Every Flat Map Ever

The flat map is a perfect storm of fun-killery. In theory, a simple flat map should be the most basic canvass upon which to let creativity run wild. In practice, flat maps inevitably lead to miserable stalemates.

Let's look at a typical flat map match:

I'm sure you'll recognize this stage of the match, otherwise known as the entire match. Obviously we're dealing with a stalemate. A monstrous tower dominates either end of a battlefield which takes up most of the width of my screen. No fighting took place outside those towers until one side ran out of lives, and the fighting that took place between them consisted mostly of dodging bombs, arrows and catapult ammo. This can be fun for tower campers, in the same way that Duck Hunt can be fun for the guy with the gun. It's not fun for me. I hate camping, and I hate being a duck, but there is no third option. No building can withstand the crossfire. Tunneling across will take longer than the match. A direct assault is suicide. You can either camp, or you can practice dodging projectiles.

Flat maps cause this to happen by maximizing projectile range. You'll notice that the width of the battlefield is the approximate effective range of catapult and arrow fire. Most flat maps, like my example, also provide entirely too much stone. Plentiful stone leads to ridiculous towers and a continuous stream of falling rocks. Both of these are map design issues. On a map with terrain, firing arcs are interrupted, and melee combat becomes viable. On a map with limited stone, towers change hands more easily and catapults must be used more judiciously. Maps with one giant hill or one giant hole at the center suffer from the same issues as flat ones. It's easy to defend the hill. It's easy to defend the hole. It's easy to defend the cratered no-man's land. Everyone acknowledges that defense is more effective than offense, and a game cannot advance if both sides choose defense. Therefore, maps should be designed to maximize offensive potential.

The best maps provide multiple routes across. This can be as simple as a series of small hills and valleys. (Smalls hills are both easy to cross and easy to tunnel through.) It can be a bit more involved, using floating islands or underground opening and tunnels. It can even be as complex as my anti-flat map masterpiece:

At the risk of coming off a bit arrogant, this is the single best map I've ever played. It's fun for all classes (in my opinion), stalemates are virtually impossible, and most shocking of all, it's possible to capture a flag without wiping out the enemy.

That map lasted one day in the MOLE server before popular opinion took it back out. We all have different styles of play and that's fine. Please don't think I'm just bitter. All I'm trying to say is that the happy medium is somewhere between here and the simple flat map. I feel like we've all become so used to stalemate, attrition matches that we get uncomfortable when anything else happens. We feel cheated when a game ends without either side hitting zero. It shouldn't be that way. We don't have to choose between winning and having fun. A map that favors offensive tactics is the best of both worlds.
/end manifesto

tl;dr: If you play a flat map, you're gonna have a bad time.

 

Really want to try a map like that one!

Maybe when we get better siege weapons, or the "canopy" the Offense will improve enough to match any tower.

I have been asking people if they like my "End Game Event" idea, but this topic is more about mid-game right?

Offtopic: I am the one that made the spike trap behind the second tree from the left, also my underground mall is there :3

 

That is a terrifying thought. I think you're probably right about it being better for a bigger server though. It didn't occur to me when I made it that all of those islands tripled the playing surface of the map, which really spread things out. I wonder if I could pull off something similar on a smaller scale. *slips off to evil lair of map design*

@Liv, I'm definitely looking forward to better siege weapons. I think the number one issue in KAG is the strength of defensive play.

 

This is all very reliant on builders. I've been on plenty servers where flat maps have no effect on making the game stale. Rushing the tower with 2 knights and a builder isn't a hard task. You get to tunnel through the tower and possibly collapse it. Although having maps with pre built tunnel systems helps making it more interesting.

 

Or you could just turn off the life counter and all your server's matches wouldn't end with archers sniping everyone that approaches their castle.

 

I could see this as being a problem too. Yes, tunneling does take to long, and in many cases we have noobs that will begin a tunnel behind the base, so that IF the tunnel is completed before the end of the match it could very well be used against you. But, your point about flat maps does seem pretty true. In fact, by that reasoning, most water maps are even more broken at the moment because you don't even have the option of tunneling. With builders that repair, even catapults don't help.

I would like to see more maps that have a more open underground. Not like those wang tile stone tunnels, but more like caverns, and small enough in most places to have twisting and branching paths. It has a more realistic feel to it than the example map you gave, while still having multiple paths. Of course, you would still have to protect most of those paths with greenstone, or else builders will just dig through the dirt to make a single wide open area, in effect making it 2 large towers on either side. And to ensure that teams don't just wall their underground off, put most/all of the stone and gold resources in the underground, with more in the middle to encourage pushing up.