Review from the judges Sister She & HighTac:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XbhrMxWAiR1EVII_ccNExZyttCWKvUieHme6uyXuvwM/edit?usp=sharingPirate Coasts
Balance: 30 of 50Well done layout, allowing for many pathing options, with variations in open and closed spaces. Good distance to player bases and gold mines, allowing for fast expansions, and multiple creeping routes for all races.
However it is not without flaws.
The center of the map is without focus, and you gain almost nothing from having map control. All creep camps and shops are centered around the players bases. Main concern is the placement of the goblin merchant between the 2 players bases. This gives advantage to the defending player, and focuses the map more around expansions and fast teching.
Balance favors humans and night elves a great deal more then the other races because of these reasons. Mainly humans. They get an expansion, mercenary camp to defend it, free laboratory for shredder and in-base goblin shop, both of which can be crept with miltia.
There are gaps in the trees, giving wisps free scouting positions, that needs to be fixed, and the map comntains no critters for undead to raise skeletons from with rod of necromancy in the early game.
Additionally the creeps at the goblin merchant doesn't sleep. It's a common strategy to buy items during first night fall without having cleared the camp. This is not possible without aggroing the creeps.
Terrain: 35 out of 35Perfect. There will always be small nitpicks one can make, but the terrain of the map is all in all flawlessy done. It uses a minimalistic blizzlike style, that doesn't clutter the map and focuses it on competetive gameplay, yet still remains interresting in areas, such as the center.
There is excellent tileset and height variation, and it conveys the theme of a pirate coast exemplary. The map is asymmentrical symmentry, meaing that is mirrored on both sides, without them being copies of each-other. It both looks and plays nice.
Creativity: 5 of 15Not much. It's a somewhat standard sunken temple tileset. There isn't much creativity or uniqueness about the map, besides from the few buildings and the cathedral. Don't take this negativly, as not every map have to have something unique about it. It just misses out on this scoring.
Bugs: -5There is shallow water in the players bases. This water blocks the building wall in player 1's base. It can easily be fixed, however as it exists, it will subtract from the total score.
Total Score: 65 out of 100
Pirate Bay is basically an inhabited version of Coral Reefs 3.0. Very well designed and authentic, apart from the fact that I couldn't find any critters on the map. I guess that's the price such a paradisiac island has to pay if inhabited by humans. As cool as Pirate Bay seems, I'm afraid it may provide a rather generic gameplay experience. And I refer again to my conclusion of The Irresistible Mind, where I explained this further.