It has been suggested to me a number of times by various people that I post a thread of my map on StarEdit.Net, so I suppose there must be something to their suggestion - here we go.
This is a map I developed nearly 2 years ago. It is a complete map (though, of course, not perfect), and sufficiently balanced for competitive play.
QuickSilver, as one of my friends noted, might be most closely compared with "King of the Hill", except, the Hill is really a pit, and the game is more complicated.
The ultimate objective of the game: to hold the centre crystal (called the Crystalline) until the timer runs all the way down to 0.
-the Crystalline is captured for a team by touching it with any unit except a Hallucination (there must be no enemy units nearby)
-whenever the Crystalline is captured, the timer resets
Minerals
To attain to the objective, players gather money by kills and natural generation to purchase additional units, different kinds of units, and various upgrades for the team.
-in addition to each unit's cost, each unit has a "C" value (however, I have never come to a determination of what "C" really stands for) - when all of a player's units are destroyed, the C values of the units are added up and rewarded as minerals to the opposing team
-There are four Refineries on the map. These refineries can only be captured by Ground units (though air units can defend them), and generate minerals for the team that owns them. If all four are owned, the production of each refinery is increased 50%. Each player can upgrade his own income from refineries.
-The Crystalline also generates minerals for the team that owns it. The base income of the Crystalline is twice that of a Refinery, and the Crystalline's mineral generation will gradually increase throughout the game.
Races
There are, of course, three races in the game. The player may choose to play as either Zerg, Terran, or Protoss, at the beginning of each round. [A Shuttle is given: dropping a worker grants the race of that workers, dropping the reaver grants a random race] (# of rounds is decided at the beginning of the game)
-Each race has it's own advantages and disadvantages.
Zerg: Extremely powerful units, but also very expensive. Generally poor anti-air.
Terran: Inexpensive and weak units.
Protoss: Average units, low C values.
There is a circular countering system in the game.
-Early game [generally], Zerg will counter Protoss, Protoss will counter Terran, Terran will counter Zerg.
-Late game, Zerg will counter Terran, Terran will counter Protoss, Protoss will counter Zerg.
Units
Every player has his own "spawn box" that displays his current unit set. When all of a player's units on the field are killed, a respawn timer commences, and units in the player's spawn box are replaced on the field. Any units purchased permanently remain in the spawn box until they are sold.
-There are two aspects to unit purchase.
Capacity: Starting unit capacity is 1. To hold more units in the spawn box, the player will need to purchase Unit Capacity Upgrades. These upgrades get more expensive with each level.
Level: There are 7 levels of unit for each race. Initially, players may only purchase level 1 units. To purchase units of other levels, an access fee must be paid.
-> Moving to the level 2 beacon, for example, would charge you 85 minerals to be allowed to buy the unit.
-> Higher-level units may only be accessed if lower-level unit accesses are paid first (to access level 3, you require level 2 access).
-> No unit has speed upgrades on it, but range upgrades are completed, and most abilities are available
-> A Hero unit will appear when a player loses one unit-class type enough times
There are a couple important things to remember when upgrading capacity or unit levels.
-Each time a player on a team upgrades level or capacity, the team's Countdown Timer will henceforth be 5 game seconds longer.
-Each time a player upgrades level or capacity, his respawn time increases by 4 game seconds (respawn time is represented by gas).
There are game upgrades that complement these deficiencies.
Respawn Upgrade: Each upgrade decreases the player's respawn time by 8 seconds. A player's respawn time cannot go below the starting value.
Timer Upgrade: Each upgrade permanently decreases the countdown timer for the team by 40 seconds. The entire team may contribute to this upgrade.
As aforementioned, there exists the Refinery Upgrade, which increases a player's income from Refinery possession.
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Throughout the game, Canisters will fly around the map. These are represented by Kakarus. When captured, a canister will, most of the time, provide a bonus to the player. Some bonuses have an instant effect, some bonuses can be used later by dropping the appropriate unit in the player's shuttle.
Examples of a few such bonuses are...
-energy (consumable restores a single player's energy, instant recharges the entire team)
-blind (enemy team loses vision of themselves for 45 seconds, BUT they can see one another) [don't ask me to explain the physics of this]
-slow respawn (next enemy respawn will take 25 seconds longer)
-toxic canister (instantly kills the player who captures the canister)
While I apologize if my current description of the game isn't the best (for I haven't given a general game description like this before), nonetheless the tactics and strategy remain for the players to work out. It is yet important to enumerate a few things before closing.
The game is definitely not designed for uneven team play, or for 1vs1: The game's design makes uneven teams an impossibility for the short team to win, and though there exists a counter system, this counter system is designed with teams in mind: it ironically falls apart in a 1vs1 battle and is terribly abusable.
Single-Race teams are suicidal: It is up to each team to at least do some planning in their race selection. One race won't work as well as one thinks.
Level 1 Units: The respective units for each race at level 1 are Marine, Dragoon, Hydralisk. Lack of understanding generally contributes to complaining about these units. One must remember that...
-The Dragoon's strength is its speed, not its combat ability. A Dragoon is supposed to have the worst damage capability in the game because it's ability to gain minerals (by capturing refineries, and having a low C) is superior to the other races in the early game.
-Even though the Hydralisk is abominably more powerful than either the Dragoon or Marine, keep in mind that Zerg players start with no minerals, and Terran players have almost enough to buy a 2nd marine immediately, which is more than sufficient to trash Hydralisks
Canisters: Can only be captured by ground units.
Winning: Can sometimes be less fun that one wants it to be because this implies that the higher-level, cooler units don't enter the game...
3vs3: Is recommended over 2vs2 because the greater number of units in the game will increase income on both teams, causing the game to get under way more quickly.
That's all I've got for now. ^_^ Enjoy, everyone. While of course, suggestions for the map are always appreciated, at this point I'd much rather have suggestions for improving my forum map description to make it easier on everyone to get the gyst of what I'm talking about when I type.
A view of the shop. From here you can see all the units purchaseable at each unit level.
-the Timer Upgrade is located lower-left
-to the right of that is the Unit Capacity Upgrade
-to the right of that, the Refinery Upgrade
-and finally to the right of that on the bottom-right, the Respawn Upgrade
The spawn boxes.
-The upper box shows the units you officially control. Every time all your units on the main field die, the units in this box will clone themselves into the box below. The units in the box below will move on to the main field.
-To sell a unit, move it below the psi emitters.
A view of the Crystalline and the surrounding area.
Respective views of upper and lower Refineries.
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Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on May 12 2010, 3:48 am by Gidoza.
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