What are the criteria for a good Castle Defense map?

I'm sorry if I posted on the wrong forum, if its on the wrong forum then plz move it. Thx.

I just got a question, what are the criteria for a good and high-quality Castle Defense map so that it can be approved by the staff? I'm not specifically talking about map approval but about the quality of the map and the replayability, something that makes me and others happy/satisfied when playing the map.

Here are my current ideas for a castle defense map.
- Has Recipe Items and other unique items.
- Select 10 heroes with unique abilities.
- 25 total waves of creeps and bosses invade your castle
- Castle is not made out of cliffs, instead made out of custom doodads and pathing to emulate a real fortress.
- Has a variety of mini-games around the map
- There are no PvP (player vs player) elements in the game. The only PvP around is the Hostility feature. Hostility allows a player to become hostile to a specific player around a few minutes.

Please add more, so that I'll list 'em on paper, and ready to do the needed work. Thx in advance.

If we're talking about castle defences, the first thing that comes to my mind are those boring maps that have two players at each of the four sides of a square "castle" and where the point is to get heroes as fast as possible because regular units just don't cut it after a few waves. The LotR versions of the map are especialy abominable. These maps are like tower defences without towers; they hardly have any gameplay.

I once started making a castle defence map, but never finished it. The idea was that players would be given a fixed number of troops at the start of the game that would all be heroes and thus gain experience over time to be able to withstand increasingly stronger attacks. The attacking forces would be coming through the main gates in a constant stream that wouldn't be too difficult to hold back, however at the same time random special events would occur that the players would have to cope with (like a few elite enemy units scaling the wall at the side of the castle, or a surge of troops reinforcing the front gates assault, or a special "boss" unit joining the attack) while still keeping the main flow of enemies in check. The main point of this was to keep the players on their toes, requireing them to adapt to the situation as it developed. The longer the game would go on, the more rapidly the special events would occur.

This should illustrate what I expect from a map of this type: in the same way as tower defence design should focus on tower placement strategies (since there's nothing else challenging in the map, unless you make it execution-heavy with a ton of abilities that need to be manualy used), a castle defence should capitalize on the fact that defending untis are mobile and thus (besides having a default execution requirement of microing the defenders) require the players to move their units more often rther than just holding ground and attacking.

The terrain in my map was going to be a lot more interesting than the usual castle defence in order to make movement and positioning of units more important (as well as the entire map better-looking), with more gates and various devices the players could use to their advantage. I found an old screenshot of it, it's attached to the post.

so that u don't die because one player leaves or because ur missing players. also for the heroes, don't use normal abilities. it pisses me off to no end when they give normal abilities and then buff up the units therefore making the abilities useless. also make it so ur units can actually do something. personally i hate combing items because it adds a whole layer of knowing what u want, what u need to get it, how much it costs, and when you need it. i don't no about the hostility thing unless u have separate castles, the defenders of castle don't usually kill each other when they're in a siege.

Cool idea Anitarf.

Shit, awesome castle Anitarf

Anitarf the castle was quite cool.. I also played a similar map, maybe it was on Epicwar, and I got bored over time, anyway thanks...

My castle defense, it's just one castle at the center of the map, or a few tiles offset from it. I have incorporated the elements of TD to this map. In other words, players will have to defend the single castle against waves of enemy units (in this case, 25, with boss levels), much like a regular Tower defense. Sort of; this map has more emphasis on units instead of towers. It also contains a variety of mini-games when the siege has temporarily stopped, at random times in the game or when hostility is going on.

Fortunately, the castle has fortified gates, many gates per side, because it's a complex castle with many sides. Gates open automatically when players go close, also giving the creeps a way inside. Towers and trebuchets also stand within the walls, and can be entered by hireable soldiers/mercenaries (like the Orc Burrow). Creeps are spawned from random paths around the map. The hostility feature was just to add more depth to the game, I observed many hero siege map players, they eventually got bored of alliances over time, and instead want to duel each other out. When a player wants to become hostile, he should, exactly or a few seconds after the previous wave of creeps will be wiped out, and hostility will go on until it ends, and the creep spawning will resume. This will prevent any setbacks during a siege.

The game exalts on the primacy of cooperation and teamwork. I love these maps where players cooperate to survive. Currently, the terrain is illustrated on a paper, the only thing I need is to recreate it in WE.

Thanks guys!! I'll do my best..

you could make a "hero" arena where you could spend a preset amount of "points" choose an army.

I already planned to make a castle defence. There are lots of hero arenas out there like the one you said.

Anyway, thanks..

yes and that would do the hostility with out you losing units.