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Last update for (4)Iron Seams : 2013, 02, 14 02:32
| mapID | Mapname (comments) | map size | Author | Rating | Type | play type | | 4594 |  (4)Iron Seams | 128*128 | Excalibur | 2.6 | beta | island |
The map has been rated 21 times and got a total of 55 points |
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| Excalibur | | | | Made an island map. Reasonably happy with it. Needs to get deco'd and such. Feedback on improving it would be very much appreciated. | | Chef | | | Gorky island style mains??? You crazy??
People offraced as T just to have that free base. Maybe styles and ability are not the same as they were in 2002, but it's probably worth putting a mineral patch or something so Terran has to get dropships like the rest of us.
Z is traditionally favoured on maps like this, since they can transport big armies fairly naturally. That is, when there is one big middle island with all the bases, it's easy for them to hop back and forth. I don't know how it would be today, but this Zerg dominance on island maps was the general consensus seven years ago. You should try to do something more interesting if you want to make an island map. Thinking like Desert Fox, or Araknoid, which were sort of semi islands but played like islands in some games. Just something that is more than a boring island map, not saying you have to do semi-island. | | Chef | | | | ^ I say z is favoured I mean when it's not a gorky style main. Defending against your main being cliffed is hard even for zerg on islands ;p But when it is one big centre island and a more normal main, zerg are traditionally thought to be favoured. | | Excalibur | | | | Then wouldn't the in-main Island weaken Z to balance off their big mid advantage? And yeah I meant to throw in the anti-float mineral chunk I just forgot. Most of the bases will probably have one to prevent floats. | | JungleTerrain | | | Chef = Protoss4ever?
I forgot who it was that said that they were Cheft @ US West.
I don't know much about islands maps, I just know that gas is important... Wouldn't players benefit from having the vespene gas geyser put on top, to get a little more extra gas than they would with the gas on the left?
Also, I would think that zergs wouldn't do so well on a map like this since they need the most gas, and zergs here would only be on one gas.
Terrans could make dropships (100 gas), Marines and Medics (medics don't cost a lot of gas). Zerglings are really ineffecient vs Marine and medic balls, and hydralisks need to be massed in numbers with a good economy, while mutalisks would not be a very big threat since the zerg is confined for 1 gas for the large majority of the beginning of the game.
Wouldnt zerg be at a disadvantage? that's the way I see it. I don't play island maps (well I cant play any maps for now, don't even have the game anyways), but thats what I would theorycraft.
modified by JungleTerrain | | Excalibur | | | | The geysers are on the left which is a good position, just not as good as top. Right and bottom are the bad ones. | | Taranok | | | | chef is psychotemplar | | Freakling | | | Left geyser is just as good as top under normal circumstances...
And yes, Zerg generally are considered at a clear disadvantage, especially when there is no free 2nd gas to grab and they have to stay on one base until drop tech...
Protoss just gets a shuttle, that's only 200 gas for the robo, and can then easily grab expos, easily defended with any amount of cannons they need.
Terran is a bit slower (at least 300 gas to get first dropship), but can float CCs to get expos quickly and can always substitute vultures or M&Ms for more gas heavy units, until they get the extra gas.
Zerg needs drop tech, and ovi speed to make it worth anything, which is already 550 gas, and need spire tech on top of that, which then needs a lot of gas to produce any decent unit counts... The only gas-saving unit are Zerlings, and they cannot do much on island maps...
When finally mass drop or nydus canals arrive, Zerg would normally be too far behind already. | | CrystalDrag | | | | actually im pretty sure the left mines better than the top... | | Chef | | | JungleTerrain, all races love gas and of course Zerg benefit a lot from it when they are using units like mutalisks, lurkers, defilers and ultralisks, but on an island map the key unit for zerg is hydralisks and overlords with speed and drop, with maybe a few lurkers mixed in. It's a very versatile army for this type of map. Hydras are very efficient on gas.
Protoss likes to combat the zerg army with zealots, dragoons and templar, but on such a map it's hard to defend both your bases in the middle and your main. This means that Protoss opts for a more mobile army, with corsairs and reavers. It is more gas intensive than hydra drops, and still hydra drops are pretty hard to defend against even with reaver. It's not guarenteed victory for zerg by any means, but I am trying to illustrate the problems that arise in this matchup.
T getting the expo and being able to cliff zerg doesn't mean the midgame is more balanced, it means zerg suffers losses early which they can't come back from. Terran can choose to drop the mineral only asap, or they can expo. It takes a long time for Zerg to scout what T is doing, and it's difficult to counter so late.
If the main isn't like this, then the situation is similar to ZvP. How do you counter the mobility of the zerg with only so many dropships that are expensive and easily sniped? You must do lots of manual labour drops and shuffle units, but zerg will just dump all their units at once. You can spread your units thin and zerg attacks with all his army in one place and overwhelms you, or you can put all your stuff in one place and zerg attacks the other while you are too slow to respond.
These are some of the reasons I recall that true island maps stopped being used in pro matches and were replaced with semi island maps which provided unique gameplay but deemphasised Zerg's cost-efficient doom drop ability. | | Chef | | | Freakling, I don't understand why zerg in your scenario doesn't take a gas from the middle?
It is amazing that you have it so backwards. No one considers Zerg weak on island maps except for Gorky, which is only because of the hilarious cliffable main and free expo for T.
Think about it this way: Why does Zerg love long rush distances? Because they can make drones with impunity and have the greatest ability to make peons of all 3 races when not needing an army. So they get slow drop to take an island and shuffle drones easily to saturate the new base with their free overlord shuttles they need anyway. They can't be aggressive super early except to lurker drop (which happened lots on gorky btw), but they can build up adequate hydras to drop a fast dropship or shuttle play. You have to play island maps to know that timing of when you have to stop droning, but otherwise it is fine. It's equally easy to ferry the hydra with slow lords with your drones, as long as the islands aren't too far apart from each other. You don't need as massive a number of hydra as you do on ground maps when you are only dealing with a reaver and 2 goons or 8-16 m'm
modified by Chef | | Freakling | | | Actually the real problem on island maps is generally P>Z, easy shuttle expanding with cannons as omnipotent defence... But most of all corsairs, that make playing air vs. Protoss hard on any map.
I did not say that there's no way for Zerg to play on island maps, the problem is that on very basic island maps, such as this one, Zerg has very limited options, i.e one: Fast drop and Hydra from one base. And this strategy has a very high initial gas cost (Lair, Den, transport, ovi speed, hydra speed, hydra range is the bare minimum, that alone is 900 gas).
Your macro point is not really valid, if Zerg cannot FE. To pump more drones, you need additional hatches, but without additional expos that's not really cost efficient, and a higher drone count will not get much return. Hydralisks are also very ineffective on larvae, so you cannot use them for drones... | | Excalibur | | | | So perhaps limiting minerals a bit in island maps will stop the P>Z? | | Freakling | | | I think so, Forbidden Zone is probably the closest to a balanced island map around, and has only 8 main minerals (look at Paradoxxx for example...
Or give Zerg some real second gas with FE capabilities, like on Isle if Siren, or even a free 3rd, like on Arkanoid. With 3 gas Zerg can even out any disadvantage, Arkanoid is in fact rather Z>P I think, but also not a real island map...
Also, those are all old maps and statistics are based on an old meta...
I think I need to look out for defiler island tour replays.... | | JungleTerrain | | | No, actually the top position is best for each race.
Here is some of the research, just scroll down:
http://www.panschk.de/mappage/comments.php?mapid=1481
Gas on top for terran is the absolute best legal placement of gas for mining. (not taking into account statistical/human errors)
:) | | Freakling | | | | You forget about engine errors... Unless you consider them human errors preimplemented by blizzard programmers. | | CrystalDrag | | | | I did my own research. | | Excalibur | | | Changes:
Removed 1 mineral field from Main/Nat/Min only. Lower mineral count should help balance out P.
Anti-float minerals placed for T. They are all 0.
Made the middle a bit more interesting. The extra tightness might help a bit with Z and their mobility and versatility on island maps, or at least that was my thinking.
Left side gases should be fine.
Waiting on some more feedback before I do deco/doodads.
modified by Excalibur
modified by Excalibur | | JungleTerrain | | | | Is gas mining also affected by elevation? | | Freakling | | | | No, but by position on the map... | | CrystalDrag | | | Make a natural with a neutral building that can only have a hatchery built but not a cc or a nexus. >:D
Freaklings, What maps do i have?...
You said you'd work on the Desert One..
Im working on Frostmourne and Nature Reagent
The twiligh map and the cloud kingdom map have been neglected..
modified by CrystalDrag | | Freakling | | | | I am actually working on something like that, but using floor traps instead of buildings... Much easier to use. | | CrystalDrag | | | | Floor traps... Wouldn't they just be like stronger spider mines then? | | Freakling | | | Yes, and you can see where they are, even if they are deactivated.
Buildings are annoying to use for the purpose, if you can do it at all, because they trigger some "build on" property of the tiles, depending on the overlap, instead of just blocking their collision boxes (basically the same problem as with the stack bug...).
If you want something, that is just very hard to destroy quickly early on, just use (Lurker) eggs.
Theoretically you could also use installation doors (indestructible non-building units), to make permanent Zerg-only expos [just another entry in the "worst map ideas ever" section...].
modified by Freakling |
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