I. Map specifics.
-7 Players.
-256x256 jungle terrain, a large island surrounded by a few smaller, 'control pannels' in the corners.
-Choose from 3 unieque races: The wizard, necromancer and the knight. Each one has it's special abilities.
-Choose from 8 different starting locations.

The terrain of the map is a brilliant thing in my oppinion. A made a few interesting stuff with it. Created a maze, an island connected with the main lnad by 3 bridges and others. Each of thoose starting locations I mentioned up has a tactical purpose and at the same time - is highly detailed and therefore - looks good.

II. Gameplay
As mentioned before, you choose a race, starting location. Each player has it's Gold Mine building which produces minerals. So after you get spawned with a few units(depends on the race of course!) you're about to start making up your economy by building the gold mines. After you're finished it's time build up the defense. There is a computer player that won't have mercy after 2 or 3 minutes and will rush you. I had enought of all theese 2v2v2, 3v3 maps and decided to make a ffa thing. So we have 7 players fighting for the Island, and in the meantime the computer player is stabbing everyone's back . I put much effort to make the map a real tactic one, I had enought of all thoose mass maps. In short: your chances to win by massing someone are low. If you're a fan of mass-moving units forget about this one then. One more thing here...units and buildings which are more advanced cost also gas. The only way of getting gas is to kill. You get one gas point and 50 minerals every 2000 points which I think is fair and ballances the map perfectly.

In the corners there are pannels:
-Race and location choosing
-Supply-buying system with a civilian(cause when the scv buys its it transforms into something else - read below)
-Hero recruiting pannel.

III. A short description of the races.
a) The Wizard.
Basicly you can say it's protoss, cause it builds up with a probe, and has protoss buildings. Gold mines are Observatories. The interesting thing I made is that you start with 0 shield, and it doesn't reload untill you build a shield battery. if your shield battery gets destroyed you loose your shield, and must build it over . Of course your units may be powered by many at once which makes it harder for your enemy to shut your defenses down. Because this race has only one worker the player might get assassinated, this works as a disatvantage. Killing the probe does the thing, aye? As an advanted the player has the possibility of buy a hero(one for the 6 available, you can even buy them all). The Wizard has also a powerful defensive structure - The Pilar Of Light. It's however pretty expensive, as it costs gas. Hallucination is the only ability available.
b) The Knight.
Similar to terran, but with many exceptions. The gold mines in this race are Command Centers which changes them self into a cerabrate. When you build a supply depot(called random reinforcements) it randomly creates 3 ground units. It's like a gambling game, cause you can win and lose. The advantage of doing this is that you get 3 units in a second, so when the enemy is about to reach you it's smart to build this to slow them down while you're retreating or so. Another cool thing is that the medic has constantly 4 energy points, which slows down the healing a bit and therefor ballances the game . The knight can also buy heroes as same as it can get assassinated by loosing the SCV. The Knight has also pretty good defensive structures, which are cheap, fortress and lookout tower. EMP,Def.matrix,siege mode, mines are avaialable.
c) The Necromancer.
A zerg-like race. Gold mines = creep collonies. If you transfer them into sunkens or spores, they no longer produce money. This race has powerful ground units but has expensive air. Building a lurker changes the hydralisk into a skeleton archer(Infested Duran). The system of advantages - disatvantages works perfect. The archer is a good unit vs infantary and gets weak when facing a catapult, balista and other larger units. The disatvantage of the zerg is that they cannot buy heroes, while their main advantage is that they can't be assassinated, so you'll have to kill each one of them(it's not actually hard, cause the comp roams on the map, so if a single drone escapes or a ling/overlord the computer will surely get it). They can also parasite the probe/SCV which is in fact a deadly weapon, cause it allows them to see the opponent. Plague is also available. Burrowing makes the thing even better, cause if you burrow at the front of someone's base and see his main force moving out you might wwant to unburrow and make a quick stab while he's away .

IV. Heroes.
The Ancient Island except for the fighting races also has it's own heroes. Check out who they're.
Each hero depending on it's power/abilities cost a certain amount of gold and gas.
-Aksagore is a Cerberi (zergling), runs fast, attacks with incredible strenght and speed.
-Agrill is a swordsman (firebat) deals twice as much dmg as the same non-hero unit, may be stimmed.
-Shanak (infested kerrigan) ensnare, high damage.
-Melicamp is a cavalry unit(Vulture) fast, mobile, good damage, may set up mines.
-Nemeth is the most famed Ancient Swordmaster(Zealot). Does good damage, however has the speed of a running zealot, and is basicly my fauvorite .
-Seyos (archon) is the only Archon available in the game, so it makes it look different. Avarage-good damage and is pretty nice against a necromancers horde, cause of splash damage.

The map is 99% complete. The map is perfectly ballanced. I'm just thinking of a few ways to make the map even better. What do you guys think about this? (If you want to we may play this online anytime, Saox @ Europe)

ok i wanna play it online my accs my name on this

no screen shot's ? : ( I want to see your terrain : ),

Knights ftw.

It looks interesting.

Never saw something like this.

I want to see terrain too. Extended please. D:

Necromancers ftw.

Screenshots? On my way!



This is how the race selection looks like. From the left: Knight, Necromancer, Wizard. After selecting the race you're teleported below to pick on of the 8 starting locations! I did theese screenshots when in Single-Player mode, so ther aren't any others at my side .



This is a part of the terrain. This is actually a jungle-based-island in the central part of the Ancient Island map, it is connected with 3 bridges with the main land and has a cliff at the 'back'. The terrain in my map is smartly placed, so each base may seem to have a good defense while in fact there are several weak spots in every location, so there's no best/worse starting position.



Now in this one you see how the gold mine looks for the Knight. I added some hp to the base hp value since the time that image was taken. You can have max. 6 gold mines. Building more doesn't increase your income.



After building up your base economics it's time for some defense, eh? The random reinforcements building is an option for the Knight. It builds pretty fast(5 secounds, or a bit more) and allows you to call in some forces in a short time for a certain ammount of gold.



Because the random reinforcements are random troops called in the time of need, I managed to call in 3 units of which two are of the Wizards race, and one from the Knight. As I wrote before, in my first post. The wizards must build up a shield to power their units with shield points. Unles you didn't build it(a shield battery) your units will have 0 shield points, so the Knight can't get that sort of stuff, so his zealots will have a penalty.

The shield stuff thing is explained below with screenies.


The worker has 0 shield points cause all it has are gold mines., a pylon and a small force. I started building up a shield focusing-battery(shield battery) and once it's done it will allow my troops and buildings to regenerate their shield. The building itself has v. much shield points and may be hard to kill, but once it's down the Wizard has no shield points at all. It looses all of it's power, and so the shield goes down to 0. It may be wise to have 2 batteries in two different places at the later stage of the game to keep your shield away from your foes.



In an other game I built up the generator and took a image of how the shield regenerates. Have a look.



A part of the map. The beginning of the jungle.



The statue of the Ancients hidden in the jungles deepest part.



On the way to the labirynth I came across some of the wandering units. Judging by my shield they do not behave in a way friends do.



Such an open spaced location in the labirynth is nothing you see often.




My forces faced a wizard moving through the lands. Guess he didn't like my prescence...oh well...



Then they crossed the bridges leading to the southern part of the Island...



Whoops...someone destroyed my base and the shield generator. Luckily I managead to form a flying ship with the remaining power of my mind. Now we'll have to find a new place for our base...Nope, this one doesn't fit. This island is a bit too rocky for me.



Finally. An excellent location, grassy, with some trees, an island in the middle of the sea. It will take some time till they get to the place I'm now. It may be smart to place some cannons next to the shield generator and keep moving on to an other island to make another one. Following the tip I gave above.

UPDATE!!!

The Necromancers can now resurect heroes. This was a option available only for Kngihts and Wizards, but now all the races can have their heroes!!!

A Necromancers get a RANDOM hero everytime they build a queen. The heroes are:

Atai'llax, the Behemoth(Ultralisk),
Night Hag, the Witch(Queen, parasite-extremely powerful and ensnare)
Lich, the Necromancer(Defiler, dark swarm,plague,burrow,consume)
Zax, the Skeleton Archer(Hydralisk)
Winged Death, the Bone Dragon(Mutalisk)
Lonuor, the Dark Influence(Overlord)

So as you can see there are some right choices and some wrong . Everything's random.

The first screenshot looks really bad. You should work on your menu.

The terrain is pretty basic too.

I know. I didn't say anything that I used advanced tricks to make the terrain, however I was thinking about making the menu a bit better, mhm... Screen quality? I don't really know what you mean here . besides, what would you guys say if we'd test the map some day on bnet? I'd show you how the terrain works in the battles.

No extended terrain.

What do you think I should do?

I didn't mean to have the terrain look like an artwork. It has only strategical purposes in my map.

I honestly think it looks very nice for Isometric terrain, I don't see what you guys are bitching about.

A suggestion for the menu; how about instead of a bunch of unsightly eggs, you just place a bunch of Dark Templar in a row that are allied to the player and not visioned? Saves the move triggers and boxes them in. Also, you may want to skimp on the beacons as they're kind of ugly as well, and instead use some kind of sprite or doodad.

I remember this map! I used to kick ass with my friend.. We always picked zerg and started at a mountain spot near the midle and almost always won.. Speaking of that.. Please make all the starting spots balanced and far away from each other.

Thank you Durandal for your positive comment. I will see what I can do with the menu and stuff.

Hi Heegu, I'm glad you're back. I sent you an PM. Perhaps we can finish what we've started years ago?

There's nothing new within my map from minor changes like prices, ballanced stats and a bit of terrain thingies.

I'll post if something new comes up!

Get this map out there! With the crap on Battle.net nowadays, I'd love to play. Looks interesting at least!