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Map preview: (760x760)
![[image loading]](http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/5658/firestormsmall.png)
High quality image (954x954)
Players: 4
Size: 152x152
Money
Main: 8 minerals, 2 gas
Natural: 8 minerals, 2 gas
3rd: 8 minerals, 2 gas
Double-side backdoor expansion: 6 minerals (1000), 2 gas (1500)
Concept
Large map with very special layout. Some special features such as double-side bases (inspired by Outsider) and rocks to main base.
The rocks: Allows alot of damage output from the inside with melee and ranged units but less attacking area from the downside of the ramp. The ramp itself leads to the backdoor expansion. High ground vision is required to attack the rocks.
The backdoor expansion: Can be taken from the inside and the outside. And when its mined out it allows units to pass of course.
Wallins:
The natural ramp can be blocked with 3 rax. The choke between main and natural can be blocked by only 1 forcefield but is unable to wallin with only 1 building. Takes 1 rax and 2 supply depots to full wall in.
Snap Previews
Backdoor expansion
Main to natural choke
Natural and 3rd
Center
Line of sight blocker (los): High grass around the Watch towers.
Watch Tower: 4 located in the center edges.
Destructible debris/rocks: 1 in the backdoor ramp in the main base. 2000hp 3armor.
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Update 1.1
-Removed the low ground cliff in the natural
-Modified the wallin between main to natural so it still takes 3 buildings to wall in but now 1 force field is enough to wall
-3rd base pushed back slightly towards the edges and small cliff added outside of it
-Texture improvements
-Moved main base start location slightly closer to the choke
-Pushed back the natural ramp slightly inwards
-Units can now move behind the watchtowers
-Backdoor expansion mineral changed from 6gold mineral and 2 gas to 6mineral and 2 gas
-Reduced the amount in the minerals from 1500 to 1000 and 2500 to 1500 in the geysers
-Fixed mineral and geyser layouts in the backdoor expansions for proper and balanced ways to pylon jump with probes (takes 1 gas and 1-2pylons on all positions in and out now)
-Changed the rock debris from huge diagonal to standard 6x6
-High ground vision is now needed to attack the destructible rocks in the main
-Mineral and geyser layouts changed on almost every single base for practical reasons
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One thing that immediately comes to mind is mules on the double side bases, they're not exactly the best at picking which side to land on which makes me pretty sad since it's a fun concept 
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On October 01 2011 12:15 Grebliv wrote:One thing that immediately comes to mind is mules on the double side bases, they're not exactly the best at picking which side to land on
yes but thats nothing i can change. players just have to drop the mules on the ground next to the gold patches then click mine with them. its not alot of extra effort so i dont see this as a real issue. its just something players has to remember while playing
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On October 01 2011 12:17 MorroW wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2011 12:15 Grebliv wrote:One thing that immediately comes to mind is mules on the double side bases, they're not exactly the best at picking which side to land on yes but thats nothing i can change. players just have to drop the mules on the ground next to the gold patches then click mine with them. its not alot of extra effort so i dont see this as a real issue. its just something players has to remember while playing
mhm, not much else to do.
Just call it a feature! place the mules next to the minerals or risk throwing down a "scouting mule" 50% of the time :D
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I don't quite see the use in the middle high ground structures. There's essentially one way towards your enemy's main+nat+third and these structures are redundant with that.
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Lovely creative 4p 16 base rotational!! 
I love that you are not afraid to use funky features in your maps!
As Barrin said I think those highground things could be a bit wider, other than that I can see this play out very well and unique.
As someone else said in the other thread, you should probably work together with one of the great artists in this forum cause your sick game knowledge and innovative map concepts + someone's aesthetics skills = perfect maps.
I mean your textures and the basic doodad work is more than solid, but some of the mapmakers here can do wonders in the editor (which obviously also takes very much time and experience you probably don't have).
edit: btw are you in love with debris? Imo rocks would look better again^^
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Tight chokes leading into tight chokes. Both possible 4ths are siegable from highground (only if the bases are on certain side of thou) and can get denied when a single marine is dropped/walks behind the mineral line. And of course, a 2x4 ramp leading into backdoor of main.
But i gotta raise my hat to you for one thing. I did not belive it was possible to make rotationally symmetrical 4p map where cross spots would be the worst possible spawn for zerg, but it seems you have done it. GZ. (because of how easily both 4ths are denied on cross spots. (althou the its kinda easy on other spawns also))
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your Country52797 Posts
The map is too tight and 4-gate friendly, but pretty and creative.
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the map might look narrow and thats understandable. but please take to note this map is actually larger in size of most maps you play and the areas are actually very playable for zerg.
the high ground "structures" in the center are just the right size. zerg just shouldnt engage ON them. just like zergs dont engage in any other tight choke of any map.
the low ground areas are needed to be wider because if they were more narrow and the "structures" were wider then endresult would make both too narrow for zerg.
heres an example of what we are talking about. and i think its actually just fine
![[image loading]](http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/1213/examplexd.png)
remember theres actually so many counterattack paths aswell so if toss just decides to get position above ur gold cliff and just sits there to harass the mineral line. you could just fuck him up with counterattacks or threatening counterattacks so he walks down.
On October 01 2011 21:11 TehTemplar wrote:
The map is 4-gate friendly.
i assume you base that off the backdoor. but to clear things out the natural is just like tal darim even easier to defend the natural because your natural ramp is closer giving you high ground advantage
if he makes a pylon by ur gold and warps in to kill the rocks. you know he need THAT much firepower to actually destroy the rocks in time. which gives you plenty of time to react. you dont actually even need bunkers in front because you know his entire army is stuck in your gold base and cant get out. its nothing like blistering sands where toss could go back and forth ur backdoor and natural. on top of it this ramp in the backdoor is also smaller than blistering sands.
i would laff if someone were to 4gate me and try to go through the backdoor.
another thing zerg and terran can do is when they see their rocks starting to get destroyed at this point they know its coming then they can just go with some units and kill the pylon thats helping warp in units then toss has 2 choises. warp in units on both sides of the gold to defend the pylon and still do the attack through the backdoor or just give up on the pylon. either way he chooses hes basically fucked
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It's 4-gate friendly in PvP because of the lack of ramp at the main. You need a ramp to FF in order to shut down the 4-gate. They can just warp units right into your main from the natural because they have vision of it. You can't even block it with one FF.
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On October 01 2011 22:35 Gfire wrote:
It's 4-gate friendly in PvP because of the lack of ramp at the main. You need a ramp to FF in order to shut down the 4-gate. They can just warp units right into your main from the natural because they have vision of it. You can't even block it with one FF.
i dont think every map should be forced to adapt to it just because blizzard fails on game design. ill leave it to blizzard to make that matchup good because even if u get a ramp its still a matchup most people hate to play and watch
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Yo Morrow, you going to be mapping lots now?
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Modern PvP involving quick stalkers (i.e. three stalker rush and equivalent) would shut down 4gate pretty hard. Unlike Tal'Darim, there is only one way into the natural which means positioning those three stalkers is easy and they won't get pylons on the highground.
However, I am worried about Turtle Terrans - easy three base - one being the gold... While the gold is more exposed tanks should be able to cover it. So hmmm.
Nevertheless, I like it
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United States10351 Posts
This map is very interesting and also very good. I'm glad someone finally got the courage to make a double sided base like outsider. Seriously, I really wanted something like this for a long time now.
20/10. everything looks amazing.
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I love the concept. Double sided bases are super cool, but I wonder if a Terran could somehow get a really early CC, float it to the gold, and drop a lot of MULES that would go uncontested for a while against a Z opponent. It's not a major problem, I just feel that there could possibly be balance issues since this idea is a new concept. End of the day: Super cool, interesting map. Great job.
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I'm excited to see you making maps again MorroW (even if it's only for the TL Map Contest). Here are some of my speculations:
The first thing I noticed on this is the backdoor- it leads to the gold (obviously). I can see many situations where a player will break down the rocks and expand to the gold, which is probably how you intended it to work. However, I can't see any situation in most games where the attacker will try to use the backdoor to attack since the gold would have to be at least partially mined out. Since these side paths will only be used for some minor harassment, there is really only a single path to scout through the middle.
Combined with the tower, your four bases are very easily defended by positioning your army at that central pathway. Here is an image of what I mean: http://i.imgur.com/jbPu7.jpg To me this doesn't necessarily imply imbalance to the map (although a similar issue appears on Shakuras Plateau PvZ)- instead, it just encourages turtling and limits army movement. I'd like to see some extra pathing options available for harassment or engagements.
The second thing I looked at was the gold expansion. It seems that Zerg will have the hardest time defending it vs. Terran and Protoss because bio and tank drops are almost impossible to stop unless you have mutas. To me this expansions seems most viable for Terran since they can lift here without breaking the rocks when they spawn clockwise to the opponent. There is some minor positional imbalance which makes it easier to take the gold without breaking rocks if you spawn counterclockwise.
The third expansion feels extremely open, particularly for Protoss. I'm sure you know about this than I do, but I feel like a lot of the current metagame PvZ balances around getting a third base. If it is too open then Zerg wins- if it is too choked then other match ups become imbalanced. The third here feels a little bit too open- you have to split up your army (or use static defense) to defend it. Here are the two chokes I mean http://i.imgur.com/AnwXj.jpg. Because of this, I feel like Protoss might have a hard time being aggressive unless they are already ahead in the game.
By just moving a ramp back a little bit, I think army movement could improve a lot. Here is a picture: http://i.imgur.com/yOfEG.jpg.
Here is a way to make the third a little bit easier for Protoss to hold http://i.imgur.com/Rip94.jpg. My picture might be a little bit too extreme; maybe the middle choke should be smaller.
The gold might be too easy for Zerg to take when Protoss does a forge FE, like on many other popular maps. You might have to end up putting rocks on the inside of them to prevent this.
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I'm worried about PvZ and TvZ, with T/P walling off their natural, then expanding to the backdoor gold. Think what Cruncher did to IdrA in the TSL3 on the old version of Shakuras. The gold might be a little difficult to defend, but it seems like that's the only vulnerability, and a couple of tanks/ colossi should be able to stop any of the units from Zerg from getting close, and mutas don't seem any more difficult to fend off.
I do absolutely adore the double bases. They're completely viable from either side, and the extra difficulty of keeping them is made up for by them being gold.
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I like the concept of the gold patches that can be mined from both sides and opening up a pathway. That is very unique and is the type of innovation the current melee map pool needs. Siege tanks look like they would be absolutely terrifying in the middle of the map but other than it seems really cool. A nice desert feel to it too though I don't really think of "firestorm" when I look at it.
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EPT
