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CD Quarantine Zone BETA(by caustic)This map is obsolete. The general design and concept has been completely revised in the form of Abaddon Blaze.Tileset: Char Map Size: 148x148 Published on: [NA] [EU] [SEA] [KR]+ Show Spoiler [Publishing Legend] +Green means the map is live and up-to-date in the region.
Blue means the map is live in the region but on an outdated version.
Red means the map is not published to the region. Tournaments featured in: + Show Spoiler + CD Quarantine Zone on Liquipedia (click on images to view larger version)![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lkXthl.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OxmvMl.jpg)
Changelog:
+ Show Spoiler +v0.6 BETAGeneral- Updated map settings to classify Quarantine Zone as a melee map in patch 1.5
- Overall just made the map "patch 1.5 ready", so to speak
v0.5 BETAAesthetics- Fixes to lighting due to changes to things such as fog of war in patch 1.5
- Minor aesthetic updates to out of bounds areas
- Fixes to lava caused by update to patch 1.5
v0.4 BETAAesthetics- Bumped up the lighting a bit based on feedback the map was too dark
- Properly generated a lighting map; hopefully that fixes the fog of war being too dark
Layout- Adjusted main base cliffs to reduce the amount of high ground where an overlord can hide, while retaining the reduction of exploitability.
Map Concept:
While not initially intended, this map is partially inspired by Fighting Spirit, and the layout is similar enough that I'd feel quite safe calling this something of a Fighting Spirit port for SC2. The name comes from StarCraft lore, namely the Zerg Quarantine Zone in the Koprulu Sector (Char is located within the zone).
To sum things up, I'm not really happy with the current state of 4-player maps in SC2. They're usually one of the following:
- too big and shut down any aggressive play outside of proxy all-ins/cheese (e.g. Calm before the Storm);
- have too many close proximity and/or "freebie" expansions that degrade the game into passive deathball play (e.g. Calm before the Storm, Protoss on Entombed Valley, Metropolis);
- too small/suffer from "Steppes of War Syndrome" (e.g. Slag Pits when it was still around);
- suffer from some sort of terrain/layout imbalance (e.g. close by air Shattered Temple; main/natural base cliff abuse on Shattered Temple, Antiga Shipyard, Tal'Darim Altar, etc.; having control of Antiga's centre pretty well denies a 4th base for the other player; etc.)
So, I compiled a hypothetical list of items I thought might make for a bad 4-player map, and tried my best to avoid them:
- Too large a map (and/or too many bases)
- Too small a map (i.e. "Steppes of War syndrome")
- Too easy to get a 3-base economy (or greater) safely while sitting back and turtling
- Lack of flanking opportunities in the middle of the map
- Bases/expansions that have an excessive amount of cliff exposure to the centre of the map
- Having any one position on the map (e.g. the centre) have too much weight on map control (i.e. the "Antiga Dilemma", as I call it)
- Lack of alternative 3rd base option on rotationally symmetric maps
- Forcing certain positions to be disabled, because if you have to do that, it likely means it's a poorly designed 4-player map by default, and really, isn't a true 4-player map at all
- Excessively small amount of room to place production
Main Base
+ Show Spoiler +- Very large amount of space, to allow for easier building placement for Terran/Protoss (Terran especially)
- Fair distance to the ramp; with Zerg players having it easier than ever these days to start spreading their creep, forcing a bit of extra effort spreading it between the main/natural helps to scale that back a bit in the early stages of the game, lest they be subject to early drop/air harassment.
- Mineral lines relatively safe in the corners of the map; no possible cliff/ridge exploitation to deny mining.
- Most of the cliff is not exploitable due to terrain features
Basically, I wanted to be the anti-Entombed Valley on this one in terms of size of the main. This also opens up the opportunity for me to experiment with the recent 5-range queen patch; up until now, maps have been mostly balanced with the idea that Zerg won't be advancing their creep very far in the early stages of the game (simply because it will get denied). With that increasingly no longer the case, the map itself is adjusted to help keep early game creep spread in check. It's not major, but starting your first 1 or 2 creep tumours in the main will slow down the outward spread for a short while, and the punishment for not doing so is greatly increased due to the distance between hatcheries.
Natural
+ Show Spoiler +- 3 barracks/gateway/evo chamber-wide choke at the natural, allowing for reasonable FE opportunities for all races. This is offset by the vast size of the main, which can be subject to drop/air harass.
- Not much else to say, pretty safe and standard natural
The natural works heavily in conjunction with the main; where the natural is very small and secure, the main is very large and prone to air-based assault. An offensive player looking to push into the natural would first need to force at least a portion of the defender's troops back into the main to hold off any attack there, then push into the natural choke while the defences are thinned out. For the defender, it also becomes reasonable to take the natural without having to worry about an overwhelming force simply breaking through (unless, of course, you simply defend the choke poorly). The design forces more strategic, multi-pronged aggression.
Third
+ Show Spoiler +- Wide ramp on the defender's side to prevent an aggressive player from indefinitely holding that position and denying the third
- Small ramp toward the centre of the map, making it very easy to defend the location with a small set of key defences
- Sits beside a ridge, allowing for air and drop pressure against an opponent who is too greedy and sparse in their defence, due to the small ramp
- Fair distance away from main/natural by ground, removing the "freebie" aspect of 3-base economy; this is offset by the easy to defend ramp
- Given similar distances, the adjacent corner's third can be taken in the event your usual third is located beside the opponent's natural; this is optional
The basic idea I'm going with here is a third base that is viable to take, given a player with decent positioning and map awareness, but is by no means handed to them on a silver platter. The distance between the natural and the third also means that your main base is not automatically defended by taking the third. My theory is that players will be less inclined to death-ball their army, and if they do, then there will be many opportunities for an opponent to pick them apart. The map layout also allows you to take an alternative third base (e.g. middle left if you spawn top left), forcing the opponent to either go through you, or take the long way around and put his army way out of position.
Additional Bases
+ Show Spoiler +All the above points apply, but you might notice there's no dedicated 4th base; you'd be going into a different corner and taking its main, natural, or third. In other words, your bases are getting more spread out, but in a way that isn't as bad as what we've seen in the past. For example, taking a 4th on Tal'Darim SUCKS. Why? Because if your opponent sends his whole army to kill it, there's no real opportunity for you to punish them for going so far out of position. You can't really trade a 4th for a 3rd, for example, because he'll just keep going into your own 3rd before you can do anything about it, you'll move into his natural in the same fashion, etc. and you have a base trade. Looking at this map, let's assume the following scenario:
You spawn top left. Your opponent spawns top right. Your 4th is the bottom left natural. If he sends his whole army to go kill your 4th, and you're somewhere like in the centre of the map, you can go kill his third and you both have the same-ish walking distance to your natural -- and let's not forget that your reinforcements will already be there to defend anyway. Heck, you could even go run toward his natural choke, split your army in two, send half into the natural and the other half into the third. While his army is on the other side of the map unable to do anything about it, you lose your 4th for his natural and 3rd.
That's theorycraft of course, but the idea is that more spread out, fewer overall bases discourages deathball play. That's how things worked in Brood War; there's no reason it shouldn't work the same in SC2, even given the different units and mechanics. The best way for these kinds of far away bases to be shut down is through harassment, which means supply and resources split away from the main army. It makes for more dynamic, multitask-oriented play -- i.e. more skill is required.
Conclusion:
All in all, I'm hoping that this map has managed to strip out all of the variables which make up a bad 4-player map, and add in some new concepts to make for a more dynamic, less-deathball oriented game. Well, here's to hoping that something can be learned from Brood War maps, anyway.
Contact Info:
Follow me on Twitter @iamcaustic
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Reserved for any generic feedback responses, etc.
Also, I'd greatly appreciate people posting replays of their games on this map. This is a map I really want to take and adjust to perfection if I can, so having visible examples of possible terrain imbalances, flawed map concepts, etc. is super helpful.
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third is a bit too far, providing most of the games will be a 2base push (all in).
I like the concept, but the lack of a closer fourth is kinda problematic. However, the map is beautifully designed.
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i like it, quick question.
what are the rush distances? so zergs have a better idea the time scales they got to amass troops to fight v a slow push (collous/siege tank) due to the extended chokes styles you've got?
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On May 31 2012 06:00 HyDrA_solic wrote:
third is a bit too far, providing most of the games will be a 2base push (all in).
I like the concept, but the lack of a closer fourth is kinda problematic. However, the map is beautifully designed.
I explain the reasoning behind this and the steps taken to avoid 2-base all-ins being the de-facto strat under the "third" and "additional bases" sections, under "Map Concept".  Whether those steps end up being successful or not remains to be seen, though.
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On May 31 2012 06:03 TibblesEvilCat wrote:
i like it, quick question.
what are the rush distances? so zergs have a better idea the time scales they got to amass troops to fight v a slow push (collous/siege tank) due to the extended chokes styles you've got?
I don't have that fancy map analyzer thingy (I own a Mac), and couldn't figure out how to make the Mac port work. T_T The map itself is available publicly and unlocked, so if someone has the ability to do this for me, I'd be ever so grateful! Until then, best answer is to do a vs. AI game and see how long it takes, I suppose.
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Look, Fighting Spirit :D
I think the layout doesn't really work for SC2, the bases end up being too far apart so most people would end up doing some 2 base allin
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I think if you take your 4th you pretty much get a 5th and even a 6th for free. You know, you don´t take a single base but rather a whole chunk of bases.
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On May 31 2012 06:36 Zaphid wrote:
Look, Fighting Spirit :D
I think the layout doesn't really work for SC2, the bases end up being too far apart so most people would end up doing some 2 base allin
I'm also fairly certain we've never had such a far-away third be as defensible as this one (hopefully) should be. Everything SC2 up to this point has seemed to favour having a very open third, which requires them to be closer to your main/nat as you'd need your main army close by to defend it from heavy pressure before it dies. I'm looking to shake up that paradigm with this map.
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This would be an absolute nightmare for playing greedy. You said that the third would be harder to deny, but it's also harder to take. Either way it ends up being about the same time, whether denying it or just not being able to take it in the first place. Also, the whole thing with the creep spread will sort itself out. It's just metagame right now. You asked any terran player if they would be using hellions almost every game against zerg, they would probably have waved you off. Same with the creep spread. Even the spine crawler push had its day soon after beta ended. My point is, after the natural, this map is gonna be very, very hard for zerg to expand and really do much of anything besides turtle, and we all know zerg is terrible at that. All in all this seems like a very hard map to 3hatch or FFE on, and these are two of the biggest builds out there right now. Seems kind of like more of a 2base allin map. Send it to MC, he'll love it, probably get it on the ladder himself lol.
All in all, as a zerg player, this seems very hard for zerg and pretty hard for toss, terran favored map if you ask me. I think most zergs would veto it.
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On May 31 2012 06:59 Psychonian wrote:
This would be an absolute nightmare for playing greedy. You said that the third would be harder to deny, but it's also harder to take. Either way it ends up being about the same time, whether denying it or just not being able to take it in the first place. Also, the whole thing with the creep spread will sort itself out. It's just metagame right now. You asked any terran player if they would be using hellions almost every game against zerg, they would probably have waved you off. Same with the creep spread. Even the spine crawler push had its day soon after beta ended. My point is, after the natural, this map is gonna be very, very hard for zerg to expand and really do much of anything besides turtle, and we all know zerg is terrible at that. All in all this seems like a very hard map to 3hatch or FFE on, and these are two of the biggest builds out there right now. Seems kind of like more of a 2base allin map. Send it to MC, he'll love it, probably get it on the ladder himself lol.
All in all, as a zerg player, this seems very hard for zerg and pretty hard for toss, terran favored map if you ask me. I think most zergs would veto it.
Thanks for the feedback on this. Would you also be able to post the replays? I'd like to see where/how things go wrong for Zerg so I can adjust the map accordingly.
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As I got further into the game, it seemed that it was more and more even the later the game went on. As for replays, (I actually only played against a F!@#ing terrible Medium AI) I'll work on it lol.
EDIT: Umm how would I upload them? Look ^ Kind of a n00b to these particular forums.
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On May 31 2012 07:24 Psychonian wrote:
As I got further into the game, it seemed that it was more and more even the later the game went on. As for replays, (I actually only played against a F!@#ing terrible Medium AI) I'll work on it lol.
EDIT: Umm how would I upload them? Look ^ Kind of a n00b to these particular forums.
No problem! You can use online services like drop.sc to upload your replays, then post the download link here.
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Here we are.
Replay
As I said previously, the game is against a P.O.S. AI.
Ah, I used to be such a big forumer on another forum, feels good to be in forums again :D
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Yay! Blizzard's map pool really needs them lava maps!
Oh a more pessimistic note, I don't like the center Xel Naga watch tower, simply because it reminds me of the Antiga Shipyard center, meaning that if a player controls it properly, the other one cannot do much.
The third is a little far, but I honestly think there's nothing wrong with that.
Look nice esthetically and in general the "holes" of lava in the map make decent obstacles. Looks good.
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On May 31 2012 09:20 sorrowptoss wrote:
Yay! Blizzard's map pool really needs them lava maps!
Oh a more pessimistic note, I don't like the center Xel Naga watch tower, simply because it reminds me of the Antiga Shipyard center, meaning that if a player controls it properly, the other one cannot do much.
The third is a little far, but I honestly think there's nothing wrong with that.
Look nice esthetically and in general the "holes" of lava in the map make decent obstacles. Looks good.
You'll find the centre is much larger here than on Antiga; I make mention of avoiding Antiga Shipyard's centre-map issue in the OP. I call it the "Antiga Dilemma", as the map leaves you with two unreasonable possibilities if your opponent takes claim of the centre: force your opponent back and take the centre for yourself, or try and take a far away fourth that's nearly impossible to defend since you'll be pinned in your own corner by his army (and with no possibility of counter-attack or counter-pressure should he send a small group to shut it down, as you'll be forced to go through his main army to do so).
Thank you very much for the compliments!
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I like the concept of having a further away third with a much tighter choke so it's easier to defend. The main concern there would be about getting creep to the third fast enough, but with the new queen buff that might not only be a non-issue, but a setup like this may even solve some of the potential issues in ZvT right now. I don't know about PvZ, though, with the ability to FF that ramp so easily and secure a third, while the queen buff doesn't really help much in that matchup.
Not sure about taking a third in the opposite direction, either, or if that would work. Might be imba in close positions.
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On June 01 2012 03:08 Gfire wrote:
I like the concept of having a further away third with a much tighter choke so it's easier to defend. The main concern there would be about getting creep to the third fast enough, but with the new queen buff that might not only be a non-issue, but a setup like this may even solve some of the potential issues in ZvT right now. I don't know about PvZ, though, with the ability to FF that ramp so easily and secure a third, while the queen buff doesn't really help much in that matchup.
Not sure about taking a third in the opposite direction, either, or if that would work. Might be imba in close positions.
What I'm mostly hoping in that regard is a bit of a shakeup in overall strategy. FF can hold that ramp very easily, but if you try to be too greedy and rely on FF to skimp out on defence, things like overlord drops and mutalisk harassment can bring a world of pain. This is where static defence comes in; right now most people mineral dump into zealots or lings, but on a map like this it might be smart to dump into cannons and spores/spines to help secure a third, respectively. Definitely a seemingly small change like this to how third bases work can create huge shifts in how the game is played -- and if I have my way, that shift would be toward dispersing the death ball feel of SC2.
In regards to taking a third in the other direction, it works on a positional level; the easiest way to engage a left centre third when player 1 is top left and player 2 is top right (left centre being player 1's third) would be for player 2 to walk all the way down the bottom of the map and move upward, in order to benefit from the larger ramp. If they do that, however, they're putting their army way out of position for an extended period of time, and player 1 could capitalize on that with runbys and counter-attacks.
For example, if player 2 is doing a 2-base timing and looking to deny that third in the manner I described above, player 1 may have the positional option to trade his third for player 2's natural, then move back while player 2 is busy trying to funnel through the tiny choke to get back into the centre of the map. It's a concept that hasn't had enough opportunity to be tried, simply because of the state of current SC2 maps; with thirds being as close and open as they are in comparison to the distance between players, there's no way to do such a trade without it going into an all-out base-trade scenario. Current map layouts practically encourage steamrolling from base to base -- which, by the way, I consider most detrimental to Zerg, who if they should have a poor engagement when defending a base, are likely to end up losing multiple bases and in some cases even the game while they wait for their reinforcements to spawn.
Who knows, if the longer distance/more defendable expansion concept kicks off, we might even see nydus worms see more practical use should Zergs use them like BW nydus canals to defend far away expansions, which opens up the opportunity to also see them used more aggressively outside of current all-ins (i.e. if you have it anyway, why not use it to its fullest potential).
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The deathball is certainly very annoying on other maps. For one thing, this map's pathing is a little odd, so a deathball often splits in two, making it much easier to engage or forcing the other player to micro more. Both of these can eliminate the deathball feeling of Sc2, and this also encourages better positioning. I agree that static defenses would be very good on this map, especially with my earlier mention of pathing. Nydus worms would be very effective as well. With static defenses, you can eliminate a part of a players army, for instance with some cannons on the high ground near the side of a passageway. This would also give you very much map vision so you can maybe keep an observer with your army and then another in his base. The rest of robotics production could go into something like colossi. Nydus worms, I don't know why they aren't used more. They are very useful for defending bases. While one nydus worm is not really going to do much, 2 or 3 at each base could prove to be very, very powerful. It also evens out the warp-in/stim defense. Protoss can warp in a small army, Terrans can stim back, and Zerg can use nydus worms. They can also be used very effectively in offense. For instance, as your army dies facing the enemy's, you can rally your hatcheries into nydus worms, and boom, pretty much instant reinforcements, as opposed to having to walk all the way across the map.
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Hooray, CD Quarantine Zone is now up on Liquipedia. I'm also actively working on doodad aesthetics to polish up the map a bit more.
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Not making it easier for Terran to turtle off of three base. But FS was that back in BW in TvP Terran did and still do sit back off three base against toss and this map is exactly the same lol good work
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On July 03 2012 15:27 BWalma wrote:
Not making it easier for Terran to turtle off of three base. But FS was that back in BW in TvP Terran did and still do sit back off three base against toss and this map is exactly the same lol good work
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
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On July 03 2012 15:41 stormfoxSC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2012 15:27 BWalma wrote:
Not making it easier for Terran to turtle off of three base. But FS was that back in BW in TvP Terran did and still do sit back off three base against toss and this map is exactly the same lol good work I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
Ya lol it does not make much sense. This was when I woke up a 3AM haha. I was saying if you wanted not to encourage three base play by making the map have a hard third to take. I was saying you failed IMO. Because if you look back at Brood War Terran's all they did was three base in till 3/3 maxed Mech army back in BW on FS
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On July 04 2012 07:58 BWalma wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2012 15:41 stormfoxSC wrote:On July 03 2012 15:27 BWalma wrote:
Not making it easier for Terran to turtle off of three base. But FS was that back in BW in TvP Terran did and still do sit back off three base against toss and this map is exactly the same lol good work I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Ya lol it does not make much sense. This was when I woke up a 3AM haha. I was saying if you wanted not to encourage three base play by making the map have a hard third to take. I was saying you failed IMO. Because if you look back at Brood War Terran's all they did was three base in till 3/3 maxed Mech army back in BW on FS
I'm not sure how that comparison has any relevance, given Terrans do not mech TvP in StarCraft 2. The fact of the matter is the units of SC2 cause for very different strategies compared to its predecessor, and this style of map has not been tested in this new environment.
That said, if this style of map does somehow result in a viable 3-base turtle mech TvP strategy, I think that alone would be something incredibly interesting to look at and analyze, given how strategically stagnant (outside of random 1-2 base all-ins) TvP has been for Terran even since the beta.
Finally, I highly encourage you (and everyone) to play-test this map to see if your claims have merit. However, at this time I've yet to receive any TvP games that played out as you predict, and so I'd have to say it's rather pre-mature for you to declare it a failure.
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While this has been the case for a little while now, I forgot to make an update to announce it! You can now play on CD Quarantine Zone with the Starbow Mod! For those of you who love Starbow, hopefully this is exciting news.
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Just played this in the map tournament, It reminds me of the same style maps in 2v2 and 4v4 which means impossible to see anything that's got the maximum fog still on it. If you could fix that please do Also it seems really empty for how massive it is.
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On July 23 2012 11:38 Queequag101 wrote:
Just played this in the map tournament, It reminds me of the same style maps in 2v2 and 4v4 which means impossible to see anything that's got the maximum fog still on it. If you could fix that please do Also it seems really empty for how massive it is.
I'm not sure what you mean, as the map has the standard fog of war. Would you be able to post a screenshot of the difficult vision? Would mean a lot to me. Only thing I can think of off the top of my head is maybe the time of day... I never adjusted it so maybe it's set to night? I'll investigate that.
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The lighting is a bit dark on this map and the textures make it hard to distinguish landmarks like, for example, your main ramp. I think this is what queequag101 means.
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On July 23 2012 12:01 Insomni7 wrote:
The lighting is a bit dark on this map and the textures make it hard to distinguish landmarks like, for example, your main ramp. I think this is what queequag101 means.
Gotcha gotcha. I'll do some tweaking to the lighting and textures to make the map more visually clear. Thanks for the feedback you guys!
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United States10193 Posts
On July 04 2012 07:58 BWalma wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2012 15:41 stormfoxSC wrote:On July 03 2012 15:27 BWalma wrote:
Not making it easier for Terran to turtle off of three base. But FS was that back in BW in TvP Terran did and still do sit back off three base against toss and this map is exactly the same lol good work I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Ya lol it does not make much sense. This was when I woke up a 3AM haha. I was saying if you wanted not to encourage three base play by making the map have a hard third to take. I was saying you failed IMO. Because if you look back at Brood War Terran's all they did was three base in till 3/3 maxed Mech army back in BW on FS
that's protoss's fault for not grabbing more bases and going BeSt style mass gateway so you can quickly remax 200/200 to kill terran mech. and if you sit on 200/200 3/3 as terran, ur gonna lose.
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The lighting is a bit dark on this map and the textures make it hard to distinguish landmarks like, for example, your main ramp. I think this is what queequag101 means.
This is why it's very common to put landing lights and the like next to main ramps and other points of interest.
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New version of the map is live on NA. Changes include lighting updates to alleviate the darkness issue and an adjustment to the main base cliffs.
Thanks for the feedback guys! More is always appreciated.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
I've only just noticed this map thanks to you posting in another thread mentioning it and can I say I love it?
The only thing I'd change is the rocks making it harder to get up to defend your own third (unless that's to stop early attacks?)
I loved Fighting Spirit as Terran and since I mech in all matchups I think this is one of the best maps I've seen made here :o
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This map is awesome. Thank you for trying to push the bounds. I love how you use something so simple and intuitive (smaller ramp on the outside of third) to allow a smaller amount of units to defend it, in theory.
Love the design, the middle, and pretty much everything about this map.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
EDIT: Sorry posted in the wrong thread.
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On August 23 2012 18:26 Qikz wrote:
I've only just noticed this map thanks to you posting in another thread mentioning it and can I say I love it?
The only thing I'd change is the rocks making it harder to get up to defend your own third (unless that's to stop early attacks?)
I loved Fighting Spirit as Terran and since I mech in all matchups I think this is one of the best maps I've seen made here :o
The rocks are indeed to help against earlier attacks, and can be destroyed as the game goes on. They also help defend against roundabout harassment if players spawn horizontally. The rocks in the middle of the map serve a similar function, and can also be destroyed later to facilitate larger pushes and/or establish stronger contains (better concave and all).
Also, thanks for the comments you guys! I really appreciate that you love the map. You can try it out in the StarCraft section of patch 1.5, under custom games. I always enjoy getting replays both for sheer entertainment and as valuable play data.
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EPT
