Author |
Map |
Theme (up to 8) |
Aesthetics (up to 10) |
Strategy (up to 16) |
Total |
CaptainKlutz |
Adaptive Fangtooth Islands |
5.0 |
7.0 |
13.0 |
25 |
Sting |
King of Beta Ceti |
6.0 |
8.0 |
9.0 |
23 |
Prohibitorum |
Project Vortex |
7.5 |
8.0 |
8.0 |
23.5 |
TheCrimsonKnight |
Stulta Aqau Pugna |
6.0 |
8.5 |
7.0 |
21.5 |
¶ Adaptive Fangtooth Islands
The submission is created by CaptainKlutz.
Total points: 25
Strategy (Strategy score based on the points below: 13 out of 16)
What I like:
- There is a very nice and balanced amount of mexes that are raidable by t1 navy, making early t1 navy important. The large distance to the enemy and the sufficient amount of safe mexes and reclaim, allows for ecoing and teching on the top of that. This ensures the map is not just an all-out t1 navy rush.
- There are no annoying chokes for navy to get stuck in, allowing free navy micro and a higher possibility for closing out the game within the hour at least.
- With the way everything is balanced, many games will see the use of t1, t2 and t3 navy and air. On the more central islands there will be a few t1 land fights. All in all a map with a lot of viable strategic options.
- There are relative few resources and islands that are easily contested by both players, allowing for a pretty secure, balanced and predictable split early on. This is good, because it limits the amount of volatile starts, where the failure of a transport rush or the early loss of one island, leads to a very early game loss.
- The position of the tree groups is highlighted by a green decal beneath them, which makes it easy for the player to make use of.
- There is enough reclaim to make it interesting for the players to make an effort for it. But there is not too much of it and not too much of it is contestable. Overall a nicely balanced distribution of reclaim.
- Everyone has a clear opponent, but there is also plenty of options to help out your teammates, so that the game is not basically four 1v1’s.
What I dislike:
- There are some civilian building wrecks that have 0 mass value. This may confuse the player for a second.
- The mid- and air player have about half the amount of safe mexes compared to the side players, making the game possibly a bit less enjoyable for them, since they will have less impact. Imbalances in a map are fine, as long as it results in an asymmetrical balance in power. This is not the case here, as all player will have roughly equal amount of mexes available to them as their opponent.
- The air player has a very small island to work with. Making an air-grid here, can get a bit frustrating late game. Especially when you might be inclined to make mass fabs, because you have so few mexes.
Aesthetics (Aesthetics score based on points below: 7 out of 10)
What I like:
- There are some nice decals in the bases outlining areas of infrastructure.
- It has a unique and nice looking green-brown color scheme.
- There is a nice use of terrain decals, depicting fissures in the terrain, dried up river beds, etc.
What I dislike:
- The map has very few contrasting colors which makes it’s appearance a bit less interesting.
- Without much vegetation and without much aesthetic variation in the terrain it lacks some excitement
- The mountains on the main base islands are unnaturally spikey.
Theme (Theme score based on the points below: 5 out of 8)
What I like:
- The infrastructure decals in the bases are a subtle addition adding to an orderly UEF feel to the map.
What I dislike:
- More could have been done to add to a UEF theme or storyline.
The submission is created by Sting.
Total points: 23
Strategy (Strategy score based on the points below: 9 out of 16)
What I like:
- There are some really nice elements like the capturing of early t2 tech and a cruiser, that make for interesting early game strategy options. I think there is some interesting reclaim elements.
- Even though all mexes can be killed by t1 navy, there is quite a bit of distance between the bases and there are a lot of mexes very close to the base, at least allowing for some eco and tech scaling. This way most games will not solely be t1 navy spam. T1 navy is still a bit too important on this map. Many games will probably not see t3 navy or air.
- Everyone has a clear opponent, but there is also plenty of options to help out your teammates, so that the game is not basically four 1v1’s.
What I dislike:
- The fact there is so little land, makes it a pure navy/air map. It’s usually more fun, when you can at least have some small land skirmishes, even on a navy map.
- The small cubes make it awkward to build, structure and defend your base.
- I dislike that the reclaim is so randomly distributed across the map. It’s more convenient (and less APM intensive) for the player when the reclaim is distributed in somewhat clumped up patches.
- The UEF cranes carry little to no mass for reclaiming. The player is not expected to know this, and not getting this mass can impede his plans/BO in a mild way.
- The UEF administration building has a lot of hp and mass, giving unexpected reclaim timings and income, since the player has no way of knowing which buildings carry a lot of mass and which don’t. Better to keep all buildings’ reclaim value and HP somewhat on the average side.
Aesthetics (Aesthetics score based on points below: 8 out of 10)
What I like:
- Making a map look good that has mainly square cubes for land seems impossible, but it somehow worked here. The cubes are submerged right under the water line, allowing the player to build and walk on there. The surface of the cubes look really good.
- Great looking skybox, that fits with the dark otherworldly aesthetics of the map overall. Especially with the misty clouds on top as well. Very nice.
What I dislike:
- A lot of players often have problems with darker looking maps, depended on their monitor and game settings.
- With so little land and no vegetation, there is only so much you can do artistically.
Theme (Theme score based on the points below: 6 out of 8)
What I like:
- The backstory is really nice and fits well with the props used and the lay-out of the terrain.
- Especially the little harbor area surrounding the capturable UEF navy factory looks really neat.
What I dislike:
- I’m pretty sure there is supposed to be only 1 Black Sun weapon. Having it on both sides, kind of breaks with the game lore.
The submission is created by Prohibitorum.
Total points: 23.5
Strategy (Strategy score based on the points below: 8 out of 16)
What I like:
- It’s a map that focuses on navy gameplay, as was the primary objective. The combination of having a lot of resources (mexes and reclaim) to your exposal as well as having a nice balance in contested versus safe mexes, you can expect navy to be important in both t1 and t2 stage. Sometimes even t3, but this will be more rare I think.
- The amount of reclaim available near the base, makes for interesting openings in higher level games.
- The option for the mid-player to capture an e-storage, torpedo bomber or a transport is a nice touch and gives some welcome variation.
- I like the relative high amount of hydro’s, which makes it easier to scale up as a navy player who doesn’t have much land area to build power on.
- Pathfinding for the navy is fine here, since there are no real chokepoints to navigate through.
What I dislike:
- The navy pathfinding in the corners is not great, because there are very narrow straits between the islands and it is not easily visible which shallows are traversable for navy in this area at a first glance. The fact that these corners have a lot of reclaim, makes it worse, since you need to fight over this area in the early game.
- The UEF cranes carry little to no mass for reclaiming. The player is not expected to know this, and not getting this mass can impede his plans/BO in a mild way.
- The fact that units die when dropped in the middle, is not communicated to the player in game (Even though it is mentioned in the description). It is not something that the player can reasonably expect when playing the map. Therefore it is very bad gameplay wise. Especially when it happens to the ACU.
- The UEF administration building has a lot of hp and mass, giving unexpected reclaim timings and income, since the player has no way of knowing which buildings carry a lot of mass and which don’t. Better to keep all buildings’ reclaim value and HP somewhat on the average side.
- There are a few tiny islands that mess a bit with navy pathfinding.
Aesthetics (Aesthetics score based on points below: 8 out of 10)
What I like:
- The color scheme looks great, with subtle tints of red, green and grey. Nice contrasting colors against the bright green of the mexes, enhancing visibility.
- The civ bases and structures look great. Especially since the neutral color doesn’t contrast a lot with the color of the surrounding terrain.
- The map has a high amount of detail, in the way the mountains and ridges look natural and different colors and textures are used.
What I dislike:
- Very minor point, but I noticed there are a lot of “floating trees”. Although this is not something a player would notice normally. Perhaps a caster, when going for a cinematic shot.
Theme (Theme score based on the points below: 7.5 out of 8)
What I like:
- I like how the props all match well with the background story in the map description. The beached naval wrecks at the sides of the giant crater, along with the themed UEF civ structures related to the “Black Sun”.
- I like the back story itself and how it ties into the name of the map and the visual and gameplay aspects.
What I dislike:
- When you zoom in, in middle, you see the Black Sun wreck, but it bugs in and out of view and seems to float on top of the water.
The submission is created by TheCrimsonKnight.
Total points: 21,5
Strategy (Strategy score based on the points below: 7 out of 16)
What I like:
- The map has a nicely balanced amount of natural reclaim. The use of tree groups, rocks and civilian structures creates an interesting reclaim distribution.
- There is enough open space, which allows for unhampered navy micro.
- The map has a nice balance regarding safe mexes and mexes that are contested by t1 navy. This makes early naval presence important, but also allows for teching and ecoing on top of that.
What I dislike:
- One player spawns with a t2 radar and 7 t1 pgens. Strategy-wise it opens a possibility for very weird opening build orders. The player can pause the t2 radar, so that he starts with 160 energy income. This allows all kinds of weird builds, with rushing a bomber or jester. Or just building fewer pgens in the opening (for any of the players, because of the overflow). In my opinion this makes the map unsuitable for any ranked game.
- The civ base with the t2 radar is pretty annoying to deal with if you haven’t seen the map before. If you are familiar with the map, you will know that you can take the whole base with your acu and a few mobile aa. This will greatly favor the player that has played the map before, which is usually not a good thing. The mechanic in which you pause the mex to allow a more energy saving BO is also not immediately obvious. Same thing for capturing the t2 pgens.
- There is a lot of uneven rocky terrain, which (although it looks nice) makes it difficult to find even terrain to place buildings.
- The passable versus unpassable terrain is not communicated clearly in all places.
- All in all the map is a bit much. There are civ units to kill, to reclaim and to capture. There are tree-groups to grab, rocks to click and you need to zoom in to see what is passable and buildable. This makes the game experience (especially for someone playing the map for the first time) a bit hectic.
- There is no obvious t3 air spot. When one team doesn’t go t3 air and the other team does, this will create a very volatile imbalance. You will see a lot of people blaming their team for not going t3 air.
Aesthetics (Aesthetics score based on points below: 8.5 out of 10)
What I like:
- The map looks great. The details in the terrain, the color scheme and the water looks awesome. Great job!
- The infrastructure decals and the placement of civ units and buildings looks really nice.
- The map looks very natural, as if it is based off of a real-life place.
- The cliffs, ridges and terrain all look pretty good. Nothing too spikey or unnatural looking.
What I dislike:
- I personally dislike the extensive use of hostile civ units/buildings, because I think it looks bad on a map. The offensive red color draws the eyes too much. This is all personal taste of course.
Theme (Theme score based on the points below: 6 out of 8)
What I like:
- The placements of the civ buildings and units lining up with the decals look really nice and add to a UEF theme.
- The numerous little UEF bases are nice and subtle of design.
What I dislike:
- A little backstory in the map description could have added to the theme.
¶ Adaptive Fangtooth Islands: 25/34