Is it possible to make a StarCraft melee map that looks like the Earth while keeping in touch with balance and all? Or no? I doubt it is possible, but perhaps it would be fun to play on such a map that looks like the Earth.

Please tell me the problems with making a map that looks like Earth, or tell me why it would work.

Unless certain continents were distorted and it was an island map I would say no.

Earth is not symmetrical. And not all the continents have equal land mass.

Earth map by Anton Kibalnik (Kvaked)

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That map is also fucking stupid. South America doesn't have a natural , everyone's too bunched up...Basically if you're on the right side of the map as Zerg you win.

You could probably make a somewhat balanced map, but it'd have to be way better than that, and you'd need to add in some elevation for balance.

Wow, that map is absolutely illogical and ridiculous in all fields. I hope I never see anything like that every again.
On the bright side, it looked like Earth, somewhat.

Damn, someone should come up with a hack to allow maps larger than 256x256 to be played.

No.

Eh? Why not? Not only could you confine the players to Eurasiafrica and making the Americas a series of expos, but I don't see anything terribad about putting three players in America and five in Eurasiafrica (or something like that). It wouldn't be perfectly balanced, of course, but on a big map it would be half-decent. You would need to screw up the minimap a bit by introducing elevations and stuff, but that doesn't really matter.

Technically, it'd be a lot easier to make it balanced if it were more accurate to Earth. (For example, with mountains that are impassable and unconstructable. Yes, it'd be an island map, though.)

Well, we'd have to set up some of our own mountains. But real life terrain does make it easier - China and India are inherently separated, for instance. It's harder in Europe, though, so you can only put on player there. Maybe one in Central-Northern Asia, one or two in Africa...

Its viable. But the balance would be 'Terribad'.

Didn't you just contradict yourself in two sentences? Why is it unworkable? It won't be completely even because it'll be a competition between two or three in America and five or six on another, but to avoid that you could stick them all in Eurasiafrica. There'll be serious bottlenecks that would generally favor terran at places like where Arabian Peninsula and Africa meet, but even that isn't a huge problem because of how easy it would be to overlord or shuttle an army behind the backs because of the vastness of the area in need of defense.

Well, at least now we know why Germany kept getting screwed. The brits kept bottlenecking them .

Why does it even need that many players? You could make it a 4 or 2 player map.

This earth map would probably be a lot easier to balance using 4 players as opposed to 8. This is an interesting idea, only because it's earth. A hit among noobs who don't care about balance, me being one of them ><

No I didn't, and that being said you know quite alot about melee do you not? I said its viable to make an earth map for melee. But it obviously wont be balanced as noticing bottlenecks and providing one strategy out of countless others does not make it balanced. And asserting that it wont make a huge problem is not only baseless, it is wrong. Being balanced is being equal for all players at start to have similar chances to win- which is the reason why most maps use symmetry. To have equal amount of area, and the equal distance between opponents, not only that with equal amount of resources. Which will be impossible for an Earth map to have since it has a variable landmass and the amount of minerals you can actually put in without harming positional imbalance.

I think people are so stuck on maps being perfectly symmetrical that they neglect the other aspects of map terrain which can give a position an advantage or disadvantage. I personally enjoy maps the most which require different strategies based on starting location, though they are certainly rare.

It's a relatively unexplored field among professionals, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

Insightful. But now, let's narrow the scope.

A map that consists of one of Earth's continents. In case you need refreshing (>>), they are North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica.

Which continent might make for the most interesting map, with elevations, strategies, and unbuildables all considered? Which continent might make for the most balanced?

I would personally think... Antarctica. Yeah. Or Asia. Or Africa. North and South America, I dunno, but I think Europe would certainly make for an interesting island map.

Wow, that's really bad.... very small, no details, same terrain all the time....

1+1=3
You obviously never played symmetrical maps then. Did you know that a perfect square ABCD has different distances between A to B and A to C, and that changes alot in a real game?