Tarpit Defence 1

Introduction:
Tarpit Defense 1 was the original map in the series designed and released in September of 2003 by Sickoe_DT_, the design was based around incorporating elements from HGMA Defense and Hydra Defense and adding new unit types such as the Dragoon and Goliath. The map also brought a new idea to the Defence genre in Starcraft UMS maps, the idea of a "theme" which was Tarpit Monsters attacking a City. It was based on an isometric design which was said to be more appealing to the public at the time and different to the square design which proved superior in the long run. There where several secrets in the map, players could unlock super Air units by bringing the right units to the mutation stone located in the middle of the map, players would get hints in the later levels to the secrets as the spawns units had the combinations in their names but reaching the end was a difficult task.


Gameplay:
Tarpit Defence 1 was a 6 player defence. The objective of Tarpit Defence was to stop the Monsters from reaching the City. To accomplish this players would start out in one of 6 strategic locations with 1 Wraith and would need to earn bread slices, Players would receive 1 bread slice for every 15 monsters killed. Using the bread slices players would be able to purchase two types of units, a static air unit or an upgradable ground unit. Although Corsair's(Air Unit) were an amazing choice for clearing half the game, they eventually became inferior to ground units and their available upgrades. To win, all the players had to do was survive all waves of monsters.


Reception:
Tarpit Defence 1.0 was seen as too hard and impossible to beat, most better players conceived a plan to have 2 dedicated players buy nothing but corsairs in order to get towards the end levels whilst the other 4 players upgraded Archons and Ghosts. This strategy seemed to be the only way of progression and soon further cemented the maps lack of variety. Although Hero units could be purchased most were ineffective towards the early and mid game due to their combination costs taking away valuable units required to deal much needed damage to waves in order to progress. Although most of the above was considered non-detrimental to the success of Tarpit Defence 1.0 it was the functions of Goliaths and Dragoons that killed this reiteration, players with experience knew of their lack of functionality very early in the game so they would not purchase them but newer players would definitely always select one of the two units as their primary defence, this caused rage amongst players and a stigma that any vision of such action meant an instant defeat.


Conclusion:
Tarpit Defence 1 was renown for its increased spawn rate of waves and intriguing map design but eventually succumbed to its gameplay design. With the increased spawn rate of waves the Starcraft engine started to become capped on being able to produce projectiles causing units that fire unit defined projectiles unable to participate in doing their function "which was to kill waves". Although the projectile cap affected all units in the Starcraft engine, units such as the Marine/Ghost/Hydra and Archon were not effected until the cap was completely overwhelmed, usually around 2500 units, whereas Goliaths and Dragoons stopped functioning around 1000 which was unfortunately the average at which the map ran at. This issue caused the incorporation of Dragoons and Goliaths to be scrapped for future reiterations. The map was also never defeated and was shelved in light of public opinion around the difficulty being too hard and the lack of a seventh player which HGMA Defence had made a staple of the genre at the time.

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