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Uruguay1381 Posts
Wow, wtf?! Kantu releasing two maps in less than 6 months? YES! and if everything comes together you may be seeing three or even four maps! It is quite funny, I wasn't planning this to come right in time for the weird priceless (heh) Blizzard contest submission thingy, but that's okay. So anyways enough intros, into the map!
Antheia's central core ideas are (imo) a very cool mix ideas taken from Foxtrot/Hesperium and other more newer (to me) concepts that I have toyed with on maps like Gany, Oneiric Hopes and a bit of Samarra and Iron Hills (a pretty damn cool concept), the central and most obvious idea behind Antheia is the very small central bridge, which is the shortest route to get to your opponent, and because of the fun mix of Samarra (central stagnation point/trench warfare, which gives way to attacks over the sides of the map) with Iron Hills and Hesperium we end up with a very curious case of a central funnel with the option of taking the long route to be agressive and have a nicer position for your army compared to the enemy, or taking the time in destroying rocks and risking being discovered by the opponent who can gain a even better foothold against your attack.
These three central army movement options coupled with the way the bases are spread around the edges can create some pretty hectic scenarios, and to add a small cherry on top, because of the high amount of LoS blockers in the middle of the map, players can never truly establish a strong presence in the middle of the map without having to take one of the central bases. Many know that I can be quite cruel when it comes to designing maps in regards to the players and the views I have with respect to the relation between spectators and players suffering to calm the anxious masses of viewers, yet I'm never truly that cruel and because of the high amount of central map features many times players could miss the enemy army moving around the edges of the map towards attacking you, and because of this two Xel'naga Towers were added, these two towers will become very important to players, because they are the key to not dying from an attack you never saw coming.
Other very important feature are the gold bases, unlike Foxtrot which had a central gold base that could kind of be controlled if you had fast or strong units that could get behind the base and hold the terrain, here, that is not really possible because the enemy attack and harass pathway is extremely close by to the base, and because the ground distance for the defensive player is so long that units that get there to hold and defend the mineral lie from behind will be tied down to defense there as long as you are mining. The Xel'naga towers give relief to players that want to take the gold bases, but these towers are in the oposite side of the central rock line, meaning that if you want to take the gold base you have to be aggressive and try to keep your opponent in his toes.
I'm going a bit long in here, but if anyone wants to keep reading some of the features and concepts behind Antheia he's free to head over to the map entry in KTVMaps.wordpress.com, I hope you guys have fun playing and watching the map as much as I has conceiving it!
hfhf!
Map is published in: [AM],[EU],[KR],[SEA]
This map has WCS Gameheart enabled!
Overview:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nfOkjWY.jpg) + Show Spoiler +90º Overview ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gM2r0HB.jpg)
Old Overviews
+ Show Spoiler +
Information/Analyzer: + Show Spoiler +Map InformationMap Size: 148x136 Rush Distance: 208 Nat to Nat Distance: 170 Xel’naga Towers: 2 Units that cannot pass across the bridge: None Analyzer: Unavailable at the moment. Old analyzer pics + Show Spoiler +
Eye Candy: + Show Spoiler +
Small info about the map:
+ Show Spoiler + § 2 Xel'naga Towers covering crucial pathways. § Central bridge is the shortest way to get to your opponent, yet the most dangerous too. § Map has very exposed Gold Third bases. § Third bases have a set of rocks beside them, depending on your opponents strategy you will want to take them down, or try to keep your opponent from doing so. § The Central valley is not a good place to take engagements on, try to avoid it and take engagements in terrain that favours you. § Map has optional Normal Third bases, if you don't want to risk it all with taking the golds you are not forced to. § Side towers can be crucial to spotting drops incoming, be sure to make presence in them if you want to play a static playstyle. § Area behind gold bases is an excellent place to proxy buildings on, but sure to check it for enemy cheese.
Changelog + Show Spoiler +
The map can be easily found in custom games under the KTV and the SMA tags!
Just like with Dulcimer. I'm very interested on hearing what your feedback is regarding some of the features Antheia has. The map was tested and all, but because of the big overload of map features Antheia showcases I'm always curious about what ideas you guys have regarding some of its features (Specially things like the Gold base).
For more of my work and more details regarding some design elements of the map be sure to check; KTVMaps.wordpress.com
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looks good but i dont think it has enough "unique" and "creative" aspects what you need to do is make the natural a gold base, make the natural entrance two times as wide so protoss and terran cant wall it off easily, and shorten the rush distance by half.
-david kimchi
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Uruguay1381 Posts
Hehe, but in all honesty, given some of the features Antheia has, I can totally see it becoming not a very much loved map, that said, it still is at heart a standard map, so just because of that it would gain a fair amount of love points from pro-players and the like.
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Nice one! Not going to make any comments yet, some variations on stuff you don't see too often here and needs time to digest
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fantastic map, I hope we can get this in the ladder pool!
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This map is definitely more towards the style of unique and non-standard that I've been looking for. Not-gimmicky, just unique in it's own ways. Good luck in the map submissions!
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My favorite part yet at the same time least favorite part is that theres two paths that go far to the side for attacking your opponent, meaning it might feel awkward to engage and move out.
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One of my favorite submissions recently I hope it gets picked by blizzard!
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not very creative and certainly not unique, I think you could draw some inspirtation from Metalopolis and Jungle Basin
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avid Kim Mode ON*
For my purpose you should consider having Xel-Naga Tower in Main Bases. That way it's unique and Drops should be easily scouted.
Also consider having a gold Base for Player 1 as Main and for Player 2 a Neutral Gold Base.
avid* Kim Mode OFF*
BTT
Very standart one for my sense of taste it's to common but surely a good map.
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I'm a little worried about how resource dense the map is in some areas. The gold expansion is right next to two other expansions on the high ground above it, and has a base behind it very close as well. The two corner bases are so close that they warrant rocks to increase the original distance between them.
I like the gold expansion wall idea you came up with. I think you have a lot of cool ideas in the map, but I don't know if it's balanced.
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Uruguay1381 Posts
On February 01 2016 03:05 Antares777 wrote: I'm a little worried about how resource dense the map is in some areas. The gold expansion is right next to two other expansions on the high ground above it, and has a base behind it very close as well. The two corner bases are so close that they warrant rocks to increase the original distance between them.
I like the gold expansion wall idea you came up with. I think you have a lot of cool ideas in the map, but I don't know if it's balanced. Excellent concern, and yes, Antheia is quite resource dense in some areas, specially around the gold base and corners, yet, you need to remember that on SC2 is very hard for not say impossible to have more than 4 mining bases at the same time, and because of the way the pathways that get the those bases are set up it becomes specially hard to actually take those bases, like you can look at the near gold bases and see that they all are pretty close together, but now look at the pathways, if you try to take those bases it becomes awfully clear that to start you would need to control the highground base, and to do that you would need to place your entire army in the central plateau leaving a huge chunk of the map (near your optional third) exposed to attacks, harass and flanks.
So even when in theory it may look to be a very nice idea to simply take the area that's resource rich, in reality that's not so easy. This is one of the things that changed from HotS to LotV, because of the faster mining and mineral lines depleting it actually okay to have areas in the maps that are resource rich, because these areas become very strong contention points since the players are always playing on what seems to be a resource deficit.
Anyways, I highly recommend you to play the map out a couple times, you will be quite surprised when you find that even when many of the bases look to be too close (and probably some are, specially the corner bases, I as the map ages and the meta settles a bit, I'll try to separate them more) the map as a whole plays very nicely.
On January 31 2016 17:10 Ej_ wrote: not very creative and certainly not unique, I think you could draw some inspirtation from Metalopolis and Jungle Basin By drawing inspiration from Metalopolis you mean by making a 4p map with winner golds that have a set of spawns that are actually unplayable close and open? And in the case of Jungle basin I'm sure you don't mean to make maps that have a third that's so awfully far away and exposed that's near impossible to take, and because of the easiness of the natural the map creates the very uninteresting dynamic of having absurdly strong 2 base allins which only make the case of the Third bases be far away and exposed be even worse, right? Of course this goes without saying that because of the way resources work now in LotV a map like Jungle basin would be basically unplayable, or at least in the same degree of play-ability Incineration Zone has.
I mean if you don't like that fact that I make standard maps now and then that's fine for me, I do not plan to make everyone happy, that's simply impossible, but if your plan to give feedback is to tell me to make my maps more like outdated and barely playable pieces of what sadly is mapping history, then I must say no.
You know that I'm always in the look for cool ideas for maps and that I'm willing to ear anyone no matter what they say, yet this is a bit too much, come on Ej, you are faaaaaar better than this.
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On February 02 2016 03:46 Uvantak wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2016 17:10 Ej_ wrote: not very creative and certainly not unique, I think you could draw some inspirtation from Metalopolis and Jungle Basin By drawing inspiration from Metalopolis you mean by making a 4p map with winner golds that have a set of spawns that are actually unplayable close and open? And in the case of Jungle basin I'm sure you don't mean to make maps that have a third that's so awfully far away and exposed that's near impossible to take, and because of the easiness of the natural the map creates the very uninteresting dynamic of having absurdly strong 2 base allins which only make the case of the Third bases be far away and exposed be even worse, right? Of course this goes without saying that because of the way resources work now in LotV a map like Jungle basin would be basically unplayable, or at least in the same degree of play-ability Incineration Zone has. I mean if you don't like that fact that I make standard maps now and then that's fine for me, I do not plan to make everyone happy, that's simply impossible, but if your plan to give feedback is to tell me to make my maps more like outdated and barely playable pieces of what sadly is mapping history, then I must say no. You know that I'm always in the look for cool ideas for maps and that I'm willing to ear anyone no matter what they say, yet this is a bit too much, come on Ej, you are faaaaaar better than this. I'm jsut trying to get your maps on the ladder, man. You need to crank up the base layout back to 2010. Show DK how much you [don't] care.
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Uruguay1381 Posts
Damn, I fell right through for that one....
But anyways, just wait it out, next couple days I should be publishing something pretty cool, I'm sure DKim will love it.
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