Custom Map #6633: Winter is coming, can you defeat the enemy in the north?. By: Jason Stevens

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This topic is for discussion of map #6633: Winter is coming, can you defeat the enemy in the north?


Author: Jason Stevens
Size: 128x256

Desc:
This is a variation of the "Choose your Resource" maps I've authored. I tried to make the map a little less "sloggish" while still maintaining a high difficulty level. Do not be fooled by the not-too-hard beginning... You must move quickly if you are to stop the creep from the north. Spores, runners, emitters, inhibitor, and more!

[Ehekatl]

Fun as always, but there's not much of a choice, is there?

Top right is still feasible, but it's a world of pain with the 250 cost reactors. I halved my time by starting in the bottom left.

25 aether in the bottom right is too little to be useful. Besides, totems are accessible by guppy from every landing location. That ore is also useless without sprayers and bombers.

[jasons2645]

Quite right - not much of a choice, which is why unlike the other map where "pick your resource" was in the title, I left it out of this one :)

You're right that the top-right is somewhat viable if you build a collector in the middle PZ, then build reactors, but even then, it just takes a long time to get the power infrastructure built.  The bottom-right and top-left are pretty non-viable as a starting location.

[GoodMorning]

With the amount of Aether and the lack of any real choice, I didn't find this version as enjoyable - there was a lot of "wait for build", "wait for upgrade", "wait for the Creeper level to drop".

I think I'd like to see different map on the original theme, rather than another variant of this one.

[BilboGCL]

I honestly have no idea how to do a quick start on this map.
First I started slowly in the bottom left, sent guppies to the three green emitters above the top right landing zone. I took my time to power the totem and after 30 minutes I ended up in a blue cloud.
Then I tried to start at the top right but didn't manage to get enough power to supply my beams.
On my final approach I started again in the bottom left, flew my CN pretty fast to the bottom right just to nullfy the AE-Tower and flew it back,building a PZ-beam with guppies - this way I had some more targets for the spores.
Then I used some guppies to build an infrastructure in the top right - guppies in the creeper between the emitter, three beams, a PZ Reactor, five more reactors , a few mortars... nullified the AE-Tower. A lot of guppy work
Having done that, I moved my CN to the top right landing zone and powered the forge and some beams I've left in the bottom left with guppies.

All in all it was a lot of work and I often had power problems...

Greetings from The Shire!

[ICBM]

love the variant.

but the bottom right without the  sprayers and bombers is useless & so is no good as a starter of early target, pity

[GoodMorning]

Bilbo, the way that it seems to be intended that you play is to start in the lower left, then fight your way from the Totem-area (Relay-powered) to the Emitter at the bottom. Once there, you can put a Relay on its PZ to get to the lower-right, then fight your way north.

There's probably a better way - flying the CN to the other areas sounds good - but this worked for me without micromanagement, just firepower.

[BilboGCL]

Bilbo, the way that it seems to be intended that you play is to start in the lower left, then fight your way from the Totem-area (Relay-powered) to the Emitter at the bottom. Once there, you can put a Relay on its PZ to get to the lower-right, then fight your way north.

I didn't even think about that...  ;D
I was pretty irritated when I realized that even a maxed forge-range didn't enable my mortars to clean up the next island.

However, thanks for the helping hand but this map was a bit too much of a slog to revisit it...

Greetings from The Shire!

[Johnny Haywire]

I built 6 or 8 guppies on bottom-left right away so I could then orbit my CN and land in upper-right to grab the Berthas and to take out the no-fly-zone. I then re-orbited and landed back in the lower-left long before the guppies' energy had drained out. Use the PZ for a beam to protect stuff while your CN is gone - it's a lot more energy-efficient.  ;)

I liked the map well enough, possibly more than others who didn't like having only one viable starting option. Multiple starting options are fine, but I'd always prefer to land in the best spot anyway. This just makes the calculations unnecessary. Here's yer sign.

Thanks for the map!  ;D

[marvinitfox]

Tricksy start, easy enough after that.

Started bottom-left, and immediately took (and held...owch) the totem area.

From there on the only oddity is your complete lack of AC, so you cannot toggle back the reds emmitters until quite late in the game.
(and keeping them suppressed sure eats a lot of power)

[Johnny Haywire]

From there on the only oddity is your complete lack of AC

I think you could land on the top-right, nullify the aerial exclusion tower, then orbit & land on bottom left in time to defend against the first wave of spores. Use guppies to power up the emitters, and build some beams & berthas on the PZ's and you should be able to clear stuff quickly. And you'll have AC pretty quickly too. Just a thought.  ;)

[marvinitfox]

From there on the only oddity is your complete lack of AC

I think you could land on the top-right, nullify the aerial exclusion tower, then orbit & land on bottom left in time to defend against the first wave of spores. Use guppies to power up the emitters, and build some beams & berthas on the PZ's and you should be able to clear stuff quickly. And you'll have AC pretty quickly too. Just a thought.  ;)

This works exactly as planned.

However.

The delay in the beginning causes you to lose about 1.5-2 minutes.
And feeding totems with guppies never works quite as well as running relays to them (plus uses up floorspace)
And to benefit from your initial top-right conquest, you need to build a rather large guppy fleet. Further reducing the available floorspace on your bottom-left island.
All of these added inefficiencies make the acquisition of upgrades in the forge slower, which slows you down more.

End result:
A more hectic, apparently productive conquest.....That takes a bit longer than a straight slog from the bottom-left with relay on totems.

[Johnny Haywire]

Yeah, good points. I almost never go for a fast time. And for me, "hectic" is anything that requires pausing, so once I set up I like to play RTS-style, and the guppy thing just requires a little set-up and then it's pretty easy once you get the berthas. No pausing or micro-management needed. And I didn't run low on energy so space wasn't really an issue. But easy is not always efficient...

So I decided to try it the way you did it, and that's clearly the fastest way. Getting consistent energy to the totems early-on is a huge boost in this map. You might need to pause every now and then but once you secure the middle, it's pretty easy sailing. I like that there are a variety of ways to approach this map.  ;D

[marvinitfox]

..... No pausing or micro-management needed...

No.... Pausing?
No PAUSING
NO pausing?


mind==blown


Between the lag and the pausing for precise placements, my average 40-minute game spends 2.5 hours on the clock.

[Johnny Haywire]

Well, in a map like this you kinda need to pause to set up, and then for the first few minutes pause to check stuff, move things, etc. every so often. But yeah, I typically play 4-10x speed (with a speed mod) so maps don't take so long. At least, real-time that is. In most maps, once you gain a solid foothold you just progress from there. Pausing will improve your game-time but takes more real-time.

What's cool about this map and this game is that it can accompany a wide variety of play-styles. And some of Jason's newest maps - the lowest-rated ones - are really tough and well-done. He's definitely improved his building skills from really good to great to one-of-the-best, in my opinion.

PS. - Speaking of "one of the best" - Try Sorrontis' map 3053. He removed the pause ability in that map  :o  One of my fav's.