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WarCraft Maul: NG 2.65

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Warcraft Maul NG v2.65
by Squiggy

PREFACE: THIS MAP IS NOT MEANT TO BE PLAYED WITH REFORGED AND WILL NEVER RECEIVE ANY SUPPORT FOR ANY ISSUES CAUSED BY THAT. STOP PLAYING REFORGED.
WCMaul NG (formerly dubbed NeXtGen) is a project I've been working on from 2008 to 2011, that aims to combine classical mazing known from Wintermaul,​
with Elements from other TDs and Mauls such as Element TD, Shoppingmaul, eeve TD & Green TD to name a few.​
It is originally a mod of "WarCraft Maul: Complete 1.5" (see epicwar), but has undergone so many changes since then that the map is a completely different experience.​
Early wc3 custom maps were also often horribly unbalanced, so rebalancing towers was a very important factor in this.​
The map can be extremely easy or terribly difficult depending on the playstyle, chosen races, players themselves and lost lives per level.​
The "default" difficulty in my own opinion is 2 Stages on Normal with 20 lives because it allows each normal enemy to gain up to over 200% handicap in later levels,​
which may require you to strategically place strong towers and combine them with mid-tier towers and/or weak ones to avoid that an army of Shamans with 132.000HP each simply run through your zigzag-stuff and kill you.​
Playing on Easy caps the HP at 75% which can be done with just a few strong towers.​
However, you cannot expect to sell all your weaker towers for just one expensive tower to wreck stuff like in Element TD and Green TD in later levels.​
Each race also benefits from the lv15-given choice to build a bonus tower that can be quite a gamechanger.​
FEATURES
► The map is a so-called mazing maul tower defense. You get to play from 1 to 9 players and have to defend the gold mine at the bottom of the map.​
► In order to do that, your main objective is to build towers which are able to attack the spawned creeps (one spawn per player) either in a labyrinth that may or may not make use of waypoints scattered over the map or a straight defense line.​
► The map offers 21 races (20 to choose from, one hidden, bonus random race) where each race has a certain playing style to it, requiring different approaches of slaying creeps.​
► Warcraft Maul NextGen is playable in three difficulties​
► Players can either choose to play 25 or 50 levels with a changeable amount of livels to start with​
► If you're short on lives, you may buy them from your main base for 500 gold each.​
► As the map offers over 230 towers and includes famous races from formerly known maul maps (The Undead, Naga), it also introduces new races such as the Elements and towers from the famed Green TD.​
► If you're feeling lucky, try out the Animals and control your units, level your hero or dish out huge damage to enemies using one of the map's unique Ultimate Towers.​
► To get money from not only killing enemy units, WcMaul NG features an income system giving you bonus gold depending on the amount stored on your account.​
► In order to keep the map a little more challenging, it​
a) has mini bosses appearing every ten minutes with increased HP and bonus gold​
b) can be played in PRO Mode which requires at least two players to work together in order to get to level 50 and may take over two hours.​
c) has a lot of effects lol​
d) is equipped with varying aura key points spread over the map which buffs enemy units or may debuff your towers.​
e) can be fine-tuned by setting the starting amount of gold left in the mine.​
f) has a few secrets to it which you may be curious to explore​
g) may require you and your team to do waypoint mazes which is actually encouraged if playing on higher difficulties​
h) now has another, new miniboss in Normal Mode that randomly spawns without letting you prepare​
► benefits of a simple, yet effective Balancing System based on lives lost per level and difficulty​
► features a Single Player Mode​
► 99.47% leak-free​
► below 500kbyte map size​
► has achieved over 25k Downloads on hive, over 25k on epicwar and possibly many more via bnet​
► only needs TFT v1.26 to run, giving it ULTRA-COMPATIBILITY©​
► still fries your toaster in 2020​
► and lots more​

SCREENSHOTS
15th Anniversary PV

CREDITS
► master.of.chaos, sserpyc, TerranUp16, GameJNKY, Ultron,​
► 1337lEeyorepro, DukeWintermaul, Illidan(Evil)X, WILLTHEALMIGHTY, JetFangInferno
► Apu, Kaputzemann, M][thos, 13rilliance, LunA.MoOnRideR​
► Fyxe, THEOLD2, haqu, ILutherI, Clan SMXP​
► DDF.Druid, the users of "the hive workshop", the testers around B.Net,​
► and you​
Latest Changes

v2.65:​
*Fixed the 1 Life not being applied to Normal Mode upon choosing​
*Fixed HP handicap display for Easy- & Normal Mode​
*Fixed Green Fear: Tree Spawn Walkability​
*Nerfed the Dragonhawk (High Elves) by cutting its' range down to 300 instead of 700​
*Fixed the Eye of the Dead not de-/applying the buff​
*Removed the RNG for a certain secret, now has a 100% dropchance​
*Added another Miniboss that randomly spawns in Normal+ without prior warnings​
*Enemy Buffs now (Aura/Epic) only apply after lv3​
*minor terrain adjustments; Lich King is now present in the map to insult you​

FAQ

Q: I ded on Easy - y tho?​
A: This kind of tower defense may require you to build a pathway for enemy units to pass through that extends their distance to the Gold Mine at the bottom.​
The map actively uses waypoints, so making use of these is maybe a good idea, no? Build more towers, derpface.​

Q: Why can i only choose few races, not as mentioned 21?​
A: When you select the wisp, click on the Symbol showing a Dark Orb to change to the other races.​
Click on the bright orb to revert to its original form. Same goes with the ultimate wisp(s)​
Q: How does the interest system work?​
A: If you have saved at least 100 Gold, you gain a certain percent of the amount of Gold you own when the timer in the multiboard expires.​
Also the amount you get is shown up above the Base of your race when the timer runs out.​
You can gain a maximum of 100G interest​
Q: Why have the ultimate towers such a long cooldown and what amount of damage do they deal?​
A: Most of them do 1000000 damage IN GENERAL, what means NOT that they deal the 1000000 to every single unit in range, but 1000000 damage divided by the amount of units in range.​
And as they deal such massive damage, you should not be able to use them whenever you want ;)
Q: Why can't I kick ?​
A: Only the host has the right to kick.​
Q: Why do creeps sometimes attack my towers?​
A: Well, the most common answer is, that creeps take 1x1 square units.​
A tower covers 4x4. Therefore, if all places (16) are occupied, the unit can't move on and tries to use a different way by attacking.​
Q: What are the symbols on the ground?​
A: Those are special auras.​
Each has a different effect on either creeps or towers. Find out yourself which aura spans which effect.​
Q: What's with Bosses?​
A: While normal creeps only steal one gold, the boss takes ten.​
Every ten minutes, a mini-boss is spawned on the map which takes one life away.​
Q: Why is there a food-limit and why did you choose 76?​
A. The food-limit shall prevent at least a part of the lag which is caused by the amount of towers being on the map in lategame.​
The number 76 is simple to calculate: 75 'normal' towers + 1 ultimate.​
Q: What's the number in brackets in the multiboard next to the mode?​
A: That's the current difficulty based on the mode you've chosen. It ranges from 0 to 400%.​
Q: What are the numbers in [brackets] when I look at a towers' stats?​
A: The numbers in brackets are the values for air.​
If there are no brackets but the tower has an anti-air attack, the attacks share one value.​
Races
·Humanoid Races​
·Humans​
29H3Q.png
The Human Race spans a lot of towers with extremely low range.​
Instead, the towers fire at high speed and some deal area damage.​
Humans have decent anti-air towers.​
·Giants​
29H3L.png
Giants are relatively cheap and feature a few abilities.​
The race relies on dealing splash damage and slowing enemy units.​
Giant towers feature a high range tower.​
·High Elves​
29H3P.png
This race is particularly important when it comes to anti-air defense.​
Most towers are able to use a separate, long-range attack on enemy air units.​
Towers that do not possess this ability may or may not make use of other skills.​
High Elves are recommended in the back spots.​

·Creatures​
·Orcs​
29H3U.png
Many Orc towers deal piercing damage, so fortified armor may be difficult for them to kill enemies.​
Some of them are capable of using spells and passive abilities.​
·Night Elves​
29H3T.png
Night Elves are very easy to play and perfect for newcomers.​
Towers attack with different types of damage and also do splash damage.​
A few possess abilities to cast on enemy units.​
·Corrupt Night Elves​
29H3F.png
This race is difficult to start with as it focusses on dealing damage over time.​
It is recommended to build a variety of towers to ensure maximum power.​
Corrupted Night Elves may be unsuitable for newcomers.​
·Chaos Orcs​
29H3E.png
Chaos Orcs feature a similar build-up as Orcs do, but rely more on special skills towers come with.​
Like Orcs, this race starts off with Piercing damage so it's best to build numerous towers.​
·Goblins​
29H3M.png
Goblins mostly make use of side effects to their attacks.​
Due to the number of effects the towers possess, it is recommended to carefully read the tooltip.​
The Goblin Alchemist is able to generate extra bounty.​
·Naga​
29H3S.png
The Naga rely on slowing enemy units.​
As lots of towers are able to slow down, this race has decreased damage output.​
The Naga race has weak anti-air and thus is not recommended for grey.​

·Animals​
·Animals​
29H3B.png
This race has a range of moveable units.​
Hired units are able to move within a radius of 900 and will die if not in range.​
Animals offer two skillable Heroes and the stongest unit in the game.​
This race is not recommended for newcomers or grey.​
·Tavern​
29H3W.png
Yo ho, have a seat at ye olde bar and hire various animals of different areas.​
The Tavern towers are able to use skills to weaken enemy units.​
·Draenai​
29H3H.png
Draenai towers feature decreased build time.​
Side effects such as Immolation or Impale make this race more versatile.​
The race offers the best anti-air tower in the game.​
·Dragons​
29H3J.png
This race includes a line-up of dragon towers coupled with a variety of abilities.​
Some towers have increased attack range and/or minimal area damage.​
·Aviaries​
29H3D.png
The Aviaries consists of various flying defense towers.​
The towers deal average damage for a cheap price and have a few effects.​
This race is best designed in a maze.​
·Arachnids​
29H3C.png
Spider towers partially deal Chaos damage.​
A few towers also make use of abilities or have area damage.​

·Demons​
·Undead​
29H3X.png
Undead towers can slow enemies, deal damage over time and area damage.​
The race relies on Chaos Damage so it's recommended for grey.​
·Demons​
29H3G.png
Demonic towers are able to perform slowing attacks on enemy units and are best used in numbers.​
Some towers have increased attack range and/or area damage.​
·Mausoleum​
29H3R.png
This race outputs highy varying damage and should be used in numbers.​
Towers are able to damage multiple enemies or can be upgraded.​
The Mausoleum is not recommended for beginners.​

·Strange Races​
·Green TD​
29H3N.png
This race plays exactly like Green TD.​
The towers base on splash damage and can be improved with Aura towers.​
Anti-air defense and Champion defense must be built seperately.​
·Elements​
29H3K.png
The elemental race starts off with one base tower.​
To build stronger towers, it is necessary to fulfill the requirements.​
Elemental towers are expensive and deal high damage.​
·Squiggy's Playground​
29H3V.png
??? me gusta marijuana me gustas tu ???​
Towers attack extremely slow at very high ranges.​
Can be combined with Eye of the Dead for massive damage output.​

Mechanics
·The Balance System​
Balancing this map is done by factorizing a number based on Difficulty chosen and amount of units that reach the Gold Mine.​
If no units reach the Gold Mine, the HP will increase until they pass a maximum of 150% on Easy, 200% on Normal and 300% on Pro.​
If a unit reaches the Gold Mine, the HP will be decreased until 100% and not go up until that value is met.​
·The Interest System​
Interest is given every 30 seconds to Players.​
The value given depends on Difficulty and Current Gold.​
Choosing Easy sets the base value to 2%, Normal to 3% and Pro to 4%.​
The interest will be applied in a range of 100-2000 Gold, where the interest will be set to 100 Gold fixed.​
·Ultimate Towers​
A keypoint of WCMaul NG are the unique 21 towers Players are able to choose from, depending on the Race chosen.​
Activating a tower will in most cases trigger a GUI-based, so-called 'Cinematic Spell'.​
The Spell being cast will greatly vary in terms of Effects and Damage over Time, but the overall Damage of 1.000.000 will be applied to all enemy units affected by the AoE.​
The Exceptions are:​
*the 'Eye of the Dead' as it adds a Critical Strike Aura to towers and thus does no initial damage.​
*Green TD's 'Genetical Upgrade' upgrades any Siege Tower 9 to Siege Tower 10​
*Draenai's 'Time Stop' renders enemy units unable to move​
*Mausoleum's 'Dimensional Gate' applies a 50% chance to instantly kill affected units no matter the remaining HP​
The spells are working as intended, yet they should not be cast in multiple instances.​
The 'coding' relies a lot on variables and integer loops which will interfere with each other if a spell is being cast by two (or more) Players using the same Race.​
Issues can also be caused if two (or more) players cast a spell while playing different Races.​
Ultimate Towers that have no duration or are being cast using plain Unit Abilities are not affected by this issue.​
I will adress myself to this in a while.​
·RNG and You​
Warcraft Maul NG relies on random number generation as far as the wc3 engine is able to do it.​
Upon choosing a random race, a random integer number between 1 and 11 is chosen, respectively for each builder; generating a chance to acquire the secret Bonus race.​
Auras that boost enemies or debuff your own towers are placed randomly around the map using the playable map are while excluding water, the gold mine and other impossible points.​
There is also a 1 in 2 chance for each aura to appear on the map at all.​
The same process is used for spells with a chance to trigger an effect (Lich eg. - 25%), the Ultimate Tower Charon (50%), or whether a certain unit reacts upon arriving on a specifit spot of the map.​
Furthermore, the periodically applied Buff that enemy units receive makes use of RNG as well; the time intervals between each instance is chosen by selectign a random number from 30 to 60 seconds.​
While the units that receive the buff are selected randomly, the process is based on a fixed percentual amount of enemy units on the map depending on the chosen difficulty.​
Contents

WarCraft Maul: NG 2.65 (Map)

Reviews
Warcraft Maul is better than ever. There are so many improvements and countless bugs that have been fixed! Time to give it another shot I say. It is an awesome TD with lots of breathtaking effects and a vast number of towers and builders to choose...
Level 28
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
Messages
2,955
The bars are the overall prices, in average.
There are towers that cost 1000+ gold for one race (like the 'Origin' for Elements) and there's towers costing 600 gold (like the Chaos Orc's 'Grom Hellscream').
Races with eg. 5 towers of high price will be more expensive than those with two expensive towers.

About the
Hmm that High Elf miss worker, once picked you must repick race...
what exactly do you mean?
 
Level 4
Joined
Feb 6, 2013
Messages
84
Some suggestion

I have play this map with my friend and I think it's a good game. However, I saw that my friend have blocked the way and he succeed. I think you may add some options to let the enemies attack the towers when they were blocked.
 
Level 1
Joined
Jun 25, 2013
Messages
2
You're still working on this map? That..... that is some major dedication, and many props to you for that.
I remember when this map first came out, and I'm glad to see that it has had many updates and balances.
Also: Incoming 5 thumbs in 10 days.
 
Level 1
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Jun 25, 2013
Messages
2
Sort of read/skimmed through the thread and didn't see this mentioned, so sorry if you're already aware of it, but if you use Charon's ability (and presumably any ultimate tower that can do something similar) within range of the Gold Mine, it lifts it up, makes it disappear, then reappear on top of Charon. It doesn't stop creeps from taking lives, though, nor does it change where they have to reach in order to take a life, but I figured it was worth noting, since I don't think it's supposed to do that o_O
 
Level 28
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Mar 25, 2008
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2,955
Oh, no, I wasn't aware of that, apparently.
I might have to set an eception for that - thanks for mentioning it.
When creeps enter a region around the place where the mine is, gold is being subracted, the position of the gold mine doesn't matter here.

Luckily, Charon is the only unit which is able of hiding units.
 
Level 28
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
Messages
2,955
Greetings gentlemen and gentlewomen,

it's time to set sails with v2.54, the newest release in the Warcraft Maul NG project.
After two years of doing nothing related to wc3, I thought of publicizing the changes I had made to my LAN version of 2.52 in 2013.

Version 2.54 contains minor to major updates, including a random +Armor buff to enemy units, interface updates and more quirks.

In case anyone still plays a good ol' TD, you might as well give this one a try.
Warcraft Maul NG is a mazing TD I've worked on since 2008 and spent thousands of hours improving and modifying it, so you can expect a decent map.
Known bugs only relate to the Ultimate Towers and are of little importance.
The +DEF buff makes the map overall a little harder, playing Normal and Pro Mode may force you to make use of waypoints or mazing together.

-----------------
v2.54 Changelog:
-Reduced the spell duration of the recently implemented Armor Buff to 20s
-Tentacle removed, ability to sell any tower can be used with the builder
-Merged information sheets of lv15 towers into the casting button
-Fixed selling value of Hell Guardian
 
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Roland

R

Roland

Fix the problem where you can SELL The marketplace and make sure the marketplace is build-able on Cliff(s)/Tiles not sand or grass.

Although, It's a nice map, Funny description along with German descriptions on it.. Keep going man! I'm proud of you~ ^^ :3 :D
 
Level 28
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Mar 25, 2008
Messages
2,955
I'm just applying the fixes we've discovered in the game.
Expect it in a few minutes~

Wait, German?

Changes applied to v2.55:
-"Sell" does no longer work on Town Halls
-The debug message is gone
-The Defense Buff will only be applied after creeps have spawned
-Faster HP degeneration for Lava Spawn
-Faster MP regeneration for Slash

The Town Halls are actually buildable on elevated terrain as long as the structure size fits on the elevated terrain. It works well on grey, eg.

Edit:
| well geez that wasn't known to me... I've looked at the towers millions of times to ensure they'd be in English...
| the only German left was the Debug message displaying the amount of affected units by the def buff which I seemingly forgot to remove.
v v2.55 does not have that message anymore.
 
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Roland

R

Roland

Yeah, Remember what Shadow Fury said during our play? He said some of the Building descriptions are in German.
 
Level 28
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Updated to v2.61 along with the following improvements:

-Critical updates to event limiting
-Interface updates
- -destroy command fixed
-added a tenth secret at the expense of increasing the mapsize - totally worth finding it
-fixed Defeat fading effect
-Blocking is almost impossible now

Awesome Trailer now available on Page 1!
 
Level 21
Joined
Nov 4, 2013
Messages
2,017
Re-re-re-re-re-review

Since the last review made by Kobas has become more ancient than the world tree itself, it's time to remove the dust from this map and have a new review!

Based on my multiplayer experience, I enjoyed playing the map. It offers a very wide range of builders and towers thus giving a high replayability to it. The game appears to be balanced, except maybe in single player. I noticed that it's almost impossible to play it alone, although the description implies we can. I tried multiple races, yet to no avail. I always ended up leaking in the early waves, no matter what strategy I applied. Considering this point, I would strongly recommend giving the possibility to set the handicap to 75% so as to not only allow noobs to learn how to play and test new races but also making single player of sensible difficulty.

Aesthetically, the map could be improved with some extra decorations just nearby the cliffs and the waters, but that's not really mandatory. However, I'd suggest replacing the dark grass tile with another tile as the contrast between the dark green and the rest of the colours isn't very pretty.

During late game, I started experiencing lag problems. The massive amount of towers, the buffs applied by the random auras, the missiles shot and all the special effects caused by abilities really influenced the smoothness of the game. You shouldn't exaggerate with flashy effects when creating abilities for ultimate towers as this makes them harder to manipulate (making them MUI, leaklessness etc...) and inevitably causes lag. In addition, some abilities are not MUI as you said. Please do try to make them MUI as soon as possible.

There are a few tiny bugs that need to be fixed:
- The timer of doom should stop when I win wave 50. This is to ensure no dooms spawn when the game is supposed to be finished
- There is a wave 51! When the timer for "end game" expires, the liches spawn again. That's not a real problem as the game ends but I think it's not hard fixing it. You know, perfection never hurts XD
- Many tooltips don't tell me which hotkeys I should press to activate the desired skills e.g Teleportation and some towers' descriptions. That could be a little awkward

In conclusion, I believe the 4/5 still fits the map so I won't change it.
Mod review is updated though just to highlight all the changes that occured since the last mod review :)
 
Level 12
Joined
Jan 4, 2014
Messages
543
Woah, I'm very happy to see this project is still being worked on!

I hope you keep improving this map. It is by far my favorite version of WarCraft Maul. I really like the addition of the Doom bosses! They add a little bit a spice to the usual Maul formula. I think the race I enjoyed playing the most was the Animal Tribe. It's such an interesting idea to have a race like that in a Tower Defense. I also liked the secret items.

I would say my biggest criticisms are that the game gets a little too repetitive if you pick the 50 rounds mode, the ultimate towers are kinda of weak, despite being cool looking and the high elf race's dragon hawk riders are a little too strong.

I look forward to seeing your updates!
 
Level 28
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Mar 25, 2008
Messages
2,955
If I end up continuing this, I'll add a few more features, such as a CRACK Mode which doesn't care about your playstyle and spawns a new wave every 60 seconds, a new miniboss that appears without warning, another race that uses hero towers and other quirks like aligning the ultimate tower damage to the set difficulty.
I know doing the same thing for 50 levels can be exhausting but that's what a TD is, sadly.
I thought of implementing minigames but it reminded me too much of Skibi TD after I added "Catch the Apple", so I got rid of that again.
Newer versions feature Aura Bonuses to enemy creeps that pass them or weaken your towers and also an "Epic Bonus" to random creeps, so I think a new kind of mini boss that needs to be taken care of (it won't be prioritized, unlike Doom) might be a good idea. The Lich King will also make quite a few appearances to insult the players on different events.
Another thing I have in mind is to unlock the Ultimate Towers at lv15 for Stage 1 and lv30 at stage 2 with higher stats (that essentially gives them two pre-added bonuses of like +25% damage if you play 2 stage on Normal).
And lastly, I can finally (theoretically) get to make use of the day-night-cycle to add extras (maybe add Ninjas that have 3x their movement speed on nighttime and 50% on daytime / bonuses on daytime for siege armor etcetc).
The map terrain may also receive an overhaul although I love Sunken Ruins.
 
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Level 1
Joined
Feb 6, 2010
Messages
3
Your map is awesome and I would love it if you add this extras you have in mind.

Keep your beautiful work up!

Would be awesome to see a improved version.
 
Level 1
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Feb 6, 2010
Messages
3
i host your map now 3 times with wc3 reforge.

there are some issues. 2nd start i had on wave 5 a hard lag without any programs in background and got kicked out.
the ultimate tower from tavern is blocking the maze and let the creeps attack your towers (is this normal?)
i was lucky and got the special race it seems a little op but the description from the mushroom tower and the ice god tower looks like wrong.
in my first try i cant get the fire orb. i dont know how it triggers but it wasnt available for me but for the others.
the eye of the dead seems like broken, or is it a hidden crit buff there arent any crits popup.


but i think the lags with ultimate towers in reforged is not that crazy as in nomral warcraft.


anyway keep up this i would love to test it
 
Level 28
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
Messages
2,955
Playing this map in reforged is unsupported.
WCMaul NG is made in and for Classic WC3 (1.27b for now) and will NEVER receive ANY support for Reforged.


There is a 50% chance that the fire orb appears, v2.73 will have a 100% dropchance.
If you block, creeps kill your towers, yup - Ultimate Towers need more build space than normal towers.
Ultimate towers shouldn't cause much lag unless you play on a toaster and/or execute two or more ultimate attacks at once due to my shitty coding.
This will be fixed with v3.00 (aka it'll take a loooooooooooooong time).
 
Level 1
Joined
Feb 6, 2010
Messages
3
So I hope every version is compatible with reforged. :)

The problem was not the size of the tower. At activation the tower spawns trees in the maze around him and this blocks the creeps and then they attacked the maze.
 
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Played it 2 persons recently. Was pretty good and well decently balanced.
It wasn't too clear how some of the details worked first few times we tried but it feels like there is some amount of depth.
It was fun experimenting with mazing and how the path-finding works. There are quite a few races to pick from and so on.
The random aura things are somewhat interesting, but you can't really act on it.
Anyways, pretty fun map :)
 
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