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Red Barons!
by Fatam
version 1.0 [NA]
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pp835.jpg)
Flat overview with bounds (the dark blue not the yellow) + watchtower ranges:
+ Show Spoiler +
Statistics:
+ Show Spoiler +Playable area: 124x160
Mains: 29-30 CCs, but the large natural makes up for any lack of building space.
Rush distance - nat-to-nat: for small units - 85, for larger units (until rocks are killed) - 91 (the same as Ohana)
# of bases: ten 8m2g, two 5hym2g
# of rocks: 4
# of watchtowers: 2
Map Features:
+ Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler + The main is exposed to airspace on 3 sides. It has a little room for blink stalkers to jump in on the side, but a ton. + Show Spoiler + The natural has two entrances. The back entrance has rocks blocking the quickest way to the third but you can go around before the rocks are killed if need be. + Show Spoiler + The third is probably the most important feature of the map. Tucked away behind your main and natural, it is the true definition of expanding away from your opponent + Show Spoiler +The rocks have to be taken down to properly defend it, but a zerg could definitely send a drone around to plant the hatch down with plans to take down the rocks before the P arrives. It would be extra smart in this case to overlord scout there first for cannon or pylon shenanigans. . There is a small "landing zone" to the SW of the third + Show Spoiler +This allows a full unload of units + stim-in while being healed, or full unload + extra warp-in, if the area is not scouted. . It is possible to wall-off the path down to the third so that you only have to worry about your front natural entrance. + Show Spoiler + The fourth is fairly vulnerable, to counteract the extremely safe 3rd. It has wide ramps on either side of it leading to the high ground immediately above it. The space above the 4th is one of the most powerful positions on the map, as it also controls the main ramp to the 5th. + Show Spoiler + The fifth has one 2 FF ramp leading down to the space I just mentioned, and a 1 FF side entrance. + Show Spoiler + The sixths lie at the SW and NE corners of the map. They are high yield in order to reward players who extends themselves that far, as it is pretty dangerous to try to defend that point along with the rest of your bases. As you might have guessed, the map is named Red Barons! because air play is relatively strong here, and clearly the map is red :-O On this map a deathball doesn't have to travel any huge distances between chokes to defend land attacks, but a backdoor doom drop could be devastating. As such, I think it behooves the player to have some sort of air presence to defend against that kind of thing if the game goes beyond 3 bases. I also put in 4 overlord spots for our zerg pals. I tried not to make them too ridiculously good (looking at you, maps that have ovy-spots which see almost EVERYTHING important, including natural geysers and move-out chokes :-\).
Aesthetics:
+ Show Spoiler +
Thanks for looking / hope you like it.
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Ok first of all i love the way the map looks. Very unique!
Gameplay-wise i am unsure on how good the backdoor 3rd works. If i was a zerg i would take the 4th as my 3rd because its closer to my natural, especially when the rocks are still up and so i basically get a 4th base for free, even though it shouldn't be that hard to cover my first 3 bases anyway. Its also very easy to scure a 5th and 6th base on this Map as all you really have to do is to stay in the middle.
On top of that i think there should be more paths for things like counterattacks, especially in the lategame to make it harder for deathballs..
I think the best solution would be to put a lowground path between your 3rd and the opponents 6th and block it off with rocks on each ramp. This would open the map more and make the lategame more interesting while i dont feel like it would really hinder you in taking your 3rd.
As i said i really like the concept but by now turteling looks a bit too easy here. 
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Wow, yeah, this is a really cool concept. I love how you *could* turtle on your main-nat-third complex, but moving onto the map would be much more rewarding.
That said, the proportions really need work.
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Perhaps if there was a path from the lower middle base to the lower third, blocked by rocks? This would make turtling beyond your main/nat more susceptible to run-bys at the very least. However this attack path is so far out of the way that a base trade may ensue...
Awesome job on the aesthetics! The texturing is gorgeous as is the cliffing around your third.
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dissapointed, i was hoping there was only a bridge / islands at start... cool stuff otherwise
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Very intresting map. I actually like it, through there are things to improve.
Things i like:
The general premise, i think the way to do promote air play in the general layout is intresting.
The problems are plenty through:
The third, while nicely spread out for Air harras is too safe groundwise,. There are only so much you can do with mutas alone, and terrans CAN deal with them if that is all the zerg got for harras.What i suggest is a path down under the main bases into the third, it can potentially be blocked by rocks but it needs to be there. You might say "ZOMG Siege elevator into the main!!" and yea it could be a treat, but rememper those siege tanks still have to travel several miles to get there. It is not exactly Taldarim conditions.
The 0m2HR bases. Okay you think extra gas, promotes heavy gas play. You think it forces lategame air play. WRONG!! It forces late game Zerg air play (which they would do anyway). Terrans are just going to ignore it (They will have enough excess gas for whatever Air they want from the normal bases). And going air is the last thing protoss will do with this. Why? Because carriers are extremely mineral intensive. You would be surprised how costly intercepters are. They are just going to stick to their normal deathball and make it bigger with the gas. Also 2 rich geysers... No just NO.
I am going to suggest the unthinkable here. Stick to the rules of ladder. Make it ladder-worthy but still let it have a higher gas ratio. That is right make it a GOLD base. Just a standard with the 6 nodes and 2 normal gas. You may be saying "But golds are brokez and stuff". Yea golds are broken when they can be taken as a 3th or 4th and held without compromising the defence of your main bases at all. Blizzard don't really seem to get this. But gold works when they are far away, complicated to hold and forces defence away from your main bases if you wanna take it early. There were alot of things wrong with Scrap station and Delta quadrant. But the way the golds were placed on the maps were not one of it. I kinda wish Blizzard would realize this.
Taking the gold bases early would require a huge effort to defend. There is rocks so you can't stealth it as easy. Needs some dedicated effort. You also can't realisticly hold both golds (Antiga syndrome). Remeper through that golds still have 3000 less minerals than normal blue bases. So the heavy gas ratio is preserved. Did i mention it was lowground. I dare call those bases "Perfect golds".
And finally some cosmetic stuff. Reapers are having a hard enough time with the new queens and for some reason is getting futher nerfed in HOTS. No reason to have mains completely reaperproof at this time(actually there never was a time for that). Also the Xelnaga placement is bad. They can be within watching distance of eachother, but not walking distance. That is just stupid.
My suggestions illustrated:
+ Show Spoiler +
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United Kingdom12043 Posts
My god this is one of the most beautifully designed maps I've ever seen. Gameplay wise it looks awesome and I can't wait to give it a go! ^^
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Hey guys! Took a break from this for a couple days to dabble in some GW2 Fun game, hope it doesn't steal me completely lol.
It's really funny that everyone is mentioning making a backdoor passageway (possibly blocked by rocks) from the 6th to the 3rd - as that is how it was originally designed and then I changed it to this because I felt it would be too hard to deal with that many attack paths that are that far away from each other. BUT maybe I should change it back?
@ the 0m2HYG bases, I could definitely change it to either just gold minerals or gold minerals + 2g or gold minerals + 2hyg. All of which change things slightly but don't really affect the map much I don't think. Maybe other people have suggestions/opinions here.
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It's too easy, WAY too easy for Terran to siege up on the high ground and camp the two Xelnaga towers and destroy Zerg's or Protoss's 4th base, since there is no other route around that high ground. The "trios" of expos on both corners of the map seem kind of disconnected and pointless imo.
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I don't think the XNTs being campable is a problem at all, since they are far enough away from each other that to control both they would -have- to split their tank force (a tank force sitting in the middle of the two wouldn't be able to reach both, and even if they could you could just go around them and counterattack their undefended base along the lowground anyway), therefore you could attack one of those partial forces with your entire army and crush it.
You might have a point about the 4th. There are 2 large ramps leading up to that highground. Is being able to attack from both sides not enough? I could maybe throw in a 1 or 2 FF ramp somewhere nearby to give even more flank-potential.
edit: I just worry about anything that will make that 4th much safer. You already have a safe 3rd, if you have a safe 4th too then it gets to be a boring turtley map.
edit2: The base concentration in the corners is to encourage the player to get out on the map/take outlying bases instead of just sitting back/turtling. I think rewarding players for not sitting idly is always a good thing, but it might be that I didn't execute it properly here. I'll keep working on it.
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On August 30 2012 05:53 Fatam wrote:
I don't think the XNTs being campable is a problem at all, since they are far enough away from each other that to control both they would -have- to split their tank force (a tank force sitting in the middle of the two wouldn't be able to reach both, and even if they could you could just go around them and counterattack their undefended base along the lowground anyway), therefore you could attack one of those partial forces with your entire army and crush it.
You might have a point about the 4th. There are 2 large ramps leading up to that highground. Is being able to attack from both sides not enough? I could maybe throw in a 1 or 2 FF ramp somewhere nearby to give even more flank-potential.
edit: I just worry about anything that will make that 4th much safer. You already have a safe 3rd, if you have a safe 4th too then it gets to be a boring turtley map.
edit2: The base concentration in the corners is to encourage the player to get out on the map/take outlying bases instead of just sitting back/turtling. I think rewarding players for not sitting idly is always a good thing, but it might be that I didn't execute it properly here. I'll keep working on it.
Your analysis here is good on these things, at least conceptually. We don't have any good examples of maps so far in SC2 with really far flung high reward expansion sites, and these aren't even that far flung really considering the length of the path from natural to enemy corner.
Everything this map sets out to do, it does it rather well. I agree that the 4th should be very vulnerable, it's not too much to ask people to defend the high ground there with that tower, it's the logical first step to taking the corner anyway.
The back connection between the safe 3rd and the "enemy" corner is best left omitted. It presents way too much of an incentive for base-racey styles. The best players would just scout well with obs/overlords etc but it would produce a ton of games where players out of position would go "fuck it" and go for the race, having no other good option.
Besides, this will favour lategame air a lot more, which has really been missing from competition maps.
The gas expansions should definitely include some minerals, otherwise it's just unfair to terran especially and to a certain extent protoss. I think a 5hym1hyg would be good, because it's juicy but if you really want a long lategame you have to take the far corner base.
I would love to see some small ramps in the very middle of the high ground alley to prevent the huge split path between naturals. You could even use a partially blocked ramp (with doodads or something) to make it only a "plan ahead" mobility option, but nothing you could fight up into.
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Thanks for the post. You pretty much nailed my reasoning for removing the back alley into the 3rd. The disadvantages outweigh the benefits there I think. edit:+ Show Spoiler + the only benefit I see with the back alley from the 6th to the 3rd is that it actually allows a player who doesn't want to take the vulnerable normal 4th to take the other person's 6th as their 4th. It's far away but not vulnerable to highground attacks.
It seems like everyone is in agreement that I should do something to the 0m2hyg so I'll definitely do that.
I had already been thinking about the small ramps in the middle of the high ground passage, maybe I'll do a 2 FF ramp on each side blocked by rocks. The problem with this idea, if you don't block them with rocks, is that the initial rush distance between naturals becomes TINY, like 2/3 of the shortest rush distance in the map pool, which is unacceptable.
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I whipped up some changes:
- changed corner bases to 5hym1hyg
- added 2 FF ramps up to the middle passageway, blocked by rocks.
- changed the shape of the main and the lava around it very slightly to increase the surface area for blink stalkers to get in (it's just enough that it's now viable (not very strong, but viable) to go blink obs I think)
Let me know how this looks -
+ Show Spoiler +
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Hmm, I think it's problematic that units will run into invisible walls at the map boundaries. It's standard to end the pathable terrain with cliffs or at least doodads before you reach the edge.
In terms of layout, I think it's interesting but could use some refinement. The main seems small and it's a but hard to take a third. The rush distance seems a little small. Maybe the main and nat need to be pulled back some towards the expo in the corner.
The other three expos seem clustered together, like you get all three at once, and I'm not really sure I like that.
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Some good points.
- The invisible walls in a couple places is one of the things I still need to fix (it's only version 0.5 at the moment, still rough), good catch.
- The 3rd is obviously easy to defend, but the run distance for a worker to build it before the rocks are killed is a bit long. Maybe I'll move the rocks on the ramp slightly and put a neutral ultralisk next to them so that a worker can mineral walk to the 3rd. I can probably shift the main and nat down a tiny bit as you suggested to slightly alleviate this as well.
- Rush distance is the exact same (literally) as Ohana's, and no one complains that Ohana is imbalanced in that regard.. so I don't think that is a problem.
- The main is only a touch on the small side (it's like 29-30 CCs). With an enormous natural I don't think this is a problem either. The only time you would need a larger main is if you are on 2+ bases.. in which case you have the huge nat to build stuff in. If you are 1-basing (even as terran) you will never need the entire main for buildings.
- I hear you on the clustered bases in the corner. I may remove (or significantly move) that second ramp that goes into the 5th (base that's on the highground at 8 and 2 oclock) to segment them. Then, I'm thinking I'll just merge the 2 corner bases into a full-fledged high yield base, like 8hym2hyg or maybe just 8hym2g. (obviously there will be a lot of terrain reshaping involved there)
I'll post a draft of these changes pretty soon. Thanks for the observations/recommendations
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biggest problem I see is with tanks just taking over the whole center choke of the map — and it's just theory.
Tanks spread across the whole width of the main center choke, plus a few more on one or both sides on the low ground (and/or PFs) would make for really strong security. I don't know how much of an issue that would be though considering the number of tanks required (and hence the fact that drops or air could move around it).
If tanks were set up in the middle, extra tanks on the lowground could be positioned to block the opponent from leaving by positioning near his [unblocked] natural ramp (but still protected by the tanks on the cliff). It might not be a big deal, but it might be a good idea to just widen the non-pathable area on those cliffs so that high ground tanks can't support the low-ground ones as well.
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Here's the latest
- consolidated the corner expos into 1 full-sized high yield expansion
- added a path + ramp to that corner
- fixed up all the edges of the map so there aren't any invisible walls
- reworked the 5ths (8 and 2 o'clock)
With the expo in the corner being a full-sized high yield there's lots of incentive to grab it when you can, but the extra path there means you can't just turtle at the choke near the 4th/5th in order to defend it.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/DQvkP.jpg)
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Thanks for the comment.
I feel like in theory tanks could be good in the middle, but in reality the sheer amount you would need to cover that much ground would not be possible. Like if you sat tanks on the highground and on the lowground (no way you could ever have enough to have them on both highground edges and both lowgrounds), the opponent could go around you and attack your base by going up the outside ramp next to the 4th, through the 5th, and down to the lowground on the other side. Also, with the map being good for air, having that many tanks means your marine / viking count will probably be really low so the tanks will just get sniped. And the other option is someone just dropping you. I'm sure tanks will still be great in general on the map, though.
Just for reference, since it's probably hard to tell from the map overview - a tank on the edge of the middle highground only covers about half of the path below. Another thing that might be a tad deceiving - some of those chokes are actually bigger than they look. For instance the middle highground inbetween the watchtowers is 14 squares wide. That's only 2 squares less than Cloud Kingdom's biggest choke, which is fairly large.
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This makes looks amazing. I love the look of it and it seems to have a lot of great features.
My biggest concern is that the whole map seems very chokey. There don't appear to be a lot of places for a terran bio ball to engage a protoss deathball with much ease.
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United Kingdom12043 Posts
One thing I could suggest is in your bottom and top blue bases on the left and right respectively, you could use a small ramp on one of the sides to make it easier for defense as mech on this map for example would have real trouble with mobility unless you could slow down the pushes coming up that double ramp.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HWJQI.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZVwQU.jpg)
The main is exposed to airspace on 3 sides. It has a little room for blink stalkers to jump in on the side, but a ton.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ecHzq.jpg)
The natural has two entrances. The back entrance has rocks blocking the quickest way to the third but you can go around before the rocks are killed if need be.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/XljyL.jpg)
The third is probably the most important feature of the map. Tucked away behind your main and natural, it is the true definition of expanding away from your opponent + Show Spoiler +. There is a small "landing zone" to the SW of the third + Show Spoiler +. It is possible to wall-off the path down to the third so that you only have to worry about your front natural entrance.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/WvjLo.jpg)
The fourth is fairly vulnerable, to counteract the extremely safe 3rd. It has wide ramps on either side of it leading to the high ground immediately above it. The space above the 4th is one of the most powerful positions on the map, as it also controls the main ramp to the 5th.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9y5c7.jpg)
The fifth has one 2 FF ramp leading down to the space I just mentioned, and a 1 FF side entrance.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nQP52.jpg)
The sixths lie at the SW and NE corners of the map. They are high yield in order to reward players who extends themselves that far, as it is pretty dangerous to try to defend that point along with the rest of your bases.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/r5p9x.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nkTgF.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/FSpEu.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/G6xcS.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/LgPZY.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/EBA0u.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KwkBc.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/aFURu.jpg)
