[M] 6m Devolution by Barrin

On March 21 2012 06:46 Natespank wrote:
First impressions:

1- awesome awesome awesome


critique:
2- gas steals.

Specifically, in PvP, a protoss who gas steals and follows up with a 4 gate would be terrifying, or a terran gas stealing a protoss and then 5rax marine rushing him. The only way to defend such strategies is to use gas units.

Might be fine, just saying, it's the first thing that comes to mind for me

On March 21 2012 09:04 ChristianS wrote:
I thought you were advocating for 6m/2g? 8m may be replaceable in Starcraft II, but 2g is essential to pretty much everything in the development of SCII up to this point. And honestly, 2g generates a lot of interesting strategy that wasn't present in brood war. In your other article you were advocating for 7m/2g shifting towards 6m/2g to reduce the suddenness of transition, and I'm all in favor, but a sudden jump to 6m/1g just won't happen (and maybe shouldn't). Pro players won't do such a drastic change just to play in tournaments that won't switch to them, and tournaments won't switch and alienate all their players that practiced for 8m/2g. A tournament might consider announcing 7m/2g beforehand and then playing on it (a 12.5% reduction in minerals), maybe transitioning to 6m/2g later (a 25% reduction in minerals), but I don't see any transition to 1g (a 50% reduction in gas!) in the near future.

tl;dr:
IMHO, 7m2g and/or 6m2g are both a viable change in the future and a good change in the future. 7m1g or 6m1g are both not viable and not necessarily good for the game. All the same, good luck to you, Barrin, as I'm certain you know more about map-making than me.

On March 21 2012 07:57 EatThePath wrote:


3 gate is the max amount of production you can do on 1 base. I'm not sure what the best response would be for a gas steal, but I have a feeling it might be expand with cannons. Really you shouldn't let it happen because it's so important.

Terran couldn't steal effectively because you can kill the scv as it builds, but it'd be worth testing as a cheese option. You should go try it out! So many things to check. ;D

Oh, and Barrin, the version of 6m1hyg Devolution up now has a doodad malfunction at the natural in the bottom left. There's a giant floating mar sara dead tree. It's spooky! And also distracting.

On March 21 2012 08:41 emc wrote:


I'm going to gas steal every game as zerg, see how fun it is

On March 21 2012 15:18 EatThePath wrote:


Sounds good, I'll be FFEing.

About 1hyg vs 2g, I don't think it's possible to choose yet. If you maintain 6m, 2g skews the game a lot farther towards tech based. Part of the appeal for me thus far in 6m1hyg is that I feel like I'm still in the development stages of the game with a saturated natural base. I need a 3rd before I can start any freewheeling multi-teching. (As protoss I should say.) This does put protoss in a pinch sometimes, but maybe there are ways to adjust how you play the matchups?

I'll definitely be willing to test 6m2g as well to compare, but I don't like it on paper. If you were going that direction, I'd prefer something like 7m2g with geysers that require 3.5 harvesters to saturate, and some distance mineral patches (5 squares) that require 3 harvesters to saturate.

I can imagine an SC2 landscape with maps that vary these things somewhat freely in order to play up certain map features later in the game further out on the map, or just to adjust how the early game is played. I think it's completely reasonable to expect competitive players to know how to open off 6m1hyg, 6m2g, and 7m2g, with a natural that could be any of those as well. This style of mapping creates a higher burden of game knowledge to create balanced maps without getting lucky, but the variation it would provide would be great for spectators! And the dimension of innovation would be much more highly rewarded in a pro player, something I've always missed, coming from the competitive MTG scene.

Oh, I also wanted to mention that extra geysers covered with rocks might be a useful way to modulate potential vespene income. Of course this would be much harder to use and unelegant for the main base. The starting vespene situation is probably the most important for basic balance.

On March 18 2012 11:57 whatthefat wrote:
Having watched and played several games on these maps yesterday and today, I'd like to summarize my thoughts at this stage.

At my level (high diamond), I feel like the character of the game is not immensely different. I mean, the timings are wonky and it takes much longer to reach max, but it's still essentially still one large army slamming into another at some point.

However, I did get to watch some master level games yesterday, and I've included a battle report below for a particularly entertaining game between BlingLing (T) and babysimba (Z) that I think showcases the potential for this change. (Thanks to both players for such a fun game!)

babysimba opened with a 15 hatch, while BlingLing went 14 CC.



On spotting the CC, babysimba made the excellent decision to take a third before pool.



With both players beginning to macro up, BlingLing pushed into the Zerg natural with a handful of marines off two barracks. With some good marine control, he managed to inflict some minor damage, killing a morphing spine, killing 4 lings, and getting home with his damaged marines. However, he did not spot the Zerg third.



BlingLing teched to siege tanks and threw down two more barracks. He also added a couple of missile turrets, possibly fearing 8 minute mutas (which are quite frightening if Zerg takes both high yield gases quickly). However, babysimba had delayed Lair in favor of droning and amassing lings. With map control established, babysimba teched to infestors, while Blingling took the gasless third.

With a medivac out, BlingLing pushed across the map.



Baneling nest was complete, but not baneling speed. babysimba did a reasonable job of cleaning up the pressure, but some cute drop micro and excellent tank spread ensured the Terran forces did some damage.



While this engagement was playing out, both players had taken their fourth bases, and Zerg had started a Hive, and amassed a good group of infestors. At the 15 minute mark, both players were around 130 supply. You might note this is a little low given the appearance of the minimap, with both players comfortably on 4 bases, Zerg on Hive tech, and Terran taking a fifth. This is of course a direct effect of the reduced mineral patches.



At this point, things started to get very interesting. Both players began to split their main army into small hit squads, each trying to take advantage of the other's distributed bases. Simultaneous engagements occurred in the chokepoint to Terran's natural, and along the bottom path of the map.



In the meantime, BlingLing snuck 4 marines into the Zerg third to pick off creep tumors, while babysimba pushed back into the Terran chokepoint with a group of lings.



With the dust barely settled on that skirmish, another began below, with babysimba using some clever burrow tactics to ambush and fungal a group of marines.



At the 18 minute mark, Zerg decided it was time to spend his huge bank, and dumped it into 7 ultralisks, bringing both players to about 150 supply.

Terran next attempted a drop on the Zerg fifth. It was quickly spotted, but the distraction allowed BlingLing to move into a strong highground position, cutting off Zerg's sixth. Considering the position too tenuous, he unsieged and maneuvered this force to rejoin his main army.



Terran's macro was now starting to pull slightly ahead, with a supply lead of about 30. That might sound really bad for a Zerg in a ZvT. But in this reduced resource version of the game, falling behind in supply does not seem to be quite as grim. From my limited experience, there seem to be more opportunities to pull oneself back into the game now that the macro moves at along at a more reasonable pace.

With both armies jockeying for position in the middle, Terran dropped the Zerg seventh and sent another two hit squads to simultaneously attack Zerg's third and sixth bases. As these distractions pulled the Zerg forces away from the center, Terran pushed ever closer to the Zerg natural.



As Zerg cleared up the multiple harassments, Terran attempted to reposition his army to higher ground. But the Zerg forces were able to intercept before the tanks were sieged.



While Zerg was able to take out several siege tanks, the ultralisks had insufficient support and melted under the marine fire.

Terran immediately sent a small group to deny any further attempts to expand to the top of the map, while pulling back his main force to consolidate his lead.



In response, Zerg counter-attacked Terran's south-most base.



Without infestor support, Terran's marines were able to clean up the attack, with Zerg trading reasonably.



Zerg's economy was now crippled, with Terran taking an annoying position behind the mineral line at Zerg's fifth base. However, Terran was down to 34 SCVs, and Zerg had cleverly blocked Terran's main mining base with a burrowed zergling.




Seeing a chance to equalize, Zerg pushed through the center with ultralisks supported by infestors, reducing both players to 140 supply.



Both players were fighting valiantly, seemingly able to just continue fighting indefinitely all over the map. The amount of action had naturally disrupted Zerg's macro, however, and he did not have enough larvae to spend his bank of 1300 minerals and 1300 gas before the next engagement.

With the game now in a delicate state of balance, BlingLing was able to clear up the remaining ultralisks, and catch the vital infestors out of position before they could escape.



With BlingLing in a commanding position, babysimba was forced to gg.



Those of us observing were extremely impressed, and grateful to the players for putting on such a good show.

On March 22 2012 04:46 Barrin wrote:
btw, whatthefat did a really nice battle report on this map a few days ago

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=321242&currentpage=34#661

On March 21 2012 09:54 ChristianS wrote:


6m1g= 6 minerals, 1 gas.
6m1hyg= 6 minerals, 1 high yield gas.
This is very much just straight 1 gas. Also, much of the strategy of SC2 is built around the principle of how many gas geysers you get at what time, since this produces more options for managing economies, and thus, more varied and diverse gameplay options. With 1 gas per base, every race is pretty much constantly starved for gas, resulting in much less interesting gameplay. And with 1 high yield gas per base, there's pretty much a choice between gasless play and very gas-heavy play, since the middle options have been removed. More options = more interesting gameplay, which is why 2g was put in the game in the first place.

On March 26 2012 01:38 monitor wrote:
Just going to bring this up, something I posted in 6m Outcome's thread:

---

The problem I have with 6m Devolution and 6m Outcome is that there is really only one place to move a large army. And that is a straight path through the middle. Imo terrible, terrible map design

+ Show Spoiler +

The red line is the only place to move a large army (especially prominent for Zerg). The blue lines show how many chokes there are around the map, and how it prevents any large army from moving through.

I think what you *intended* to do was prevent large-scale army balling, but instead it just means that almost every engagement is going to happen right in the middle of the map. This just leads to boring gameplay and not a lot of action around the outside of the map other than some small harassment.

On March 26 2012 08:19 Barrin wrote:+ Show Spoiler +

Thanks Johanaz :D

(updated OP)