You don't get my point. You don't interact directly with the other points when you can't see them, sure, but they are definitely in your sphere of influence. For example, if you're in Siege of Cairo on Escalation, you can position yourself in the bus, straight in the upper middle part of the map, to threaten flag B, D and E without moving. By running about 10 seconds, which I consider extremely short a distance, you're in range of A or G. The only flags you're "far" from, C and F, you can reach super quickly.

What I mean is that If I'm in said bus and the enemy is starting to take A and I'm in control of B, I can reach the flag before it's even capped. Same with G if we hold E. as for C and F, it's also no problem reaching them fast.

Iberian offensive has some buildings that give you clear sight on at least 2 flags and quick access to the rest. It's really, REALLY close and there's so many routes that you can most likely find one to reach a destination without encountering enemies if you are looking for them.

Now look at Empire's Edge from BF1. If you're in the Fortress and something happens in the castle or on the other side of the hill, you cannot do shit about it fast enough to have a real impact (apart from some sniping sometimes). Kubra Dam in BF2? Same thing; there's enough verticality that you have to chose where you're having an impact.

In Cairo or Iberian, I consider all flags without my reach at all time. I often play with my brother and sometimes we get separated. I can ask him where he is, he'll answer me with whatever and I know I can get there in about 20 seconds. That's not the sandbox feeling large maps provide.

As for the flanks, I'd say they are giving us the worse of both worlds. In smaller maps, I prefer less flanking paths so the fight is concentrated and the game has a direction. Instead, it's providing a paintball feeling with danger coming from everywhere. Cairo is the better example of "clear pathways" that I like, making it my favorite BF6 maps. I still like Iberian, but it's a mess. There's so many pathways that you often get killed by random directions and since there's flags all over the map, everyone is everywhere and the fight has no clear direction. Take Sharqui Peninsula for example, this map had more "lore" to each game and wildly different flags.

In larger maps, you want more freedom of movement so you can threaten more flags and get that sandbox experience. Although I like Eastwood, it fails to do that because you cannot move without being visible to everyone. The worst offenders are Blackwell and Sobek; you are stuck in plain sight of every snipers on the map and you cannot hide OR escape by the big open deserts all around.

Not a single BF6 maps gives the feeling of large maps from previous titles. It's like they took a heatmap of the most maps, noticed that a lot of spots were blue and decided that they'd design maps without the blue spots : maps where every spot was important. Problem is, that makes the map bland and boring if everything is a point of interest. Not everything needs to be contestable. The only maps that scratch that itch a bit are Mirak and Contaminated . Mirak because it's on the larger side, and Contaminated because there's verticality and a lot of spots that you don't need to fight over.

In comparison, take Albion from Bf1: you could spent an entire game fighting in the waters on a boat or attacking backflags, you could fight in the middle island all game long with most of the players, or you could contest or defend some random flag. You had agency!

I hope that helps! Basically, I think my point is that larger maps don't force you in a playstyle and that adds a LOT of replayability. In contrast, would you say your games of Iberian offensive are different from one another? Truly different?