Map pack 2 opinions?
Posted: 27 February 2026, 23:46
Now that map pack 2 has been in been Arena for a while I wonder what people's opinions are.
In my opinion the quality of the new maps is overall fairly poor, here are my opinions:
Map 11 - Caves. 3/10.
I dislike this map because it feels the strategy is too obvious: get 1 uni, get 1 partner zoo and as many projects as possible. Second uni / partner zoo barely do anything on this map so usually not worth the time to pursue and when you do it's typically because you need them to get projects going. The uni you'll get is generally science-2 rep or animal uni since you can use the store spots for more effective handsize.
If you can't get a lot of projects going this map is just tough and games have felt too lopsided here. Having projects and not bothering with too many uni's/partner zoo's already means a strong game usually but here it feels like a landslide.
The upgrade at 3rd worker is somewhat interesting. The upgrade reward feels a bit pointless. Combined though it seems you can always just get Cards upgrade automatically when reaching 8+ reputation.
Map 12 Artificial Intelligence. 7/10
The layout of the map is nice, plays surprisingly easy. Map is a bit heavy on the clevers and card row manipulation though. 2 clever spots plus the mechanic to boost abilities is a bit much maybe. In the end I feel the unique mechanic often doesn't do all that much though. Useful for playing sponsors/animals/associate at 3-4-5 while it's at 1. Leads to just parking build and cards at 4 and 5 later on and cycling through the point generating actions faster. The grab all animals ability often feels a bit useless but i've seen some edge cases enabling glide/sunbathing/pouch or grabbing a crucial animal but it's so risky to enable dangerous things. Would have preferred if it was something like Perception 4.
Map 13 Drawing board. 1/10.
Hate this map. The strategy very onedimensional: upgrade build because you need it get those bonuses going and there is no 2 size reward. Takes away the interesting meta of when or when not to upgrade build plus upgrade build games without 2 size feel a bit like easy mode Ark Nova. The cut down reward feels awful, i've not seen a succesful use at all. The obvious use is to cut down a 1 size that gives you a clever plus 2 tickets or a X token and 1 rep and rebuild it every time but hardly seems worth it. What's even worse to me is the adapt 3 reward. Because last worker doesn't give points you'll very frequently just get adapt 3 as reward towards the end of the game. But this means you know your intial endgame rewards don't mean much, probably adapt into something else anyway if you don't have a good one so it's probably not even worth going out of your way for some of the harder ones. Adapt 3 is a terrible choice for a CP reward especially if it's not competing with other options that give points at the end.
Map 14 Lagoon. 6/10
This map is mediocre. Feels a bit like a stronger Hollywood hills. The problem to me is that person sponsors vary so wildly in power. Some of the best ones but also some of the worst ones. If you happen to get 2 nice ones the CP reward to market them for free is super good. But have only 1 or none that bonus is already very iffy because so few cards in the game are person sponsors. Doesn't feel like a good design choice to center such a strong reward about such a niche set of cards. Overall though not too bad. The layout is surprisingly difficult with key rewards like 5 money and the shark attacks being difficult to pick up.
Map T1 Tournament-1 9/10
This has to be one of my favorite maps. I think just like commercial harbor having a map mechanic that lets you have an other use for cards is interesting and this one is more interesting than commercial harbor in that regard as well. It's also just interesting to have snapping changed for something similar but slightly different. I think more maps could play with small variations on the 2 size and snapping rewards. A hunt or perception reward for example or a build 3-size reward (which could be worse due to map constraints)? I'd say that only the free rep on unlocking workers might be a tad much? Map feels a bit pushed towards 2 CP worker perhaps because it frequently gives you the 5 rep upgrade fast anyway and the map is very easy to navigate without build upgrade.
Overall I think the map pack just makes the map pool worse on the whole. At least I'd like to see map 11 and map 13 removed.
What do you think?
In my opinion the quality of the new maps is overall fairly poor, here are my opinions:
Map 11 - Caves. 3/10.
I dislike this map because it feels the strategy is too obvious: get 1 uni, get 1 partner zoo and as many projects as possible. Second uni / partner zoo barely do anything on this map so usually not worth the time to pursue and when you do it's typically because you need them to get projects going. The uni you'll get is generally science-2 rep or animal uni since you can use the store spots for more effective handsize.
If you can't get a lot of projects going this map is just tough and games have felt too lopsided here. Having projects and not bothering with too many uni's/partner zoo's already means a strong game usually but here it feels like a landslide.
The upgrade at 3rd worker is somewhat interesting. The upgrade reward feels a bit pointless. Combined though it seems you can always just get Cards upgrade automatically when reaching 8+ reputation.
Map 12 Artificial Intelligence. 7/10
The layout of the map is nice, plays surprisingly easy. Map is a bit heavy on the clevers and card row manipulation though. 2 clever spots plus the mechanic to boost abilities is a bit much maybe. In the end I feel the unique mechanic often doesn't do all that much though. Useful for playing sponsors/animals/associate at 3-4-5 while it's at 1. Leads to just parking build and cards at 4 and 5 later on and cycling through the point generating actions faster. The grab all animals ability often feels a bit useless but i've seen some edge cases enabling glide/sunbathing/pouch or grabbing a crucial animal but it's so risky to enable dangerous things. Would have preferred if it was something like Perception 4.
Map 13 Drawing board. 1/10.
Hate this map. The strategy very onedimensional: upgrade build because you need it get those bonuses going and there is no 2 size reward. Takes away the interesting meta of when or when not to upgrade build plus upgrade build games without 2 size feel a bit like easy mode Ark Nova. The cut down reward feels awful, i've not seen a succesful use at all. The obvious use is to cut down a 1 size that gives you a clever plus 2 tickets or a X token and 1 rep and rebuild it every time but hardly seems worth it. What's even worse to me is the adapt 3 reward. Because last worker doesn't give points you'll very frequently just get adapt 3 as reward towards the end of the game. But this means you know your intial endgame rewards don't mean much, probably adapt into something else anyway if you don't have a good one so it's probably not even worth going out of your way for some of the harder ones. Adapt 3 is a terrible choice for a CP reward especially if it's not competing with other options that give points at the end.
Map 14 Lagoon. 6/10
This map is mediocre. Feels a bit like a stronger Hollywood hills. The problem to me is that person sponsors vary so wildly in power. Some of the best ones but also some of the worst ones. If you happen to get 2 nice ones the CP reward to market them for free is super good. But have only 1 or none that bonus is already very iffy because so few cards in the game are person sponsors. Doesn't feel like a good design choice to center such a strong reward about such a niche set of cards. Overall though not too bad. The layout is surprisingly difficult with key rewards like 5 money and the shark attacks being difficult to pick up.
Map T1 Tournament-1 9/10
This has to be one of my favorite maps. I think just like commercial harbor having a map mechanic that lets you have an other use for cards is interesting and this one is more interesting than commercial harbor in that regard as well. It's also just interesting to have snapping changed for something similar but slightly different. I think more maps could play with small variations on the 2 size and snapping rewards. A hunt or perception reward for example or a build 3-size reward (which could be worse due to map constraints)? I'd say that only the free rep on unlocking workers might be a tad much? Map feels a bit pushed towards 2 CP worker perhaps because it frequently gives you the 5 rep upgrade fast anyway and the map is very easy to navigate without build upgrade.
Overall I think the map pack just makes the map pool worse on the whole. At least I'd like to see map 11 and map 13 removed.
What do you think?