Stripes [4.0] is submitted for review.

[ptGamer]

New map: Stripes [4.0] by ptGamer.
Map editor link: Stripes [4.0]

[ptGamer]

The original Stripes is now here! Featuring powerful production, rich city clusters, and plenty of ruins, the Stripes is designed for balanced 1-on-1 and 2-on-2 games. Natural defense for starting cities, terrains, and production restrictions promote extended games on this map. Let the battles begin on the Stripes now!

[KGB]

The right hand side with the Grandfather (+8 leadership) and Wings of Seraphin (+5 chaos) items is vastly better off than the left hand side with Wizards Charge (anti air) and Balins Protectorr (+6 leadership when defending). That's a +13 bonus at all times vs +6 when defending /+10 anti-air/+16 defending anti air.

KGB

[KGB]

Just finished a 7 turn 2v2 game on this map (or will when the last opponent surrenders). By turn 7 one opponent is wiped out and the other is down to 1 city in a far off location having lost their capitol area.

A couple of comments:

1) The loading up of the ruins with allies (2 Wizards in the L1 ruin and 2 Elementals in the L2 ruin) makes the game a race for those ruins. Many players (our opponents for example) won't realize this. So my teammate and I snagged 4 allies by turn 3 by grabbing the Wizards, using them to kill the Demons then getting the Elementals. Then we raced to steal our opponents allies then repeated the same process on the top side of the mirror map. Basically there are too many ruins with too many allies making this an ally race as it's the *only* viable strategy (there is no need to get edge cities when you can ally rush someone). I'd suggest 1 ally at most per ruin and would consider making the L1 ruins not have Wizards at all (just random gold/item).

2) The production of the 3 cities next to the capitol are Crow/Spider/Mammoth. What you may not realize is that pillaging these cities yields something like 1200 gold. So the best thing to do is pillage for 1200 gold then re-buy spiders for 800 leaving you with a +400 gold profit per city for another hero on turn 2 (which is hugely important since there are allies to race for in 2 directions). I would remove the Mammoths entirely or make it a Mammoth OR spider but not both and leave nothing in the crow city but crows (unless you change the default defender).

3) Filling the swamp with Orcs/Wolfriders is just a massive XP grab. I suspect you are attempting provide lots of easy leveling of heroes but it's WAY WAY too much. I was easily able to level up a Barbarian to L5 killing a few of these units and then simply overwhelm my opponent with Allies + 65 strength/4 hit Barb.

Other observations:

1) The Barbarian is an absolute GOD on this map. With his initial stats he can snag 2 cities on turn 1 including the Spider one and then race for ally ruins (no need to get the Mammoth neutral since Allies more important). He has no fear of dying in ruins since they have allies. Then he gets endless free XP killing Orcs/Wolfriders (no neutral ambush right now) letting him reach L4/5 very fast. From there he can pick off neutrals on his own or join the ally horde rushing someone.

2) You've disallowed Dwarves/Orcs/Wolfrider production (among others) due the hills/swamp. The game we played provided 2 Dwarfs to start. Those 2 became priceless units, more valuable than heroes because of the easy bless to 10 movement and how fast they zip armies around the hills. There is nothing you can do unless you want to standardize the starting units. However players who play games on this map and get lucky enough to start with a Dwarf must never allow him to be killed. Even an initial flier (we also got a Ghost) is a Godsend allowing the initial hero to fly quickly over the swamp to kill Orcs/Wolfriders for XP.

KGB

[Moonknight]

I concur with KGB's points, especially all the allies in the ruins and the city production surrounding the capitols.

The wolfriders might be fine once there is neutral ambush (I'm thinking there will be in .9).

The way the map is setup right now, there is no need to try to get the items in the lava...

[smursh]

I have to agree with KGB since he slaughtered me in the mentioned game.

[KGB]

The wolfriders might be fine once there is neutral ambush (I'm thinking there will be in .9).

I would suggest putting 2 Orcs / Wolfriders on every other square rather than 1 per square. The reason being that once neutral ambush is added the cheese tactic will be 1 crow / scout up front of the Barbarian to absorb the ambush roll. Having 2 units prevents that and forces a hero to carry an actual stack.

KGB

[ptGamer]

Thanks, I\'ll be doing a bit more work on this map