Mini-Map 6: Arena
Creator: DocSpacebar || First Published: 03/31/2017 || Players: 2 || Size: 17x17
Categories: B-Rank, Standard
Rating: 0 in 0 ratings
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Comments:
DocSpacebar (03/31/2017 12:22am | Edited: 03/31/2017 12:34am):
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! I'm Jim and this is Bub, and we're here for tonight's game of Mini-Map 6:
Arena!"

"To the owner of the Purple Lightning APC with too many bumper stickers, you left your lights on. Energy level in
the Arena is up to 11 tonight!"

"You say it's up to 11 every night, Bub. You know, there's one thing I never understand... how come there are
whole cities in the Arena?"

"I'm not sure, Jim. Not a whole lot makes sense here. The cities do make things interesting, though. The open
areas in the arena generally have a lot of them, and they're near forests, which makes them a lot easier to
contest."

"That they do, Bub, that they do. First-turn advantage counter is on the field, ready for the kickoff."

"The FTA counter is, in fact, on the field, Jim."

"Are you gonna say what I say the whole game again, Bub?"

"I am in fact going to repeat everything you say, Jim. It gets me fan mail."

"This just came up... the arena's manager would like it to be known that he'd like some critique on this Arena."

"He would like to know where he screwed up, Jim."
Xmo5 (03/31/2017 10:57am):
Very nice work. This is definitely a cut above your other mini-maps. That said, I think it
is a bit city dense near the center. I count 11k income per side, which is probably a bit
high given the circumstances, so you can afford to lose a couple cities. For convenience,
I circled the ones that are probably the best to remove here:

https://s18.postimg.org/n0vop1g7d/Arena_Cities_Doc_Spacebar.png

You can simply remove them or relocate to the outside of the map if you prefer (and/or
shuffle the positions of cities nearby a little bit), but they're a bit too much where
they are now. I like 9k income because it gives both tank+inf and arty+mech options, which
is probably good for unit variety here. 10k wouldn't be bad, but 11k might make it a bit
vehicle heavy: You could consistently buy 2 vehicles every other turn which leaves you
with 3/4 of your units being vehicles and you don't want them to dominate too much on a
small map like this.
Xmo5 (04/03/2017 03:55pm):
The test game was really fun on this. It gave a lot of options during the battle to
reinforce different fronts, and they felt like they were connected just the right amount
to where you could switch easily, but still use the barriers to stop your opponent from
getting to you with the right moves.

The only thing I didn't particularly care for was the funding. Maybe it was because of how
our match played out, but I had 8k income for most of the game which made for a pretty
boring tank+inf decision most turns. Granted, I was 1 city short of what I should have had
(it was probably better for you at 9k), but it might be nice to have an extra city between
the starting base and HQ. It's hard to say for certain though, since I ended up avoiding
artillery altogether in favor of tanks, partially because you played as Javier, but
partially because of the fact that 2 bases makes it hard to have a safe place for your
arty, especially in a fast paced game where the fronts move a lot. My gut says add it, but
my brain's on the fence.
DocSpacebar (04/03/2017 09:49pm):
I went ahead and added a city between each team's Bases. It would allow an Arty-Recon, and since a lot of
disrupting went on on this map, I'm betting one or both teams will probably only have 9000 funds for a while.
Xmo5 (04/04/2017 09:21am):
I would personally like the city further away, so it's not so much of a no-brainer to
capture right away. Down in the corner by the HQ leaves it one move away, but positions
your infantry poorly, and is only reached conveniently from a single base. The current
location makes it too easy to capture it immediately and move towards the center with
either base and doesn't offer much in the way of decision making. In the best maps, it's
unclear what the optimal expansion moves are, and for that you need to weigh tougher options.
DocSpacebar (04/04/2017 10:23pm):
How's right there between the forests look?
Xmo5 (04/05/2017 10:41am | Edited: 04/05/2017 10:43am):
I don't think that helped very much. They're all still so centrally located- you want to
force infantry to be in sub-optimal locations sometimes or everything progresses too
quickly or rapidly turns into a mess as all forces converge on the same point early on.

EDIT: Imagine the paths that you would send infantry. If it looks really easy to hop from
city to city, all the way to the middle, then it's probably too simple. You want to have a
couple of those here and there, but generally you want a lot of them (especially on a
small map) to be more out of the way to force a slower, smoother expansion and a wider
spread of your forces. This also tends to force more strategic decisions about infantry
placement, rather than easy, mindless ones, as I mentioned in my last post.
DocSpacebar (04/05/2017 03:24pm):
All right, I put it by the HQ mountain, ahead of the HQ. How's that look?
Xmo5 (04/17/2017 08:56am):
I like it back further, away from the front, for the reasons mentioned above and also
because it forms a strong defensive line with the other city and the forests there, making
the area too easy to defend or blockade.
DocSpacebar (04/18/2017 12:04pm):
All right, moved it back further.



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