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Mods - I'm not sure what the policy is for posting maps made by others, note sure to use [M] or [D] tags?
Alterzim Stronghold was released by Blizzard recently as a new balance test map.
"Alterzim Stronghold (we’re pronouncing it ‘ahl-ter-zeem’) is a four-player map, designed with the specific goal in mind that all combinations of 1v1 spawn locations are viable and don’t offer an advantage to any one player. Please make sure to test this component of the map and let us know what you think. We also worked with our eSports partners to incorporate their knowledge and feedback into the creation of this map. However, we need to be extra sure that it’s tournament viable, because we’d really love to have this sort of macro map in the WCS pool next year. Therefore, we’ll be looking to make necessary tweaks not only before the release of the map, but potentially throughout the remainder of this year as we prepare for the WCS in 2014." - battle.net
So I downloaded it from Battle.net and ran it through the analyser. Here are some pics of the results.
Playable 192x192.
Main-to-main pathing is 216 units (cross) or 173 units (close).
Angled
+ Show Spoiler +
Overview
+ Show Spoiler +
Analyser
+ Show Spoiler +
Size comparison with other maps
+ Show Spoiler +
Photon Overcharge
+ Show Spoiler +
Bases
+ Show Spoiler +
Pathing Close nat-nat
+ Show Spoiler +
Pathing Cross nat-nat
+ Show Spoiler +
Pathing Close main-main
+ Show Spoiler +
Pathing Cross main-main
+ Show Spoiler +
Blink Range
+ Show Spoiler +
Siege Range
+ Show Spoiler +
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nr20 much? Based on their recent map releases it seems like Blizzard has no clue that variations in strategy make for an interesting game and assumes that everyone wants macro macro macro 200 food deathballs omg so many explosions.
At least a map this damn enormous might avoid the whole snowballing victory problem, since if you lose a fight on their side of the map you can pretty much build an entire new 200 food army by the time they get to your base lol.
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On October 24 2013 15:12 -NegativeZero- wrote:
nr20 much? Based on their recent map releases it seems like Blizzard has no clue that variations in strategy make for an interesting game and assumes that everyone wants macro macro macro 200 food deathballs omg so many explosions.
At least a map this damn enormous might avoid the whole snowballing victory problem, since if you lose a fight on their side of the map you can pretty much build an entire new 200 food army by the time they get to your base lol.
right? like, in the hands of koreans this could be fun to watch as long as you don't mind a 10 minute loading phase.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On October 24 2013 15:12 -NegativeZero- wrote:
nr20 much? Based on their recent map releases it seems like Blizzard has no clue that variations in strategy make for an interesting game and assumes that everyone wants macro macro macro 200 food deathballs omg so many explosions.
At least a map this damn enormous might avoid the whole snowballing victory problem, since if you lose a fight on their side of the map you can pretty much build an entire new 200 food army by the time they get to your base lol.
Actually if anything this promotes more interesting games.
It means you can actually have a game where you don't insta lose to a base race purely because they got to your bases quicker than you got to theirs and there's no point turning around since they'll be able to kill all your bases by the time you get back.
It also means styles like mech are better purely because the enemy once again can't just insta counter attack you and there's nothing you can do about it since you have no mobility. It means even if you lose a bunch of units too you can actually rebuild and claw what little defenders advantage you can get to defend your production rather than just insta lose.
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Eh, I don't know about this map. I'm excited to have another map with an in-base natural, but 192x192 is absolutely huge. This beast is larger than Tal'Darim Altar was back when it was in the map pool.
I do think it's important to have a large macro map in the pool though, so let's see how it does.
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As a player who likes to all in: fuck. But in all seriousness this looks very interesting, we have never seen such a huge map that has so easy bases, I wonder how it will turn out. I predict lower level games might suck, many silver players will have 2 hour long games here, but pro games should be pretty good.
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Well at least its not as bad as condemned ridge...
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Russian Federation40186 Posts
On October 24 2013 20:03 moskonia wrote:
As a player who likes to all in: fuck. But in all seriousness this looks very interesting, we have never seen such a huge map that has so easy bases, I wonder how it will turn out. I predict lower level games might suck, many silver players will have 2 hour long games here, but pro games should be pretty good.
It's not like warp gates cares about rush distance.
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In my opinion easy to take bases and large map will promote very greedy plays, so there will be still potential to allin/presure and it will turn out not to be a very campy map. Because of that we could see a lot of new builds. I can see potential to mech with "close spots" on this map, not very much with cross spots becuse the middle is so open, therefore it wil promote very mobile army composition for example: mutaling bane, zelot archon, bio mine. The distances in cross spots could weaken the death ball just becuse it takes so long to get to the other side of the map, and you could just counter attack very easily.
Those are my thoughts
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Russian Federation40186 Posts
On October 24 2013 19:43 Antares777 wrote:
I do think it's important to have a large macro map in the pool though, so let's see how it does.
We have 2 already actually though /s
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if this will be cross only it'll be intereseting I'd like to test greedy builds as protoss, but if it's all spawns fuck it srsly.
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On October 24 2013 23:23 Extenz wrote:
if this will be cross only it'll be intereseting I'd like to test greedy builds as protoss, but if it's all spawns fuck it srsly.
Why fuck it? in close spawns or not you still have easy 3 bases. I would open phoenixes first though since mutas would be imba as shit on this map. Anyways after inspecting it a bit you can see that on close spawns you got an easy choked passage to the enemy which means immortal sentry all in would be pretty good here.
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On October 24 2013 23:23 Extenz wrote:
if this will be cross only it'll be intereseting I'd like to test greedy builds as protoss, but if it's all spawns fuck it srsly.
They've stated it's all spawns.
I've love to see this map overlaid to scale with a current average sized ladder map to show ppl the true massiveness of it. I don't think most people (in the regular announcement thread) realize it.
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Russian Federation40186 Posts
On October 24 2013 23:23 Extenz wrote:
if this will be cross only it'll be intereseting I'd like to test greedy builds as protoss, but if it's all spawns fuck it srsly.
Why fuck it? This map will play out as same expand-fest on any spawn. It is THAT large.
Also, mind you, it is already published, just not on ladder. Yet.
EDIT: TIL that Taldarim was 176x176 against 192x192 here. Ehem, 16 difference on each side. Not that much, is it?
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i wonder which "esport" partner told them to make such a giant map to fit 20 bases. and with a full inbase expo.
literally the safest 4 base expo ive ever seen in a map.
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wow, this map looks really awful. I thought we would go away from this bullshit and back to interesting stuff like Yeonsu and Frost where you can't just take a free 3rd base but instead have to first of all correctly choose which base to take and then have to be in a game position where you can actually take it. Like having an army advantage or having harassing options so your opponent can't just push out.
Instead we get this: free 3 bases, easy 4th and 5th. And they didn't design the middle of the map at all. There's just nothing there. No cliffs, ramps, watch towers, rocks, just nothing. No reason to ever walk out and take map control. No possibilities of ever having an interesting positional battle anywhere.
I just don't get it. Why would you design a map like this? Blizzard map developers have to be really lazy.
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On October 24 2013 17:44 Semmo wrote:
Turtlefest4ever
It is very turtly, however the air distance between third mineral line and inbase natural mineral line is extremely short, in stark contrast to the ground distance, so it definitely better for harrass than akilon.
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Russian Federation40186 Posts
On October 25 2013 00:11 JustPassingBy wrote:It is very turtly, however the air distance between third mineral line and inbase natural mineral line is extremely short, in stark contrast to the ground distance, so it definitely better for harrass than akilon.
This map is like the best muta map ever actually. Muta turtle FTW.
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btw, I think this map will be very strong for Protoss against Zerg in the midgame, since there is no speedling allin possible to punish stupidly greedy gateway expands. And gateway expands with 3Nexus of 1gate should be incredibly safe. So you should easily get up a brutal 2 or 3base timing. Should be interesting.
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