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Last update for (4)Spring : 2008, 04, 15 04:59
| mapID | Mapname (comments) | map size | Author | Rating | Type | play type | | 2925 |  (4)Spring | 128*128 | Lancet | 1.7 | experimental | ground |
The map has been rated 91 times and got a total of 157 points |
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| Lancet | | | OK, long post follows!
Here is my map for the KOTH competition. Please remember that the map was not supposed to be symmetrical or even have rotational symmetry.
The map is divided into 4 quadrants which I will call the red, teal, purple and blue quadrants after the color of the starting locations. The red and purple quadrants are connected to the adjacent low-ground quadrants by 2 ramps (large and small). Each quadrant has 3 gas and 2 minonlies.
I have tried to give each quadrant a set of strengths and vulnerabilities that will hopefully balance each other out but, positionally speaking, the map is imbalanced and its layout is very complex.
Red and purple obviously have the advantage of the high ground if they control their quadrant but the minonly right next to their nats (the first minonly) is very vulnerable to attacks from the adjacent low ground. Purple's first minonly can be accessed directly from the nat while red has to venture into the space outside its nat to gain access to its first minonly. Teal and blue have in-base first minonlies where the mineral clumps and a CC/hatch/nexus there are not tankable from the land across the water. Of course because of this teal and blue's first minonly can be used for drops to gain direct access to the main (and in the case of purple to the the nat) whereas that is not the case for red.
Terran can wall in at all locations (red and teal with one rax, blue with rax and depot and purple with rax and 2 depots). The width of the nat's exit is approximately red>purple>teal=blue.
The nats can be attacked from an adjacent high ground (blue and purple) or from land that is level with the nats in the case of teal (an island) or red (an outcrop of land). Blue and teal's second minonly can also be attacked from the same places while red and purple's second minonly do not have this problem. The high-main low-nat setup of purple probably makes it the easiest position to defend but the low ground corridor across its quadrant may create some problems that red does not have to deal with having only a linear set up for the exit of troops from its main. Alternatively, however, this corridor provides a second route of exit from the nat which red doesn't have.
Third gas for purple and red is sheltered on the high ground (the enemy has to go up a ramp to get there) although purple's can be attacked from behind if he does not control the area of the low-ground corridor behind his third gas (alternatively the rim of purple's main is not tankable from the third gas and adjacent areas). Third gas for teal is exposed (has open land in front of it but the land is buildable and can be defended from air attacks from the main and in-base minonly too) while blue's third gas is on high ground but in a tight space that is vulnerable to air attacks from behind and to land attacks from the side.
The areas of the blue and teal quadrants towards the center are open with room for flanking although a small outpost (blue) and a small lake (teal) tighten up a little the area next to the exit of the nat. On the other hand, the red and purple quadrants have tighter spaces.
The map lends itself to many proxy building and "hidden expo" strategies.
Let me know what you think of the map and how I can improve it. I can play around with some of the variables I outlined above to make a position stronger or weaker in case you think that a particular race will be too strong starting out from a given quadrant.
| | Testbug | | | | i like it :) | | MorroW | | | seems alot better than fantasy at least ^^ and its better than i would have done.
(this is not balanced every time every game...)
i think purples main should be whiter
modified by MorroW | | Starparty | | | | i like it too, but reduce the minerals, there is an awful lot of expansions atm. | | Nightmarjoo | | | it's ok
main size needs tested since there isn't really any other good building space =/
there's a lot of funky tiles
Purple looks like he's getting a shitty deal. The path outside of his nat looks so tight, and then he has to march uphill on top of that, up two ramps. Then the path by the ramp near his lowground min only is crazy tight, with just two tight chokes, so he really can't use reliably use that path for his army, and the path/ramps for the other path isn't that open either.
I'd move purple's nat ramp over a bit towards the main a bit more.
Teal's pretty well off, as is red.
I don't think the map needs recuded minerals, I think it's fine personally, but a little reduction wouldn't hurt I spose.
Overall the map is ok. Hard to criticize the map when it's sposed to be weird as fuck lol. | | Excalibur | | | | Well, its one of the best looking asymmetric maps ive ever seen. Nice work, GL on KOTH. | | Rye | | | | Blue's nat looks insane. Nice map. | | spinesheath | | | Now this map should be allowed to carry the name Fantasy!
Well, you could go even crazier, making it way more random, but it's kinda hard to balance it at least a little bit ;) | | PsychoTemplar | | | | Looks really tight :X You should do some PvT/ZvT/ZvP testing. | | Lancet | | | Thanks for your comments.
Minerals-I thought of reducing the number of expos but their location is part of the (intended) balancing equation. If I get rid of the second minonlies I will mess up the map.
Main size-Purple has the biggest main, it's 4.9% bigger than the smallest which is blue's main with the other two being in between these two (I determined this by printing the map, cutting out the pieces corresponding to the mains and weighing them in a friend's lab balance).
Purple-I will move the second minonly and adjacent ramp closer to the main to enlarge the width of the lateral access to the third gas. I will enlarge the big ramps leading down into purple's low ground corridor to make it easier for purple to attack an army holding the high ground. I thought about making the small ramps wider but, by the same token, the wider the ramps the less easy it is to attack the high ground so I don't know about this, what do you all think?
Tight gameplay- In this map it is important for red and purple to go seize their high ground as that is their potential advantage. The wide ramps and passage in the center of the map plus the open areas behind them have a lot of space for maneuvering. It is the higher ground that is tighter.
I am not a very good player, I have played this map many times with the 3 races but against the comp and I have fixed a bunch of problems that emerged while I did this. I would be thankful if any of you more competent players out there, when you have some time, could play the map and upload a replay.
: ^ )
| | Nightmarjoo | | | "Main size-Purple has the biggest main, it's 4.9% bigger than the smallest which is blue's main with the other two being in between these two (I determined this by printing the map, cutting out the pieces corresponding to the mains and weighing them in a friend's lab balance)"
ROFL
also, that might not necessarily be accurate anyway. Most accurate way is to measure how much building space is available in tiles. Or you can estimate by filling in the area as efficiently as possible with barracks, and compare how many you can fit in each one. | | Lancet | | | | True, will do. However, being the mains in the corners you can stack up the barracks in a nice little line next to the border away from the center of the main. | | MorroW | | | gj lancet this is good
is that bridge style new?
can u make the ramp look better too? | | Lancet | | | | OK, widened purple's exit ramps from the low ground corridor as well as the exit from the nat. This way it will be harder for an attacking army to "park" itself at the top of the ramps. I will get back later to you guys regarding the base size for buildings. | | cWn)iQ.Superi0r | | | | Mr.Lancet u really have some great maping skills | | LostTampon | | | nice map, like this one too;
but i also think there are way too many expos
would be nice if you could give at least one expo per player the chop | | SiaBBo | | | | Bah, again imba maps but it's pretty good looking. | | Lancet | | | Thanks!
Lost Tampon, yeah that comment has been made but please read my original post regarding the expos. Depending of the starting position the first and second expos have a unique vulnerability or strength that fits into the overall balance equation of each quadrant. If I delete say the second expos I will mess up things. Also, I have designed the second expos in such a way that they don't interfere with pathing so that's not a problem.
As to the mains I can fit about 16 depots in a double layer next to the border of the bases plus 6 factories, 2 starports and the rest of the terran buildings. There are also amny other nooks and cranies in the bases and outside where you can fit additional depots or buildings. | | Rye | | | This map fondly reminds me of those days I spent raiding human villages back when I played WarCraft II as Orcs. :O
<3 the map. Anybody got replays?
modified by Rye | | Nightmarjoo | | | bad rep, but I don't really like the map anymore from a gameplay perspective.
The nats are too open, except purple's is ok; the area past purple's nat is too tight though.
Too many expos =/ Just a huge swarm of them. So hard to scout everything, just rediculous. You can't play properly because it's so easy for an opponent to sneak an expo.
I think if you removed the third base, the map would be a lot more playable, though it would remove a lot of the map's uniqueness =/ Alternatively, you could remove the 2nd mineral only. | | Lancet | | | Yes purple's is the most defensible, least open main/nat but then it has the corridor, the ramps and the high-ground tight areas beyond, this is part of the strenghs and vulnerabilities I gave each quadrant.
As to the expos, yeah I realize some people may not like that but the map is meant to be that way. It's supposed to allow hidden expo and proxy building strategies, I mentioned that above. So yeah your opponent can "sneak" an expo so you should try and do the same!
But frankly, many 4 player 8 gas (main & nat) maps get criticized because third gas is "too far away". Some mappers then include two additional gas expos (total 10) but 12 gas although not common is not unheard off.
I also mentioned that I used the minonly expos as part of the strenghs and vulnerabilities balancing, if I change it I screw it up. | | Rye | | | | I like how each player has their own little "realm" to play with... | | illisid | | | so far this plays nicely. ive only played with comps though... so ill need to play with people first.
modified by illisid
OH MY GOD have you ever seen a computer fast expand before? i didnt know they could...
modified by illisid | | Lancet | | | OK these are some comments by Templar regarding my map:
"The bases basically have a pretty obvious ranking. Blue's is the worst, because his natural can be dropped from a cliff he can't see, Teal's is second worst because he starts on low ground too, but at least he can see the units on the drop spot by his natural, Red is second best because he starts on high ground AND he can see his natural's drop spot, and purple is simply godly because his main's cliff overlooks his natural, he can see his drop spot from his min only, which is extremely well protected (for all intensive purposes, as well as Blue and Teal's indoor min onlys), and he's going to win a race to the middle high ground when he needs to. Apart from that, much of the map is very tight, which is a race advantage in 3 of 9 match-ups (disadvantage in 3, meaningless in mirrors)."
Yes red and purple with a cannon/turret in the minonly's edge can see most of the drop zone and so can teal with a cannon/turret in the nat's edge but that is not the case with blue. But this hardly means that drops won't happen or that, in the case of blue, can't be defended against. In any case the bases cannot just be classified as worst or best just merely based on this fact. For example consider blue's third gas (high ground, two chokes, choke next to nat wider). Also, red and purple's first minonlies are not well protected at all, they are extremely vulnerable to attacks from the adjacent low ground and air harass plus purple has the low ground corridor, the ramps and the longest main to third gas distance. Now it's true purple's nat is very defensible, his position is not bad but hardly "Godly". There are areas of the map that are "tight" but others that are more open, in any case while tightness favors terran the ability to rapidly create hidden expos and defend them with cannons and sunkens favors zerg and toss.
I do not want to imply that I have balanced the bases perfectly against one another but I do think it is not a pushover.
| | PsychoTemplar | | | | Sure. I'm just saying which bases I would prefer, and why, as a player. |
| Replays
- - RaU-Ancalagon vs  ReallyanusUb(1on1, 1.15)
-- illisid vs comp(1on1, 1.16)
Upload replay for this map |
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