It took me a few tries to really hammer out this main/nat concept. A highground which overlooks the main choke while also overlooking the entrance to the highground above the in-base nat. The idea captivated me and I had to do it. You can kill the rock tower to protect your nat, but it comes at some risk. Drops and nydus plays can come in there and your rocks may actually hinder you from defending at that point.+ Show Spoiler +
I watched a PvZ on this map where the protoss killed his rock tower to protect his FFE, then the zerg nydused hydras behind the rocks and decimated the protoss nat because he couldn't get to the hydras until he killed the rocks! So you definitely have to weigh the risks when you kill that tower.
Beyond the main/natural, I wanted to make the map very open with wide corridors (to help zerg because this main/nat setup is the least beneficial to them), yet have ways to close off the openness a little (the rock towers in the middle, which double as protection for the middle bases). Protoss and Terran can play things close to the vest if they want to: it's possible to expand to 3.75 bases without really venturing much into the open. After that they can continue to avoid the open and take another .75 base, or take the riskier full base in the middle.
Made part of the highground above the natural unbuildable (to prevent cannons/bunkers from hitting the mineral line) and added some doodads to help indicate that.
v1.1
Balance
Adjusted a few of the mineral lines to better allow large units (ultralisks, etc.) to move through them
Terrain
Several small aesthetic changes
v1.0
General
Initial release
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It's a good looking map but I am bewildered as to the paths leading into the main and backside of the nat expo. There is no ramp into the main but instead a narrow corridor which works perfectly fine but it covered in brushes which will deny vision? How will range units poke it without suffering damage, do they need to stand in the brushes?
Also behind the natural expo where the rocks are can you walk freely behind the mineral line? It looks like some sort of frozen river to prevent that, but then again why are the rocks there.... If I blast them down and a Terran drops 2 tanks then I'll need air or drop myself to take care of it. If I leave the rocks open there no telling if the Terran will take a ground force and place tanks + bio and shoot over the gap.
Guess I need to play it in order to understand it.
Also behind the natural expo where the rocks are can you walk freely behind the mineral line? It looks like some sort of frozen river to prevent that,
Those are los blockers (they're actually plants with snow on them, but the light on the angled overview hits them in a way that makes them shiny), you can walk back there just fine (unless the rock tower has been knocked down, of course).
Well this is awesome. Would you post some screens of wall-offs? I can use my imagination, but I'd like to see the exact number of "squares". The mud in the middle looks dirty- this is going to be my only critique of the map.The main-nat-3rd is really a cool innovative setup. Giving players the opportunity to overlook their natural with some collapsible rocks and a medium to small sized choke is a really interesting concept. I would cry about Zerg being UP, but as you say, the rest of the map besides the main/nat is nice and open.
The more I look at this map the more I like it. Each base has really interesting defensive strengths and weaknesses, the flow could be entirely different depending on the players choices of expansions and there is not a super clear superior direction to be expanding, super awesome. I also like how the bases in the corners are probably most defendable, but it's counterbalanced by only having a single gas there.
Probably the most interesting map I've seen in... Well... That I've seen thus far in Star2. At the very least, I can't think of any other map that had me wiggling in excitement by merely looking at the images ( ^_^; )
On April 16 2013 08:08 Azelja wrote: Probably the most interesting map I've seen in... Well... That I've seen thus far in Star2. At the very least, I can't think of any other map that had me wiggling in excitement by merely looking at the images ( ^_^; )
It's like one of those maps you'd find in Proleague; stuffed full of neat concepts. Maybe it wouldn't do so well in an MLG kind of format, but a team league? Awwww yeah, now that's the stuff.
Is the range on a bunker enough that building it on the highground behind the natural mineral line would allow marines to hit drones that are mining?
It seems like the highground above the natural would make 11/11s impossible to hold off if they build one bunker on the low ground and one on the high ground. It also seems like it would be almost impossible to hold off a cannon rush done the same way.
I haven't played the map yet, but it seems to me that the highground above the natural puts zerg at an almost insurmountable disadvantage.
Hey Sharrant! Thanks for the comment. We looked at cannons / bunkers above the nat mineral line and decided that although it wouldn't always be an auto-loss for zerg, those strategies would probably be stronger than they should be and we don't want them to be prevalent in the map's games.
So I made part of the highground above the natural unbuildable and made doodads to help indicate it. + Show Spoiler [Picture!] +
I tested cannons/bunkers there to make sure they cannot reach any worker mining or the geyser.
I did leave some space on that highground available for buildings so that spotter pylons / depots can still be placed there, or proxy pylons / nyduses.
First pro / tournament game on Mammoth.. went pretty well. 28 minute TvZ slugfest.. lots of aggression and back-and-forth.
There should be an english cast out there somewhere but it seems to have slipped through the cracks as far as being uploaded. In the spoiler is a spanish cast as well (the caster says "mama mia" when trying to describe the map, and catz says "what the guacamole is this map" in observer chat.. rofl)
Woooo, cool vod. I was so confused not seeing the comment history in this thread, until I finally realized it's a new thread. XD
So these days in hots, I think I sadly have to agree with catz. This map is pretty rough for zerg. It'd be really nice if it was easier to get creep out and around above to the ledge and the 3rd. Since this map is already pretty nonstandard, how do you feel about a trick map feature? Highground pod with a creep tumor won't have creep on the low ground unless there is a creep source in range. So you could put a creep tumor pod in the main that doesn't mess up P or T bases but gives an auto-boost to creep for zergs. IDK but it's a thought.
Anyway the lost temple ish cliff is kind of gross, but this map is still really cool and it'd be great to see more zerg games. That vod is not very good overall balance indicator imo. STC lost his hellions early which gave goswser a nice cushion that he slowly bled away. So the whole game is sort of... eh. But you can see the effectiveness of drops with the preponderance of cliffs.
I hope this is helpful. Great to see it in use regardless!
I'm pretty sure Catz thought that you can't access that area above the nat via ground (obviously, you can). You have to realize he was seeing the map for the very first time, and in-game at that so he didn't have a nice overview to look at. The fact that you can access the area quite easily via ground already makes it very unlike the Lost Temple cliff. In fact, any marines going there before medivacs is incredibly risky, unless you like donating marines.. since there's no way out. You have to do damage or it's not worth it. And since there's an overlord spot right over the entrance to the area, so you will see any shenanigans coming several seconds ahead of time - so it's highly unlikely a marine attack from that angle would do anything other than deny a little mining time. (especially considering the rush distance is fairly large)
I think the creep spread thing is actually a great risk/reward mechanic as-is (although I'd love to hear more opinions). You can take your safer in-base natural and have less initial creep spread, or you can do what goswser did and take the third as your nat to jumpstart your creep spread (but, you risk having an unsafe nat)
If zerg plays somewhat defensive/turtley (or perhaps aggressively as goswser did.. the best defense can be a good offense?) and gets into the midgame, the rest of the map is very, very strong for zerg. If I made the nat/third completely perfect for zerg by adding a tumor, then the entire map is good for them and it risks just making it a pure zerg map, doesn't it?
@ the game, The only reason goswser lost his huge lead was he didn't ever remake mutas to deal with the drops and he simply got out-multitasked down the stretch. I think it's probably a little early to call it a "bad map for zerg" when the only game so far had a zerg basically win the game before he blew it :-P
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