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![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/M2BFH.jpg)
Archi - Mountain Ridge
Published on the EU server.
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Type "Archi" to check out other Archi maps
Other than on Sacred Step where I bent terrain for asthetics, this is the first time (I'm pretty sure) that I've really tried to bend terrain to make it part of the layout. I may have gone over the top slightly though  .
The cliffs in the centre i decided not to make them cliff walk just because due to the layout it would be way to advantageous for Protoss. Also the spawns are pretty far apart, I'm not sure how good an idea this was overall, but the goal was to help make the map a long term match. If someon want to very early rush, they pretty much have to go all in for it. Considering the map is large for a 1v1 the expos are few, so players wont be wondering around with armies trying to figure out where out of 12 expos the enemy might be at.
Additionally I wanted to try and stick a mountain in the middle of a map and see how it might effect the layout, how limited does space get and what can I do with it. (more map notes in feature section below)
Map View
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Angled View
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Analyzer
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Feature
+ Show Spoiler +LOS + Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler +The centre has 4 entries and is the largest open space, to keep it that way I didnt add any obsticals to physically break up the movement area. Instead I added LOS so players can move around as much as they want, but still have a tactical fight ahead of them. Obviously flying units would more likely get built to gain vision, but its likely they will be built anyway to cut across the top of the mountains. Also there is a single XNT that grants vision over almost all the LOS area so that would be a strong point of contention. Forest + Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/q5Csv.jpg) The forest is a bit bigger than appears in pic - I had to zoom out a fear bit to take the pic The forest is provided by trees transplanted straight from the planet Endor I made them huge partly for asthetic reasons, (i like trees from Endor - I intend to make an Endor map at some point) but also to add alot of thickness to the forest as I wanted the area to be a dark forest. Movement is easy within there but unit vision is really hurt. Additionally I put the golds on the outside to encourage expanding far a field, aditionally, in a long term game that extra finance will be needed. There are 2 ramps leading down to the gold area (one is blocked with rox) to mak it easier to go into the forest area and fight and make the high ground by the ramps/forest, a tactical area to be used. Also the highground area is not a large area so being able to move down to the forest means for fighting space.
Some Ingame shots
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This looks really cool! Too bad playing it from top-down will cause you to miss out on all the pretty aesthetics.
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I technically did. The centre LOS area has the cracked rock grass showing through which makes it quite different from the grass out from the spawn (though its more on the boarder of the centre). And the Forests have alot of foliage again making it notcably different. That being said they are all varients of green which could be an issue
Quote+ Show Spoiler +On December 23 2010 16:29 d3_crescentia wrote:
This looks really cool! Too bad playing it from top-down will cause you to miss out on all the pretty aesthetics.
Well your not entirly top down. I took some ingame shots (below). (I'll add them to the main thread)
Rox near spawn
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Top Entrance to centre
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Big fight in middle
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Rox to Dark Forest
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Dark Forest fight
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Wow dude your a map machine :D. This one looks especially nice, but honestly i don't think a melee map will ever work with a rush distance that long, i ran into the same problem with my last map and though it's annoying i really think you should address it. Scrap has a rush of like 166 and its considered really long.
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Yeah - 4 greens... need to be slightly more noticeable 
Why the lack of actual symmetry?
I hate to sound negative :p. I like the idea of this map
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buuuuttttiiiiifffffuuuullllll
love the los tress but would still prefer it to have a bit more of them, just cause of the feel of a forest love the gameplay concept, hope it doesn't bug or lag ingame?
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Quote+ Show Spoiler +On December 24 2010 00:24 iGrok wrote:Yeah - 4 greens... need to be slightly more noticeable Why the lack of actual symmetry? I hate to sound negative :p. I like the idea of this map
Well it was the first time I tried to bend the terrain as part of the map layout, though I did it symmetrically at the start, something about it felt very unnatural about the map (partly because of how I was texturing as well). So instead I made some adjustments to give it a slight clockwise rotation, which allowed me to alter some of the bumps in the terrain without compromising the balance that was already there.
Where I have altered the terrain to make it look slightly different from its mirrored area, that change only has an asthetic difference and none/very very little to gameplay (at least as far as i could find).
Quote+ Show Spoiler +On December 24 2010 01:06 baskerville wrote:
buuuuttttiiiiifffffuuuullllll
love the los tress but would still prefer it to have a bit more of them, just cause of the feel of a forest love the gameplay concept, hope it doesn't bug or lag ingame?
Yeah I still want to do a forest map, in this one the forest (or the dark forest) really hurts visibility of units. Its something I've been trying out and trying to balance, if its too crippled then its just annoying. Also making a Forest map with only one type forest in it might be a bit tedious so I'm still trying to see what I can push and by how much. I think this type of forest used could probably be twice the size if it was a main feature but anymore than that would be too much I think.
I went over the terrain over and over to see if there were any bug issues, there were a few issues found, units being trapped in odd places, tearing of the terrain, LOS issues which worked against how the terrain looked like it should work which would just confuse and annoy players, but as far as I can see they were all Ironed out.
The big question in my mind was "do I make the mountains cliff walk?" It would make a certain sense, and colossus would look very cool doing it. But equally, you feel like the mountain walls should protect against pathing from any ground units and also protoss would be very OP i think. Turrets could defend against an attack from the rare by colossus, but then the colossus has serious range, and in this instance I think that advantage in that situation should sit with Zerg broodlords.
As far as lag goes that should be no issue. Other than the LOS in the centre and doodads for the forest, there is no other doodads on the map except for a sprinkling of trees. I think out of all my nature type maps this probably has one of the least amounts of doodadery (if it wasnt a word before it is now ). So its all just texture work and bending terrain to get it to how it looks (and a bit of lighting work), I mainly did it that way to see what I could do with texturing and land bending without covering on enhancing too much with doodadery. Also space again was an issue even though the map is big, and though doodads can be used well with space, I didnt think it would work too well with how I built the map.
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quote + Show Spoiler +On December 24 2010 00:00 hostilepig wrote:
Wow dude your a map machine :D. This one looks especially nice, but honestly i don't think a melee map will ever work with a rush distance that long, i ran into the same problem with my last map and though it's annoying i really think you should address it. Scrap has a rush of like 166 and its considered really long.
Yeah its is very long, but I cant change that without changing the entire map so it was one of those choices that I cant really go back and change.
Scrap Station does have a short distance with air where its ground is long distance (ok rushing with air is different from ground). But I was going for the mid/long game, and early rushes would have to be very committed too or not done. I'm usually very against that kind of emphasis for or against a tactic on my maps, but it was something else I wanted to see play out.
Edit:I have added a download link at the top of the thread for anyone not on the EU server to be able to play it.
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I like the aesthetics on this one and how you bended the terrain, it looks beautiful!
Unfortunately, when buildings are placed on warped terrain, they actually warp the terrain that's underneath it so it's flat. This may not be a bad thing, but I'm just warning you.
Why do your high yield bases on most of your maps have eight minerals?
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quote+ Show Spoiler +On December 24 2010 04:50 Antares777 wrote:
I like the aesthetics on this one and how you bended the terrain, it looks beautiful!
Unfortunately, when buildings are placed on warped terrain, they actually warp the terrain that's underneath it so it's flat. This may not be a bad thing, but I'm just warning you.
Why do your high yield bases on most of your maps have eight minerals?
Thanks for the compliments on the texturing.
Yeah buildings on bumpy terrain do make for some odd viewing sometimes. So in or around all the expos I have either flattened the land or made the bumps so minor as to take advantage of lighting and texture, but should have no effect on buildings and gameplay. As for other parts of the map, bumps should genrally be broad enough to not have the issue. At the crease of the cliffs is a bit of a grey area really, The camera position tends to hide some of those issues, though i didnt test everywhere a building could go.
As for the golds having 8 patches, I really like the idea of someone being able to take and hold something for a sustained higher rate of income. I tend to put them where they are going to see alot of action or far away so defending is harder (more so on later maps) so you know it could be a good long term or short term investment, its an objective to take or destroy, and there is image of nice amount of minerals, but the cost of maintaining it could actually end up being more than its worth.
Also I am a fan of long games and 8 patch golds can be looked at as a war chest in those kind of games. Normally I would have put rox on the golds, but as they are far away and accessible by all races I didnt see a need too, also it makes them just that littlebit more attractive to take and encourages more use of the forest area.
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"..bug issues, ..., units being trapped in odd places, tearing of the terrain, ..., but as far as I can see they were all Ironed out. "
Was it the default random generating of bumps at first load? No?, what then?
you ironed out by smoothing? the terrain editor seemed straightforward to me at first but this function gives it the buggin edge every other strata has, definitely a hoot to discover.
"Edit:I have added a download link at the top of the thread for anyone not on the EU server to be able to play it."
nice! I do feel that cross realm publishing is a great thing: for one proof you have sc2 playing friends that you can count on, kudos to all you mapmakers who care about these things and salsa and vinegar for the people "hosting" said maps!
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quote+ Show Spoiler +[QUOTE]On December 24 2010 09:33 baskerville wrote:
"..bug issues, ..., units being trapped in odd places, tearing of the terrain, ..., but as far as I can see they were all Ironed out. "
Was it the default random generating of bumps at first load? No?, what then?
you ironed out by smoothing? the terrain editor seemed straightforward to me at first but this function gives it the buggin edge every other strata has, definitely a hoot to discover.
"Edit:I have added a download link at the top of the thread for anyone not on the EU server to be able to play it."
nice! I do feel that cross realm publishing is a great thing: for one proof you have sc2 playing friends that you can count on, kudos to all you mapmakers who care about these things and salsa and vinegar for the people "hosting" said maps
United States10271 Posts
the angle view looks amazingly cool.
Anyways. seems like a nice little 3base play game.
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Thanks.
And ya seems 3 base play is very popular so thats how I've been going. Though I have been wondering, do people prefer lots of easy bases? would that make better play? or do good games come out of 2 base play ?(I keep thinking of negative talk about blistering sands 3rd).
If anyone plays this over the holidays, feed back would be cool, I would like to see what people think about the + and - of how I have done the terrain and how it effects the gameplay.
Anyway, Happy Holidays everyone and see you all in the newyear.
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"Blocking that vision to give the illusion of height was awkward cos I was using LOS blockers (apparently you can use regions or something but i dont know how to do that)"
doodads lists have invisible line of sight blockers, which apparently you can resize to some extent (and here come the bugs)
The los develop a great set of mechanics, blizz thought that these mechanics should have a clear ingame representation (such as trees), or else the player would be confused... (I would figure smoke/fog to be the best one)...
So your pathable mountains need only be garnered savantly (however it's so long and fastidious to test ingame!! a players' delight isn't it?) with such (alongside the unpath and maybe air?).
As far as regions go, my pointer would be to try blizz's map (as I did) to see how they are using those for the edges (at least that's where I'm at)... they seem much quicker to implement but also long to define and test.
Again kudos for grinding maps with both graphics and gameplay originality fussed along so effectively
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I freaking love it, release this on NA servers please x_x
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Quote from Archivian:
"Edit:I have added a download link at the top of the thread for anyone not on the EU server to be able to play it."
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nice map. i played it with a mate just recently. good job :D
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