TPW Capitaclysm is a 2 player rotationally symmetric map with 12 bases (including 2 golds). The third base acts as a sort of 'central hub' after which players have some options to expand. For the most part, it's quite standard, however there are some quirks to it's design such as the "inverted" natural, and the terrain around the third which allows for some ineteresting unit movement and flanks.
I started this map about halfway through September with the intention of entering it into MotM#10. I spent a week or so tweaking what I think is quite a fresh but not necessarily experimental layout based on a BW map (Into the Darkness), and about another 2 weeks on visuals/aesthetics. I wanted my map to feel as much like a city as possible - Korhal is a lot of fun to work with, but it's very time consuming.
The name is a similar merging of words to 'Metalopolis ' (Metal/Metropolis), only I combined Capitalism and Cataclysm (the latter being a bit of a Blizz shoutout). The fact that the ladder is short on 2 player maps, and the only Korhal map was just removed, I guess make it sort of obvious this map was designed to fit into the current ladder pool perfectly. With that in mind, I wanted a large variety of playstyles to be possible when coming up with the layout.
Map Details:
Spawns: 2 & 8 Size: 132x132 (playable) Bases: 12 Watchtowers: 2 Rocks: Garages block gold expo's. LOSB's: At each watchtower. Tileset: Pure Korhal baby.
On October 10 2011 01:54 RangerRick wrote: It looks nice aesthetically, but just glancing at it I feel like it'd be really hard to take a third on this map.
How so? It looks a little bit open, but it's right in front of your natural!
These aesthetics are godlike! Wow, they are awesome. Great job, I can see a lot of hours went into this (especially since it isn't copy+pasted).
The layout is pretty solid too, the expo layout is pretty nice. The dynamic between the third and fourth is nice, although I dislike how the fourth is almost easier to hold than the third. Not really a big issue, but I think the third might be slightly too open for Protoss. I think choking the open third area a bit more would be beneficial especially since Zerg can get five easy bases.
I don't like the gold expansion very much because it doesn't offer "risk vs. reward" like it should in my opinion. I can't ever see it being taken as a third because it is so far away and close to the opponent, and same goes as a fourth. Really the only realistic time I see it being taken is as a sixth, because the other five bases are so much easier to hold and farther from the opponent. I'd rather it was just simply normal or you redesign it so it is more viable as something other than a sixth expansion.
The openness is kind of monotonous, which means that all of the pathways are pretty similar in width. I dislike this because every area of the map tends to feel very similar instead of extremely different because each expansion has about the same vulnerabilities. I'd prefer some of the open areas to be exaggerated and some of the chokes to be smaller to develop some interesting army movement choices like all Brood War maps (see Blue Storm or Fighting Spirit).
As a last point, I think your main and natural layout forces far too much wasted space. I strongly like fitting maps into the bounds without having to add useless space because it wasn't designed efficiently. For example, you could flip the natural minerals 180 degrees and put the natural on highground, then move the gold closer to the main and make it much more interesting "risk vs. reward" when choosing your third expansion. Basically what I am getting at is that you should really think about how you want the map to play and then design it efficiently based on that, so you don't end up with one of the "same old maps" (Not that I am any better at this, I'm working on it too).
On October 10 2011 01:54 RangerRick wrote: It looks nice aesthetically, but just glancing at it I feel like it'd be really hard to take a third on this map.
Yeah, I suppose by just glancing at XNC, Crossfire, Metalopolis, Crevasse, and a whole bunch of maps you might think taking a third would be really hard. Is that always the case? No.
On October 10 2011 02:27 Gl!tch wrote: Minerals in a parking lot? This is madness!
The path's through the center seem pretty narrow, actualy alot of the paths on the map seem kinda chokey.
The center path alone is almost an entire screen's worth of completely open space. It's as big as any part of any map needs to be. There are of course other routes around the middle - if these were all as open as the middle is, zerg would be unbeatable on this map. As is, there are places to fight that benefit all the races differently.
On October 10 2011 03:22 monitor wrote: These aesthetics are godlike! Wow, they are awesome. Great job, I can see a lot of hours went into this (especially since it isn't copy+pasted).
The layout is pretty solid too, the expo layout is pretty nice. The dynamic between the third and fourth is nice, although I dislike how the fourth is almost easier to hold than the third. Not really a big issue, but I think the third might be slightly too open for Protoss. I think choking the open third area a bit more would be beneficial especially since Zerg can get five easy bases.
I don't like the gold expansion very much because it doesn't offer "risk vs. reward" like it should in my opinion. I can't ever see it being taken as a third because it is so far away and close to the opponent, and same goes as a fourth. Really the only realistic time I see it being taken is as a sixth, because the other five bases are so much easier to hold and farther from the opponent. I'd rather it was just simply normal or you redesign it so it is more viable as something other than a sixth expansion.
The openness is kind of monotonous, which means that all of the pathways are pretty similar in width. I dislike this because every area of the map tends to feel very similar instead of extremely different because each expansion has about the same vulnerabilities. I'd prefer some of the open areas to be exaggerated and some of the chokes to be smaller to develop some interesting army movement choices like all Brood War maps (see Blue Storm or Fighting Spirit).
As a last point, I think your main and natural layout forces far too much wasted space. I strongly like fitting maps into the bounds without having to add useless space because it wasn't designed efficiently. For example, you could flip the natural minerals 180 degrees and put the natural on highground, then move the gold closer to the main and make it much more interesting "risk vs. reward" when choosing your third expansion. Basically what I am getting at is that you should really think about how you want the map to play and then design it efficiently based on that, so you don't end up with one of the "same old maps" (Not that I am any better at this, I'm working on it too).
That last line's pretty funny. "Change all these features so they're the same as every other map, so I don't end up with one of the "same old maps"". Yeah, nice one.
On October 10 2011 03:22 monitor wrote: These aesthetics are godlike! Wow, they are awesome. Great job, I can see a lot of hours went into this (especially since it isn't copy+pasted).
The layout is pretty solid too, the expo layout is pretty nice. The dynamic between the third and fourth is nice, although I dislike how the fourth is almost easier to hold than the third. Not really a big issue, but I think the third might be slightly too open for Protoss. I think choking the open third area a bit more would be beneficial especially since Zerg can get five easy bases.
I don't like the gold expansion very much because it doesn't offer "risk vs. reward" like it should in my opinion. I can't ever see it being taken as a third because it is so far away and close to the opponent, and same goes as a fourth. Really the only realistic time I see it being taken is as a sixth, because the other five bases are so much easier to hold and farther from the opponent. I'd rather it was just simply normal or you redesign it so it is more viable as something other than a sixth expansion.
The openness is kind of monotonous, which means that all of the pathways are pretty similar in width. I dislike this because every area of the map tends to feel very similar instead of extremely different because each expansion has about the same vulnerabilities. I'd prefer some of the open areas to be exaggerated and some of the chokes to be smaller to develop some interesting army movement choices like all Brood War maps (see Blue Storm or Fighting Spirit).
As a last point, I think your main and natural layout forces far too much wasted space. I strongly like fitting maps into the bounds without having to add useless space because it wasn't designed efficiently. For example, you could flip the natural minerals 180 degrees and put the natural on highground, then move the gold closer to the main and make it much more interesting "risk vs. reward" when choosing your third expansion. Basically what I am getting at is that you should really think about how you want the map to play and then design it efficiently based on that, so you don't end up with one of the "same old maps" (Not that I am any better at this, I'm working on it too).
That last line's pretty funny. "Change all these features so they're the same as every other map, so I don't end up with one of the "same old maps"". Yeah, nice one.
I didn't mean to suggesting you make the features the same as other maps at all. My previous comments were primarily about making some balance changes.
What I mean to say is that by changing little things like expansion openness isn't really going to give the map really unique game-play in the long term. The way Brood War maps did it is emphasizing and developing a concept (which almost all of the current sc2 maps lack and so does this tbh). Here are examples of some 'concepts' that could be chosen and what changes I would make accordingly:
Encouraging map movement around the outside I like this option because a lot of maps right now are mainly one-dimension in where battles occur. Mostly they are around the natural or towards the middle like on XNC. Make the middle path tighter, possibly split paths? Make the best place for engagements on the outside of the map instead of everywhere (lots of open space). Make the center not important for map control by defining each expansion area, like adding certain locations to control with army placement such as highground, small chokes, and watchtowers.
Encouraging Air Play I like this option because it would change a lot of the strategies and shift map control to air instead of ground. The natural is already setup this way, I would make the third more vulnerable to air by just moving its mineral line slightly closer to the opponents main by air. Make the fourth more vulnerable to air by possibly rotating the minerals 180 degrees, and rotate fifth minerals 90 degrees counterclockwise. Also the wasted space makes sense for this concept, so that would be another positive.
Encourage Harassment This is a difficult concept but could be cool to see since most current maps are focused on army engagements. The fourth already encourages harassment because engaging there is harder than the third since it is farther and more choked, so there is no reason to ever go there except to harass. Also the reaper/colossi path does a good job of this too. You could make the rest of the map encourage harassment too by adding a lowground cliff to the third and make the fifth against highground.
Making the chokes more varied is just a way to make more intense situations and raise the skill cap because a player who micros and positions better will really win a fight (like Shakuras plateau) where as without varied chokes battles can't go as one-sidedly. It is just important to be careful that chokes don't restrict army movement too much.
Approximate lines of defense. Red = 1-3 bases. Green = 4 bases. Orange = 5+ bases.
It does get significantly more difficult to expand without extreme military dominance. It will encourage lesser expanding, and greater army plays. But in a high level game, where going 3 base all-in won't necessarily win you the game, the strong armies will be used to take map control and secure additional bases, essentially pushing the lines of defense to your enemy's choke-points.
This map heavily favors any players who go for map control, more so than other maps. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
Approximate lines of defense. Red = 1-3 bases. Green = 4 bases. Orange = 5+ bases.
It does get significantly more difficult to expand without extreme military dominance. It will encourage lesser expanding, and greater army plays. But in a high level game, where going 3 base all-in won't necessarily win you the game, the strong armies will be used to take map control and secure additional bases, essentially pushing the lines of defense to your enemy's choke-points.
This map heavily favors any players who go for map control, more so than other maps. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
Interesting analysis, I think it's mostly right but there are a few changes I'd make.
Red = 1 base Yellow = 2 base Green = 3 base Orange = 4 base Purple = 5 base Blue = 6 base
One think I notice is that four bases is almost as easy to hold as three base. Not necessarily a bad thing, but could prove to be imbalanced in some match ups.
I think the fifth base is the most problematic since there isn't a good place to position an army to defend it. This lowground base could probably be adjusted so that there is a logical army position that's not in the open or on a ramp.
I also think that six bases are easier to defend than your line showed, especially with the tower. But you're so close to the opponent that it makes it somewhat harder.
The only issue with your expansion order is that if you're playing against Terran, he will just siege up in his main and pound that gold.
My own analysis relies on denying the opponent the fifth at 3 o'clock, or you'll have to focus more on getting rid of that than defending 8-9 o'clock. Aside from that one gold base, it's definitely doable. But I agree, the corner fifths will be difficult to secure, and may even be left as the last-ditch-effort base in macro games.
definitely one of the coolest maps i have ever seen, would you mind creating a 1v1 version that is smaller or the same size that is meant for 1v1 almost like a better version of terminus?
Mindblowing aesthetics. The only thing I could point out is that you dont diverse the textures between low, mid and highground enough so its hard to tell what is what when you initialy look at the overview images.
At a first glance, I thought that this map looked like a standard 2 player map, but after looking into it a bit, I can clearly see features that go against the normal trends.
-The natural's mineral line is facing outward, making it more vulnerable to air harass.
-The fourth is easier to hold onto that the third, but not before you expand to your third, so it can't be used as an alternate third without significant risk.
-There's no real option for a third base expansion. I personally dislike this feature.
-The watchtower reveals the third expansion. I personally dislike this feature as well.
-The gold is more of a fourth or fifth (or sixth?) expansion, but is also closer to your opponent. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Usually, gold expansions are either far away from both players and act as later base expansions, or close to your opponent, acting as an alternate third or fourth.
i really like the layout of the bases. the many exit paths from the natural will lead to a lot of options in terms of scouting and army movement. the middle is also quite nice, as it looks like a lot like the type of dynamic that metalopolis had, only with a path through the middle as well.
the openness of the third does seem to promote bigger army styles off of 2 base, either for offensive map control or a defensive style. path behind the third provides players with a lot of options for harass though, (runbys to the natural, sieging up the third, blink stalkers, etc.) so i think aggressive styles will benefit a lot from this map's layout.
looks good, i hope to play some customs on it and give you some additional feedback.
I'm constantly blown away by the quality of maps on here, but this on stands out. It's a 2-player macro map! I'm missing these in the map pool. Good job on taking one of the slightly duller tilesets and turning it into a fantastic looking map. I aslo like how every part of the map has been activated either by the proximity of bases or the role in attack/counter-attack paths.
I'd love to give you criticism but I'm quite new to this and this map seems superbly solid. The only thing I can think of is the proximity of the Xel'Naga Watchtower to one another, but then the map looks pretty big and they seem well placed to the primary cover attack paths.
I think this is more than a worthy successor to Meta: I think it might be better. Would have loved to play test it before commenting here, but even though I am on the EU server I can't seem to find it.
Wonderful job - if something like this wins and makes it into the map pool, I'd be happy.