "Caucasian", not "Caucuses" as in "plural of Caucus" BTW), old as it is, is still great since the DCS 2.5 overhaul and I do enjoy other maps as well, but none as much as Syria (maybe GCW; that's pretty close to a tie with Syria for me). Obviously this is all very subjective, but I can definitely understand why a lot of servers are running missions on the Syria map.

[rfxcasey]

On 11/19/2025 at 3:50 PM, d0ppler said:

Certain folks, it just gets old after a while.

[Rudel_chw]

9 minutes ago, rfxcasey said:

Certain folks, it just gets old after a while.

 

Sorry to bother you

 

On 11/19/2025 at 5:13 PM, rfxcasey said:

Thanks for the ignore list ED!

 

Agree, will ignore your serious questions from now on. 

[rfxcasey]

On 11/19/2025 at 6:11 PM, Rudel_chw said:

 

+1 same for me, I truly don't care which map other people use, or what's popular. When I'm starting to edit a new mission series, I simply pick whichever Map strikes my fancy, for example at the moment I'm editing missions for the Mirage 2000 and chose to base them on the Sinai Map, as Egypt is a real user of the M2000 .. it was a close tie with basing them on the Persian Gulf, as the UAE also flies the M2000  

If you truly don't care which map other people use then why are you replying to this thread? Just seems some folks can't resist injecting themselves into every discussion with critical insinuations that somehow the topic should have never been discussed in the first place. Or is this the old pile on? It get's old but this is the nature of public forums, one never can seem to escape it. Sorry the question so compelled you to let everyone know you don't care, message received. Just negativity for negativity's sake right?

16 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

Sorry to bother you

 

 

Agree, will ignore your serious questions from now on. 

Please do I will reciprocate. It's always the guys with like 16K forum replies too, wonder why?

Edited Thursday at 11:19 PM by rfxcasey

[Yurgon]

On 11/18/2025 at 7:49 PM, rfxcasey said:

So I was watching some videos the other day and I heard it again as I have many times before, folks gushing over the Syria map. [...]

Anyone care to share their thoughts?

 

On 11/19/2025 at 12:12 PM, draconus said:

[...] For me it's the mission/campaign and aircraft, not the map, that's most important.

 

On 11/20/2025 at 12:11 AM, Rudel_chw said:

+1 same for me, I truly don't care which map other people use, or what's popular. [...]

 

24 minutes ago, rfxcasey said:

If you truly don't care which map other people use then why are you replying to this thread? [...]

Was that a trick question?

Because you asked them to.

[rfxcasey]

24 minutes ago, Yurgon said:

 

 

 

Was that a trick question?

Because you asked them to.

The entire quote was "So I was watching some videos the other day and I heard it again as I have many times before, folks gushing over the Syria map. Now, I'm not saying it's a bad map, I just don't understand the apparent overwhelming love for it, especially regarding multiplayer servers. Is it a performance thing? Personally, I prefer Caucuses over it but maybe that's just me. In fact, I think I'd prefer to fly just about anything other than Syria these days. To be honest, Syria was good, as something different, when it first came out, but after flying it for some time I've come to feel it's a bit underwhelming and, quite frankly, boring. Anyone care to share their thoughts?"

Reading comprehension is a thing, you should look into it.

Oh and for what it's worth Yurgon, you're gone too. See what I did there LOL?

Edited Friday at 12:06 AM by rfxcasey

[Beirut]

1 minute ago, rfxcasey said:

Reading comprehension is a thing, . . . 

 

So is anger management. 

 

Just saying.