AoA Map Contest Poll Round 3 FINAL POLL

[MegaSilver]

AoA Map Contest Poll Round 2B

Here is the link to the original contest thread: AoA Map Contest

It's time to vote for what you believe are the best AoA maps from the pool!

Rounds 1 and 2 you will be able to vote for multiple maps, but only 2 from each poll move on to the next round! For the 3rd and Final Round, you will only get to vote for 1 map to determine the winner!

Please leave some feedback and your thoughts on each map for the polls. So even if the map doesn't make it to the next round, perhaps it'll see some improvements before the official release of Age of Annihilation!

Thank you to @SkyWhale for providing photos for all the maps except 2, so we have a more accurate look for every map! The ice tiles represent the upcoming wellspring water tiles.

The maps are randomly split into the different polls.

Verdant Vigil
Requires: 1 AoA and 2 JaLE

Spoiler Alert!

Invested:
Requires 1x AoA, 1x BftW (BB1), 1x TJ (TGaLE)

Spoiler Alert!

Eltania:
Requires 1x AoA, 1x BftW (BB1), 1x TJ (TGaLE)

Spoiler Alert!

Wool:
Requires 1x AoA, 1xLJ

Spoiler Alert!

Embroiled
Requires: 1 AoA and 1 JaLE

Spoiler Alert!

[Shurrig]

This was a hard pick for me, in the end I decided to go for Eltania. I said it in my feedback post that this map was the standout of the contest and I still believe that to be true. I could see one side being better than the other (red side seems a bit smoother) but what ended up being the deciding factor was its table presence. It captures that "wellspring in the ruins" vibe I attempted to do with Lost Wonder, and making it asymmetric really sells that for me.

If I had to pick a second and third, I would have gone for Wool and Verdant Vigil. Wool just looks very solid IMO and VV really grew on me through the length of the contest. All in all, I'm very excited to play on these maps. I hope the people over at Renegade are looking through all the entries and reading mapmakers' feedback, there's a lot of great stuff here!

[Dunedain]

I went with Eltania as well. It’s been my favorite map of the entire contest, and though I can’t really look at maps and see all the gameplay possibilities, both positive and negative, it reminds me the most of my favorite maps to play on. Asymmetry is probably my favorite feature in map making, so it’s definitely giving this a leg up. Having trees in the middle is another feature I’m drawn to, all this to say it just checks all the boxes for me.

The rest are phenomenal maps, and I’ll try to post some feedback in the main thread on each of them, along with the others. If I had to rank the rest I’d go Verdant Vigil, Embroiled, Wool, and Invested.

I do want to say a massive thank you to all the kind words y’all have sent my way about Wool, both the praise and very constructive criticism. I’ve loved getting into map making as I’ve found my way back to this game, and the community support and feedback has been so incredible. Wool felt like the hardest map for me to crack, and to be honest I didn’t feel terribly confident in it as a submission (the name was me looking around the table for inspiration and latching onto the current book I’m reading). It’s an honor to have Wool make it to the final vote alongside some far superior map makers that I’ve drawn a massive amount of inspiration from. It’s truly a special community to be a part of.

[Nukatha]

Seeing the final group here, I need to go with Invested. It does basically everything I was going for with Day at the Beach, but better.
Seeing the photos of the builds, I'm for sure getting the wall terrain pack when it releases, they look great.