New maps: Inter Armas (2 players) and Dies Irae (2 players)

[FiveAces]

Hey hey people!

Five here, and seeing as I am currently in the thick of my finals, naturally I had to find a distraction good enough to keep me
from studying efficiently - and lo and behold, the new playtest finally contains a good map editor!

So I went ahead and tried to make some 1v1 maps. Keep in mind that I am a fan of asymmetric, organic maps, so both my creations
might be considered slightly imbalanced at a higher level of play, but I hope they will be competitively viable regardless.
Also, I like maps with low to medium amounts of ore, because a limited economy makes your units and build orders matter a lot more.
Plus, anyone who can teach me how to take OpenRA screenshots in windows without resorting to Windowed Mode deserves a virtual cookie!

First up is Dies Irae (Days of Wrath):



I tried to go for a derelict mining town look, with the lower middle section being occupied by a few neutral soldiers.
Each player has a natural expansion in the middle, with the gem mines being very exposed and vulnerable to air raids.
The top section contains fords and oil derricks, so an infantry build with engineer support is viable.
There is a total of 8 oil derricks on the map, which can offset the economical advantage of an early expansion.
The center of the map is a staging ground for armour battles, while the top and bottom side can be used for flanks with fast units or infantry.
It is quite a large map, but so far my games have never ended in a stalemate because resources are limited.
Also, I have scattered a few supply trucks over the map; there's a $500 bounty for taking them out which can boost earlygame tactics by quite a bit.

Next up is Inter Armas (Inbetween Firearms):



A central oasis provides space for naval warfare; the left flank is only accessible to infantry and sports 2 oil derricks.
The right flank is initially sealed off by concrete walls and contains ore as well as a sole gem mine.
This layout is supposed to reward map awareness and creativity.
Shore tiles are relatively accessible, so lander shenanigans are always an option.
Matchups may currently be slightly slanted in Allies' favour, seeing as HINDs ensure
their naval dominance; I did not find a workaround for this yet.

I tried to find an equilibrium between competitive balance and eyecandy; feel free to post feedback, bugs or questions here at any given time!

On an unrelated sidenote, seeing as SoScared has gone silent, I might start casting replays once I'm done with my finals (mid-July) if there's any demand for it.

Cheers!

[jaymanxyz2]

These look like some great maps! Thanks for making them, I'm going to try them out immediately.

Hmm, to take screenshots in OpenRA. You may or may not have a Steam account, but I've found that the Steam client can take good screenshots of OpenRa in fullscreen. Here's proof.

Thanks again!

[xan2622]

Plus, anyone who can teach me how to take OpenRA screenshots in windows without resorting to Windowed Mode deserves a virtual cookie!

It should be available in the next version of OpenRA: https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/7930

[noobmapmaker]

Especially Dies Irae looks really nice, both to the eye and strategically. I'd like to see some pro's play a best of 5 on that map!

[newwe]

Dies Irae looks cool, those neutral pillboxes fire at entering units right? I think it could use a little less debris/scenery but that could just be me.

Inter Armas looks like it gives a big advantage for the top spawn in ore mining, and also looks kind of low ore imo.

Would love to see you make some casts. Thanks for making these maps, hopefully I can try them soon.

[FiveAces]

Thanks for the feedback, and a shoutout to Xanax and jayman for teaching me the ways of the screencap!
Newwe, I understand your concerns, but what I have concluded from the way games have played out on this map so far is that if you want to move up your MCV as topside,
you forfeit control over the oil derricks, so it's a tradeoff.
I'll definitely keep an eye on that, though!
If you guys want to watch some fun replays on those 2 maps, I have 2 on Dies Irae (me versus raymundo)
and a bunch of entertaining games on Inter Armas (featuring yellow, donb, noobmapmaker, cadsby and myself).
Inter Armas in particular seems to incite non-meta gameplay, which I really enjoy
(arty spam and basecrawl is not an option - shoutout to yellow for his creative use of the v2 + lander combo!).


https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yh90c2v8p3fv ... kJXoa?dl=0

[newwe]

Thanks for the feedback, and a shoutout to Xanax and jayman for teaching me the ways of the screencap!
Newwe, I understand your concerns, but what I have concluded from the way games have played out on this map so far is that if you want to move up your MCV as topside,
you forfeit control over the oil derricks, so it's a tradeoff.
I'll definitely keep an eye on that, though!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yh90c2v8p3fv ... kJXoa?dl=0

Even just mining the regular ore is much easier for top, and you can build a second MCV obviously. I would recommend adjusting the position of the bottom spawn's ore and give them something extra to compensate for their reduced ability to mine the right side ore. That or market it as a handicap map.

Played one on Dies Irae (not sure if you watched), does the tech center do anything? If not I'd say get rid of it, it's annoying b/c it draws fire. I'm not a huge fan of neutral units either but I could be in the minority on that, and we probably have enough maps without them.

I'll check out those replays..

[noobmapmaker]

The former mining town lies in ruins. The recon forces have been scattered, but the mainstay armour columns are scheduled to reach Ravensend Ridges by nightfall. The survivors of Forward Engineer Platoon 43 have retreated to the ho

In times like that I'd go to the ho too

*edit: The Dies Irae replays give me an "Unknown Map" in the replay menu, while I did download the map to my documents/openra/etc folder... Anyone know why that is? I've also downloaded an earlier revision, but to no avail.

[FiveAces]

Sorry for the mixup, guys! It occurs to me that the replay doesn't work due to an extremely minor bugfix that I made
inbetween playing the games versus Raymundo and posting them here - I was not aware that this would cause replay incompatibility.
Will try to contact Raymundo as he should still have the previous version of the map on his PC and the games are definitely worth watching.
Newwe, unfortunately the server dropped me like a hot potato before you guys got started, would have liked to spectate.
The tech center should not draw fire any more, I changed the actor to neutral.
Maybe your troops tried to go for the lone trooper guarding it? He's still flagged as a creep.


Oh, and nice catch, NMM! Thank you, character limit

[raymundo]

Hey, I really liked the Dies Irae map and I think the game needs more quality 1v1 maps. Haven't got to try the desert one yet. My replays are from last release and still work. I am going to try posting the map and the replay as one zip file below, although I think you just want me to post it because of that nice win you had against me ;].

[FiveAces]

Thank you for sharing, raymundo!
Truth be told, I was happy about the win, but I wanted to showcase it mostly because you were one of the most experienced players trying out the map so far
I had a match versus V-Christian on the map yesterday that lasted for 70 minutes and only ended because the server crashed (the game was still even).
The map can be pretty hard to close out in an Allies v Allies matchup due to gap generator coverage.

[r34ch]

I like the desert map Inter Armas, its a good size for the economy. Haven't played the other yet.

I agree with newwe though, I find top has an advantage if they rush right. Get the ore and take out the oil.

[newwe]

Thank you for sharing, raymundo!
Truth be told, I was happy about the win, but I wanted to showcase it mostly because you were one of the most experienced players trying out the map so far
I had a match versus V-Christian on the map yesterday that lasted for 70 minutes and only ended because the server crashed (the game was still even).
The map can be pretty hard to close out in an Allies v Allies matchup due to gap generator coverage.

Don't tell Christian but I think you were going to win that one . It was close though.

[newwe]

Thank you for sharing, raymundo!
Truth be told, I was happy about the win, but I wanted to showcase it mostly because you were one of the most experienced players trying out the map so far
I had a match versus V-Christian on the map yesterday that lasted for 70 minutes and only ended because the server crashed (the game was still even).
The map can be pretty hard to close out in an Allies v Allies matchup due to gap generator coverage.

Don't tell Christian but I think you were going to win that one . It was close though.

Re-watched the whole thing with some fast forwarding - great game, and I want both of you on the tournament team I'm on, I need the help.

[FiveAces]

Haha yea, that was a good game. Chris is definitely the strongest opponent I've faced so far.
The game was still hard to call, my biggest assets were the spies in his base
I guess you're talking about Ripley's upcoming tourney?
Yea, let's organize a team once Ripley spills the beans about timeframe/ruleset/roster etc!
For those with a good 70 minutes to spare (or apt with the fast forward key), here's the replay:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gzp6lgi61wh6 ... GZD3a?dl=0