Naxos is my first take on Dawn Of War III & the Essence Engine, it utilizes some very straight forward design paradigms with the two central highgrounds surrounded by plains fomenting players to fight for the highground advantage, all the while being open and large enough for armies to skirt around each other and get tactical advantages in army positioning, which is a rather big gameplay variety hole which existed on the official Dawn Of War III Map Pool and players were craving for.
Starting working and learning the Dawn Of War III version of the Essence Engine was a real pain for the lack documentation, but once one starts getting the hang of it, the results , and specially the aesthetics of the Engine can be astounding, with features such as volumetric fog or highly customizable water & water effects, which were a most welcome addition for me as a historically SC2 Community mapmaker given that SC2 lacks said visual features!
Naxos was primarily designed for 2v2 gameplay, and the main bases alongside surrounding territory were specifically designed to allow for great last stand defensive plays, including a the small central narrow passage between the two highgrounds in front of the main bases which can be used to sneak units and do enemy base harassment allowing for comeback potetial as well as fun strongly tactical plays.
As stated, the map is very large, and even when that’s something which was designed from the very beginning I do feel like by now it ought to have a revision with a slightly 15%-ish size reduction, and that was a lesson which I implemented on the map that came afterwards, Kapala Mire.
Playtesting the map proved to be tricky with the at the time reduced player population, but once things got going the map received lots of praises which meant that we were going in a solid direction, and as stated to this day several years down the line it is still used now and then during the Weekly Dawn Of War 3 play meetups on smaller discord servers.
Map Information
Map Size: 544×544
Number of Resource Points: 13
Game Modes: Annihilation, Annihilation with Turrets, Power Core
Players Supported:1v1, 2v2, 3v3
Quick Links
Steam: (3v3) KTV Naxos
Changelog of the map
V 1.00
♦ Published!