STARCRAFT

THE BEST RTS GAME ever made is Starcraft. I was first introduced to this game by my coworkers in 1998. We had LAN matches every Friday and they were incredibly fun. I remember losing so badly to my boss one time that I swore to get better at it and eventually I did and defeated him.

I have been developing the maps below nearly 8 years. It has been a slow balancing act, but in the end it payed off. After thousands of hours of play-testing I believe I am sharing the best maps in the world.

These maps are great for Top vs. Bottom, Free For All, and Melee combat against human opponents or the game's AI. Each base is about the same size but with the same amount of minerals and gas in each base. Each base's geography is unique providing a different experience for each base. Millions of combinations of offense and defense guarantees a good game regardless if you win or lose.

This is the oldest map in the collection. I've been working on it for at least 5 years; play testing it to perfection. It contains valleys, canyons, bridges, natural choke points, and plenty of gas and minerals to mine. There really is no one best way to play this map, but 8-player Free For All matches against humans or computers is incredibly fun.

So the story goes, there used to live in this valley 8 powerful Protoss tribes. In the beginning they coexisted with each other. After the great earthquake, when all the minerals surfaced, the tribes began to war with each other, throwing the valley into an age of chaos. Through time and endless warfare, the strength of each tribe diminished, and each tribe's path ran into extinction.

Durango Badlands was home to a Terran colony named Nuevo Durango. When the forces of Arcturus Mensk gave the colony an ultimatum to join him or perish. The colonists did not take too kindly to the ultimatum and cut off all trade with the Confederacy and began mining crystals and extracting gas for its own defense.

The war between the Confederacy and the Nuevo Durango colony was costly for both sides, it brought the destruction of the colony, and a huge amount of Confederate resources. In the end the Confederacy could not stay either and abandoned the desolate colony. It was all for nothing. Now it is reported by the few tough survivors that remained on Nuevo Durango that Zerg have been seen roaming aimlessly in the deserts and canyons of the area.

It is believed that any attempt to colonize any part of the badlands will attract other colonist, bringing new death and destruction.

The northern hemisphere of Titav IV was home to a series of Terran research stations. Unfortunately the Terrans who settled there did not know the climate history of Titan IV and were there for barely 10 years when a new ice-age enveloped the planet.

A few of the surviving Zerg cerebrates have found a home here to hide from Kerrigan's total war of conversion and managed to kill off the remaining Terran settlers. The Protoss have become aware of the Zerg prescense and have sent their scouts to investigate...

While CHAOS THEORY is the oldest map in the collection, GANDOR PROTECTORATE is the newest. This history behind this map is quite surprising. The protectorate was actually a travel zone for the Protoss during the height of their civilization. It boasted many of the best secluded islands for rest and relaxation. It too suffered when the great quake ripped through the planet's surface forcing minerals and gas to be exposed. Many turists died during the initial blast and subsequent earth quakes.

After the ordeal was over, the United Protoss Council made this Twilight Paradise a protectorate of Adun. The 5 main islands would serve as drilling and extraction bases, but also would serve as defensive positions to defend the newly acquired resources.

Like all intelligent beings the Protoss are no strangers to greed and avarice. Soon infighting began over the division of resources. The Shelak tribe felt left out forcing their allies in the Akilae tribe to split their own resources to merely keep the Shelak from invading the protectorate. No battles ever took place on the protectorate. The Council recognized the gambit the whole Protoss civilization was in and acted accordingly. Resources were divided equally, and a great war was avoided.

Needless to say, the protectorate had lost its tourist luster, and much of the territory was abandoned and closed. There have been recent accounts of treasure hunter Terrans on the planet with large expeditionary defense forces accompanying them.

Char Magma is the site of this battlefield for 4. The wasteland was at one point a paradise, and was visited frequently by the Dark Templar for spiritual gatherings and other rituals.

After countless eons of stability the planet went volcanicaly active and became the living hell ti is today.

The Bloody Triangle was another site of civil war between the Protoss tribes. One of the tribes left and joined the Dark Templar and became one of the pillars of Dark Templar history.

A group of Terrans landed here and tried to live off of the land but where massacred and the area has been uninhabited ever since.

Not much information is known about this abandoned city, but stories have surfaced of a brave group of Terrans that defended the city from Zerg, Protoss and even Confederate hostilities.

The city is in perfect shape, no one knows what happened to the population. Some say they went back to Earth. Others say the Protoss were so impressed by the Terran warriors that they offered them to relocate on Aiur. The most common of all the stories is that the Zerg were insensed by the Terran obstinence that they sent the biggest force ever gathered by a Zerg Cerebrate and swallowed the Terrans whole.

Some say the founders of this city will return one day and it will become the capital of a new Federation.