Control Points (working title)

Karst

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Hello everyone.

As I imagine most people here have, I've started and given up many, many mapping projects that didn't get anywhere near playability.
However, there was one project that I kept coming back to.
The original inspiration came from Battlefield 1942 - I was fascinated by the game mode conquest, in which you captured and held flags at strategic locations to increase your chances of, but not necessarily secure victory.
Needless to say, this was a long time ago....before TFT, in fact. I wanted to make a roughly melee-like game that involved capturing control points for income, rather than mining gold.
So, I started work and many concepts still in the map stem from the earliest versions. I started calling the map Control Points, with the clear intention to come up with a more catchy title at some point.
So far I haven't.

But enough nostalgia. CP is melee-like in the sense that you build a base, train units and heroes, research upgrades and ultimately attempt to destroy your opponent's base.
There are also neutral creeps to defeat for experience and items, or to gain access to item or mercenary shops.
All player units are custom - instead of races, there are four different troop producing buildings. Although it's entirely feasible to construct more than one throughout the game, gold increase is relatively slow compared to unit and building prices, so the first building you choose to build determines your "race" for a significant portion of the game.
The style of gameplay can be described as rather hectic, the damage-to-health ratio is much higher than in standard play, closer to Starcraft. Adding to the tempo is the need to defend and recapture control points across the map.
Heavy micro is required, as almost all units have at least one active ability.
As mentioned, unit costs are relatively high compared to income, so armies generally remain small - at least until later in the game.
There is a completely custom item system: The main unit-producing buildings can create low-grade raw materials; creeps drop different grades. These can be combined in the starting altar to create finer grades of material, or to complete one of fourteen alchemical recipes.

Each of the four troop-producing buildings trains and upgrades four different units; I've made an effort to make these units unique and very different from each other. From the Zergling-inspired Spiders, two of which are trained at once, to the mighty Heavy Tank there are enormous variations in cost, hit points, etc.
To make things more interesting, I've also introduced more variety to usually pretty constant values such as view distance or regeneration, and completely changed damage and armor types.

So far, I have only one complete map, for duels. I also have a nearly completed four player version.
As far as I can tell, there are currently no bugs serious enough to consider the map unplayable.
However, there are certainly issues, some abilities don't work entirely as intended, many triggers are very, very old - from before I learned JASS. So there may be quite badly leaking GUI or, indeed, JASS triggers.
In tests currently, there seem to be no major issues caused by such eventualities. I haven't tested the map online, but I have played in LAN with a good friend of mine a number of times, and that's gone generally well and was a lot of fun.
I don't know how many years I've been considering uploading this, never content with how it was working at the moment, but I've waited quite long enough.
It is work in progress, and the way things are going probably will be for years to come.
But it's fun, generally playable, and quite polished in some ways. I'm sure once it gets tested more there will be some glaringly obvious balance issues, but in order to find that out I need people to play it!
So I invite you to download this, get someone to duel, hopefully have a fun game and give me some feedback.
Any feedback, bug report, or advice is welcome, from typos in tooltips to overpowered units to leaky JASS scripts.

TL;DR - Control Points in a nutshell

-Melee-like gameplay: build a base, screw over the opponent
-Custom buildings, units, heroes, items, abilities, damage and armor types, many custom icons, a couple custom skins
-One 1v1 map finished so far, no AI

So, please enjoy my map and tell me something about it.
 
An update:

First off, to make this thread more visually attractive, here are example tool tips from one unit of each of the buildings.

CPunits.jpg


I'm also uploading a new version with many, many fixes.
Also, some things I'd specifically like to hear about:
The balance of the different buildings and heroes. Previously, there have been problems with this, such as Barracks almost always winning.
The balance of defense versus offense. There are a number of defensive buildings and other options; these should balance out the generally aggressive, fast-paced offensive gameplay.
They shouldn't, however, turn the game into a an hour-long base siege.
If this is the case, and alternately if money invested in defensive arrangements turns out to be wasted, something needs to change.
As for new ideas, what I'd like to hear is suggestions for replacing melee-like spells with more interesting, custom versions.
For example, the Lobster Lords ability Geyser, which is essentially Impale with different stats and optics. This should be changed to a more custom AOE stun in the future.....or something completely different, if that turns out to make more sense.
Anyways, replacement ideas for abilities like that are welcome.
New ingredients/recipes or troop producing buildings probably won't be added anytime soon as this would require enormous amounts of work; new heroes, mercenary units, purchasable items and defensive structures on the other hand are easier to integrate and suggestions are welcome.

So enjoy!

Ok, I'm having some issues getting the file attached. Is it no longer possible to upload 1+ mb files?

Edit: File hosted externally, and here it is.
http://www.filefactory.com/file/1fuc6avf7b3z/n/_2_CP_v212b_w3x

And here's an in game screenshot of my airship, which I admit I'm very proud of.

Airship.jpg
 
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