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I'm not really sure if this is the right forum to put this discussion to, but I was watching a WC3 match - Sky vs Grubby at WCG 2007 and saw that they played a match on Gnoll Wood (or something like that) which was a 6 player map.
This brought an interesting thought on how viable 5/6 player maps are in SC2 for competitive 1v1.
I'd imagine it's different in WC3 because a 5/6 player map gives you bigger space to creep and stuff, and there's less of a need to expand in WC3, so the game won't stretch too long. I'm also not too sure whether there were spawn restrictions (similar to Shakuras Plateau in SC2) on those maps.
But I was wondering whether it were possible for a 5/6 player map to work in SC2. Obviously there might be a need to restrict spawn points, and limit available expansions so the game doesn't drag too long, but has anyone actually tried it?
(I'm not a mapmaker myself, but I thought it might be an interesting idea to discuss).
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Gnoll Wood is the only 5-6 player map used for 1v1 in WC3. It is never used competitively today. The vast majority of 1v1 maps were 2 or 4 player. To me that suggests that this type of map has no merit.
I'd say that large 4 player maps are good enough.
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In Starcraft 1, there were no spawn restrictions so 5/6 player maps would either have a chance of spawning in extremely close positions, or they'd have to be ridiculously large. Not to mention how difficult it is to mirror. In starcraft 2, it's a better possibility with spawn restrictions but mirroring is still a pain.
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![[image loading]](http://classic.battle.net/war3/images/ladder/maps/GnollWood.jpg)
Such an awesome map, especially since you can tower creep the lv 9 golems. It would be really interesting if there was a 5-6 player SC2 map, but just think that's too big for competitive 1v1 SC2.
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No.
Scouting would take way too long, and different spawn positions would drastically change how the map is played. Combine the two, and early game would be largely guess- and luck-based.
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As neo said, Brood War wouldn't work to have 5-6 way symmetrical maps.
In sc2, its possible. You can see this: (5)City of the Damned As you can see, it is possible. Although its not very preferable since it ends up in a small center and a lot of side expos. So basically- its very possible in sc2, but its nearly impossible to do right.
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You can't have perfect mirroring on 5 players map and it will possibly result in small imbalances, that's probably the main problem.
Since you can have restricted spawning positions scouting and too close position won't be a problem, and map size is only what you decide it to be, you can have medium size 5 players map as well as gigantic 2 players maps.
I made a 5 players map, restricting spawning positions to the 2 far positions*, the map is not too big and feel quite legit for competitive play ("fenX Sahara" on EU, feel free to test it and give me your opinion). I didn't get any feedback about it in my map thread  but I've used it once in a tournament I run and the games looked really standard, no problem.
+ Show Spoiler [Map analyzer] +
* if you spawn at 10' your oponent can only be at 3' or at 5'
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It'd be very difficult to make maps with any kind of symmetry with more than four spawn locations that are also interesting and not too tight.
It'd be interesting if they introduced a map with some positional diversity, kind of like Fantasy II from BW or something. The map wasn't amazingly successful, but it'd be fun to see it attempted again in SC2.
Here's Fantasy II:
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/maps/167_Fantasy%20II.jpg)
In any case, to go back on topic, more spawn positions would require a larger map overall so that no two spawn locations would have too short a rush distance. It would also make it much more difficult to guarantee that the map's architecture between all possible spawn locations would be able to feature interesting gameplay.
Sure, you could force spawn locations like in TSL's Shakuras Plateau and Metalopolis, but then why force so many different spawn positions? Why not just add in fewer spawn locations for the sake of making a simpler and probably a less convoluted map?
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EPT![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/1tYp4.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/sBqZZ.jpg)
