TPW Natural Selection
by lefix
Map Size: 144x152
Tileset: Zerus
Spawns: 2
Bases: 14
Published: HotS (Beta)

About:
My first HotS map, losely based on a bw map called Star Gates. First time working with HotS tilesets and loving it.

Screenshots:
[image loading]

ScorpSCII

Denmark499 Posts

November 17 2012 19:13 GMT

You're so quick :O

Good map anyway. Nice proportions and an interesting base layout.

IeZaeL

Italy991 Posts

November 17 2012 19:17 GMT

Beautiful map ! Are you planning to make something like this on a City Tileset ?

I'm going online to try this !

SiskosGoatee

Albania1482 Posts

November 17 2012 19:27 GMT

- thirds are actually ridiculously closer together and they can be sieged from the lowground, Zerg is forced to either expand towards Terran or break those rocks because the way around to those rocks is extremely long. T can use their third as a staging point to siege Zerg's third from the lowground a stone's throw away. Same thing with a stalker/colossus push coming from the third, colossi can harass the third which is extremely close

- I am absolutely not really happy with the side expansion, it's very far away and only has one entrance which is quite narrow. Say the left player takes the left side expansion, he is closer by air but quite far removed from ground, if the right player takes the left expansion he is closer by ground, but again, can be sieged from the lowground with the third as staging point.

My hunch says that the way you're forced to just expand so boldly forward taking your third which is extreely close to the third of your opponent might make the map unplayable altogether.

Prog

United Kingdom1470 Posts

November 17 2012 19:47 GMT

You are not forced at all to expand forward with the third. Just get those rocks and play with an expansion pattern like on ohana. I don't see any problem with that - except that we already have a map played like that and I don't see what this map does better than ohana.

Aesthetics are nice though.

SiskosGoatee

Albania1482 Posts

November 17 2012 20:04 GMT

Ohana doesn't force you to walk such a very long length around to reach it though with the rocks down. A lot of Zergs do not have the rocks killed already when a sentry/immortal hits on Ohana because to defend a sentry/immortal you have to drone pretty hard up to that point and you don't have the units to kill it yet and what units you have need to be used to counter.

Of course, HotS sentry/immortal will be held differently but I'm illustrating the point that Z in general doesn't have the rocks killed already when attacks hit because they had no units up to that point and it's an extremely far way around on this map compared to Ohana.

EatThePath

United States3943 Posts

November 17 2012 20:11 GMT

really nice lefix

edit: After looking at it for a little bit, I think you should widen the first ramp that leads to the last base. This would make it a lot easier to move up the ramp into that base from the middle, which I think is necessary to make it more vulnerable.

+ Show Spoiler [like this] +

Elche

Finland170 Posts

November 17 2012 21:05 GMT

I really like this map.
only thing I would change is to make this a ohana style 5bases per player map and combine the two bases in top right and bottom left in to one base.
good job.

Befall

United States69 Posts

November 17 2012 21:22 GMT

Agreed with the sentiment of taking a third being really difficult for Zerg, especially since the non-rock expo is far more exposed with the two ramps. That being said, if you take away the rocks, the layout for those bottom/top four bases is nearly identical to Daybreak, which isn't terrible. I'd have to see games played out to 100% judge expo difficulty.

That being said, love the layout, love the aesthetics. Wish I money to pre-order HOTS so I could play with these gorgeous tilesets.

Fatam

1986 Posts

November 17 2012 23:08 GMT

#10

edit: I think the lowground third needs an extra path around it near the ramp so that FF pushes aren't so imba as people have been mentioning. Also I noticed a little clerical error - there's only 12 bases but the map description says 14

hots textures are pretty cool-looking

See.Blue

United States2673 Posts

November 17 2012 23:39 GMT

#11

Absolutely gorgeous map. I'm an enormous fan. Great work

Aunvilgod

2653 Posts

November 18 2012 00:09 GMT

#12

Splitty.

TheFish7

United States2824 Posts

November 18 2012 00:17 GMT

#13

Very nice!

chuky500

France473 Posts

November 18 2012 01:00 GMT

#14

From a WOL point of view it's a really bad map. The 4th is siegable, the third looks siegable and the 6th is siegable. You can separate the enemy main, natural, and 3rd with just 3 forcefields so in PvZ sentry pushes and sentry drops are really strong. PFs at the 3rd and 4th would be too good because of the chokes. The 2 parallel attack path are too far from each other so it'll favor base trades. But also if in PvZ the protoss attacks the 3rd and blocks the small ramp, the zerg can't easily counter because the distance 3rd-natural is shorter than natural-natural, so the zerg will have more distance to travel, unlike Daybreak. The 6th looks like a free proxy place for terran, like when terrans make reapers and proxy a starport and drop. Or proxy reapers since they're popular in HOTS. There's no way you'd scout there unless you want to lose a ton of mining time. It also looks like a free hidden expansion for terran, whereas on Ohana the terran hidden expansion is more a place you'd expand to.

Also I doubt people will expand to the center expansion before their 5th, so the expansion pattern will be a straight line of the whole map width. There's no way to cut corners and go back defend another base faster with blink or air like on Cloud Kingdom where the 4 first bases are like a N. There's no way to optimize how you move through your bases as you have to go through it all, regardless of the tech you have.

And I don't really like big airspace near the main because it helps cloaked banshees and mutas too, but I don't really know about HOTS. Now the Oracle and Tempest have changed I'm not sure this kind of airspace is balanced for protoss anymore. For WOL the third looks a bit far for an isolated base like this but I don't know about HOTS.

SiskosGoatee

Albania1482 Posts

November 18 2012 03:31 GMT

#15

On November 18 2012 10:00 chuky500 wrote:
Also I doubt people will expand to the center expansion before their 5th, so the expansion pattern will be a straight line of the whole map width.

Terran will, I'm also interested to see how a 3base stalker/colossus with the forward third as a staging point in PvZ will go, seem like a very strong strat on this map.

Otherwise, with the rocks there, I'm not sure what else Zerg is going to do, it's a very long way around to the other third. Responding to a 4gate zealot pressure without the rocks down is going to be really tough. Or stargate pressure, you just won't get the rocks down and there's no way to spread creep over in time to send queens ever.

Theorycraft to me seems to indicate that this map is worse for Zerg than Steppes of War.

NewSunshine

United States5938 Posts

November 18 2012 05:12 GMT

#16

On November 18 2012 12:31 SiskosGoatee wrote:
Theorycraft to me seems to indicate that this map is worse for Zerg than Steppes of War.

I'm... not sure that's even possible.

Typhoon1789

Australia292 Posts

November 18 2012 13:28 GMT

#17

Nice map! I like it.

To the people bitching about how hard it is to take a 3rd: The problem is, its way to easy to take a 3rd these days. Who really enjoys mega quick 3 base into late game? i'd prefer all bases after natural to get progressively way harder. Maybe then people will attack each other for once instead of just building a 200 supply army then moving out.

SiskosGoatee

Albania1482 Posts

November 18 2012 13:37 GMT

#18

It's not the fact that thirds are hard to take, they aren't, not for Terran anyway, it's that thirds are extremely hard to take for Zerg on this map. I like hard to take thirds myself and I advocate it, but not this racially imbalanced. T loves the forward third,. very easy to place tanks on the low between them and siege Zerg's forward third from the lowground, if Z takes the backward third it's going to be very hard to defend anything with the rocks not being down, Zerg in general has a hard time breaking rocks because with Zerg, if you have an army it should serve a purpose, else the army could've been drones, so they should attack or defend or stall an attack, anything, Zerg very rarely just has army 'sitting there' and if you have you're not playing Zerg well.

Acertos

France852 Posts

November 18 2012 17:42 GMT

#19

Why not put rocks outside the third?

RFDaemoniac

United States544 Posts

November 18 2012 19:11 GMT

#20

You could also make part of the connection a mineral patch so that zerg can use a few drones to break a hole through it, ala Breaking Point style.

You could also make it close enough to the hatches in the natural and third so that the queens can pick away at it, but I'm not sure how long it takes two queens to kill rocks.

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