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(4) DISASTER AREA
Published on BNet as "Disaster Area"
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/oobbY7F.jpg)
Boy meets girl under a silvery moon... which then explodes for no adequately explained reason.
+ Show Spoiler [vanity shots] +
STATS
dimensions: 144x144
spawns: all enabled
main2main (town hall): 61s (cross), 48s (close)
nat2nat (town hall): 52s (cross), 36s (close)
bases: 12 (8m2g)
watchtowers: 1
rocks: 16
DESCRIPTION
This is a 12 base 4 spawn map. The main has an inbase nat. The entrance to the main/nat is a 1 wide ramp behind the nat's mineral line, flanked by two 2 wide rocked ramps. The entrances to the thirds are very chokey (wall-able with a single 2x2 structure). The rocks in the center of the map can be destroyed to open significantly wider pathways.
If you have any critisism or feedback, please post. I will listen.
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your Country52798 Posts
This map is a disaster area.
No seriously, I dislike it quite a bit. Here's why:
The natural expansion is just really weird. Defending the mineral line either requires you to squeeze your army between the minerals and the ramp, or to go all the way down to the super low ground and make sure your opponent doesn't kill the rocks (or kill the rocks yourself if you're zerg); the former makes it hard to maneuver or position your army and the latter brings you very close to your opponent unless you spawn cross positions. In addition, it looks like you can easily cannon/bunker rush behind those mineral patches in P/TvZ.
The third bases are not good. For some reason, people seem to love these new 12 base, 4 player rotational maps; these are ok if the layout of the third is intelligent. I believe that these third bases are not intelligent because they are not only accessible through a very, very tiny chokepoint, but are also nearly completely isolated from the fortress you spawn in. The entrance to the third base could be acceptable if you didn't have to risk both open ground and impossibly tight areas just to get to the entrance, but you do, and positioning your army properly in order to defend is very difficult (imagine attacking from the top of an hourglass to the center).
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I like it
It seems fun and different
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I completely agree with maps that have some crazy or uncommon features. Im all for them , and this map is something i really like. Very BWesque too , so awesome.
Starcraft needs more of these maps
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That map looks really cool, now if only 12 and 6 o'clock were island expos... :D
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All of the things that Templar dislikes are things that I like about this map. I love it when maps make it difficult to move and position your army, and I love it when bases are isolated. Those are things that force players to think about their army movement and positioning, and pay constant attention to their forces. Additionally, isolated expos with hard chokes make it easier to defend a large army with a smaller force. Very BWesque.
However there are some other things I dislike about this. Zerg is going to absolutely get murdered on this map. There just aren't enough flanking routes early on (before destroying rocks), and early game defense requires flanks. I would like this map a lot more if you changed the centre to be a bit more open while retaining the rock path dynamic.
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your Country52798 Posts
skdeimos, BWesque without the balance of brood war. We also agree about more than you think. The tiny chokepoint I mentioned is the exact reason that flanks are very difficult in the early game, and the rocks make the center large and quite isolated until later on. The proportions are not right IMO.
I will admit that I am biased simply by not liking this kind of map (low base count and 4 players) but there are fundamental flaws with it.
Also you may want to check on those minerals at the 9oclock and 3oclock bases, they look odd.
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I like this map and all the features Namrufus has chosen to include. I agree that a zerg player using standardish builds might have a rough time here against various 2 base pushes a lot of which is due to the tightness in front of the 3rd base and perhaps the area could be opened up a bit (which unfortunately would diminish one of the main ideas being explored here). PvT might be another place where its really hard to defend against drops (or god forbid force us to make phoenixes) But do I really know beyond a shadow of a doubt how this will play out? Does anyone?
Warning: annoying rant follows:
+ Show Spoiler +It's not inconceivable that players could adapt to unusual features, but is it too uncomfortable for players to have to do this? How crazy can the features get? Does it favor certain races or styles more than others? Does it pidgeonhole players into only going certain builds? I think the discussion here is starting to get at the heart of a trend I've noticed on these forums where certain (many) features just get outright dismissed as being something that doesn't work. This insightful post by Plexa for example comes to mind. The list of "features that just don't work, ever, no exceptions" seems to grow by the week around here. It's really disheartening because time and time again we've seen that even the most experienced and knowledgeable mapmakers come to be wrong about how things will play out when we actually see many games played on maps over time. There are too many variables in this game for a human to account for all of the possibilities, we can only make educated guesses. I don't mean to direct this at Templar who is extremely knowledgeable and has legitimate concerns, rather I'm just making an observation. With all these restrictions, (which in my opinion some are legitimate and a result of the game of sc2 and some are just arbitrary at this point) I don't feel there is a point to making maps anymore because the creativity is out the window. At this point if you're playing with non-standard ideas you are akin to a misunderstood artist throwing paint at a canvas, unsold paintings piling up in your basement. Anyway I'm sorry for posting this obnoxious rant here but this has been swirling in my head for quite a while now.
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Wow, this map looks amazing  good job.. reminds me of andromeda sort of..
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your Country52798 Posts
On June 12 2014 23:08 TheFish7 wrote:I like this map and all the features Namrufus has chosen to include. I agree that a zerg player using standardish builds might have a rough time here against various 2 base pushes a lot of which is due to the tightness in front of the 3rd base and perhaps the area could be opened up a bit (which unfortunately would diminish one of the main ideas being explored here). PvT might be another place where its really hard to defend against drops (or god forbid force us to make phoenixes) But do I really know beyond a shadow of a doubt how this will play out? Does anyone? Warning: annoying rant follows: + Show Spoiler +It's not inconceivable that players could adapt to unusual features, but is it too uncomfortable for players to have to do this? How crazy can the features get? Does it favor certain races or styles more than others? Does it pidgeonhole players into only going certain builds? I think the discussion here is starting to get at the heart of a trend I've noticed on these forums where certain (many) features just get outright dismissed as being something that doesn't work. This insightful post by Plexa for example comes to mind. The list of "features that just don't work, ever, no exceptions" seems to grow by the week around here. It's really disheartening because time and time again we've seen that even the most experienced and knowledgeable mapmakers come to be wrong about how things will play out when we actually see many games played on maps over time. There are too many variables in this game for a human to account for all of the possibilities, we can only make educated guesses. I don't mean to direct this at Templar who is extremely knowledgeable and has legitimate concerns, rather I'm just making an observation. With all these restrictions, (which in my opinion some are legitimate and a result of the game of sc2 and some are just arbitrary at this point) I don't feel there is a point to making maps anymore because the creativity is out the window. At this point if you're playing with non-standard ideas you are akin to a misunderstood artist throwing paint at a canvas, unsold paintings piling up in your basement. Anyway I'm sorry for posting this obnoxious rant here but this has been swirling in my head for quite a while now.
Listen, I am perfectly fine with innovating (considering it's all I do in mapmaking) using new ideas. I do think that all of the features of this map- 12 base 4 player map, natural expansion facing opposite the main ramp, main fortress with the extra front entrances blocked by rocks, very tight third base, small choke points leading to large spaces, initially (nearly) inaccessible centers with rock-blocked entrances- have merit and can be used, but this map sort of makes it into a mess. The only available thirds are right next to all of the tight chokepoints which will probably be used in cross positions, for example.
I wasn't very clear with my first post in this thread, which is why I usually keep my posts on the short side (I tend to ramble), and I'm sorry that I concluded prematurely that this map won't ever work, because it could. Using these innovative and unexplored features is fine, but if it becomes a widely played map, it's either going to radically shift the metagame for one map or it will be played incorrectly. This isn't bad, but it is a bit random.
And no, it is nothing like Andromeda.
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Very pretty with dem BW vibes. But... this is sentry prism heaven, I don't know what zerg is supposed to do.
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The problem here is that there's no path anywhere that's not super-tight until you take rocks down, a forcefield or even a supply depot just shuts zerg out completely. There are some cool ideas, but as is it's quite broken.
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Solid feedback all around.
I can't respond in full right now, bu here is what i have to say
About the natural facing the main ramp: yeah, I've been looking over that ingame and it does seem a bit too cramped, I'll move the mineral line back 1 or two squares, failing that I could easily just have the main and nat mineral lines to the sides of the main instead of front and back, if that makes any sense.
About the third: I'm thinking of doing something like this, as a small lazy change
+ Show Spoiler [map image] +
opens up the direct pathway between close mains, but maintains the small passageway into the third. Not enough? It increase the by-ground surface area needed to defend though, which I was worried about, but looking again it doesn't seem like it should matter that much.
I've also been thinking about modifying the thrid by using rocks, somwthing like,
-small entrance (2 units wide) initially (like it is now), but pathway can be widened significantly by killing rocks.
-or third has wide entrance to start, but player can kill double collapsing rocks to "lock" the thrid into a semi-island.
either way so the the defender might have a chance to modify the terrain to their liking.
I'll type more later.
thanks for all of the quality feedback!
This map is a disaster area.
 YEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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Balance may be questionable as everyone else has made clear enough already, but I love the concept of this map. And the map name is great, you definitely need to keep up the Hitchhiker's Guide references lol.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/EQFvrgY.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/WY8tYwA.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/FePQrsk.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xcXnXel.jpg)
