OpenRA

New revision, already:
http://resource.openra.net/maps/15676/

Tiberium harvesting layout for both natural expansions should now be balanced.

Absolutely stunning map! I really like the well balanced but completely random feel of the layout. Not too much tiberium, some choke points, lots of trees and different colors.

Best part tho is the realistic geologic vibe of the rock-works / ridges between the spawn-points and corner expensions.

The small expensions are also nice. And its a nice way for opposition to risk expending there early with the reward of being close to enemy, esp with air.

Awesome stuff!

Aww thanks dude! Hearing such enthusiastic words almost makes me forget the ridiculous amount of time I wasted going over this map, forgetting that I have an important deadline for a different project.

Having had time to reflect after the recent mapmaking discussions, and reflecting on my own experience from playing others' maps, I realise my first map needs a major overhaul for it to be workable. I took all my design cues for it from the still chaff heavy map pool at the time, before people settled on the much higher quality maps we have today. I also made it into a response to the generally tank blob heavy balance of TD at the time.

I'm thinking of expanding the borders to make (much longer) outer lanes and secondary entrances to the main bases, wide enough for large enough armies to at least detour around the narrow central river crossings. This way I could also up the tib tree count a bit, since the meager ten cells of traffic the river cutting through the center of the map allows would no longer be the limiting factor in economic strength before locking down the map. I'd like to know what any of you think of this.

In the meantime, here's only a very minor revision that's been on the backburner for a while. All it does is fix the debris placement in the left natural expansion where there was still an easy spot to basecrawl. I also gone and got rid of the custom range overlays in the rules file. I don't know what build ago this happened, but the issue with defence structure ranges not showing during placement on maps with adjusted global lighting seems to have gone away now.
Downloadlink: http://resource.openra.net/maps/19968/
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So after catching eye of PizzaAtomica's modern rendition on an old Westwood map in SoScared's last stream, and admiring the layout, I just had to try my hand at adapting it to TD. It looked like a snazzy version of Aggressive Tendencies.

TD
Pond Skirmish 2 (TD adaptation)
Category: 1 vs 1
Modifications: Global lighting
Players: 2
Size: 64x64
Revision: 1
Downloadlink: http://resource.openra.net/maps/19969/

ACM wrote: I realise my first map needs a major overhaul for it to be workable.

One of the things I really love about your map and what makes it a bit unique is the lack of a tree on the safe tib. Not many maps incorporate this and it kind of forces the player to be thinking ahead rather than sticking to a build. A hope to see more maps with nuances like this

That Pond Skirmish version looks awesome! I'm particularly impressed by how natural you made the lakes look with the extremely limited tileset available. I hope it plays well, I think I don't have the experience in TD to be able to be the judge of that

anjew wrote: One of the things I really love about your map and what makes it a bit unique is the lack of a tree on the safe tib. Not many maps incorporate this and it kind of forces the player to be thinking ahead rather than sticking to a build. A hope to see more maps with nuances like this

I'll keep this in mind.

PizzaAtomica wrote: That Pond Skirmish version looks awesome! I'm particularly impressed by how natural you made the lakes look with the extremely limited tileset available. I hope it plays well, I think I don't have the experience in TD to be able to be the judge of that

Thanks! You'd be surprised at how well it plays out actually, after the handful of playtests I had with it. I mean it did LOOK like a map better fit for TD than RA.
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New Pond Skirmish 2 revision is already out, losers! Thank AoAGeneral for pointing this out, that the east's player spawn had easier reach to both starting fields than the west player. This was me doing an initial 100% translation of PizzaAtomicas ore layout for his RA map. So this time I moved the mid-northeast tiberium field to an equal distance from east's player spawn as its west counterpart.
Downloadlink: http://resource.openra.net/maps/19990/

Will update the preview picture once photobucket stops being a jerk. All done!

Annnnnd heeere's the map contest's best category raffle winner:

RA
Apocalypse Now
Category: 1 vs 1
Modifications: Global lighting
Players: 2
Size: 106x96
Revision: 1 (2017-04-03)
Downloadlink: http://resource.openra.net/maps/20332/



I wanted to explain my thought process behind the map's creation in response to the many colourful words already spoken on it on this forum, but it got too rambly and I lost my train of thought so fuck it, maybe another time.

New revisions(2017-05-15) for Apocalypse Now and Pond Skirmish 2 are out now, to address semi-serious issues.

Downloadlink: http://resource.openra.net/maps/21274/

Downloadlink: http://resource.openra.net/maps/21275/

With Apocalypse I mainly moved the central oil derricks back one "beach crossing" towards each player's home spawn point, without altering the strategic balance of the map too much, just only to mitigate the capture-the-middle-of-die effect the middle oils were having on the map. Now players wishing to claim both middle derricks have that extra tougher of a land grab on their hands. Meanwhile I expanded the map boundaries of Pond Skirmish a little, giving the outer lanes a couple extra cells of free movement, and just in general making the map feel that little less cramped. (thanks mainly to ZxGanon for suggesting this.)

Full list of changes in the resource center descriptions.

Overhaul of Tyranny and Despair is still to come. I haven't yet fully decided which direction I want to take the map, I just know it will be a headache to take apart its fully interlocking scenery the layout was built upon.

I hope to do something with Tyranny soon as I was partially inspired by the latest playtest, but for now here is a fresh revision(2017-07-25) of Apocalypse Now:

Downloadlink: http://resource.openra.net/maps/22288/

Further steps have been made on the art of the beach terrain to eliminate high concentrations of standing puddles that just disrupt the flow of battle; players should feel less intimidated to move across the open beaches.

Now I really want to know if anyone has thoughts on this one because I made some not-so-insignificant changes to resource strategic value distribution, because I noticed in my personal playtests it becomes too easy to just spam shit out after a couple expansions, and I reckon having 7 (mainland) mines and 2 derricks per player is just too superfluous for RA's current production caps. 6 mines per player tends to be the sweet spot, as demonstrated in the most popular 1vs1 maps, so my aim here is to tone it down just a little.

Where I decided to nerf ore mine concentration is on the southeast "islands", and I figure it's safe enough to do that since the southeast lane is still in closer proximity between players; also, I found in my playtests as well that most opponents who expand over to the southeast tend to aggressively grab the island closest to their opponent's base, securing the entire lane for themselves; so I figure one player who grabs both south islands as well as the northwest one intermediate to him while the other is securing the northwest central island for himself is enough to trigger a healthy stalemate that necessitates advancing to the next phase of war, possibly even expansion across rivers . Now I was thinking of nerfing the ore fields across the rivers to be single mined too, but that may reduce the return in investment for a shipyard expansion too much, and as it is now the ore mine concentration is about on level with kyrylo's Alpine Waters.

As for the oil derricks, I realised having two extra in the middle in close proximity to one another is just unworkable, and it only seems to work in Behind the Veil due to them being split by long natural barriers. I could work cliff barriers into those island lobes to make the travel times longer to remedy this, which would take quite a bit of focused art rework, but for now I removed them entirely. I replaced them with small ($3,000 in total), limited gem patches on the centre pockets of land, and the reason is threefold:

• It keeps the middle's strategic value up, due to the movement penalty and base deploy restriction imposed by all the beach terrain making it undesirable to hold.
• It nerfs infantry/engineer/double refinery openers a little, which have become the dominant game opener. Players opening with an engineer now have to step far out of their way to reach the corner derricks.
• It limits the effectiveness of the middle as a go-to-first option, by requiring a dedicated ore truck to be pulled from regular ore mining. Its relative isolation from all other ore fields means ore trucks must step well out of their way, and be defended to claim resource advantage. Its finite amount also stops the snowball effect from taking hold.

(Also, goddamned photobucket pulls this 3rd party hosting limitation shit on me. I guess it's time to start using imgur. (I miss preserving image filenames. ))

Hello boys, have I got a double update for you!

Tyranny and Despair has been given a whole host of small quality of life improvements, to make playing on it THAT bit more bearable . I won't waste time here, you can read up the full changelog on the resource center.
Downloadlink: http://resource.openra.net/maps/22356/


...But that's not the most important news.

When deciding to fix this map, I was faced with a hard decision to just get rid of the river splitting the map in half; to do away with the tense river crossing standoffs which have defined most of my playtests and create more space for armies to move freely about. It would basically be like playing on a different map. So in the end I figured why not split this change into its own map!?

TD
Despair Part II
Category: 1 vs 1
Modifications: Global lighting; Indestructible bridge tiles
Players: 2
Size: 80x80
Revision: 1 (2017-08-01)
Downloadlink: http://resource.openra.net/maps/22357/

Large image



I am honestly so chuffed that I was able to get those bridges-as-tunnel heads to work the way they do — glitch free and all — because I was having so much trouble terminating those loose river ends without it looking forced or unnatural; if not working the river out of the map entirely, and getting rid of a lot of the colour and aerial photoesque perfectness that made the map so darn appealing to begin with.

But yeah, for all intents and purposes this is a new map: changed time of day; splattered scorch marks from earlier battles; village that is even more ruined than before. Recalibrated tiberium and tree distribution as well to facilitate increased movement space. Also, though the hospital in the middle would be a welcome addition for boosting infantry builds(to help compensate for the number of debris and trees that can block crush evasions) and something to contest the middle for resource-wise, but please let me know if it just gets in the way.

New revision(2017-08-05) is already out: http://resource.openra.net/maps/22395/

Had to place a forth tree on the "safe" tiberium field, and just re-calibrate the economic distribution of the map after I realised how out of whack the extra trees made it. Basically, players who left their spawn location underdeveloped to rush their MCV out to build their second refinery at one of the expansions' trees, and just long distance harvest the starting "safe" field proved too effective. Not only that, but thanks to the extra tree placed in the corner expansions, along with the derrick and its narrow entrance, the corners became the most valuable asset on the map, which is counter to my intentions of it being a lategame or oddball expansion that is hard to reach, so I had to rectify this. Starting Tiberium amount is also reduced where the newly placed trees are to compensate for the growth that comes from the trees overtime.

I have already played a few intense matches on it and I'm pretty chuffed with how the map plays now.