Which Arabia version is the best tournament map?

[Huehuecoyotl22]

For a tournament, which Arabia map should be included? If your choice is different for 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and/or 4v4, please state so.
If it has 2 versions, this is only about the desert version, not "Green Arabia":
Personally I don't know the exact differences, so I could use some knowledge of players who have played the different versions a lot.

 

[SouFire]

Dry Arabia

 

[Huehuecoyotl22]

Dry Arabia

Which exact version? I think there are multiple ones. For example, isn't HC Arabia also a "dry" Arabia?

 

[100Dragonstar]

Standard DE Arabia seems to be the most balanced Arabia I've seen yet

 

[LidaKor]

Build order arabia. It's so good the game often launches it, even if you select a completely different map

 

[Poxo]

Euro Rumble Arabia LUL

 

[Chrazini]

I don't think there is any best map out there. It all depends what the tournament host is looking for and what the tournament is about. There are so many variations of Arabia out there, and despite some people voting in favour of some map, there is no doubt that there will always be a big bias depending on what they've played in the past and from what tournaments they've watched.
An example of this is the fact that some people prefer the default Arabia map. A map that is a complete mess when it comes to elevation, specifically. It's absolutely broken. However, since it's in the ranked queue, people play it and people get used to it. From my point of view, standard Arabia is very far down the list of great Arabia's.

Needless to say, I'm also biased. I've made numerous versions of Arabia myself. Variations that I obviously think is superior, otherwise, I wouldn't have felt like I needed to make them. That being said, the creators of all these well-known Arabia versions are quite active, so we could merely ask them what is unique about their version and have a more objective discussion of what is good and what is bad. Perhaps a combination of all to create the Ultimate Arabia.

 

[SaladEsc]

Any arabia version with bush A and bush B as trees

 

[Tarsiz]

Hidden Cup 2 Arabia for 1v1 was pretty good.
On DE I feel the standard version actually works quite well.

 

[HeavenlyChorus]

any arabia with Desert,Sand as base terrain like @Chrazini 's RBW_Arabia
so clean man

hc3 arabia is great but the minimap is just

 

[Loris]

Old old voobly arabia version, no wood, many lakes and hard to wall :D

 

[Huehuecoyotl22]

Thanks for the replies so far. Not too many of players who played in the tournaments yet.
I do understand the advantages and disadvantages of the standard DE Arabia. Currently I'm leaning towards a HC3 Arabia, but with sand terrain. That does always fit my picture of a "Arabia" map more than a green one with oak trees.

 

[SouFire]

Hasn't all the hc arabia maps been green?

Dry arabia or SY_arabia, those were balanced back at the voobly days, boa or kotd arabia have small wood lines, such maps are an open invitation to tower rushes and they work really well, same with the hc2 arabia.

Standard arabia on vanilla version was ok, the upgraded version in UP adding 90 millions more variations ended up with maps being more unfair and overall ugly, it is not a coincidence that customized arabia maps started appearing more and more after that, In the HD version they modified the map generation so the deers would be close to the bushes, but somehow the converted version in Wk never had those.

The standard arabia in DE is actually a map pack, that contains the boa arabia edition from memb, luckily for us they replaced the acacia forest and baobab trees after 2 months, it doesn't have the deers close the bushes like they did on HD, it has small wood line like the kotd or hc arabia maps, those arabia maps on that pack are also different than the original arabia.

 

[Huehuecoyotl22]

Dry arabia or SY_arabia, those were balanced back at the voobly days, boa or kotd arabia have small wood lines, such maps are an open invitation to tower rushes and they work really well, same with the hc2 arabia.

I don't remember how specifically SY_Arabia was changed, what about WiC_Dry_Arabia (https://aoe2map.net/map/6694178f-9178-4dd1-834b-f98528f27ba9). That one or is there a better "Dry Arabia"?
@HJFE What are the exact differences between WiC, CM and WSVG Dry Arabia?

 

[zuviss]

regular DE arabia is nice

 

[HJFE]

I don't remember how specifically SY_Arabia was changed, what about WiC_Dry_Arabia (https://aoe2map.net/map/6694178f-9178-4dd1-834b-f98528f27ba9). That one or is there a better "Dry Arabia"?
@HJFE What are the exact differences between WiC, CM and WSVG Dry Arabia?

It's been so long I can't remember. They should all be the same Arabia version with only name changes.

 

[Rey_Fer]

HC2 arabia

 

[Nicov]

any arabia without big stupid ponds

 

[Christar123 ten]

any arabia without big stupid ponds

I agree, ponds are for Viper vs T90 and that’s it.

 

[Henkdesupernerd]

Apart from the excessive amount of elevation, DE Arabia is pretty good. (in DE they fixed a bug that causes elevation to scale to map size incorrectly, however, this caused the elevation to spawn excessively, especially noticeable on larger maps)

I think we should differentiate between the different seasons that can randomly be selected. Some seasons only have visual differences, such as grass/desert, but there are also some more significant differences, I'll list it down below:

For Arabia DE there are 6 different season:
* (45%) Desert: sheep/goat, boar, ostrich/deer. Ponds in further wood lines, relatively low amount of wood on the map
* (10%) African: goat, elephant+rhino, zebra. Keep in mind the elephant+rhino provide some additional food. (in the code there is a section that aims to spawn ponds on this map style too, but it is not active)
* (20%) Spring: geese/sheep, boar, ibex/deer. (has a small chance to have cows)
* (10%) Alpine: has cows, boar, ibex (has a small chance to have sheep)
* (10%) Mediterranean: goat/sheep, boar, deer
* (5%) Asian: sheep/goose, boar, ibex

of these seasonal styles, I actually like the desert type the most. it has a bit more character with ponds in wood lines. With DE, the code improved which prevents ponds spawning in the wood lines that are closest to the players. Still, those ponds come into play when you hide xbows in the tight gaps between forest and ponds, or the gaps in wood lines can oppose an extra challenge to wall (if you decide to place walls far out)

I do not like when the further sheep (2 groups of 2) are replaced by cows (1 group of 3), because it can really hurt if you can't find those, or if an enemy steals them. IMO, it would be even better if the extra sheep spawn in groups of 1, so there is less luck (now, if you find a group of extra sheep early, you can scout with those to easily find the other 2 extra sheep, a snowball-effect).

Food-wise, 3 cows replacing 4 sheep is a slight increase of food sources available to you. Rhino/Elephants replacing boars also add another bit of food available.

The variance of map styles is cool so the map stays refreshing. However, in competitive settings this variance should only be limited to visual variance (type of trees, grass/dirt, sheep or goat, etc) and NOT game-play variance (cows instead of sheep, ponds or no ponds in wood lines). If you play a competitive game and you pick Tatars or Britons, and randomly have the alpine map variation, the extra 100 food from cows can be quite helpful. Similarly, the elephant/rhino on African map style benefits the Mongols. It's nothing big, but I rather not have things like these be affected by chance.

I do like how DE has the relic and neutral mineral distribution now. There is a fixed number of extra neutral gold/stone piles, and the spread is generally good.
Also relics scale with map size since the release of DE. On tiny (2player), small (3player) or medium (4 player) map-sizes, there will always be 5 relics. A large map (6 players) has 7 relics, and a huge map (8 players) has 8 relics. I was very sceptical on how relics were map-size dependent when DE launched, but I think the relic placement of today is pretty good (on DE arabia)

Main takeway:
DE Arabia is good, and perhaps the best arabia we have seen so far.
A few things must be changed for competitive setting though:
- reduction of elevation
- remove random variance in map-layout (ponds or no ponds)
- remove random variance of food resources (cows vs sheep, and elephants/rhino vs Boar)

 

[MembTV]

Arabia in DE many times is like mongolia, is the map that i see the most walls ever, we get to see many times 19-22 min castle age from players with 0/0 KD, 0 action, and many games finish in imp for same reason, i think no ponds and no cliffs is the way to go.

And no green arab, desert theme imo is great and make sense... i know im biased but loved the KOTD map, since is much more agressive, and im not talking the one from KOTD2 100%, is the one we already made some showmatch, updated after KOTD2, that is pretty fair map for both players, with like 2 "safe" woods for both players.

@Chrazini can explain you all details about that map.

 

[Ovenka]

Dry arabia for first or second NC was good, the worst was Boa, those small forests and goats, and so many players played that map in that time it disgusted me that map so much 11

 

[MembTV]

Dry arabia for first or second NC was good, the worst was Boa, those small forests and goats, and so many players played that map in that time it disgusted me that map so much 11

you are talking about dust, that wasnt arabia.

 

[Ovenka]

It was arabia, I dont remember dust 11, I actually didnt like much graphics of most of the maps (sorry), but tournament was one of the best, I have ever seen so I am really looking forward to that again. AM played beastly but final games, but that was juct great team play by Secret even with Jordi 11.