Rotate middle bases so their backs are closer to the top right & make them gold. Could then be a "safe" natural, 3rd or 4th but also cause a lot of aggressive movement towards the top right side of the map.
Think you need to open the map up a bit. I drew a picture...
edit: New Image put in.
Middle bases rotate & make gold, face them towards the top right. Make the base that hugs your main on the lowest ground, you then have a high ground section between your main/nat and the gold that you can defend. Open up the bottom section (everything circled in green = low ground), you could then add in some line of sight blockers or just doodads to block some of the paths (purple) Extend high ground out on the bottom left, add a big ramp, put another blue base there, block it off with rocks if you want.
I think it plays a fun dynamic especially if you take the gold. It'll force a lot of harass in the top right of the map, not only is it less base dense but it's more choked so maybe protoss is fine with that or even meching terran. Zerg will want to expand to the bottom left but then will they take the gold or just ignore it and take control of the bottom side of the map where it's a lot more open.
thanks for the detailed ideas, they look great at a glance! I'll have to fully analyze and see what I can come up with when I get home tonight or tomorrow. I wanted to get some ideas "on paper" out there quickly on this remake so I would have feedback before the deadline, so this is perfect.
I like the idea about making the highground smaller inbetween the main/nat and the highground base. In the previous version it had to be like that because that base used to be a natural. I probably didn't fully consider all the ramifications of putting that in-base nat in there.
Updated this, using some of sidian's suggestions and 1 or 2 other things that came about once it started taking shape.
The idea with the southern watchtower is it's highly desirable because the rush distance that way is very short so you can have better warning of an attack. (the radius extends to the LOS blockers and to the ramp to the northeast, so they'd have to take the long way to avoid it) The initial chokiness of the small area surrounding the XNT (and the small overlooks above it) is that you can take or at least prevent the tower with different types of armies (not just those that excel in open areas). So you could in theory have a situation where zerg is in happy land expanding to the south but terran is still able to hold that XNT.
Of course you can kill the debris to greatly open the area up.
Found a cleverer way to do the XNT thing (at least IMO) and changed a couple other small things like adding an overlord spot for the very short rush distance which was nearly a bad oversight.
Published as 1.0, submitting this to TLMC7 (rush category). If anyone is at all curious (probably not, but hey ) my 4th submission is Revanscar Relay (new map type category).
Hey guys. Have a day and a half or so to finalize changes to this for revision stage of TLMC. Was wondering if any of you have thoughts on the new version. Thanks for any comments. Changes are made based on things I saw while watching the games, feedback from pro players (I PM'ed all the players that played on it and some of them were nice enough to give some feedback), and other comments I've heard from various people.
Major Changes:
- Changed main ramp size from 1 FF to 2 FF. This one was based on pro player feedback. - Added a neutral supply depot next to the main ramp so that it is still possible to use a standard wall to wall-off. (depot+barracks+depot) - Increased the main surface area next to the natural a decent amount. There is now a small pocket there for harass or what have you.
- Removed top right corner gold and added a gold to each side that is closer to the 3:30/11:30 thirds. It seemed people didn't think the top right stuff would get used too much so this should definitely change that. - Added a ramp in the top right corner inbetween the two golds. - Extended the highground behind LOS blockers which is above those golds a bit to make them more impactful on those golds and the surrounding area.
- The map is now 135x135 (was 128x128). This was to increase the airspace a decent bit (also a pro suggestion) and it ended up giving me room to make the golds work too.
Minor Changes:
- The 3:30/11:30 ramp got an increase in size, but it shouldn't really affect the size of an army that can go through by very much. - Redid the shape of the base directly below the main. (5:30/9:30) - A slew of small terrain, pathing, doodad, and texture changes. Mostly not noticeable, just to improve visibility/readability of the map, or better army movement.
Bug Fixes:
- A doodad was cropping up on the edge of the top left main, probably got dragged there by accident somehow (it used to be down in the lava). Not sure how I missed it before but fixed.