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Hey there,
I want to present you a new Phantom map: Phantom Ultimate
(Download link and screenshot at the bottom)
It's designed for average and good players (low-money of course). The map is very balanced and 100% free of cheats and bugs. It was tested thoroughly with players from all skill levels, we even had two well-known European gosus in a game a few times.
This map was necessary because ALL the common Phantom maps are either imbalanced (Phantom BGH) or just plain stupid (for example Phantom Darkness, Phantom Fast Build, Phantom BGH Gold). Basically, they are for noobs.
But not this one.
If you like the concept of Phantom, but don't like the usual maps, then try this one. As far as I know it's the only one that meets the requirements of good players.
If you don't know what Phantom is, it's simple:
- Map for 7-8 players (3 players is minimum, but the stronger the Phantom is, the more players you need. A good rule of thumb is "newbie phantom: 3-5 players, average phantom: 6 players, good phantom: 7 players, very good or gosu phantom: 8 players")
- Gameplay is like melee. No changes to elementary gameplay
- Hunters style map, but modified and balanced
- At the start, everyone is allied and has vision
- One player is the phantom, he gets chosen at random
- The phantom gets extra money constantly (but it's not that much, so he still has to expand and use his resources wisely)
- The phantom fights vs. all the other players!
- It's secret who the phantom is (only he knows), but only for a short while. After 7 minutes game time, he gets revealed to all players (automatic unally + unvision and his location is being displayed at the top left (e.g. "Phantom's base: north-east").
This is necessary because in Phantom maps without cover blow, the phantom often hides and the game takes 1 hour and people start killing themselves out of boredom. This is not how I think that the game should be played. Instead, it should be an intense battle requiring teamwork from the beginning on. So the phantom has to be offensive right from the start. The longer he waits, the harder it will be for him to win.
Features in detail:
- Normal money (low)
- Phantom is selected after a short count-down (1 minute 15 seconds game time)
- Phantom is shown after 7 minutes game time
- Observer mode after a player dies
- Hunters style map, but modified quite a bit. Changes in detail:
-- all naturals have 1 geysir of course (as in Hunters Game-i)
-- the minerals and geysirs are positioned so that the workers never block any units
-- all chokes are equally wide and Terran can do a proper wall-in everywhere
-- all natural expansions are only open to one side
-- tanks can't shoot from their bases to any of the naturals
-- in the center of the map, there are no extra minerals but 4 geysirs, spread out of course. The center of the map is very big, and nothing stands in the way.
-- 4 extra mineral chunks at the border of each base. This is mainly to give you a little bit more resources in late game (so that the Phantom can't just let all players run dry so easily). In early game, it's almost not worth harvesting from it, except for Zerg, who can place the 3rd hatch there. So this gives Zerg a little advantage, but that's okay, because Zerg usually has the hardest time defending against early Phantom attacks, while Terran and Protoss can just wall themselves in.
-- nice, unobtrusive map design/doodads
Note: game time is almost twice as fast as real time (when playing on "Fastest").
Map history:
The map is based on the old "Phantom 1.7 CB" by Ressar, but almost everything has changed except the very basic triggers which work well.
You might have played previous versions of Phantom Ultimate, they were called "Phantom Pro", "Phantom Professional" and "Phantom V". There were also a few previous versions of "Phantom Ultimate", but they all needed some more tweaking.
This is the final one.
Map editing information:
The map is protected, to make it harder for people to create cheat versions. If you want the unprotected map, send me a PM. ScmDraft must be used to edit it.
Authors:
0xDEADBEEF @ BattleNet Europe
ichwilldochnur @ BattleNet Europe
We're also sometimes playing this at around 06:00 TL.net time on the Europe server, so if you're looking for a good Phantom game you know where to go. 
There are a few more players who like this, it's almost like a small clan. I'm not saying any names, but we also have a player from fAke, LRM and DkH who often play this. This just shows that the map is well suited for skilled players, and that it's fun of course.
Download:
Phantom_ultimate_fin_p.scx (57 KB)
Screenshot of the map:
Might look a little strange compared to "Hunters" but it plays very well. And no, you can't drop tanks on any of the small island thingies. It's just decoration that has no effect on the game.
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I don't understand how the phantom can possibly survive a 7v1, even with a few extra minerals.
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1 and 2 o'clock are still positionally imbalanced. I kind of liked the BGH version where you don't run dry. I also feel like 7 minutes is too short.
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On September 25 2007 16:34 blagoonga123 wrote:
I don't understand how the phantom can possibly survive a 7v1, even with a few extra minerals.
well it's not just "a few extra minerals" i think he's under exaggerating maybe
and yeah it's still pretty hard 1v7 though but like he said the better you are then the better you'll be able to use all your money fast etc. etc.
or maybe i'm wrong and it really is a few extra minerals
i always saw the original as more of a "people" game rather than a melee game but i guess this tries to be more about SC than talking zzz
i like the effort placed into balancing out the map positions and stuff though
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wow the map looks amazing and u have done quite alot, well ima go try this tomorrow too tired to play sc now, and im going to spread this :D great job man the map looks awesome and the geysers is perfect
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On September 25 2007 16:37 azndsh wrote:
1 and 2 o'clock are still positionally imbalanced. I kind of liked the BGH version where you don't run dry. I also feel like 7 minutes is too short.
1 and 2 o'clock? You maybe mean the "red" and "blue" positions on the screenshot (although it's all random in the game of course)? Well if you are "red" and "blue" is the phantom (or the other way round) then you have a problem, yes, but you still have two viable choices:
1. Rush the phantom (with some or all workers). This probably won't make you win the game but gives your team a bit more time to grow stronger
2. Ignore your natural expansion and make a wall-in at your choke and defend like mad, then later on do a drop or something.
In any case, this map was really played often. It all works, if you think something might be imbalanced it's really no big deal.
And thanks for the feedback.
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Oh the 7 minute cover blow is pretty cool actually, although it seems short.
It allows the phantom to gather enough resources if he wants to go mass mutalisks for example, but it's still not too long. The game tends to get boring at around the 7th minute if nothing happens, and all players start to wonder who the phantom is after they have their expansion running and getting their unit production going. So it's a good time to reveal it then.
If the phantom waits over 10 minutes he'll never be able to win anyway because the players are already too big.
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United States10774 Posts
eh if I dont know if I really like the 7 minute rule ;o
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
So the retarded tankable expos, unfair expos and unbelievably bad pathing of hunters are still there. Gj.
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On September 25 2007 16:47 0xDEADBEEF wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2007 16:37 azndsh wrote:
1 and 2 o'clock are still positionally imbalanced. I kind of liked the BGH version where you don't run dry. I also feel like 7 minutes is too short. 1 and 2 o'clock? You maybe mean the "red" and "blue" positions on the screenshot (although it's all random in the game of course)? Well if you are "red" and "blue" is the phantom (or the other way round) then you have a problem, yes, but you still have two viable choices: 1. Rush the phantom (with some or all workers). This probably won't make you win the game but gives your team a bit more time to grow stronger 2. Ignore your natural expansion and make a wall-in at your choke and defend like mad, then later on do a drop or something. In any case, this map was really played often. It all works, if you think something might be imbalanced it's really no big deal. And thanks for the feedback.
yeah my bad, i meant 11 and 12
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BluzMan: No, no and no.
Pathing is no problem at all.
There are no unfair expansions. You might think that the expansion from top center is unfair because there are 2 chokes (though both are at the bottom). Well, the reason for that is simple: there are two players in the top right corner. That means this expansion can be defended by 2 players. If there's only 1 player in the top left corner, then he'll just take the expansion from top left and guard the choke there. So he only gets 2 expansions for free, not 3.
Top left and top center would be too strong if there were 2 players with 1 expansion each being able to guard one single choke, so we made it a bit easier to reach the top center expansion.
And tanks can only shoot on two of the expansions (center left and right) if they are at the center of the map. Which is no big deal. They don't reach all of the minerals (only 2 chunks!), they don't reach the gas at all, and most importantly they cannot reach ANYTHING if they are not out in the center, vulnerable from all sides, and basically standing right next to the choke. In which case he's about to roll over you anyway.
In the original Hunters map, tanks could shoot from inside their mains or expansions to other expansions. There is no such shit here. It's basically very safe everywhere. We did the best we could to take care of that. It's quite hard to do an 8 player map that leaves enough space everywhere and is almost 100% "tank safe".
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Why don't you just make 12 come straight down into the middle expo instead of like hunters down into 11's expo?
Btw, my strategy in phantom is to always pick zerg, and unvision everyone from the start of the game. (not unally, just vision).
I do this for a couple of reasons;
1- it confuses everyone and makes the game pace faster because people are not gonna tech up all crazy if people start acting strange.
2- if im the phantom i can start throwing down hatches and mass lings with upgrades.
3- I don't trust anyone, there is a 1/7 chance (or more) that any one player is the phantom and a 100% chance for sure that someone other than me is the phantom. I don't want the phantom seeing me and getting scared and raping me, I'll take my chances with getting bum-rushed by everyone who thinks I'm the phantom.
4- Once a player earns my trust I'll give them vision back.
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CharlieMurphy: I tried that, but it just didn't work out. There wasn't enough space in either the center or any of the top expansions then. If you look at the bottom 3 expansions, you'll see that you need much space to make it all tank safe and allow your units to have enough room for movement.
But it's no big deal, as I've said... if you are at 11/12 and 12/11 is phantom, you either do an all-in-rush or you ignore your expansion and try to stay alive. It's fun if you defend like mad and let the phantom waste many resources/units/time on you. This helps your team.
If neither 11 nor 12 is the phantom, it doesn't matter at all.
Besides, the player who gets attacked first generally has a hard time anyway and most probably dies right away. There's really not much you can do about it. It just has to be like that. If you change it, the Phantom cannot ever win.
Thankfully the map has observer mode. 
The map is still hard for the phantom, though. If there are 7 or 8 players, the phantom really needs to try hard.
And yeah your strategy is okay, of course. But I hate players who do that, I always scout them regularly.
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If you can make it fit on the bottom why can't it fit on the top? Just flip/reverse the bottom half to the top. It should fit.
PS- I forgot to mention that I kill anything that comes in my base.
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This is necessary because in Phantom maps without cover blow, the phantom often hides and the game takes 1 hour and people start killing themselves out of boredom. This is not how I think that the game should be played.
Thats the best part of Phantom!
If youre playing to win, maybe this map then. But if youre playing Phantom, then youre playing for fun, which means you Phantom on Hunters is good enough. If the game lasts for an hour, then you guys are taking it way too seriously. Kill someone and start a series of crosses and double-crosses; thats how Phantom was meant to be played.
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I understand that point, but I also know enough players who rather have a competitive map where it's really all about teamwork vs. the phantom. No boredom, no psychological tricks, no alliances, nothing. Just the phantom vs. the team.
I know that it can be fun sometimes, but often the game is really boring and is more like Sim City than StarCraft. Players get 200/200, then start all that trash talk. Lesser skilled players often accuse better players of being the Phantom, and attack them, which can be frustrating or annoying for them.
But the real problem is that the game takes much too long then.
CharlieMurphy:
LOL thanks for the visualization. I now think it is possible... but when I tried it, the center was too small or I had problems with the middle bases.
I think I'm going to try it again. It'll be hard though. In your picture, you'll notice that the expansions on bottom left and top right can be hit by tanks from the center bases. That's exactly the problem: not enough space on the map... but I'll see what I can do.
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not fun if we know who are the phantom...
my fun when im playing this game , that to make everyone kill each other .
reveal the phantom destroy the game of the phantom no ?
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On September 25 2007 17:00 OneOther wrote:
eh if I dont know if I really like the 7 minute rule ;o
got to agree. I used to be good at hiding myself during the whole game and they ended up killing each other. Fun 
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I thought phantom was supposed to be all about the psychology. The phantom could be anybody! Don't trust anybody!
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On September 25 2007 16:34 blagoonga123 wrote:
I don't understand how the phantom can possibly survive a 7v1, even with a few extra minerals.
me neither, it's possible only if the other 7 are noobs. Well most of the time they are in public games.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://freenet-homepage.de/demogorgon/Phantom-Ultimate.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i22.tinypic.com/ehkv42.jpg)
