Guidelines for AU maps

[Theseus]

I will be devising the map for the next AU course (505), and in that this will be my virgin effort, I'd like to solicit the advice of those previous mapmakers ( ), and start developing a rough set of guidelines for AU games.

I could start off by setting out my own bullet points that come to mind, but I think it better to see what the esteemed previous mapmakers have to say!

So...

[alexman]

Make the entire map nothing but 1-tile islands. Then we would have no choice but to use berserks and marines.

Seriously, unless the scenario has a very special theme, I think most people are more comfortable if the map designer just generates random maps until he finds one he likes. Don't move resources around, or add strange map features, unless these things don't have a big effect on the human player. Of course, you can use the starting loacations (which should also be randomly generated) to tweak the difficulty of the scenario.

I have not always followed this advice in the past, but I think the courses turned out better when I did.