Hi Everyone

I get lots of comments about the map pool and suggestions for maps to be included. Since there are so many of these kinds of comments I am creating a thfead for it.

If you have any thoughts about maps you would like to see or not see please share them here. I would prefer if we keep the back and forth to a minimum just to make it easier to read. It does not have to be limited to existing maps either!

Perhaps your suggestions will make it into the map pool for the next tournament!

Please keep it focused on your suggestions and thoughts so I can see what people are thinking!

Missing FP Great plains or High plains in the map pool. Yes it has an abundance of hunts but there's nothing wrong with that as long as many of the other maps don't have too many. It makes a civ like Ports much more playable as well.

As for ES maps, many of them have the right idea but aren't balanced. For starters they all need more resources close to base (hunts, but also trees and mines) and more consistent spawns.

Maps that I think could be very good if they were fixed (ordered by what I think the priority should be):
- Yukon
- Ozarks
- Yucatan
- Andes
- Great lakes
- Siberia
- New England. This also needs to be less wallable. Either remove sea, remove the ponds, or make them much smaller.
- California
- Painted desert
- Bayou

Somewhat unrelated I am also of the opinion that water should, by design, not be able to replace your land economy so I'm into the idea of largely removing whales from it (leaving 2 per map or something).

The rest of the maps I think we should just give up on for now because either they don't really add anything fresh or are flawed in their design.

A version of Amazonia!

I would suggest a pattern.

Land, tps
Water, tps
Land, no tps
Land, tps
Water, no tps
Land, tps
Land, tps
Water, tps
Land, no tps

- High Plains
- Yucatan (very balanced)
- Bayou (nice treasures & non-buildable zones and that's super cool)
- Yukon (too good for TWC civs though...)
- New England
- Painted Desert (it encourages colonial play, aging is somewhat risky imo)
- Silkroad (very unique map)

For team tourney if there is one :
- Fixed Rockies/Sonora for intense team games since all resources are in the middle.

California is corny :s

At least 1 in every 3 consecutive maps should be a proper (viable) water map. The previous tournament discouraged it a lot imo. Only hudson bay (nerfed version of sag) and new england (played only twice) were maps where water strats were viable.
Manchuria although was supposed to be water map, was not good (i mean 3 whales!!!). Basically mongolia and manchuria were almost similar maps that were played one after other.
##Maps I would like to see :-
Great plains/ High plains
Original saguney with better balance (hudson good but water being far from TC seems useless)
Kamchatka (can replace siberia with this map)
Pampas sierras (good map without TP especially for India)
Yucatan / Borneo (i think borneo is interesting cause of OP water but short land distance)
Arkansas (this to me seems improved yukon)
Deccan/ Carolina (high start crates will lead to faster play styles)
some viable water map (ceylon maybe , as a viewer would be refreshing to see a map where players are forced to go for water strats, just saying)
Silk route (good map for team games)
PS - to those who think water is lame, u can win the series in 5 land maps prior to this if u are as good on land as u think u are ')

Water is lame and broken but imo the main problem is the warships and not the watereco. The pure land eco is better and pays off faster than waterboom, but the problem is that there is no way for the land player to effectively fight the water, not to mention cost effectively, because warships with upgrades rape, i mean totally destroy their counter, especially when monitors are in play. And there seems to be a bug where towers will sometimes not attack fishingboats even when in range.

Ideas I have so far:

- bayou alike map ->' done, will be released
- yucatan alike map ->' baja california does the trick for that (needs some minor fixes)
- hardcore water map ->' I was thinking about a honshu/ceylon alike map with maybe some fixes for no schooner civs
- extra crates map ->' will be done
- texas alike map ->' will be done
- more maps with completely new layout ->' one already made

Garja feel free to guide the thread if you think it is needed! Sounds like some cool ideas are in the works

Well shit, sounds like garja has got things covered.

I think the main point to take from the last tourny is just to introduce more of a variety in map styles, but looks like you've got that as your goal already.

I will say tourny maps don't necessarily have to be fair for all civs as competitors should know what maps are comming up and part of your plan could involve playing ports/japan/russia etc on water map rather than france/germany for example. The maps just need fair distribution and no screws. Though I guess fair as possible for all civs is a plus, just saying it's not quicksearch here - people can and should prepare in advance for different maps.

I'd absolutely love to see something like ceylon/honshu in the pool, I think heavy water maps are a crowd favourite. Though you only need 1 heavy water map and 2-3 other medium water maps e.g hudson bay to complement the pool.

I also think this would work best with a map veto system and/or say starting map given and loser picks next map from a set pool for the round. (So having a map pool of 5 for a Bo3 for instance.) Same map order gets a little tiring, especially when 95% of the competitors only got to a point where they are playing on the first 3 maps anyhows.

calmyourtits wrote:Somewhat unrelated I am also of the opinion that water should, by design, not be able to replace your land economy so I''m into the idea of largely removing whales from it (leaving 2 per map or something).

-->' how to play aoe with half of its potential strategies?
water was barely used last tourn, nerf it again would just be wrong imo.
The way hudson bay was made isgood because tc isnt as close to water, but i think that just reducing the size of water without reducing the ress too much would impact the influence of warship without killing the water eco strategies (since warship cant be nerfed anyway)
California for yucatan alike? what I like abt yucatan is the fact that water is on both sides which leads to interesting decisions and strategies related to it, how about reducing the water size on both sides by 1/3?
Texas is definitely an interesting map, brings unusual play due to scarcity of food/lots of cows/mine placement. Kind of like what umeu said about the map with central economy based, but the towers need to be removed.
New england fixed with smaller ponds sounds great!
can''t wait for fixed yukon

wickedcossack wrote:I also think this would work best with a map veto system and/or say starting map given and loser picks next map from a set pool for the round. (So having a map pool of 5 for a Bo3 for instance.) Same map order gets a little tiring, especially when 95% of the competitors only got to a point where they are playing on the first 3 maps anyhows.

+1
Couldn''t agree any more, exactly my thoughts

Ye, i totally agree with that

Also more water laming maps wud be cool, as long as both know u have to go water it can become rly funny.

Competitive hispaniola?

That map will certainly garantee some crazy games

I agree with garj

benj89 wrote:

calmyourtits wrote:Somewhat unrelated I am also of the opinion that water should, by design, not be able to replace your land economy so Im into the idea of largely removing whales from it (leaving 2 per map or something).

-->' how to play aoe with half of its potential strategies?
water was barely used last tourn, nerf it again would just be wrong imo.

Id be fine with buffing water builds in general, but it shouldnt be able to replace your land economy entirely. This promotes passive, non interactive play which is not a good thing. Im completely fine however with water being an optional supplement to your land economy.

Whales are a design flaw. If they werent here, we could be making water a perfectly viable way to play without breaking the game in some match ups. As is there is no way to balance it properly. A compromise would be 2, maybe 3 whales on water maps instead of 5+. But its not important, the important thing for now is fixing the major issues on land.

Maps I'd like to see are:
- Great Plains (or High Plains). This map is overplayed but it is still interesting to see some high level gameplay on this map.
- A water heavy map (as Garja described). Like Amazonia, Carribbean or Great Lakes.
- Imo Painted Desert and New England are fine. (But they have to be fixed.)
- I also do really like Cascade Range.

benj89 wrote:

calmyourtits wrote:Somewhat unrelated I am also of the opinion that water should, by design, not be able to replace your land economy so Im into the idea of largely removing whales from it (leaving 2 per map or something).

-->' how to play aoe with half of its potential strategies?
water was barely used last tourn, nerf it again would just be wrong imo.
The way hudson bay was made isgood because tc isnt as close to water, but i think that just reducing the size of water without reducing the ress too much would impact the influence of warship without killing the water eco strategies (since warship cant be nerfed anyway)
California for yucatan alike? what I like abt yucatan is the fact that water is on both sides which leads to interesting decisions and strategies related to it, how about reducing the water size on both sides by 1/3?
Texas is definitely an interesting map, brings unusual play due to scarcity of food/lots of cows/mine placement. Kind of like what umeu said about the map with central economy based, but the towers need to be removed.
New england fixed with smaller ponds sounds great!
cant wait for fixed yukon

You cant reduce saguenay pond, its already too narrow. Hudson Bay pond allows for naval warfare which is better. And it has more or less the same food of Sag (just distributed on a larger surface).

Baja california is not California. See here http://www.rts-sanctuary.com/The-Asian- ... pic=234242 .

NE with smaller ponds isnt really NE anymore. The best thing left to do with that map is remove some trees from the choke points, but even then the map isnt that great imo.

We're many who want to see some water maps. Ofc, we don't want maps like amazonia but I think a "normal" version of sag with more hunts and mines is a very good option.
Punishing water is killing the game. Bs won vs kynesie and so did garja vs kynesie on Hudson, it was no game. I don't think that water is "op", booming land+push in water should almost always win vs a full water boom if you don't get outmicroed.

garja wrote:

benj89 wrote:-->' how to play aoe with half of its potential strategies?
water was barely used last tourn, nerf it again would just be wrong imo.
The way hudson bay was made isgood because tc isnt as close to water, but i think that just reducing the size of water without reducing the ress too much would impact the influence of warship without killing the water eco strategies (since warship cant be nerfed anyway)
California for yucatan alike? what I like abt yucatan is the fact that water is on both sides which leads to interesting decisions and strategies related to it, how about reducing the water size on both sides by 1/3?
Texas is definitely an interesting map, brings unusual play due to scarcity of food/lots of cows/mine placement. Kind of like what umeu said about the map with central economy based, but the towers need to be removed.
New england fixed with smaller ponds sounds great!
cant wait for fixed yukon

You cant reduce saguenay pond, its already too narrow. Hudson Bay pond allows for naval warfare which is better. And it has more or less the same food of Sag (just distributed on a larger surface).

Baja california is not California. See here http://www.rts-sanctuary.com/The-Asian- ... pic=234242 .

NE with smaller ponds isnt really NE anymore. The best thing left to do with that map is remove some trees from the choke points, but even then the map isnt that great imo.

I wrote it wrong, I think how hudson bay is made is good, my point to reduce water size was just for yucatan, but after I checked baja california it looks fine, waiting to see a stream on this map or play it soon!
Hm I mean for NE the ponds are too close to the TC, reduce them by half the size seems like a good option (like cut the half closest to the TC), so frig dont have a range on like half the map. thats just the map I always wanted to be fixed so I might have an obsession over it

I really like the map NE. If you wall yourself in, you give the enemy the chance to get 4! trade posts and control over sea en the ponds. I really like the 4 trade posts in the center and the sea combined.

I would add that the players who played water and lost. They would lose those games just as easily on regular sag. Since I have come back I have been vocal about how to beat water and both those games were text book examples. You just are not likely to win if u spend 200 wood on walls while aging then have 25 land vils all game that can't gather.

It just doesn't work unless your opponent feeds their army into your ships several times and doesn't boom.

That is not to say we are not looking into unique maps, but I would not say that the map pool was why wAter didn't win.

diarouga wrote:We''re many who want to see some water maps. Ofc, we don''t want maps like amazonia but I think a "normal" version of sag with more hunts and mines is a very good option.
Punishing water is killing the game. Bs won vs kynesie and so did garja vs kynesie on Hudson, it was no game. I don''t think that water is "op", booming land+push in water should almost always win vs a full water boom if you don''t get outmicroed.

They win because the ships cant defend the land, which is how knesie wins on water.

Saguenay isnt' any better for water booming than Hudson Bay. Besides the whale nerf there wasn't any intention to make water less viable in the custom maps. Water is already hardly viable in itself.
Now please let's return to constructive comments.

Yes

Garja and myself are really just looking for what you want to see in maps and if you have any really cool unique map ideas to share! The viability of water can be discussed in another thread

It would be cool to see a map like amazonia but with no fish or whales, and a much narrower water channel, like maybe half the range of a falconet.