Conquer Club

how long does it usually take for a map to make it all the way through the forge

that hugely depends on the map, and circumstances.
It can be as few as a few weeks/days to years....
Most quastions regarding map specifics can best be asked in the foundry forum.

It's usually at least 6 months, and can be up to 12 months (or more in some cases, where the mapmaker takes a break and returns to finish the map later). In some rare cases it has been faster, like Tisha's latest supersize map, which was mainly because the gameplay & graphics of both halves of the map had already been through the process once, and contest winners, which usually get a faster ride through the foundry - usually because the gameplay has been pre-developed and the map can skip over the gameplay part.