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Introducing.... Steppes of War: Redesigned Edition (Now available under the name "Steppes of War RE" on EU.)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/U17kF.jpg)
While it's not the first (sorta) original built-from-scratch melee map I have created, it is the first I am willing to share with you guys.
Steppes of War was one of my favourite maps in terms of its appearence from Blizzard but it suffered the crippling issue of just being plain imbalanced. The rush distance was stupidly short and
Originally, I had attempted an unofficial second edition of the map here with one or two minor tweaks but this was met with a lot of understandable criticism (including a point from ESVMonitor) such as:
- Siege Tank contains on the expansion being too easy to exploit due to the only ramp leading to the main area being from the fourth.
- The narrowness of the ramp leading out of the third being holdable with two forcefields and basically (not only encouraging but condoning) three base FFE builds.
- There not being enough attack routes, leading to turtley stalemate games.
Anyway, this reworked version has been re-designed from the ground up with the following features:
- The ramps leading out of the naturals to the centre of the map has been blocked with destructible rocks, thus discouraging the early rush shenanigans that Steppes of War first had.
- A (pretty wide) ramp has been added leading from the third to the map's centre. This was a common criticism with Steppes of War SE. Because of difficulties in switching manmade cliffs back with organic cliffs, this was what made me decide remaking the map was a better and faster idea.
- The corner-most fourth only has one narrow route leading out of it but due to its distance away from the starting location is very vulnerable to drops.
- The other fourth has two ramps (one very large and one medium) leading out of it, making it much more difficult to hold.
- Gold expansions with Rich Vespene Geysers DO exist in the top and bottom of the map but are very difficult to hold due to their location.
- A completely different texture overhaul compared to Steppes of War's original look.
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you shoulda brought the natural in more
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You certainly are making massive improvements in terms of balance (in terms of texturing I would cal it a step backwards) but still you aren't gonna get around the fact that the map is still tiiinnnnyy. It is sooooo small. I just could not imagine a normal game here. Sorry 
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On August 17 2012 11:50 Insomni7 wrote:You certainly are making massive improvements in terms of balance (in terms of texturing I would cal it a step backwards) but still you aren't gonna get around the fact that the map is still tiiinnnnyy. It is sooooo small. I just could not imagine a normal game here. Sorry
Texturing is my massive weak point at the moment. And finding and placing doodads that would turn a map from alright looking to amazing.
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You could put one tank at the watchtower, and siege probably about half the mineral line. It would appear.
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China6331 Posts
Work on your mineral/gas placement a bit, one of the gases at the corner bases is off-center to me. Also it's better making Gold base 6m1hyg
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On August 17 2012 12:09 GDR wrote:
You could put one tank at the watchtower, and siege probably about half the mineral line. It would appear.
Wow, you just raised a really good point there. At first I thought they'd be good for things like checking the 4th, 5th and gold but then there's stuff like this that sidetracks you.
I think one idea will be to remove the top and bottom XNWs and keep the central one.
On August 17 2012 13:25 digmouse wrote:
Work on your mineral/gas placement a bit, one of the gases at the corner bases is off-center to me. Also it's better making Gold base 6m1hyg
Noted. I try to keep them as symmetrical and as close to potential bases as possible but sometimes based on space and layout restrictions it's hard.
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On August 17 2012 13:25 Clbull wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2012 12:09 GDR wrote:
You could put one tank at the watchtower, and siege probably about half the mineral line. It would appear. Wow, you just raised a really good point there. At first I thought they'd be good for things like checking the 4th, 5th and gold but then there's stuff like this that sidetracks you. I think one idea will be to remove the top and bottom XNWs and keep the central one.
I would worry less about the watch tower, and try to take the natual out of siege range, or at least 90% of it. I don't know if it is possible without dramtically altering the map. Steppe's of War has a lot of issues, and by time you fix all of them you'll have your own map that resembles it almost not at all
You need more room behind your mineral lines. There isn't enough room for units to move behind them, and I bet there is a spot where you could drop marines that zerglings couldn't get to.
You could do with adding space pretty much everywhere. I would blow the map up, and just make Steppe's on a larger scale.
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Too many bases way too close to each other in the top left and bottom right. The thirds are actually pretty difficult now, but after that the fourth and fifth are practically free since they're both literally a couple seconds from the third. I agree that in order to work, the whole map needs to be larger.
I think you've inspired me to try my hand at improving Steppes of War myself, since I'm uncreative and don't have any original ideas lol. I actually really like the main/nat/third configuration of the original - it reminds me of Fighting Spirit.
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Sorry but this needs a rethink. Look how close those naturals are, you could throw a stone from one t'other. Once those rocks are broken down it's going to lead to crappy games because before you know what your enemy is doing they will be in your base, killing all your shit. This is a fundamental problem with reducing rush distances with rocks and should be avoided if at all possible. XNT (Xel'Naga Watchtowers) shouldn't cover the main/nat/3rd. You need to consider siege tanks when designing mains/nats especially, players complain about siege tanks parking outside the natural of Tal'Darim because of the exposed cliff and the fact that they need to go quite a long way round to reach them. On this map it would be like that but a million times worse, terran could do a 1base siege tank push and park them at the XNT and win every time. Even without the XNT there they could use medivacs to spot the high ground and zerglings would have to go such a long way round to reach them that by the time they did everything would be dead already. Look at all the competitive SC2 maps and you will see that the nat is usually tucked away. Main/nat/3rd design is the most important part of a map (as it is the bit that gets played the most, once you get that bit sorted you are more free to experiment with the rest. I suggest you take a look at what are considered the best maps and notice common themes between them. Hope that helps.
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The fact that you can siege the natural by placing a unit by the watchtower absolutely needs to be fixed, also the use of cardinal ramps mess up forcefield placement so the fact that your 3rd and 4th's main ramps are cardinal is not good.
also once the rocks are taken out this map still has ridiculously short rush distance, which can produce some very trivial games.
I admire your want to remake this map, but I'm afraid that if this map is going to work it needs so much change that its going to make a whole new map.
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On August 17 2012 20:20 Laertes wrote:I REALLY like the unique design of this map. It may not work in SC2 league, but maybe it would work in Starbow?
This is the first I've heard of Starbow, I am really tempted to try out this mod if it's been uploaded on EU Arcade.
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EPT
