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Welcome to Trebia 1.1

This is a map that I made quite a while back. The basic idea is to have a map which is half island and half land.

Notes:

+ You can't build an addon to the behind expansions. Yes, I did this on purpose. No, I will not change it.
+ The behind expansions are made difficult to be used to push, as you can't build anything anywhere except where your CC would go and in between the gas, so these things are not completely impossible to defend.
+ The central mineral patches have 900 minerals in them. Do you think this is a good number? One game I played on this map involved me not getting drop and mining those minerals while massing. Shitty strategy, so that won't work. The breaking of those minerals will come in handy during late game, especially because whoever controls that path can move without drop (huge advantage)
+ I made the rings as unbuildable as possible so that a terran can't take advantage of the linear paths and death push protoss. The ring isn't as big as it seems as well. Plus, the map is poor if you play a land game without using drops.
+ Those behind expansions were designed for land games, hence why they push against the adjacent mains.

Your job:

+ Name any issues you can see.
+ Check your issues against the .scx file. Sometimes the image doesn't do everything justice, but at the same time it might hide problems.
+ Anything else you can think of.


signing out,

esem

Nice concept. I can imagine several interesting matches just due to the nature of this "half-island, half-land" thing as resulting from the minerals in the center.

Whats with those 3 mineral patches and gas? They seem odd and out of placed.

How about reducing some of that solar array terrain nearer to the center? So while Terran will not be able to tank/turret push down the linear path, at least theyll have a better chance at doing so going around.

And speaking of tanks, and I hate to mention this, since tanks have a friggin' long range as it is, the gas expo are easily tankable.

Check the ladder map Polaris Prime

I didnt look at Polaris Prime, but if youre suggesting that that map has some kind of similarities with those mineral placements, youll also note how often that map is played as well.

if youre referring to the expansions behind the main, they are meant to be tanked. Hell, you can even attack them with hydralisk. I designed them to be like that.

those minerals are there as a an additional source of gas for land matches and so that the CC/Nexus/whatever pays for itself in terms of minerals.

Unless of course, you think they are made redundant by the fact that there is an entire empty side of the map that can be made use of. I built the map so that three situations arise:

+ The map can be played without drops whatsoever, which is the reason for the oddly placed 3 mineral and gas expansion. Fights over the two central expansions will occur.

+ The map is played as an island map which will probably result in a macro war, given the design of the map. Then again, the opposite expansions are really far away and thus hard to defend at an early / mid game stage

+ The positions spawn land and the players fortify their bases then fight over the other side of the map

If i remove the 3 mineral / gas expansion, the first point will be basically removed from the game.


The idea behind making the outer ring path buildable was my original thoughts, but that because there are only two paths, terran pushing would be too strong. Now that its been a while since ive touched the map, im thinking that it might not be a bad idea after all. I could even open up the expansion chokes a bit more to compensate if it is.


I don't expect anyone to play this map, ever. No melee map maker does. Just creating is enough for me. Having people playing your one of your maps is just an obscure dream that for most will never come into fruition.

This would have been best under another tileset, space looks odd when its not near symmetrical.

I agree that the solar array tile looks awful. However, I don't care too much for symmetry because I like the quirks that come with imperfect position balance, just as long as things don't go overboard.

Usually another aspect that i find important about melee maps is the looks of it from the minimap. From the looks of this, i seem to concede that this is a very "unorganized looking space spation"

Balance the minerals, balance the minerals..

Maybe you should pretend that this space station got hit by a meteor or something.

As for the mineral imbalance, that can easily be done. I guess I overlooked that while I was finalizing the map all those months ago.

Woah, hey entropy, whats up?

It's been a while but I've finally managed to find a bit of time and/or motivation to make some adjustments to the map.

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Updates:

+ I neatened up the map a little bit by rounding off some curves and adding some fancy schmancy doodads and what not. I had another version done up but unfortunately while making everything nice and good looking I happened to destroy the structure of the map and it couldnt be saved without redesigning everything. Unfortunately, some of this map took quite a long time to make and I have a bit of sentimental attachment to it.

+ I touched up the rear expansions, making them a little more even to each other and also removed a bit of building space from them. They're probably impossible to defend against mutalisk though, especially if youre protoss. I'll need to do some testing for this. Then again, they probably always were.

+ I rearranged the minerals, with the hopes of making them balanced. I also moved them away from the edge of the map so you can get units to get around them. This is always a pain in the ass if you have a 4 corners style map, because of the bottom right corner.

Keep your suggestions / annoyances / complaints coming.

Gaurdians on this map would kill all.

ok, you see blues natural? The one that is supposed to be able to be bombarded? Its not forceing the player to build on the left side of the minerals, like the other players (unless i am just seeing wrong).

The doodads aren't showing up properly in the screenshot, and I haven't got a good image editing program to trim the image produced by SCMDraft.

Every rear expansion is the same in that you must build the building against the adjacent main.

Are you sure? Because it looks like your not forcing blue.

Yes. There's a little bit of unbuildable terrain which is hard to see unless you know its there. If you really want to be sure, just download the map and try placing a CC using an editor.

Its alright i believe you.

Essem, could you explain why you wanted it to be able for the expansions to be tanked?

It's not only tanks that can hit that expansion, but any ranged unit (excluding miners) that can fire on those expansions.


Evolution of Trebia's rear expansions:

While I was making the map, originally there was nothing there and the mains were closer together. I felt that the maps looked bare, as well as lacked minerals and more importantly, GAS. I didn't want to add gas to the natural expansion. To compensate for this, I initially added (poorer) blade storm styled expansions. So in my first version including those expansions had much more space between each other and the opposing main.

However, with more minerals and gas behind the mains, it felt as if there was no need to even have another side of the map and i might as well remove one side completely, and move the other to the center and space it out a little bit more. I then moved the expansions right next to each other, with the minerals lining against the other..

This time, I had a problem with space, as well as the fact that this would just provide an advantage to terran and protoss with their longer ranged units, leaving zerg in the dust against either and terran dominating both races in this regard. To accomodate for this, i pressed each expansion against the adjacent main.

This had two bonuses, firstly, it made everything closer to being racially even. Secondly, it emphasised the point of having two different kind of games that can be played, and slightly adds another of adjacent players against each other.


To conclude,

+ To allow all races, not just terran, to have power over those expansions

+ To add to the island game and map game dimensions. It's harder to defend these if you're playing against someone on the other side. Plus, it gives you gas for land games.


As for the inability to create addons for the rear expansions, that was an idea that i had to weaken the power of those expansions a little more than they were already.