Popularity of certain maps in MP

[pinkdwarf]

It seems something like 60% of 1v1 multiplayer games are played in either Freelands or Weldyn Channel, 30% in Caves of Basilisk, Den of Oni or Hamlets and only 10% in the rest. (Are there statistics available about this by the way?) Why is this? Although I like Cynsaun Battlefield a lot myself, I can understand why it's not popular as it's HUGE. But what's wrong with Fallenstar Lake, Silverhead Crossing, Howling Ghost Badlands and Sulla's Ruins? They are undoubtedly the least popular 1v1 maps after Cynsaun and it's quite hard to find opponents for them.

One common feature of the popular maps I can think of is they have only 2 keeps (the starting castles), while the most unpopular ones have many and switching castles is not only possible, but actually adviceable. I think multiple keeps is fun, but apparently most people disagree? Another somewhat common feature of the popular maps might be that villages are easier to defend there than in the unpopular ones. In Weldyn and Freelands the villages are so close to to the starting keeps that they become almost impossible to conquer for many turns if both players are of the same skill level and neither gets lucky. I tend to get impatient in these and get crushed in a counter-attack. But I do ok in the unpopular maps.

[thespaceinvader]

'it seems like'

Care to support your point with actual statistics? http://replays.wesnoth.org is available for your convenience

[Yoyobuae]

Luckily, Quetzalcoatl already did some amount of statistic gathering for us:
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=404919

From the min_elo_1000_turns_7-70.pdf file (map ... % of games played):
The Freelands...........29.22
Weldyn Channel..........17.98
Hamlets.................12.57
Caves of the Basilisk...11.26
Den of Onis.............6.86
Hornshark Island........6.10
Silverhead Crossing.....5.15
Howling Ghost Badlands..4.15
Fallenstar Lake.........3.74
Sulla's Ruins...........1.48
Sablestone Delta........1.07
Cynsaun Battlefield.....0.41

[pinkdwarf]

Wow, my guess got quite close to the percentages mentioned above. Here are some numbers I collected for the past 4 days from http://replays.wesnoth.org:

Weldyn 22 + 18 + 38 + 46 = 124
Freelands 41 + 48 + 79 + 59 = 227
Basilisk 41 + 19 + 73 + 70 = 203
den of oni 21 + 22 + 20 + 21 = 84
hamlets 31 + 25 + 24 + 19 = 99 (some were 4 player games)
fallenstar 10 + 13 + 17 + 12 = 52
silverhead 5 + 7 + 13 + 7 = 32
Sulla's 4 + 3 + 6 + 5 = 18
Cynsaun 4 + 7 + 14 + 11 = 36
howling ghost 3 + 8 + 4 + 9 = 24

Nitpicking about the numbers is pointless though, as the trend is clearly visible to anyone who visits the lobby. I thought this would be an interesting and important enough subject to warrant a discussion. So please read the starting post and give your view on why the popularity distribution of the maps is like it is.

[Caphriel]

The statistics Yoyobuae quoted for only from ladder games, by the way. It's interesting to note that for the higher ranked games, something like 50% of them were played on Freelands.

My personal opinion is that Freelands, Caves, and Weldyn are perceived as providing balanced play for all factions in all side-combinations, with a good gameplay flow. Fallenstar is big and tends to lead to long games, Sulla's is big and very hard to play, Silverhead is a very complex map that doesn't lend itself well to standard play, Hamlets tends to be very slow because of nice defensive lines of terrain, HGB acquired a reputation for imbalance that has since been fixed, the old Sablestone was terribly stalemate-ish, a reputation which may persist, and Den of Oni's only has 6 villages per player.

You didn't even mention Hornshark Island, my personal favorite map in mainline.

I think your point about defensibility is a good one. Many players prefer a slow buildup with back and forth skirmishing before attempting to press an advantage. The most popular maps tend to be easier to recover from a disadvantage on, with clearly drawn lines of battle and strong defensive positions, with one exposed village to target for each player. Maps that are asymmetric, have fuzzy lines of battle, and require retreat past one's villages early on tend to be less popular. Also, there's strong familiarity bias. It's easy to get good at a particular map, and not want to play other maps because they are more difficult for you.

[Velensk]

I am most likely to play Freelands, Fallenstar lake, or the new Stablestone delta.

I consider Freelands to be the most balanced map in the game at the moment and I also like the flow and the general speed.

I think that both wylden channel and caves are nice and short while being fairly balanced however I find that they are both allot more susceptible to problems with early luck than freelands and I do kind of like larger games and the fronts to be more transverable. EDITED I also find that, under certain conditions, the channel tends to stalemate.

Hamlets is just a tad too defensive for my likeing. Den of Onis can be fun however it's just a bit too small for me to want to play it often. I just don't like the flow of Howling Ghost even after the imbalance was fixed.

Silverhead crossing is good when I want a chaotic game but I don't like to play it as much because it is hard to plan for timeing and force distribution like you can for other maps.

Fallenstar lake is a good one for when I have more time, but games on it tend to be long and time is frequently limited. It's also one of the maps I am least good at (don't know why).

I like the new Stablestone delta a lot but I still find myself instinctively skipping over it because of how it used to be.

Cysaurian is a huge map and takes a long time to play even if the entire match is a blow-over. It is also very imbalanced. I will however say that I have had amasingly fun drake mirrors on it.

EDIT: When I wrote this I seemed to miss hornshark island and sullas ruins.

I do not like the shape of the front on hornshark. I feel it plays the 'strong flank, weak flank' game just a little too hard. Sullas ruins is another that I like to play but only do so infrequently. I feel that it is simply too large for the amount of gold it gives out and I dislike the 'tactical' shape of the terrain. This being said I like the 'strategic' shape of the terrain and I generally don't regret playing on it when I choose to do so.

[Zachron]

People do tend to try what they are used to. Rarely does someone start a game on a map they have not played on before, and one is less likely to join a game on a map one has never played on before... It takes a bit of creativity and/or innovation to shake things up a bit and play on something no one else has played on in a while. 1 V 1 matches do seem to offer the best opportunities for this though. At times I wonder how fun it would be to play a 1 v 1 match on a 9 player map...

[silent]

Yeah map familiarity would be a big one.

Since I normally join ladder games, almost always as player 2, most of my games would be on the Freelands. Next would probably be Weldyn channel, then Hamlets/Den of Onis/Caves of the Basilik.

I prefer to play on map where you can amass armies and actually fight rather than try to steal villages while avoiding combat, which alters what I choose to play on.

I really dislike Howling Ghost Badlands. I think for the reasons above. Same with Silverhead Crossing

I also dislike the new Sablestone delta. I agree it had to be changed up due to the stalemate-like properties the old one had as Velensk pointed out, but the way it's been made I just really cannot stand. The whole castle jumping aspect just seems like it was ripped from another map and loses the heavily favoured combat it used to encourage, which I really liked.

Hornshark is a rare one for me to play on, but I like it somewhat, same for Fallenstar, which I moved to when I started playing mp after cynsaun battlefield was too hard to start a game on.

I'm not overly a big fan of Sulla's, but unlike HGB or Silverhead, I won't refuse to play on it outright, though the latter 2 I would play if I were to agree to random map, and ended on one of those 2 maps.