Custom Map: Hard Art 1: Horsemen

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This topic is for discussion of map: Hard Art 1: Horsemen


Author: UpperKEES

Desc:
My first map in the Hard Art series. Your initial space is limited and the emitters can be hard to cap due to their location, although their intensity isn't very high. See intro text for more details.

[UpperKEES]

Title:	Hard Art 1: Horsemen
Difficulty:	Expert Only
Creeper type:	Land only
Remarks:	My first map in the Hard Art series. Your initial space is limited and the emitters can be hard to cap due to their location, although their intensity isn't very high. See intro text for more details.
Description:	This is part 1 of a 10 map series called 'Hard Art', inspired by well known artists (from both the real world and the creeper world). I'll start with my favorite artist, known for his regular divisions of the plane and his 3D illusions. ARTIST: M.C. Escher TITLE: Horsemen MATERIAL: lithograph & woodcut YEAR: 1946 DIMENSIONS: 37.5 x 29.2 cm The emitters will increase their frequency after 6, 9 and 12 minutes, but their intensity will stay the same.
Download page:	Hard Art 1: Horsemen
Full size screen shot:
Based on:
More art:	See here for more maps about art (and jobs) ;)

[Miss Melissa]

Hard Art indeed! that was rough from beginning to end. tho i think in hindsight if i were to redo it, id get a better time.. cant remember the last time it took me 45 mins of game time to do a map.  im surprised there arent many scores or posts tho, ppl must be on vacation..
u did a good job recreating that painting. it must have taken u quite some time to do so. good job.

[RichieRich]

I havnt posted a score yet for a pretty simple reason.

I can't do it yet  ;D

Very tough.

[UpperKEES]

Hard Art indeed! that was rough from beginning to end.

Yeah, except for the last one (HA-10; a remake of The Artist) this will be the hardest of the series. I liked to start and end with a pretty tough map. :P

tho i think in hindsight if i were to redo it, id get a better time..

Same for me. The time I've set was the first time I completed it after the latest changes I made. I lost 10 reactors due to a bad placement of 2 blasters, so I think a time around 22 minutes should be possible.

cant remember the last time it took me 45 mins of game time to do a map.  im surprised there arent many scores or posts tho, ppl must be on vacation..

I can remember this very well; it was about a week ago, it was very boring and it took me even a lot longer than 45 minutes.... ;)

Looking at the number of comments posted it seems indeed rather quiet at the moment. I didn't expect that many scores for this map, but I also didn't expect you'd be the only one after one and a half day. As always I'm willing to give a few hints, so I'll do so when these are requested.

u did a good job recreating that painting. it must have taken u quite some time to do so. good job.

Thanks Melissa! :) This map indeed has cost me more time than any other till now. When I finished it I found out that I had to shift the complete map down by 2 squares. Because I actually wanted to shift The Artist to the left by one square as well, I decided to write a program to do this for me. With some help of Virgil I managed to get this to work, which saved me some time (and was less boring to do).

The next one in the Hard Art series will be one of your works: Envy.

I havnt posted a score yet for a pretty simple reason.

I can't do it yet  ;D

Very tough.

Let me know when and where you get stuck, so I can try to help you out.

[RichieRich]

Yikes that was slow and tough. Took a good few tries to figure out a (somewhat) safe position at the start. The limited space meant very slow progress. Took 35 mins to get the bottom horses down and a deficit came when pushing up and most of the network collapsed. Found that a pain as I really thought I was there and going to cruise the upper half.

After that I rebuilt and left two blasters with each emitter whcih was not really necessary but I couldn't face starting again.

One of your hardest and a great concept. Thanks.

I am tired and need a beer or two after that. :P

[UpperKEES]

Yikes that was slow and tough. Took a good few tries to figure out a (somewhat) safe position at the start. The limited space meant very slow progress. Took 35 mins to get the bottom horses down and a deficit came when pushing up and most of the network collapsed. Found that a pain as I really thought I was there and going to cruise the upper half.

After that I rebuilt and left two blasters with each emitter whcih was not really necessary but I couldn't face starting again.

Heheh! Sounds like you had quite a battle!

Let me give a few hints for people who don't want to spend that much time on this map:

Spoiler

- Only move to a new section when you have used all available space. When you build enough reactors you won't have a deficit at any moment.

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Spoiler

- I first use the available space on the horse & horseman where Odin City is located. Like this (ignore the orange dot & line; I used this image for a different topic as well):

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Spoiler

- With a second blaster you can clear the area underneath the horse, so you can build 5 more reactors.

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Spoiler

- With a third blaster you can cap the head of this same horse, giving you more space. I've built a relay there to jump to the horseman on the left. Rinse & repeat.

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- The collector at the tail of the first horse will allow you to cap the horse on the right rather easily.

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Spoiler

- Only cap emitters when you are going to conquer that section. Because the blasters will get distracted, capping will probably cost you more energy than it will gain you.

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Spoiler

- Once the 3 bottom horses have been conquered, I just send 3 mortars up and connect to them by building relays from the hats of the horsemen. This should only cost you a couple of minutes when your infrastructure is sufficient.

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One of your hardest and a great concept. Thanks.

Thank you as well! :)

I am tired and need a beer or two after that. :P

Cheers!

Edit: typo's

[Miss Melissa]

Thanks Melissa! :) This map indeed has cost me more time than any other till now. When I finished it I found out that I had to shift the complete map down by 2 squares. Because I actually wanted to shift The Artist to the left by one square as well, I decided to write a program to do this for me. With some help of Virgil I managed to get this to work, which saved me some time (and was less boring to do).

The next one in the Hard Art series will be one of your works: Envy.

i guess its a good thing that u write such programs, shifting everything over one square would be quite tedious.
yay, im next!  ;D cant wait! thanks

[Fisherck]

Wow. Another hard and fun map. A few of my blasters had to be replaced because they were to close to the emitters they were getting capped. If I had not caught that, it would have taken a bit longer...
I had to work with the features of the map, making good use of where I put every reactor and blaster.

[fraterpotens]

UpperKEES I love your maps, but I cannot get this one started.  I can replicate the layout you show in post 6 but from that point I cannot get the front of the horse under control and I always lose the city.  Not sure if there is more advice you can give, it is more likely that I am just not good enough for a map this hard.  Out of curiosity however, what upgrades do you use on this map?

thanks! and thanks for all your designs. 

[snowmaker (JM)]

UpperKEES I love your maps, but I cannot get this one started.  I can replicate the layout you show in post 6 but from that point I cannot get the front of the horse under control and I always lose the city.  Not sure if there is more advice you can give, it is more likely that I am just not good enough for a map this hard.  Out of curiosity however, what upgrades do you use on this map?

thanks! and thanks for all your designs. 

Try a mortar

[snowmaker (JM)]

That was quite the map. I still have no idea how you get such short times. It boggles my mind  ??? I look forward to the next one.  :)

[fraterpotens]

Try a mortar

Where would you suggest?
a morter on the horses neck gets overrun, even paired with blasters.
I tried morters under the horses front legs and on the rider, but after 6 minutes the flow down the neck always gets me.

[Fisherck]

Try a mortar

Where would you suggest?
a morter on the horses neck gets overrun, even paired with blasters.
I tried morters under the horses front legs and on the rider, but after 6 minutes the flow down the neck always gets me.

Here is my start up (at least the begginning).That should work for you, and remember, not all weapons always need to be used to keep your area safe.

[UpperKEES]

yay, im next!  ;D cant wait! thanks

Just a few more hours; I have to cook, eat and set a score first.

Wow. Another hard and fun map. A few of my blasters had to be replaced because they were to close to the emitters they were getting capped. If I had not caught that, it would have taken a bit longer...

I experienced exactly the same thing, but unfortunately I already filled up the adjacent space, so I tried to replace a blaster by flying another one exactly over it (but failed).

Spoiler

I would build them 1 square more to the left now.

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I had to work with the features of the map, making good use of where I put every reactor and blaster.

Yeah, that's the nice thing about this map and you can probably only optimize this after playing the map once.

UpperKEES I love your maps, but I cannot get this one started.  I can replicate the layout you show in post 6 but from that point I cannot get the front of the horse under control and I always lose the city.  Not sure if there is more advice you can give, it is more likely that I am just not good enough for a map this hard.

Spoiler

You'll have one space left on the horseman to create a new blaster. Use this to clear the section under the horse and then move it (or a third one) to the head of the horse, like indicated by Fisherck.

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Out of curiosity however, what upgrades do you use on this map?

Spoiler

I used all green updates, because the space to generate energy is limited, so this is most crucial. The mortar can always reach 3-4 pools at the same time, so the range upgrade is less valuable.

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thanks! and thanks for all your designs.  

Thanks! :)

Try a mortar

Spoiler

Yep, I used 3 of them and no drones at all.

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That was quite the map. I still have no idea how you get such short times. It boggles my mind  ??? I look forward to the next one.  :)

Spoiler

Like described in reply #6. The most important thing is being patient I guess and only advance when you've maxed out your energy collection, which will make you advance much faster later on.

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Where would you suggest?
a morter on the horses neck gets overrun, even paired with blasters.
I tried morters under the horses front legs and on the rider, but after 6 minutes the flow down the neck always gets me.

Spoiler

I would start with a mortar on the back of each horse and later move it to the horseman when the bottom section has been cleared. Later in the game I would move all mortars to the top 3 horsemen.

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Here is my start up (at least the begginning).That should work for you, and remember, not all weapons always need to be used to keep your area safe.

Spoiler

Yeah, that should work. You can indeed deactivate the mortars for a while to speed up the building of your reactors, or move your mortar around a bit.

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So fraterpotents, see if this works for you. Let me know if you need more specific hints.