Tournament map thread

User avatar
France [Armag] diarouga
Ninja
NWC LAN Gold
Posts: 12710
Joined: Feb 26, 2015
ESO: diarouga
Location: France

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

7 good map, 3 okay maps and 1 bad map, I've seen worse.
I'd argue that you don't have enough water maps though.
User avatar
United States of America Cometk
Retired Contributor
Posts: 7257
Joined: Feb 15, 2015
Location: California

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by Cometk »

ah youre right actually, water is very light. hmm, might change that
Image
User avatar
France [Armag] diarouga
Ninja
NWC LAN Gold
Posts: 12710
Joined: Feb 26, 2015
ESO: diarouga
Location: France

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Pool 1 : 2 big TP maps (mendocina and arizona), that's awkward as these maps are very similar. Also 2/5 no TP maps is a lot.
Pool 2 : Same issue, mendocino + arizona and 2/5 no TP maps.
Pool 3 : No water maps and 3/5 average/bad maps (although it's subjective)
Pool 4 : Same although one could argue that Manchuria is a viable water map
Pool 5 : Rather balanced but yea no water
Pool 6 : Probably the best map pool in this tourney.

I'd say 6.5/10 map pool :P
In my opinion, ASC 2015 had the best tournament map pool. Winter 2016 also had a great map pool.
I'd say that the map pools got worse with time.
User avatar
Canada Mitoe
Advanced Theory Craftsman
Posts: 5486
Joined: Aug 23, 2015
ESO: Mitoe
GameRanger ID: 346407

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by Mitoe »

Yikes Adirondacks got an 8; that map is so boring. Arkansas too tbh.
User avatar
France [Armag] diarouga
Ninja
NWC LAN Gold
Posts: 12710
Joined: Feb 26, 2015
ESO: diarouga
Location: France

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Arkansas is a bit boring yea. I don't think Adirondacks is, you have the option to go water and you usually want to fight for the middle TP.
A map can be boring and good for tournaments at the same time. Forcing the players to play standard isn't an issue if it's only one game in a series.
User avatar
Canada Mitoe
Advanced Theory Craftsman
Posts: 5486
Joined: Aug 23, 2015
ESO: Mitoe
GameRanger ID: 346407

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by Mitoe »

Itā€™s not really about whether itā€™s standard or not, I just feel that games on Adirondacksā€”and to a lesser extent, Arkansasā€”rarely progress beyond 12 minutes because one player runs out of resources and is immediately forced to fight in the middle of the map. Thereā€™s not a lot of room for manuevering your vills or army because all the resources are in the center of the map anyway.

I guess when I say a map is boring I mostly mean that it doesnā€™t generate good games very often in my experience.

Take New England for example: thereā€™s lots of reasons itā€™s a great map, but the most important reason is that it frequently generates great games.

Conversely, Indonesia is a great water map, but it almost never generates good games because one or both players refuse to adapt into it, and therefore itā€™s also a boring map.
User avatar
Italy Garja
Retired Contributor
Donator 02
Posts: 9729
Joined: Feb 11, 2015
ESO: Garja

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by Garja »

The problem with Adirondack design is that on one hand you are supposed to control the lake to protect extra resources and to do drop etc., on the other hand you have so many resources in base and on the map overall that the strategic element of water doesn't come into play most of times.
Image Image Image
User avatar
France Rikikipu
Retired Contributor
Posts: 1679
Joined: Feb 27, 2015
ESO: p-of
Location: In your base

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by Rikikipu »

@[Armag] diarouga thanks for the constructive feedbacks :flowers:

Three points I'd like to discuss with you:
- Is there still some pathing issues on Bonnie Springs? I've thought it was mostly fixed by simplifying a lot the middle city but, if it's still the case, I can look at it again.
- Iirc, some people (like goodspeed) were fine of having maps that favors some civs (let's say India and Russia) for instance. I don't have a particular judgement on that, but afterall what is the problem if it's better to play some civs on some maps?
- Last but not least, you have said that some maps like Tassili are low on food. However, even the lowest esoc map guarantees that you can stay at base until around the first 10 minutes of the game. For instance you start with ibex and pronghorn at base worth 7200 food on Tassili. My question is, what amount of food approximately you'd like to have at base to consider it competitivie? 10 000 food?
User avatar
France [Armag] diarouga
Ninja
NWC LAN Gold
Posts: 12710
Joined: Feb 26, 2015
ESO: diarouga
Location: France

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

1) I don't know, I haven't played the map for ages. I just don't really like the middle city. It's okay to have Bonnie in week-end tours but I think that it's way too unstandard to be included in a seasonal tourney map pool.

2) Maps are always going to favour some civs. The issue is that we have too many Russia/India maps right now, basically all the no TP maps. Sometimes, we had both pampa and thar in a BO5 at the NWC and as a result we got so many India/Russia games. Finally, it's very frustrating because India are Russia are ridiculously easy to play in the current meta (spam sepoys and run around the map or rush and sit with 2bh in the middle of the map) and extremely hard to play against. It also entails a lot of Russia mirrors, which is a shit MU to watch and to play because it's super random.

3) I couldn't say. All I know is that practically, you can't really beat the agressive civs on Tassili, which is unfair because playing agressively is easier.
7200 food does sound like a lot but if you want to go for a 15musk semi (because not every civ can play age 2), train 15 vills, get market upgrades and call mm it's already more than 5000 food. it means that you only have about 2000 food to make a fortress army and take the map, that's often not enough.
France Kaiserklein
Pro Player
Posts: 10278
Joined: Jun 6, 2015
Location: Paris
GameRanger ID: 5529322

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by Kaiserklein »

I like bonnie, there aren't any pathing issues at all anymore, and the fact that you can siege the mother nature walls adds a bit of depth. I don't think it's much non-standard anymore.
Image
Image
Image
LoOk_tOm wrote:I have something in particular against Kaisar (GERMANY NOOB mercenary LAMME FOREVER) And the other people (noobs) like suck kaiser ... just this ..
Australia Hazza54321
Pro Player
Winter Champion 2020 x2Donator 01
Posts: 8049
Joined: May 4, 2015
ESO: PrinceofBabu

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by Hazza54321 »

Honestly fine with all the maps in the pools except iowa and jebul
User avatar
United States of America n0el
ESOC Business Team
Posts: 7068
Joined: Jul 24, 2015
ESO: jezabob
Clan: ķŒ€ ķ•˜ģš°ģŠ¤

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by n0el »

Give Iowa a home city water flag
mad cuz bad
User avatar
Netherlands Goodspeed
Retired Contributor
Posts: 13002
Joined: Feb 27, 2015

Re: Tournament map thread

  • Quote

Post by Goodspeed »

It still baffles me that the extent of people's imagination when it comes to map variety is deleting resources and TPs. How about adding resources or adding other interesting mechanics like starting with an outpost wagon, extra crates, an already built native post, TP, market or dock, starting with extra villagers, etc? Why do we have to look as far as the official map pool to find a map like Deccan?
And for the record it would be unfair to blame the map team for this, since this community has, for years, been pushing them to make more standard maps.

I agree with Diarouga, however, that taking standard maps and simply deleting resources and TPs does not a good map make.
User avatar
France [Armag] diarouga
Ninja
NWC LAN Gold
Posts: 12710
Joined: Feb 26, 2015
ESO: diarouga
Location: France

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

I don't think that anyone serious complains about the "standard maps".
Some people like Mitoe think that Arkansas and Adirondacks are boring, but they're still decent maps.

I totally agree with you though, all the unstandard maps are low resources and/or without TPs. There are many other more interesting ways to make unstandard maps. Siberia was considered as one of the best RE maps, and it's on par with the best EP maps imo. That starting tower in base gives many options.
Likewise, Texas is a very interesting map (although it would need decent hunts). Starting with a dock wagon (like on Honshu) would be fun but it would be too much for big tournaments imo. Same with starting with an already built native post.

Adding things to a map (buildings, sea, TPs, resources etc) is often more interesting than removing resources and TPs. These changes need to be reasonable though, as too many changes might make the map uncompetitive (starting with with extra villagers...).
User avatar
Canada dansil92
Retired Contributor
Posts: 2231
Joined: Nov 3, 2018
ESO: dansil92

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by dansil92 »

Sorry to jump in here but my scenario map:

https://eso-community.net/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=15834


Would be a dynamic map if someone could code it into a random map, which im totally open to.
Image
User avatar
France [Armag] diarouga
Ninja
NWC LAN Gold
Posts: 12710
Joined: Feb 26, 2015
ESO: diarouga
Location: France

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

dansil92 wrote:Sorry to jump in here but my scenario map:

https://eso-community.net/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=15834


Would be a dynamic map if someone could code it into a random map, which im totally open to.

From what I see, this map as several issues, the biggest being only 1 TP.
A map can't be competitive with only 1 TP.

You'd only have 1-3 viable civs there and it wouldn't be competitive because luck would be a huge factor.
User avatar
Netherlands Goodspeed
Retired Contributor
Posts: 13002
Joined: Feb 27, 2015

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by Goodspeed »

Yeah that's a pretty big problem. You'll just get both explorers running to it and whoever gets it, by sheer luck, has an advantage.
User avatar
France [Armag] diarouga
Ninja
NWC LAN Gold
Posts: 12710
Joined: Feb 26, 2015
ESO: diarouga
Location: France

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Yea, and it's not like it's just a small advantage, it's game changing.
Also only 1 coin mine/player is not acceptable.

My advice would be to avoid making too many crazy changes at once. Two towers + saloon is alreasy a huge change (it's borderline too much), but if you add no coin mines, 2 chokes and only 1 TP it's never going to be competitive.
User avatar
Canada dansil92
Retired Contributor
Posts: 2231
Joined: Nov 3, 2018
ESO: dansil92

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by dansil92 »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:Also only 1 coin mine/player is not acceptable.


Lol and this is why the meta is stale :hmm:

I mean that map could easily get a second tp, and split them up to one on each side lose the saloon but keep the outposts but maybe some ACTUAL VARIETY in maps would be healthy to the game

Edit: widen the chokepoints, two tps, an aditional coin mine on the cree side. Thats all reasonable changes to make it competitive
Image
User avatar
France [Armag] diarouga
Ninja
NWC LAN Gold
Posts: 12710
Joined: Feb 26, 2015
ESO: diarouga
Location: France

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Lol and this is why the meta is stale :hmm:

We all know how a map with only coin map is going to be played (see the global warming games). We also know how the meta is on the RE where some maps only have one coin map and it just entails shitty games.
As GS said, why do you have to remove TPs or resources to be unstandard ? It won't make a good map. You could also remove all the food on the map, the truth is that it's going to make the meta shit. I guess it's better to have a "stale balanced meta" (although it's not stale at all) than a "stale musket/cossack rush" rush.

I mean that map could easily get a second tp, and split them up to one on each side lose the saloon but keep the outposts

The 2nd TP is a muskt. I'd remove the saloon but it's subjective, it's not really an issue. I like the outposts.

but maybe some ACTUAL VARIETY in maps would be healthy to the game

I totally agree, see my above posts. My point is that variety for the sake of variety isn't healthy, it has to be smart variety. You're skipping many steps. First try to make a map with small changes (adding 2 outposts is already a big change) and see how the meta goes. If the meta is interesting, then add other weird stuffs but do it step by step, that way you can see where it goes wrong.
From experience, I can tell that a map with so many changes is not going to be competitive at all.
User avatar
Canada dansil92
Retired Contributor
Posts: 2231
Joined: Nov 3, 2018
ESO: dansil92

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by dansil92 »

@[Armag] diarouga

i took into consideration what you said and agree, the map needed some changes so i've put a few little modifications:

Age of Empires III 2019-08-18 2_36_05 PM (2).png


alberta competitive.age3Yscn
(115.1 KiB) Downloaded 8 times



I honestly would LOVE to see this coded into a random map script, with any other additional changes that may be deemed needed (pushing the tps further apart, etc. )
Image
User avatar
France [Armag] diarouga
Ninja
NWC LAN Gold
Posts: 12710
Joined: Feb 26, 2015
ESO: diarouga
Location: France

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Yea, seems a lot better.
User avatar
Canada Mitoe
Advanced Theory Craftsman
Posts: 5486
Joined: Aug 23, 2015
ESO: Mitoe
GameRanger ID: 346407

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by Mitoe »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:Also only 1 coin mine/player is not acceptable.


[Armag] diarouga wrote:Siberia was considered as one of the best RE maps, and it's on par with the best EP maps imo.


:hmm:
User avatar
Italy Garja
Retired Contributor
Donator 02
Posts: 9729
Joined: Feb 11, 2015
ESO: Garja

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by Garja »

1 coin is definetely acceptable. 2 coin mines is just something garantist we arbitrarily gave on EP.
Image Image Image
User avatar
France [Armag] diarouga
Ninja
NWC LAN Gold
Posts: 12710
Joined: Feb 26, 2015
ESO: diarouga
Location: France

Re: Tournament map thread

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Mitoe wrote:
[Armag] diarouga wrote:Also only 1 coin mine/player is not acceptable.


[Armag] diarouga wrote:Siberia was considered as one of the best RE maps, and it's on par with the best EP maps imo.


:hmm:

On Siberia you have 1 coin mine in base and 3 rather close.
In the first version of his map, you had one coin mine in base and then no more mines xD.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 16 guests

Which top 10 players do you wish to see listed?

All-time

Active last two weeks

Active last month

Supremacy

Treaty

Official

ESOC Patch

Treaty Patch

1v1 Elo

2v2 Elo

3v3 Elo

Power Rating

Which streams do you wish to see listed?

Twitch

Age of Empires III

Age of Empires IV