Dry Canyon

Dry Canyon
Map preview as seen from the client
Information
Players	2
Terrain	Desert
Mode types	Standard Type
Miscellaneous
Mapper	0402yjl

Dry Canyon is a two-player standard multiplayer map.

Features

Dry Canyon is a medium-sized desert map mostly covered in a series of straight ridges and canyons.

The map is diagonally symmetric with each player starting in an opposite corner of the map, top left or bottom right. To the left and right of the starting positions are medium ore patches with ore drills. To the E/W is a hill topped with a gem patch, accessible by a very small ramp on the near side and a large ramp on the far side. Further E/W is a small island accessed via a destroyable bridge. On the island is another gem patch and an Oil Derrick.

The rest of the map is comprised of a series of three wide ridges running straight north to south at each third of the map, accessible by ramps at the north and south. The spaces between these ridges form four canyons.

Tech buildings

• Tech Oil Derrick x2

Strategy

As usual, the key to getting ahead is to get the gems. It's certainly possible to base creep up onto the gem hill and build a Refinery there, but it might be even better to just move the MCV there as soon as the game starts and build on the hill instead. As for getting back to the ore afterwards, creeping off the hill from the top is perfectly achievable without interrupting your build order, although the positioning of buildings might be a bit of a mess.

Combat-wise, running up and down the canyons and ridges leaves a land army unable to adjust its course. You're either going forwards, or you're going backwards. Opposing armies choosing different paths to take can turn into a game of chicken, testing who's the more anxious to double back and defend their base. Of course, proper application of flying units can make all this nonsense much easier.