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so it's intresting to see how TL is mainly about tournaments and providing tools to enjoy the full depth of the real game.
But when i logon to Starcraft, i tend to just play UMS maps. (probably cause i suck) some of my top UMS maps (and the lesser known ones) that i've found are listed not in any particular order. oh, and please share your favorites too! ^^
EXPOSING THE UNDERRATED (very fun to play, has creativity and originality, and is way underrated)
- Worms.
some of you may remeber this one, but this absolutely blows all of the rest away. find it. play it. and know.
- Civil War: Virginia
capturing locations, and when you meet an enemy, it goes into an "instance" battle of capture the flag, topped off with stat-affecting generals that you can switch out each round. the main battle overarching instance battles is always an aspect i enjoy. and the capture the flag battles are enthralling, but less stressful than RISK.
There is another one that isn't that well known called Gunship.
this one's main feature is a pilot, and a crew, which are different players, and can load and unload units. the game-within-a-game feature is always good. but this one falls short of the glory of Civil War: Virginia because when you exclude this feature, it's basically special forces (see below)
EDIT: i found a new UMS map that totally rocks. it's called Overlord vs. Dragoons . i know what you're thinking. and that's what everyone thinks when they first join the game. "Overlords cant shoot!" well. its basically an expanded map based on micro, but nothing practical or realistic. intead, overlords lay mines, kind of like worms. goons have a chasing observer. the obejctive is to kill overlords and goons, but the real fun element of the game is that you can buy stuff with the civilians you get over time. overlords have a buying augmentation arsenal of zerglings, ultras, and reavers. goons get broodlings (for destroying mines as well as offesnive bombs), probes that can build pylons batteries and cannons, and finally money for upgrades as well as to fund buildings. i recommend this one to everyone. it's a breath of fresh air.
2 THUMBS UP! (very fun to play, has creativity and originality)
- Micro maps.
there are 3 classes: vs computer, vs humans in a tournament style, and of course the "strip" infusion. the 3rd isn't really a class, but it still deserves mention. Some of the best PvP micro games would be "Team Micro Arena", various "Micro Tournament" maps. fighting against computer AI can be fun, if you are competing to see who can last the longest, but is quite barricaded from "real life" situations. An all time classic in this category would be Vulture Nightmare.
- RISK barely made it to two thumbs up because it's not very original, but it's a classic, very fun to play and can get extremely strategic. (i presonally prefer just zealots, or just marines. If you add too much, it can get crazy, but the prevailing champion seems to be the marine zergling tank goliath version.
-oh yes, impossiblemaps would definitely fit in this category, as well as an overal strong rating from me. still under the large umbrella of "micro" maps. yet a strange creature all by itself.
Personal interjection: "Infested Vulture Chase 1 and 2" are pretty fun. goes fast, doesn't have AS MUCH replay value as other maps, but it's nicely balanced, and requires a bit of thinking
1THUMB UP (fun to play, but not very creative)
-Defense. oh this one stirs up mixed feelings. we've all had experience of joining and getting a shitty defense map, vs a good one. so ill cut to the chase and say, New Sunken Defense Korean Defense and more recent asian spillovers like 20,000 hyrdas are ones worth playing.
-Impossible. always good. In the end, ur playing against computer AI, and sometimes triggers place unit behavior below that of the default computer's AI, but this is another staple classic.
-Blood. it's basically madness, but getting those heros and racking up kills strategically can add the magic touch... kind of like MSG does to food. first game Zergling Blood, then Mutalisk Blood, and now theres actually another asian spillover of Larvae Blood. this one can be fun, but requires balance.
-Zone control another spinoff of madness, but it has enough depth to make it considerably strategic.
-Bounds.
im not a personal fan, but this one just doesn't belong in thumbs down section. they place a lot of work into making the puzzles, and some are very hard to figure out, let alone do. basically, if this is ur genre, it's ur genre. but if it isn't, it just isn't.
THUMBS DOWN (generic, anybody-can-make- types of UMS maps.)
-Madness. spawn location, keep getting units over time, and whoever gets most kills wins. twists like upgrading and minerals/kills or evolving can be added. although evolves 2003 was probably one of the most polished and fun to play map of this genre.
-special forces. pretty strong guy, upgrade a lot, destroy the entire map. it can be fun, like solitaire and minesweeper can be fun, but overall it's rather lame. DBZ would also fall in this category.
-Godzilla type maps. 1 super strong unit, everyone tries to kill it. or a super strong computer.
this became kind of became a personal review, rather than an expose of underrated UMS maps, but still... a thread about UMS maps! yay! well that's it for now. post your favorites too!
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Madness could just be another form of blood. Zone Control was the final step in the Madness, blood type maps and very fun.
Micro UMS are fun as long as they aren't dumb never used/mis combo'd units.
I thoroughly enjoy the Real War maps (WW2, Diplomacy type maps. I collected them year ago).
I enjoy the bound maps as well.
Also B.net experience for the win.
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my favorite ums are impossible scenario maps. I just love playing them
Crepuscular is my favorite and Confluence sucks.
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First off, Rush.
I've always felt that Kerrigan's Demise and similar LotR(ish) maps can be really fun if everyone knows what they're supposed to do and can execute the ops fairly well. The learning curve can be rather odd, though, since beginners have no idea how to play and get owned, but as you get more skilled players, the map imbalances come through, and it becomes one-sided, too defensively oriented, and waiting for mistakes. At the mid-range level, they're still very entertaining. Ditto maps like Battle for Osgiliath and Minas Tirith.
The one RPG that is great fun but requires four people to get together consistently - Fate and Destiny.
Team Micro Melee is also very entertaining, but the basic map is incredibly imbalanced and can lead to frustrating things like Terrans massing tanks and camping 3 expos -> win, but there are ways around it, and the newer versions seem a bit more fair. I tried adapting the trigger engine into a drop-selection system on current melee maps, but it's very difficult for players to navigate the first few runs, so I gave it up.
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Russian Federation386 Posts
It seems like only those who suck at competitive 1v1 like UMS.......
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On August 03 2008 15:49 eX-Corgh wrote:
It seems like only those who suck at competitive 1v1 like UMS.......
Yea. Like that Testie, what a noob, Right?
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Just a tip:
I think this thread would greatly benefit from download links.
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My favorite map would probably be Evolves Choice FFA... it's basically vessel (spawner) micro at the intermediate level, and when high level ppl play, it actually becomes pretty micro-oriented.
Since the entire point of the game is to get to certain levels to counter other levels and feed, control of the center (map control) is actually fairly important so you can choose which army out of the 5 other ones to attack. Also, when you have an army made up of units from 3 or 4 different levels it becomes a hotkeying exercise to move those units next to the "right" opponent and earn massive feed points.
The point is to get a "bitch"... someone 3 or 4 levels behind you, which basically means you can mass at home and move out at a time of their choosing (the best way to win)... but to do that you have to have map control in the mid-part of the game (levels 8 through 13).
So in that sense it's a lot like starcraft, in that map control gets you points aka resources.
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Heaven's Last Defence? it requires a pretty good amount of multitasking.
and is also very fun
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On August 03 2008 15:46 MidnightGladius wrote:
The one RPG that is great fun but requires four people to get together consistently - Fate and Destiny.
Faith* and Destiny is by far the greatest starcraft RPG I've played.
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Nexus Destroyers 6.12 is an awesome UMS. I've heard people say that it's all about massing the right unit, and those people could not be more wrong. It would be more accurate to say that it's about how many magic units you can effectively manage at once. When you play with good players it's all about the storm/plague/irradiate/maelstrom/feedback/stasis, and the reaver/swarm drops. It's very addictive and intense, and it's also the only UMS I bother to play.
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All The Nexus Games, are the only UMS i play and are amusing, demands some micro at least.
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Kentor
United States5784 Posts
I play mostly impossible maps when I feel like playing UMS; they're usually very challenging and very fun. Strip maps are also like impossibles but with a reward at the end :D. I also like dirty cannon/dirty tank when I feel lonely.
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I love impossible maps and team micro-esque stuff. Battlecraft was also cool for basic unit counters, but there were so many imbalanced versions being made.
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My favorite ever was Grocery Store Wars, but I havent played it in years. As far as RPGs, I really liked the BW adaptation of Chrono Trigger. Micro arenas are always fun as well. Recently I've started to enjoy those Micro/Macro maps, but they are kind of dumb because the same effect could be achieved with team melee and some good teamwork.
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i only play micro and impos maps really, because usually its people of at least a decent level playing, i used to play evolves,madness, and hero arena, but there are just to many noobs that refer to micro as running away.
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Nexus PvZ- My favourite Nexus game for my favourite match up from both sides, always fun to play.
Micro Tournament- Great UMS to play 1v1 with friends, its really addicting and fun to play and polishes up your micro.
Zergling Blood- Great and addicting and fun game, the problem is if you stay ahead you basically keep yourself ahead and win the game which makes coming back impossible with the right hero and upgrade composition.
Aeon of Strife/Dota- Not as good as the WC3 version, it drags on but its still fun nevertheless.
Phantom Hunters version- Fun to play and doesnt drag on forever
Lurker Defence-Just plain fun seeing thoose lurks rip up evreything
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Netherlands6142 Posts
I enjoy playing Impossible Scenarios maps from time to time. Tis true that you play against computer AI but the difficulty (I find) is that out of the six people you play with, three will turn out to not even know what Dark Swarm is for. -_-
I used to play cannon/sunken defense type games. They're OK, I like thinking out mazes for the enemy units to go through, though most versions now are loaded with cheats and 'secrets' so it's not much fun anymore. Sometimes I can convince the starter to go with only 2 or 3 players, which makes it more of a challenge I think.
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EPT
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