It’s that time for you to weigh in on the maps you want to see in the next 1v1 Ranked Map Pool! Here are FOUR of the SEVEN (total) maps that will be showing up in the next map pool update:
MAP 1
MAP 2
MAP 3
MAP 4
ARABIA
ARENA
MEDITERRANEAN
VALLEY
Now it’s your turn to vote for the THREE (3) maps that you’d like to see join the pool. Of the options below, the three that receive the most votes by Sunday will be added to the map pool on March 23!
VOTING ENDS:2021-03-21T19:00:00Z
NEW MAP ROTATION: March 23
COMMUNITY VOTE: 1v1 RMR
Vote for your 3 favorite maps! Don’t forget to click the ‘Vote now!’ button at the bottom of the post once you’ve locked in your choices.
Atacama ist my new favourite map. Great to see it come back
However, even though 4Lakes isn’t my favourite map I think it should be permanent like Arabia/Arena.
Since the map vote system was integrated it has been voted in every single time it was up for vote!
It really does not make any sense to have a voting system for a map if the outcome is always the same…
The only reason 4Lakes sometimes is not in the ranked pool is when the Devs decide:
“Nah, they don’t get to vote on that map this time…”
I’d be very cautious about calling 4 lakes a hybrid map. It’s water component is almost solely focused on economic functions with almost no fights on it.
lol. don’t confuse DE’s map pool being very weak with what is standard. standard hybrid maps don’t have private fishing.
the ladder maps should allow multiple civs to be good. with endless fish in each lake and inability to deny fishing cost-effectively, japan has become way too OP. lakes is still more exciting than the other land maps, but the DE civ balance is not good for it
the map might work better on old AoC when japan didn’t have bloodlines and lithuanian didn’t exist, but that’s a different game
there are at least 20 better hybrid maps available that don’t have this endless uninterrupted fishing balance issue
lakes is probably better for teamgames though. japan is less OP there
I’m not the one that made those standards. Ask community and most of the big names (not necessarily only pro players) will agree with me.
That’s your personal opinion. For me, whether it is safe aka private fishing or very aggressive fishing has little to nothing to consider a hybrid map being standard.
Which they already do.
Yes Japanese is very very strong on that map and one of the strongest without any doubt but far from being OP. Huns, Persians, Vikings, Malians, Lithuanians, Italians, Malay, Burmese, Burgundians (very untypical but with their gillnets in feudal and safe fishing they are really good) all are very good.
look at coastal (or old nomad, which is the same map geography) for an example of what a normal hybrid map is. that’s what the game was designed around. you mostly focus on land, but preventing the enemy from fishing endlessly is also a valid option. japan is not leagues ahead of everyone else on those maps since they have to protect their investment with more than just a couple tiles of walls
well-rounded maps are better since they let almost all of the various civ bonuses be moderately useful. this makes the game more balanced compared to when some are extremely useful and others are useless. when some civ has bonuses for warships or a naval UU, that’s something that would be relevant on a standard hybrid map
if balanced well (like maybe 500-1000 food per lake instead of 4000-4500), the private-lakes concept is an okay gimmick to make different civs useful on land maps, but it’s not a standard hybrid map by any stretch of the imagination
standard hybrid maps fall into 1 of 4 categories, all of which let you raid enemy fishing
fish in a single sea separate from the player lands. it can be all 4 sides (eg. coastal goldrush, el dorado, new nomad, enemy islands / enemy archipelago) or just a few sides (eg. old nomad, adriatic, coastal forest, high tide)
fish in a connected sea, intermingled with the player lands (eg. chaos, golden atoll, frisia, marsh madness, marshy shores). sometimes this also ends up being the reverse-migration concept (eg. civil war / weaving river. hamburger is the DE example of this, but a much worse map because it doesn’t use hybrid terrain)
fish in multiple seas, but still accessible by both teams (eg. scandinavia, scandinavia clones, square donut, quad lakes, flooded cross) instead of being both private & hyper-efficient like four lakes
fish in the middle or in front of players, but in a hybrid manner (eg. golden swamp, dire straits, random river) instead of all-in water play (like baltic/mediterranean)
some of the maps i listed will have their own civ dominance problems (eg. persia on nomad), but that’s because of weird balance quirks. they aren’t fundamentally uninteractive like the concept of everyone having a private fishing pond is
The fun of nomad comes from the starting condition mostly. Coastal literally giving you the answer. Despite being the same map geographically, they are never played competitively.
Mostly water map.
Not in game map pool.
Land side of the map is easily wallable and Mongols heavily favorable with all the extra hunting, even more than Japanese in Cross/Four Lakes I’d say. Not to mention the safe fish boom that you hate so much can also happen sometimes to some extent.
You forgot Bay and Frigid Lake. These 2 and El Dorado can easily be standard hybrid map if added in game with some modification. Larger water with more fish for Bay, removing shallow terrain and fish around TC to prevent Indians/Chinese being dominant and a bit easier to place farms for all elo players for El Dorado and Frigid Lake would definitely make them more fun to play. Coastal Forest could also be one if starting TC location was a bit closer to water.
Last but not least, fish boom in Four Lake/Cross is not as safe as you are trying to say. Aggression always happen in those ponds. If you were right, this map would never ever be voted for every single time. Nor almost all the big tournament would have this map.
four lakes does not represent hybrid maps. the vast majority of hybrid maps are not like four lakes
hybrid maps are defined by coastal-like gameplay. just because the specific version of the coastal map script included with DE is not balanced for competitive play has nothing to do with what hybrid maps are actually about
you can argue about whether mediterranean is a hybrid map or a water map because there’s some subjectivity involved, but claiming that four lakes is the most standard hybrid map is a complete failure to understand the category. it would be like claiming arena or reverse arena is the standard land map
4Laked is certainly an a-typical water map as it allows you to decide on how many lakes you want to go and whether to contest the water with fire ships or don’t.
On other hybrid maps you are not given an option as the enemy always starts on the same water as you and can contest your fishboom with a single fire ship if you don’t respond with your own…
Still 4Lakes lends itself very well to both noob gameplay and high level play.
Noobs: can savely learn to fishboom using their own pond nearby without having to focus on land + water fights at the same time.
Pros: heavily fight for control over the lakes and have to carefully balance their land and water military/eco.
VOTING ENDS: 2021-03-21T19:00:00Z
African Clearing
Atacama
Cenotes
Coastal Forest
Four Lakes
Kilimanjaro
Mongolia
Nile Delta
Oasis
