Shurah Reef

[btp|Lancer]

Exceptionally detailed map. Great job. Like maps with lots of expansions.
Its good to see expansions in the middle of the map with such a curious orientation. Ruins tileset is amazing.
Good to see all new kinds of creeps and also merc creeps.

My rate: 4.8/5

Afraid of some things:
- Highland closed to the main could possible make player vulnerable to siege units dropped by zepelins. Have you checked ALL areas? I've only checked it's impossible to build there
- Orange creep in the corner is only accessible via zepelin. And it drops poor items, I think it's not worthy
- Creeping with night elves is gonna be hard as hell

 

[Knecht]

Splendid map, I really like the option between the 2 expos (and the creep routes leading to them). I'm not sure if the mid expos aren't way too close to the tavern, maybe rotating the expos towards the green makrura camp and adding trees would solve it. This might be a non issue though.

I must say there's a lot of tomes, I would almost consider renaming this map to "Sunken Library" jk, but I felt like my hero's inventory strived for more items, maybe some lvl2 charged or something.

The sunken ruins merc camp is a nice addition. I understand why you put all the blockers and doodads in the water, but wouldn't it be fun if you could send a mur'gul/turtle merc scout or something through that hole at the merc camp?

Last thing is the camp in the corner. A lvl1 perm isn't worth the trouble imo. Sure you can fly off with the zeppelin without fighting the lab creeps but you can get an easier lvl1 perm in the early game and in the late game it's just not that great. My take on this would be either making it a more powerful item or changing the item for a rune (restoration perhaps?). Basically like in the RPGs where there's always some healing items in the corners of the boss room.

Anyways, I really like the map, has a nice flow to it. The stuff I mentioned isn't that important since it's already a good melee map.

 

[Nudl9]

Mercs should face towards the players and away from center.
The first player that establishes dominance in center will win through mercs.
Games will end in landslides without the back and forth gameplay that most players desire.
I think one of the mercs. can spawn summons, which is what makes the ruins mercs overpowered.
Get both and you should win the game with a push.

 

[mafe]

So.... A very good map. Some of the nonstandard stuff is surely intentional, and it might just keep the map from being a great map, but I'd like ot be proven wrong:
-The highgorund creeps only reachable by zeppelin: They don't really seem worth the investment to buy a zeppelin on their own. My initial thought would be to swap the highground creeps with those guarding the labs.
-The central gold mines: Interesting choice, but I think the players will prefer the outer goldmines. In the lategame, the winning condition might be to establish an expansion there, so I guess it's a good way to prevent games from draggin on for too long. I'd prefer if there was more space for buildings nearby.
-Many powerups, in particular the double powerup only drop at the central expansions i nice, but feels kinda underwhelming. Maybe make it two lvl 2 powerups?
-Sunken Ruins merc camp camp.... Well not the worst, but certainly a risk. Let's hope Blizzard will make some balance changes to merc soon. The central location of the mercs might be an issue, but now that I look at them again, these mercs are insanely expensive and give loads of exp when killed. So I don't think going all out on mercs is something players will necessarily want to do. It might just work.

What I like in particular:
-The "fence" allowing vision at the merc camps from behind.
-Good items and creepcamps also look good, despite no standard creeps at all.
-Initially the map look really small to, but it is about the size of Amazonia so nothing to complain after all.

One minor technical issue is that the skinks could accidentially block the ideal AoW building location at the revenants.

So altogether, map approved.

(and of course, the map looks awesome)