PARADIGM
by SluggaSlamoo
Search for "Paradigm" on BNET
Available on NA and SEA only
SCREENSHOTS
OVERVIEW
I feel that the name of this map fits the design quite well. Maps are about creating incentives for new strategies and new playstyles while balancing the game. This map is designed to change the state of melee games.
I have put as much thought as possible into designing this map (I went through about 20 pages of drawings) and how it will affect the game. For now I will leave discussion up to theory crafting and see if I can make any changes from the discussion, I would definitely appreciate correction of any mistakes I make in this report.
2 Player Melee Map
Starting Positions: 10 o'clock & 3 o'clock
Map Size
Size: Huge
Playable: 220x148
Camera: 240x176
Map Description
Paradigm features 2 starting points. Every geyser returns 6 gas instead of 4. Expansions will have rich mineral fields meaning you will have to transfer workers to get the most from them.
The ground is littered with craters which will spread out your army and make it vulnerable to flanking.
Goals
- Make cheese unsafe and punishable
- No more 1a 200/200 Deathballs
- Bigger Looking Armies
- More Engagement Tactics
- Enhance Mech play
- Better Baneling Mines
- Incentives to be very greedy beyond 3 bases
- Flatten the strength of races through all game phases
- Post-Apocalyptic Feel
UPDATES
1.03
Its interesting how different playstyles affected the balance of the game so much. We played a handful of TvZ's, ZvZ's, and one TvP. ZvZ's turned out really interesting surprisingly. PvT was still a 1a, after I did a really poor 2 fact timing, and got my 3rd really late, plus my TvP sucks in general in SC2. Though I'm thinking transition to mass Air play might be better, due to the faster econ.
In TvZ, if Zerg gets a very early third base (15 hatch, 14 pool, 16-ish hatch at distance 3rd) and Terran does its usual timing attacks, Zerg will be able to defend very easily and completely destroy Terran in the late game. Most games we got Zerg going into Sauron Zerg mode with 6 bases and going anything into a win. Zerg won every TvZ instead of last time where Terran won every time.
- Reverted Blue patches to 3000 minerals so T/P can stay on 2 bases a bit longer
I think Protoss will be the strongest on this map, but we have yet to see, there's only been 2 Protoss games so far.
I will post replays soon, although they are only mid-masters level.
1.02
Right now we see a lot of nice long macro games with back and forth action, instead of steamrolling into win, due to much greater defenders advantage. Unfortunately I still see Zerg trying to 1a roaches and hydras and lose its whole army instead of building up a stronger eco and harassing with mutas, and massing hive tech units much earlier on (zerg will be the strongest early game now). I guess this is due to the fact that usually when Zerg gets mutas, it often allows Protoss to just steamroll into victory. However due to the much greater defenders advantage this shouldn't happen anymore.
3 base Protoss still seems a bit too strong late game
Siege Tanks and Colossi allow really strong zoning now so I've made the 3rd base less beneficial
Zerg still doesn't get the distance 3rd, so I've made it better than the close 3rd to make it more obvious, this also provides contention, and promotes harass from Terran/Protoss.
We may see more 3rd denial builds, instead of 1a-ing into the nat.
- Removed 1 gold patch from close 3rd to make Terran and Protoss weaker late-game and encourage them to get a 4th base.
- Added 1 gold patch to distance 3rd to make 3 base Zerg stronger and encourage quick distance 3rds
- Reduced all blue patches to 1500 from 3000 because the main would never mine out
MAP FEATURES
Huge map
The map is bigger than Tal'darim, however there are a number of features to mitigate Zerg achieving sauron Zerg much too easily, and the Protoss 3 Base Deathball. This will be explained in the rest of the document.
2 Player - Horizontal Symmetry - Width Emphasized
Close distance between the mains allowing for doom drops, as well as quicker scouting time to lessen the ironic coin-flip effect of large macro maps.
There is an extremely long distance from the opponents main to the corner 3rd expansion. This will encourage Zergs to take a distance 3rd expansion, allowing them to also take an easier 4th.
That is many craters yes?
Having craters should make armies spread out a lot more and therefore players will need to be much more mindful about moving their army, spread out armys are very susceptible to flanking and you can expect a damage increase of 2-3x if you flank an out of formation army.
"Oi oi oi oi!!!" - Kim Carrier
This will mean squad sizes will have diminishing returns, the bigger your squad, the less efficient it will be in battle and the more mindful you will have to be of it. Spread out armies, making them look bigger, and battles lasting longer should contribute to a more Lord of the Rings final battle feel.
Siege units should also be much more powerful in position, and much weaker out of position, making it more of a siege unit than a 1a unit. You will probably see Protoss compositions where Colossus will be positioned to lock down certain areas, and Zealots will roam around to flank armies.
Chokes in the middle
Without spider-mines mech will be very susceptible to backstabs. In order for mech to work, the enemy should only be able to go through a number of paths to push forward. However this is good for all races, Broodlords, Colossus, Tanks, Burrowed Banelings can all use these to great positional advantage.
Chokier-Ramps
There are no-pathing cells on some of the ramps (including the main) to make them choke-up armies a lot more. This allows players to gain a much stronger advantage on high ground. This should make 1 base PvP less prevalent.
No buildings on middle chokes
Because Terran would be imba.
Low mineral patch count
Lower patch counts will mean that player will saturate their bases much faster. This means spreading your workers amongst more bases will yield more return than concentrating workers over 2 and 3 bases.
Heres a simple calculation to explain it further. The optimal worker saturation is 3 workers per mineral patch. A traditional blizzard map may have 9 patches per expansion, meaning you can have up to 27 workers mining every base. In this map expansions have 4-6 patches, meaning you can only have 12-18 workers per patch.
This will allow Zerg armies to not need as many drones (thus allowing a bigger army), and gain much more from having more than 3 bases. 3 Base Protoss will become a lot weaker, balancing the ZvP economic battle in the late-game. Right now 3 saturated bases is all any race needs to achieve an optimal economy, or suffer having a tiny army.
More info here
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=191702
This should result in games where players will be making more bases than they need, thus creating more aggressive games with armies all around the map trying to prevent bases. Right now we have that in TvZ, but this should have an affect on all matchups.
This should also convert "safe cheeses" into actual cheese. To often we see 2 rax builds doing little to no damage, and the Terran player is still very much into the game. 2 Rax builds will still punish greedy play, but less greedy play that defends these "safe cheeses" should have a right to be very far ahead. This is the main problem with the 1-1-1 as well, its far too safe for a 1 base build.
For example: The 1-1-1 should be reserved for playing a very low economy extreme harass based game, its very good against greedy players because you have Air for harass, Siege tanks to contain, and a bio army for all round T1 offense.
However there exists the possibility of an almost blind 1-1-1 timing attack which to me has no place in Starcraft, a 1-1-1 timing attack should be the weakest head-on, not one of the strongest.
Such a concept can be simplified into a triangle, 1 base tech beats greedy, 1 base standard beats 1 base tech, and greedy beats 1 base standard. We should never have 1 base tech beats almost everything.
High-Yield Mineral Patches
The 3 gold patches at the Natural are to encourage worker micro and maynarding on expansion. It will also make 2 bases builds a lot stronger in the early game to compensate for the massive window other races have to punish it. This should reduce the coinflip effect we get from blind 1 base builds destroying FE builds.
All 3rd expansions have all gold patches. This is to make grabbing early bases a lot stronger, as well as make them economically viable again due to having half the number of patches.
High-Yield Geysers (Returns 6 gas instead of 4)
All geysers are high-yield. There is 1 rich geyser at the main and natural and 2 at the third bases. This allows players to gain advantages through gas stealing, as well as making 1 and 2 base tech a lot weaker, however 3 base tech will be many times stronger. We may see Protoss/Terran/Zerg players going for a very fast 3 base build in order to play very strong Mech/Air/Hive tech games. This is a double edged though, going fast 3 bases will be also be very prone to cheese.
This will also reduce worker counts for all races especially Zerg. Right now core armies are tiny, I expect they will atleast be somewhat bigger due to the fact that less workers will be harvesting gas.
Higher Mineral Patch and Gas Geyser Limit
In order so that bases don't mine out too quickly either due to lower patch count, each patch has twice as many minerals. The extra gas is so that when bases are mined out, players can transition to heavy gas armies, like Battlecruisers, Carriers, Archons.
- 1500 minerals can be harvested per blue mineral patch
- 3000 minerals can be harvested per gold mineral patch
- 5000 gas can be harvested per geyser
Backdoor Mineral Patch - Ledge
An 8 mineral patch door leads to a backdoor ledge that connects the Main and distance 3rd expansion. This requires that the patch be mined twice before it is removed, meaning that opponents cannot do this unless they bring two workers with them, making it less effective.
Players can build defensive structures on top in case the opponent becomes abusive with air harassment. They can also use this route for taking a 3rd base, or sneaking units out of a contain, but only small units will fit.
Main Geyser Positioning
The geyser in the main is positioned in a way so that Zerg can place their spawning pool between the mineral, cliff, and geyser making Zergling all-ins weaker in ZvZ.
No air-space around main
This will stop banshees, mutalisks, drops from being too safe with harassing the main, and allow each race to defend against them without ridiculous amounts of frustration. Medivacs are simply too safe when there is a ton of air-space around the main.
Cliffs behind Natural
The side cliff that leads to the main is to allow small armies out in-case of a contain. It also allows players to sneak a worker and grab a distance third. Turrets can also be built there to defend against Air, both cliffs allow more micro space for Air-To-Ground units.
Post-Apocalyptic Feel
Starcraft is about war, blood, death and destruction. Bel'shir beach is a great map, but when I think of war, I certainly don't think of the beach and that is why the map looks like it is.
OMGWTFBBQ THIS SUCKS FOR X RACE!!!
The following will [attempt to] explain why this map should be great for every race
The following will [attempt to] explain why this map should be great for every race
Why this will be great for Zerg
Due to the mineral and gas layouts, we can expect Zerg to be more powerful in the early to mid game negating any 1/2 base Protoss/Terran shenanigans and making 1 base builds far more punishable. Zerglings and Mutas will be extremely powerful early on in the game because of spread out armies and the many cliffs to abuse.
Zerg will need to dictate the game early on to prevent Terran from creating the great wall of Terran and splitting the map in their favor. Once map control is established, Terran will need to expand passively, and actively engage Zerg to prevent their economy from getting out of control.
We can consider the all powerful Protoss 3 base heavy gas compositions which seem almost impossible to put a dent into. However due to less geysers on the 1st and 2nd bases, there will be a lot of contention between getting a high sentry count, colossus count, or faster tech before getting the third bases. Due to wide area map control being more difficult early game for both Terran and Protoss, this will allow Zerg to dictate more of the game during this phase and prevent Terran and Protoss getting this vital 3rd base too early.
Protoss may get a 200/200 ball off 2 bases, but it will be less upgraded, and very zealot heavy. Not only will it be easier to defend, but Protoss will be practically doing a 2 base all-in due to the low tech and low upgrades, making it extremely difficult to get the 3rd if the army is lost.
The problem with normal SC2 maps is Zerg does not gain an economic advantage past 3 bases, so even though Zerg will be on more bases than Protoss, it is not actually ahead economically. With this map we can expect a huge difference in economy if Zerg uses its map control (due to a stronger early game) to secure a lot of bases early.
Due to the nature of the Terrain, Zerglings will be much more powerful even into the late game, and so will Broodlords. In all stages of the game if a Zerg knows how to secure expansions well it should be able to comfortably gain victory at any stage of the game.
Good Zerg players will be able to create lots of bases early, using good mutalist/zergling micro to flank armies and catch them out of position. Due to the massive boom in economy, Zerg players will need to be much better with spawn larva and macro than on more traditional maps.
Why this will be great for Protoss
Protoss will have to rely on positioning and good sentry and colossus usage to be able to get its much needed 3rd base early. Good players will be able to use good micro and special tactics through pressure or colossus/sentry positioning to get an earlier 3rd base than bad players, allowing them to do a strong 3 base push earlier than the Zerg can be prepared for.
The nature of the terrain will make 200/200 deathballs less powerful and it will be encouraged for Protoss to use pressure builds against Zerg to prevent the Zergs economy from going out of control.
Against Terran, Protoss should play passively because expansions will be a lot more powerful. The terrain will make EMPs much weaker, but same goes for storms. This will allow Protoss to constantly reinforce and whittle down a defensive Terran or flank when he is out of position.
Why this will be great for Terran
Terran will be stronger late game but weaker early game. Therefore late-game oriented builds should be used in favor of pressure builds unless Zerg/Protoss is being too greedy. Map-crossing arclite cannons should easily be enough to set up an early defense and prepare a powerful 3 base timing attack. Protoss shouldn't be able to engage easily because of the terrain and their army will be all spread out while moving. Immortals, Zealots, High Templar are all pretty terrible when funneled through a choke.
Against Zerg, Terran will need to take out bases in order to stop the Zergs economy from becoming too powerful. Due to the small number of expansion points, discovering bases should be simpler. A-moving banelings will be less powerful on this map however Terran should make sure his marines don't spread too far apart, so that the marines won't get flanked by Zerglings. The terrain should also make it easier to push off less tanks and more marines. Once a 3rd bases is established, Terran should switch to heavy ghost play to prepare for Broodlords and Ultralisks.
SCENARIOS
Here I describe several scenarios of how I predict the games will play out, the decision making of the players, and the tactics & strategies they will use
Here I describe several scenarios of how I predict the games will play out, the decision making of the players, and the tactics & strategies they will use
Terran
2 Fact -> Double Expand
The problem with 1 Fact Siege expanding is that it allows Toss to be very greedy without being punished, or provide a too large window for Protoss to do a Templar/Chargelot/Void-ray warp-gate timing attack. Bio will be a lot weaker than Mech on this map due to how difficult it will be against Colossus sitting behind chokepoints and chargelot flanking. 2 Fact will allow Terran to contain a much too greedy Protoss while getting his own 3rd at a decent time to catch up and get ahead of a safe macro Protoss.
Try and do as many scans as possible to react to what the Protoss is doing so that you can get the third as fast as possible. Once the third is achieved throw down a starport, armory and start pumping from as many factories as possible. Send/drop hellions to expansions to keep the probe count down, while building up a tank force and pushing slowly and carefully towards Protoss.
It you scan Protoss being too greedy push out immediately and try to contain the Natural. This will give you free reign to send tanks down to the 3rd and 4th expansions and take them out.
Protoss
Reacts with Sentry FE -> Chargelot Colossus -> Immortal/Chargelot/High-Templar
There will be small Timing windows for you to do Void-Ray/Bulldog/DT cheese as Terran will lack anti-air and scans, or he will build too many Turrets allowing you to take a lot of expansions unpunished. However if the Terran defends correctly he will be very far ahead. Time a warp-prism so that you can start dropping once Terran gets his 3rd base. This will force Terran to be on the defense and make more Turrets giving you free reign to take more expansions. You shouldn't worry about taking out SCVs too much, just enough to slow the Terran down, instead focus on expanding and staying ahead in the economic game.
Once it comes to engagement, the best thing to do is wait for Terran to un-siege and catch him out of position and stick to a safe macro style, trying to kill a mech Terran outwright will be suicide. There are two options in an engagement which comes down to 2 things. If the Terran seiges too late and is out of position, kill the whole army (send your phase prism in and drop immortals on the tanks, its super effective), if not, let some stray zealots kill some tanks but the rest of the army should back off.
Once you have enough bases, transition into Immortals/HighTemplars/Chargelots and whittle the Terran down, you should be able to reinforce your army much faster allowing you to eventually steamroll into the main. If Terran has made a 200/200 and doesn't have many vikings, you can also try and finish the game immediately and tech switch into 3 stargate and chrono out some void rays while attacking with your main army to free up pop.
Zerg
3 Base Muta into Fast Hive vs Terran
This build revolves around a very fast 3rd base before gas with 1 distance expo at the bottom using heavy (slow)ling play to begin with, and then dictating the game with a small group of Mutalisks and lots of Speedlings.
This will force Terran to have to go through many chokes and give many opportunities for Zerg to flank and delay the Terran harassment (thus speedlings should not be as important early game), of course there will be medivac drops, however the extreme distance should give a good zerg plenty of time to catch medivacs going towards the 3rd. Its important that individual lings are patroled all around the map for vision.
Banelings should be kept to a minimum as armies will be more spread out banes will struggle to do damage through the many chokes. Instead Mutas will become a lot more effective if you can catch the army near cliffs or out of position. Muta numbers should only be around 9-15, there is no need to make more than this as they will be more powerful and you will less likely need to engage a core Terran force. Instead the gas should be saved in order to tech to Hive and get Ultras or Broodlords.
As Terran will be low on gas on his first 2 bases, he will be forced to use squads of marines on the ground to tech while distracting and harassing the Zergs 2nd and 3rd bases. Tech to Ultras or Broodlords as fast as possible and try and maintain pressure where Terran is weakest. Once Hive is reached, researched speed and drop. This is so that if Terran becomes too aggressive and moves his army out of position, Zerg can drop.
This may force a base race, however due to the nature of the map, Zerg should be able to defend because Terran will be out of position. If Terran retreats, try to prevent him from moving back across the bridges, if he attacks, flank.
Terran
Reacts with 1 Rax FE -> +1 4 Rax Bionic Medivac 3rd Denial -> Tank/Ghost
This build revolves around a strong +1 Marine/Medivac timing attack designed to deny the 3rd expansion, while getting a 3rd of your own. The +1 upgrade allows Terran to do much more damage early on than Zerg would otherwise expect.
As you will be low on gas, you will need to go for a marine heavy composition and rely on actively denying expansions and keeping drone count down. Your 3rd Expansion timing should be late as denying the 3rd base and building a strong terran ball early on will be much more important than getting a 3rd of your own. A fast 3rd base will also be susceptible to a 3 base all-in by the Zerg.
Tank positioning will be extremely important as you won't have a lot of them, however you will only need enough to defend against Zerg backstabs with banelings and roaches. Gas should be spent on getting upgrades and medivacs and actively harassing Zerg bases. Once map control is achieved a 3rd should be gotten immediately, with the huge gas boost, Terran should start making lots of ghosts to control Ultra/Broodlord numbers, as well as Tanks to try and push for a contain and prevent Zerg from being able to do damage to your core army.
Once the push is succesful and a contain is achieved, Terran should remain patient and try and slowly choke the Zerg by taking out other bases while pushing into the main.
Responses to Version 1.0
Screenshots
+ Show Spoiler +
On December 02 2011 23:04 XXXXX wrote:
There doesn't seem to be a lot going on in the middle of this map. If it's a TDA sized map, that's a loooooot of open ground with nothing in it. Maybe something as simple as a Xel'Naga tower? That would give the center of the map some kind of strategic value, otherwise I have no reason to do anything but build a depot/pylon in the lane and clog it up until my army can get there.
There doesn't seem to be a lot going on in the middle of this map. If it's a TDA sized map, that's a loooooot of open ground with nothing in it. Maybe something as simple as a Xel'Naga tower? That would give the center of the map some kind of strategic value, otherwise I have no reason to do anything but build a depot/pylon in the lane and clog it up until my army can get there.
Thanks! I have now completely changed the center of the map.
On December 03 2011 03:17 XXXXX wrote:
I think in this map there needs to be an open arena for units to fight and spread out. It would definitely make the map more even for Zerg. What you need to do is kill the central penis of water and replace it with a wide-open area with watered borders. That makes the area neutral but with chokes leading to either side; same principle but with the open space now. There should also be a Xel'naga Watchtower in the middle of this space.
There is some dead space on the bottom of the map in the middle corners. You may want to find some way of giving it strategic value or leave it because it's a dead area for places like hiding tech. In that case make sure the Xel'naga towers can't see it.
Well that's my input. You've done a decent job and it looks somewhat natural (real bad maps appear blocky). Dress it up and it should be good to go.
I think in this map there needs to be an open arena for units to fight and spread out. It would definitely make the map more even for Zerg. What you need to do is kill the central penis of water and replace it with a wide-open area with watered borders. That makes the area neutral but with chokes leading to either side; same principle but with the open space now. There should also be a Xel'naga Watchtower in the middle of this space.
There is some dead space on the bottom of the map in the middle corners. You may want to find some way of giving it strategic value or leave it because it's a dead area for places like hiding tech. In that case make sure the Xel'naga towers can't see it.
Well that's my input. You've done a decent job and it looks somewhat natural (real bad maps appear blocky). Dress it up and it should be good to go.
1. Removed the bridges, in favor of your idea. No XelNaga because it ruins TvT, put crevasses in the middle to split up armies and reduce the effectiveness of the deathball.
2. Removed the dead space down the bottom (well most of it).
Thanks!
On December 03 2011 03:17 XXXXX wrote:
I'm not sure I like the idea of small numbers of mineral patches. It's basically the same thing because you've made them gold. You should keep the standard 7/8 on the main and natural, and explore concepts like mineral-only bases. In fact on my map there's a central Terrazine-only base to give players some crucial late-game gas to fight over. Think about putting Terrazine on your final gold to make that base even more valuable.
I'm not sure I like the idea of small numbers of mineral patches. It's basically the same thing because you've made them gold. You should keep the standard 7/8 on the main and natural, and explore concepts like mineral-only bases. In fact on my map there's a central Terrazine-only base to give players some crucial late-game gas to fight over. Think about putting Terrazine on your final gold to make that base even more valuable.
The reason for lower numbers of high-yield minerals is explained above.
However, the late-game fighting for an over-powered expansion in the center is an often desired feature but rarely happens and often produces bad games when it does. The center expansion in Fighting Spirit was either only taken when the game was won, or the player cheesed by putting all his buildings in the middle of the map and then expanding there. If you look at Outsider (Another BW map) there is a double gas only expansion, which was rarely used, and people opted for the safer mineral only's.
On December 03 2011 03:17 XXXXX wrote:
Xel'naga Watchtowers need to be placed on either side of the centre Gold base so that controlling them offers enough vision to see a nexus/whatever building in the middle. This also lets players see less-crafty drops coming for their bottom bases. (Good drops would have to swing way outside to avoid being seen.)
Xel'naga Watchtowers need to be placed on either side of the centre Gold base so that controlling them offers enough vision to see a nexus/whatever building in the middle. This also lets players see less-crafty drops coming for their bottom bases. (Good drops would have to swing way outside to avoid being seen.)
Offensive Xel'naga towers can often produce boring games especially in TvT. Positioning should be subtle and effective, but Xel'naga towers make it too obvious. When you see pro players use terrain to their advantage in a way you haven't seen before is always interesting, but rushing the towers with tanks and then turtling is pretty boring.
Center bases also create lots of problems. It makes it far to obvious and easy for Terran to get a 3rd base, and at the same time, almost impossible for other races to fight against it, because it is on a direct attack path.
I've put Xel'Naga towers in the main, to stop abuse on the side ledge with Air units or cannons, and I think that is all they are good for.
Feel free to report any issues/bugs you have for the map
Replays are more than welcome
Thanks for your support!