People, including me, love playing the Arabia map. Among all the maps, it’s over 50% preferred in 1v1s. However, there’s one thing many Arabia fans complain about: the hills! People don’t want to play in the Himalayas. Yes, I agree that hills are a key factor in competitive play. However, please consider the following:
- Players don’t want hills in their bases. This can prevent players from building town centers or any other buildings.
- Large hills between two players are now commonplace in every game. It’s become a given. We should treat this like chicken. There should be a 50% chance of a large hill between two players. That way, it’s unpredictable.
Finally, I’d like to say that maps can have plenty of small hills, as they’re essential for micro, but they shouldn’t be in bases. At the very least, they shouldn’t interfere with building town centers. Large hills shouldn’t be present in every game between two players. They should be random.
I also remember Arabia having ridiculously massive hills during first months of DE
This. Woodlines on hills make placing good town centers tough, worst is when your base is in a pit surrounded by elevations, rushes and castle drops become twice as worse if you fall behind
Agreed. Also neutral gold and stone have been moved closer to the center usually next to one of those big hills, so controlling the center is even more crucial now. This limits strategic variety, there’s no more good reason to move out to the sides or corners of the map.
It seems to me that gold should never be on a hill, because that Stacks two really powerful strengths and becomes really snowbally.
Rather, gold should tend to spawn in valleys, and stone should tend to spawn on Hills. That way, if your opponent gets the gold, you can go for the stone, and have a better chance of holding out.