Cruel Struggle finally a 2v1 starcraft 2 map

Thats not a typo. Cruel Struggle is a 2v1 map!!!

I think this map needs some background explanation if any map, I play a lot of Sc2 over the years. And a lot of other games. I have a lot of friends and what I mean with that is gamer friends from all over the world, people that I play games with like World of warcraft, warcraft 3,diablo 2-3 and starcraft 1-2. And of course other games then blizzard games.

But I am pretty good in Sc2 especially back in 2010 (top 20 Eu etc) what happens then is that most of your friends don't want to play with you, simple as that. Its the same today when I play Hearhtstone I got all cards, I got very nice meta decks. And of course I got decks with only legendary in them etc. People don't want to play with me in HS at all.

So what we did a lot in SC2 was to play 2v1 games even 3v1 games. Its fine if they are really bad I can win easy even if they are 3. But as soon as their level is like goldish, it do get hard. And its really hard finding a good map to balance this. Because taking like a huge 8 player map for example is quite to easy for the single great player as he/she can then likely rush (not 6 pool but some kind of economic early aggression, actually just 1 reaper is enough many games ;). And kill one of those players becuase they are so far apart.

 Taking a 2v2 map, which I did the latest time I did a 2v1 map is better but it is to easy for the 2 players to defend and expand most of the time, the 1 player can get a lot of bases as most 2v2 map has a 4v4 safe base layout (2 start places and 2 easy defend naturals) but after that is really hard. And its really hard for the 1 player to do something early game.

So the latest time I did a 2v1 then I started thinking, cant one do a 2v1 balanced map? Its a challenge in many aspects. So I did this map Cruel Struggle.

The first thing is obvious by making the single player start location be a gold base with rich vespene gas the single player has a lot more income then what they normally have. This was he first idea I had. To make it more even for the single person compared to the 2 players.

The expansion likewise has more income then a natural usually has. With 4 gold and 1 rich vespene gas, to make it a little less income.
 On this image the forcefield walls are better shown (note them in hte main as well) the units can't move through them but there are different openings to move behind them. The map features this at several places creating small attack paths etc.
 The entrance ramp the the natural has destructible debris to make it a easy to defend for the single player at the start of the game but it will still be possible for the 2 player team to make it a little easier to attack. 

Much harder is to create a good asymmetrical balance for the 2 player team. The one thing I felt was important was going away from the standard 2v2 maps. In those maps the 2 players are in the single base with a shared type of natural where they can defend the entrance to their alone bases and the natural at 1 big place, or the more common they have a big shared base, which is really big as the natural expansion is together and they share that as well. SO one big entrance to defend 4 bases at, with possible a destructible entrance at the other side, standard and makes it very hard for the single player.
 On Cruel Struggle, the team share a base but they only got 1 natural expansion. To make it harder for them.

This natural got a pretty big ramp so it will be easier for the single player to attack. Units can move behind the natural to attack it. Its easy to move into it from the legde on the right side, overall its made so its hard to defend it.

There is an expansion for the otehr player of the team. But there is destructible debris in the way to reach that natural. Destorying them will open up more attack paths for the single player.
 This base also features curtain spot to give the single player option to hide building/units, I felt it was important to give teh single player more options then the 2 man team.

As can be seen in this image the team of 2 cant really expand easily to any nearby third expansion neither. By design they should have to struggle a lot more.

 

To the left top there is 3 more expansions for the 2 man team, one single base which is very hard to defend as its is close to a legde with destructible debris on 2 sides of it, but the single player can move on top of it without having to destroy the debris. This is again a way to help the single player.

 On the other side of the legde is the possible third expansion for the single player which is much easier to defend for that player. The other side expansion is more of a 6th expansion for the 2 man team or possible a 4th for the single player.

To the top left there is 2 bases which have a shared main entrance but are split from each other (like some 2v2 maps start locations are done).  These bases both have 2 plateaus making them quite hard to defend versus drops.

 

Bottom right has another potential third expansion for the single player, close to this expansion's ramp is a legde that creates 2 different attack path between the team (the legde in itself also has several attack paths) its a very short path between the entrance of the ramps to make units flow quick between the players.

 One of the main issues I had when creating a 2v1 map was to not make a big map, to make as medium sized map making the gameplay be more aggressive but still balanced for 2v1. This right bottom base has a small curtain spot where the 2 player team can easily build proxy air building for attack on the single player's natural. 

 

There is also a second smaller entrance which is connected to another small entrance on the legde.  To further create battles.

In the middle there is several different paths. The forcefield walls are open on on the bigger bottom side, were the units can take other paths or use range attack towards melee units moving in the middle.  There is protoss building and overall the forcefield/holes create many smaller areas. This to make it harder for the 2 player team. As the outside of their main base is much more open. The Xel'naga tower mainly helps the single player as if he/she controls they can see if the other team is moving out.

I think this is great map for a new type of gameplay in SC2 and I hope people will enjoy it.