Cold Plains

[Moderator]

11:57, 13th Jun 2010, by Rui:
A very appealing landscape for people who like expanding. The drops and neutral buildings need changing, however! Read my [self=http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/maps-564/cold-plains-162536/#post1613340]full review[/self] for details. Reviewed and rated 2,5 / 5.

 

[Deleted member 157129]

Pretty sweet! The natural expansions have the goldmine rather oddly placed though - try to pack it a bit in with trees or similar so it's not so open.

 

[Rui]

Rui's review for Spike's "Cold Plains", a melee map

This melee map has a very appealing symmetrical layout. People also tend to love their expansions, so the high number of Gold Mines available should be quite pleasing.There's one thing I didn't like, which was excellently pointed out by shiiK: the Gold Mines closest to the players' starting locations are oddly placed. Try to delete a few trees and semi-integrate the Gold Mine into them.In beautification terms, I was slightly badly impressed: you could have used more height (Z) variation and wider texture diversification.
I'm glad you didn't commit the holes-between-trees pathing mistake. That's a plus. But you forgot to set a few of the creep camps' acquisition range. All creep camps except those guarding Gold Mines should have their acquisition range set to Camp (200).
Another thing I hate to see are Mercenary Camps heavily guarded. You placed the hardest creep camp guarding it! Mercenaries are only useful early and mid-game; later on, the map is filled with air units which make mercenaries too weak and expensive to be worth it. I suggest you rectify the neutral buildings' choice and create new creep camps accordingly.
The drops were too powerful. The creep camp protecting the close expansion, for example, drop a lvl3 permanent and a lvl2 powerup. Spider Lords don't even spawn the Spiderlings upon their death like Nerubian Warriors do, I believe. It's a too easy creep camp for the drops to be this valuable. Here go a few suggestions:

• Expansion Gold Mine protectors: Lvl3 Charged for the Nerubian Spider Lord and lvl1 Powerup for the Ice Troll Berserker.
• Goblin Merchant guards: Lvl3 Permanent for the Dire Frost Wolf.
• Starting locations: Lvl5 Charged for Ancient Wendigo. Keep the lvl2Powerup for the Frost Revenant.
• Furbolg-guarded expansions: Random lvl4 permanent for the Furbolg Champion. Keep the lvl2powerup but give it to the Furbolg Tracker.
• Mercenary Camp (change this!): Give the lvl2 powerup additional drop to the Ice Revenant. If Wraiths or Ghosts possess units, their drops will be removed.

My rating is 2,5 out of 5, which rounds up to 3 (Acceptable). Marked as Reviewed.

 

[Rainbow Evil]

I played the map. Like Rui said, starting mines are bit odd, but if you ask me it's not a big deal. Did you increase scaling of some creeps???

First expansion is very easy to get and easy to defend, thus adding more challange. I liked that.

Thing I really didn't like is how you used doodads. There is almost none and terrain looks very naked. Melee maps don't really need super good terrain but this is really not nice. Plz add some more doodads. Like rocks near the paths or thorns. Some ruins remains always look good.

I'll rate it 3, but feel free to pm me if you update to try it again. I'll gladly raise my rating. ( you got +rep )