Thar Desert is not tournament ready.

[kami_ryu]

mitoe you're many things and abrasive is not one of them.

[Lukas_L99]

Thar Desert is my favourite map, and I think it gets a lot of undeserved hate. There's actually more hunts and more gold on that map than 90% of ESOC maps, and just because it's not always inside your base doesn't make it a bad map. You have to build outside of your base a little bit on Thar, or else forward base, and that's fine. It's unique. And even though you have to leave your base very early it's not easy to control your opponent's access to resources most of the time because you can't place your forward base in the direct middle of the map on top of it being very open so that you can pretty much walk in any direction from your base and find resources.

I just checked and only Cascade Range has fewer hunts than Thar Desert, but it has decent coin at least.

[Garja]

Cascade range has tin mines, it's hardly more coin than Thar Desert which actually is high coin map.
Objectively the only thing to tweak for competitive play on Thar Desert is the starting tree patch. Couple tiles closer to the TC and you get that close tree to do all transition age gathering and stuff.

[Mitoe]

Thar Desert is my favourite map, and I think it gets a lot of undeserved hate. There's actually more hunts and more gold on that map than 90% of ESOC maps, and just because it's not always inside your base doesn't make it a bad map. You have to build outside of your base a little bit on Thar, or else forward base, and that's fine. It's unique. And even though you have to leave your base very early it's not easy to control your opponent's access to resources most of the time because you can't place your forward base in the direct middle of the map on top of it being very open so that you can pretty much walk in any direction from your base and find resources.

I just checked and only Cascade Range has fewer hunts than Thar Desert, but it has decent coin at least.

It has between 40,800 - 44,800. If you were checking in the ESOC maps page--which says 39,000--it's inaccurate. It fluctuates because sometimes the Elephant herds spawn with 3 and sometimes with 4 (should probably be changed at some point to be more consistent at 4).

That's actually pretty comparable to most ESOC maps (Hudson has around 46,000 - 48,000 and Arkansas has 44,100, granted, Arkansas also has berries and Hudson has sheep/fish). I don't know why I thought it was more. I know I counted it up in the past, and the conclusion should be that it doesn't have less hunts than other ESOC maps, not that it has more than most.

[deleted_user0]

How so?

I just explained it to you in the OP? Tell me why you disagree, or just stay out if it.

[deleted_user0]

I don't know the map so don't take this as an argument for or against the quality of its design, but imo there's nothing wrong with the fact that it makes certain civs unplayable, assuming that's the case. It's not great for a map randomly picked in a rated game, but if you know what map you're playing on beforehand (which you would in a tournament) you can base your civ pick on it.

I think there is a problem with that, i think every tournament map should also be "qs" proof. Sure maps favor one civ over others, that's fine (although apparently not fine when that civ is germany or brits lol) but there are just some basic things that should be right on every map. Like your mine and trees should be near your tc in a place that's not undefendable, you should have a hunt within vision, etc. It's just really simple. It's not the case on this map, and it's not intended map design, it's just poor map design. And it's actually a feature that's quite common on Riki's maps, the ideas are quite interesting and cool, but he hasn't really carefully tweaked certain things to be in an acceptable range to make it at able for a civ to age up at a normal time etc.

[deleted_user0]

Thar Desert is a great map and you're just a hater and I cba right not to make all the arguments for why it's good for the 50th time. People just want boring standard res.

Nah, you are just biased and the reasons you think its good have nothing to do with what i just said here. I'm not asking for the map to be changed. I'm just asking for minor tweaks as this map just often has bad spawns.

[deleted_user0]

Trees are a probs bit too far, but hunts and mines are totally mirrored iirc (@Rikikipu can you confirm) so that's fine. It's really low res and no tp, so it makes only a few civs viable, but that's the case with every non standard map. I like the map

I'm not asking for more hunts or whatever. The trees are 100% too far, and on top of that, there are often no trees to the side or rear. Mines being mirrored is irrelevant, if you play china vs aztec or whatever on that map, and your mine is 100 miles in front of tc, you can just resign. yes, great map design.

You know very well I don't even prefer the std maps, and cascade range is one of my favorites, which, quite similar to thar in idea (more food, but less coin), is just a better designed map.

[deleted_user0]

Thar Desert is a great map and you're just a hater and I cba right not to make all the arguments for why it's good for the 50th time. People just want boring standard res.

I'm not sure why you get mad every time someone says he dislikes an "unstandard map". Probably half of the community (if not more), strongly dislikes these maps, we have the right to disagree you know.
I gave up on that but I still think that some maps are bad by design or because they're unbalanced.

My post came across more abrasive than I had intended; I was on the phone at the same time so I was distracted and didn't really think too much about what I was writing.

Thar Desert is my favourite map, and I think it gets a lot of undeserved hate. There's actually more hunts and more gold on that map than 90% of ESOC maps, and just because it's not always inside your base doesn't make it a bad map. You have to build outside of your base a little bit on Thar, or else forward base, and that's fine. It's unique. And even though you have to leave your base very early it's not easy to control your opponent's access to resources most of the time because you can't place your forward base in the direct middle of the map on top of it being very open so that you can pretty much walk in any direction from your base and find resources.

Maps like Arkansas (which I hate playing on, by the way, most boring map ever), Hudson Bay, Adirondacks, Bengal, etc. are much more linear, and you can only expand in one direction: towards your opponent. This doesn't lead to very healthy gameplay, IMO, and that's why you always get really boring on-sided games on those maps.

On Thar I feel like the games are always pretty dynamic. Unstandard, for sure, but they don't just end. That's why I think the map is actually quite well designed: because even though it favours aggression and map control, it's also very difficult to actually control it, and the vast numbers of resources actually drag the game out a lot longer than normal.


It can have a bad spawn maybe 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 times, but pretty much every map does. The majority of the time the hunts and mines in base (or in this case, near your base) are mostly symmetrical, and while trees can be a bit far, I think it's not really an issue because you have to build slightly outside of your base to defend your resources already anyway.

in my experience spawns are just bad 1 out of 2-3 times. Trees are not just far, but also in a bad position. you can't build your base in mid map in many mu's and you know this. It's fine having to adapt and having to be more agressive, that wouldn't even change. But to just lose 20 sec on your age up as india or whatever because your trees are so far, it's dumb. It's like saying that RE Bayou or Rockies was a cool map because your starting hunt is in the middle of the map and you just have to deal with it. lol.

the part about expanding just seems false. It's exactly on maps like hudson and arkansas where you can expand elsewhere when your opponent expands toward you. On thar desert (and bengal is quite the same, idk why you mention it, adirondacks too actually) you can't really go anywhere else, because wherever you could go (back and side) there's barely any res. so if you can't win the head on engagement, you're just gonna be in your base with no options. at least on arkansas you can escape to top and place some walls, same on hudson. on manchuria u have water. on cascade you have 2 sides which are defendable.

[Shikari]

As a viewer it is aesthetically very pleasing to look at imo.

[Mitoe]

in my experience spawns are just bad 1 out of 2-3 times. Trees are not just far, but also in a bad position. you can't build your base in mid map in many mu's and you know this. It's fine having to adapt and having to be more agressive, that wouldn't even change. But to just lose 20 sec on your age up as india or whatever because your trees are so far, it's dumb. It's like saying that RE Bayou or Rockies was a cool map because your starting hunt is in the middle of the map and you just have to deal with it. lol.

Seems to me that you just have higher standards for spawns than I do.

You don't automatically lose 20 seconds on your age up as India either, lol. You can herd the hunts towards your trees and kill a couple before herding it back towards your TC to reduce idle time. Not to mention that there's lots of great treasures for India on this map.

the part about expanding just seems false. It's exactly on maps like hudson and arkansas where you can expand elsewhere when your opponent expands toward you. On thar desert (and bengal is quite the same, idk why you mention it, adirondacks too actually) you can't really go anywhere else, because wherever you could go (back and side) there's barely any res. so if you can't win the head on engagement, you're just gonna be in your base with no options. at least on arkansas you can escape to top and place some walls, same on hudson. on manchuria u have water. on cascade you have 2 sides which are defendable.

It's absolutely not the same. The 3 maps I mentioned have terrain or water that restricts the amount of space on the sides of the map--perhaps less so on Arkansas, but that map is still very boring--forcing you to work towards the middle when your resources start to run out. Thar Desert has nothing like that. True the hunts don't always spawn in the corners, but you have lots and lots of space to herd the hunts to more easily defendable spots if you get even a tiny bit of time to control that part of the map.

[Hazza54321]

I do actually like shit desert just wish 2nd was a little bit herdable/more accessible

[Papist]

How so?

I just explained it to you in the OP? Tell me why you disagree, or just stay out if it.

I wasn't disagreeing, I was asking you to elaborate. Either way, no need to be a dick about it.