With the recently released Firebird DLC, we dedicated our 7th official map making competition to the creation of new 2v2 Firebird environment maps, to help populate the map pool. Our judges and community had to select 3 finalists for the livestream out of the 20 entries received. The winning maps were announced, with some pro players showcasing them with a few matches each. The winning maps were quite spectacular for this 7th competition.
Congratulations to Pile Rouillée, winner of Forts Map Making Contest VII! Fulminator's City 2v2 will be added into the base game map pool as will Lighthouse 2v2 from runner-up Dranistian and Stone Forest from third place winner juNyu.
These will make a fine addition to the collection of 2v2 Firebird maps.
The winners also receive Steam Gift cards of $100, $50, and $20 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively.
Workshop Steam::FMMC7 - Pile Rouillée
Fulminator's City clearly struck our judges and the community, featuring a hand-drawn, extremely detailed golden statue of Fulminator, realistic water, and particularly detailed background decorations. It swept all votes from the community, getting maximum points on all category, as well as a perfect score on the Appearance category from all 5 judges. Despite the bombastic decorations and prominent foreground laser effects, the map doesn't feel overly stimulating as the framing puts the spectacular decorations barely out of frame, as to not disturb gameplay.
Workshop Steam::FMMC7 Dranistian
Dranistian's Lighthouse feels much closer to what a vanilla map could be, featuring simple yet detailed terrain, as well as the central lighthouse, which has clearly seen a lot of battles. The proximity of opposing forts makes it a prime map for early aggression, which has also been a feature of the showmatches, while still offering expansions allowing for late-game play. While Pile's map stole all the ratings, Dranistian still managed to grab the 2nd best map using his mastery of the map editor.
Coming extremely close to Dranistian's map in the rankings, Stone Forest features many details in the terrain, especially on the outskirts of the map. Taking inspiration from various mountain ranges and man-made structures, every part of the map looks intricate and special. The forts themselves make heavy use of split foundations, which has been a trend with Dev Blammo's Firebird maps, even using terrain as a means to help protecting the bottom fort's expansion for extra mines, albeit requiring some precise building.
Thank you also to our showcase players, Dranistian, Jard, Og, and Butterdog for field testing the maps live on stream.
And to our hosts and judges, EWG developer Blammo, Project Incursus, Salzwerk, event organizer 42 scientist, previous map making champion Cronkhinator, as well as our community on Discord. Livestream VoD
Forts Map Making Contest 7 - Live Uncut - Forts RTS - YouTube
If you haven't already, join the Forts Official Discord server to find these and other maps and for more information on mapmaking, modding, strategy, and upcoming events. Cheers,
EWG