• 🏆 Texturing Contest #33 is OPEN! Contestants must re-texture a SD unit model found in-game (Warcraft 3 Classic), recreating the unit into a peaceful NPC version. 🔗Click here to enter!
  • It's time for the first HD Modeling Contest of 2024. Join the theme discussion for Hive's HD Modeling Contest #6! Click here to post your idea!

Desert Strike

  • Like
Reactions: Furious

Basic Info

How to play

Income

Save/load system

Patch Notes

This is a recreation of a popular map on StarCraft 2 called Desert Strike Euro. It's a 'tug of war' type of map with units from the melee game that are being sent in waves from each player. The goal is to destroy the enemy base.

The game requires at least 2 players (1v1) to play (max. 3v3). It supports dynamic lobbies/teams so e.g. 1v3 is possible. This means that the lone player will send his army each wave, while the other players are queued up to send their army. The game will also adjust the queue if a player leaves, so there's no need to remake if that happens.

Just like in Desert Strike Euro, this map has custom A.I. for the units so they will cast spells like Rejuvenation, Lightning Shield, Healing Ward, Possession etc. automatically. The units are uncontrollable by the player (with the exception of spells) so the player has to rely on his combination of units and upgrades to push the opposing side.
The formation when building units doesn't matter.

  • Choose your race in the lobby.
  • Build the units you want to send for your wave.
  • Build 'Gold Extractors' (haunted gold mines) for extra income, but be careful, your income will freeze for a period of time when building one.
  • Control the middle for extra income.

Each player gains 100 gold over 20 seconds. Building Gold Extractors will increase income, but also freeze it for a period of time. The cooldown for building Gold Extractors is 120 seconds.
Controlling the middle counts as an additional Gold Extractor.
  • 0 Gold Extractors: 100/110 gold
  • 1 Gold Extractor: 110/125 gold, 25 second freeze
  • 2 Gold Extractors: 125/145 gold, 50 second freeze
  • 3 Gold Extractors: 145/170 gold, 75 second freeze
  • 4 Gold Extractors: 170/200 gold, 100 second freeze
  • 5 Gold Extractors: 200/250 gold, 125 second freeze

The game has an automatic save/load system so the player doesn't need to paste in a code in the chat from game to game. It saves total games and games won - per race - so the player can keep track of stats and unlock skins for the builder.

Patch 2.0.1

New Features:
  • New game options have been added.
  • Naga and Demon have been added as new playable races.

General:
  • Players now select their desired race ingame.
  • Stat progression is now available again (after the 2.0 BETA).
  • The bases have been moved slightly further apart.
  • All unit HP has been increased by 80%.
  • Unit Acquisition Range has reduced to 750, down from 1000.
  • Players can now reset their camera. This is partly due to a camera issue that can occur in the cinematic sequence.
  • Units now spawn facing the correct angle instead of the default angle (270 degrees).
  • Players will now be issued a penalty for right-clicking too many times with units (excluding the builder obviously).
  • All buildings now show the corresponding unit's armor type.
  • Sorceresses now cast Polymorph more consistently.
  • Dragonhawk Riders now cast Aerial Shackles more consistently.
  • Shamans now cast Purge more often on casters.
  • Shamans now only cast Lightning Shield when there are more than 2 enemies around the target.
  • Banshees now cast Possession more consistently.
  • The Mountain Giant is no longer stuck for a couple of seconds after using Taunt.

Balance:

  • All unit cost calculation has been reworked. Random damage numbers and damage reduction from armor is now factored in.
  • Watch Tower now has Fortified armor instead of Heavy.
  • Watch Tower regeneration reduced to 1, down from 3.
  • The Fortress now regenerates HP.
  • All catapult type units have their attack speed increased by 50% (slower).

Human:

  • Flare range has been reduced to 1000, down from 99999.
  • Slow Duration has been reduced to 20 seconds, down from 60.

Orc:

  • Unstable Concoction damage increased to 600, up from 120, and splash radius has been doubled.
    Dev note: In actuality, the ability has returned to default values. In beta versions of the map units had less HP and therefore damage compensation was required, but after release they were too weak.
  • Ancestral Spirit now drains 50 mana from every Spirit Walker nearby.
    Dev note: Having 3-5 Taurens and even more Spirit Walkers on the battlefield was absurdly devastating for the enemy, as they could get revived by each Spirit Walker every time they got killed.
  • Brute Strength HP upgrade reduced to 20, down from 28.
  • Sentry Ward duration reduced to 15 seconds, down from 20.
  • Sentry Ward detection radius increased to 750, up from 400.
  • Stasis Trap stun duration reduced to 3 seconds, down from 4.
  • Ensnare duration has been increased to 10 seconds, up from 6.

Undead:

  • Frost Wyrm splash area has been reduced by 50%.
  • Freezing Breath duration reduced to 1 second, down from 5.
  • Gargoyle's air attack is now ranged and deals the same damage as its ground attack.
  • Curse cooldown has been increased to 5 seconds, up from 1.
  • Obsidian Statue heal radius has been reduced to 500, down from 700.
  • Web duration has been increased to 10 seconds, up from 6.

Night Elf:

  • Chimaera splash damage factor has been reduced to 20%, down from 50%.
  • Corrosive Breath range has been reduced to 700, down from 850.

Naga:
  • Elemental Split now occurs when the unit dies, as opposed to when hitting 50% HP, and the two lesser elementals now have 10 HP and a timed duration.
  • Hardened Skin for the Dragon Turtle damage reduction has been reduced to 8, down from 12.
  • Submerged Naga Myrmidon movement speed increased to 400, up from 360.
  • Makrura Deepseer Hex ability has been removed. It can now cast Mana Burn.
  • Naga Siren Cyclone has been removed. It can now cast Healing Radiation.
  • Sea Elemental now has Light armor instead of Medium.
  • Ensnare duration has been increased to 10 seconds, up from 6.

Demon:
  • Lightning Strike ability has been changed to Rain of Fire for the Eredar.
  • Nether Dragon Hatchling gold cost increased to 160, up from 145.
  • Nether Dragon Hatchling ground range reduced to 400, down from 600.
  • Succubus now has Medium armor instead of Light.
  • Demonic Vessel now costs 445 gold, up from 375.
  • Demonic Vessel armor reduced to 0, down from 2.
  • Demonic Vessel range reduced to 600, down from 700.
  • Howl of Terror radius reduced to 450, down from 650.
  • Enraged Voidwalker upgrade now requires Dimensional Gate instead of Demon Gate.
  • Enraged Voidwalker's Detonate passive now deals 50 damage up from 20, and radius has been increased to 300, up from 175.
  • Vampiric Aura now grants 20% of damage in HP per hit, up from 15%.


Bug Fixes:
  • Fixed a major bug where the Fortress dealt splash damage to friendly units around the enemy target.
  • Undead buildings can no longer attack.
  • Fixed a multiboard bug where income was displayed incorrectly in some cases.
  • Fixed a bug where the Dragonhawk Rider building was invisible on classic graphics.
  • Changed Varimathras skin to Tichondrius, as he was invisible on classic graphics (unfixable).
    Dev note: Blizzard....
  • Fixed a bug where the Night Elf tree buildings were not rooted.
  • Makrura Life Regeneration no longer stacks.
  • Players can no longer control the two spawned Reef Elementals that spawn when a Sea Elemental dies.
  • Fixed a bug where Naga T2 and T3 attack and defense upgrades didn't require T2 and T3 structures.
  • "Elemental Split" now correctly resets on a new round.
  • Fixed a bug where researching "Elemental Split" could sometimes set player 1's gold to 750.
  • Fixed a bug where Disease Clouds were stuck after a finished round.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Patch 1.0.3

General:
  • "Change Building Options" is now hotkeyed to N.
  • Default command buttons have been removed.
  • Units can no longer hold position.
  • Middle income will now stay for the dominating team even when all units are killed.
  • Mortar Team now uses Flare more often against invisible units.
  • Huntresses now uses Sentinel more often against invisible units (and less randomly).
  • All units with "dispel" type of spells no longer attempt to dispel un-dispellable negative buffs.
  • Blight now spreads to the entire building area for Undead players (visual).
  • Unit attack type is now included in the description.
  • All upgrade buttons have their hotkeys adjusted according to their position in the command card.
  • "Heretic" undead skin model has been changed to Kel'Thuzad.
Balance:
  • Unit armor type and attack type is now based on The Frozen Throne units instead of Reign of Chaos.
  • Fortress and Watch Tower range increased to 700, up from 600.
    Dev note: Units like archers and riflemen were able to fire freely on the Fortress and Watch Tower without being attacked by them when a range upgrade was researched.
  • Several Orc upgrade costs have been increased.
    Dev Note: Orc is a race that has been very dominant, and now when calculating the upgrade costs it's very clear why. Orc players spent significantly less gold to get all upgrades compared to the other races.
  • Ensnare and Web duration reduced to 6 seconds, down from 9.
  • Bloodlust cooldown increased to 5 seconds, up from 1.
  • Burrow for Crypt Fiends is now a tier 2 research.
  • Raise Dead cooldown reduced to 15 seconds, down from 20.
  • Frost Wyrm gold cost increased to 375, up from 325.
  • Chimaera gold cost increased to 420, up from 365.
Bug Fixes:
  • Fixed a bug where Priests, Spirit Walkers, and Destroyers tried to dispel Disease Clouds, thinking they were summoned skeletons.
  • Fixed a bug where some icons on classic graphics were green.
    Dev Note: Plz fix Blizzard. The naming of the Reforged icons don't match the classic icons and thus we get green icons.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Patch 1.0.2

General:
  • Resource trading has been disabled.
  • Armor type is now included in the unit description.
  • Witch Doctors now use their Sentry Wards more skillfully to mitigate against invisible enemies.
  • Priests now aren't locked up when Inner Fire is available to them.
Balance:
  • Siege Engine armor type has been changed to Heavy instead of Fortified.
    Dev Note: This change is due to Fortified units aren't considered to be dangerous by the auto-attacking A.I., and as a result Siege Tanks remained alive after long fights, as they weren't attacked by any units.
  • Heal now heals for 25, down from 74, and cooldown has been reduced to 1 seconds, down from 3.
  • Sentry Ward detection radius reduced to 400, down from 1100.
  • Sentry Wards now lasts for 20 seconds, down from 50.
  • Raise Dead cooldown reduced to 20 seconds, down from 25.
Bug Fixes:
  • Fixed a bug where the Witch Doctor couldn't use Sentry Ward.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Patch 1.0.1 (hotfix)

General:
  • Players can no longer order units to move to friendly units (including buildings).
Balance:
  • Inner Fire cooldown increased to 3 seconds, up from 1.
Bug Fixes:
  • Fixed a bug where selling a Ghoul tower would still cause the player to spawn Ghouls.
  • Fixed a bug where clicking a skin icon multiple times before the UI disappeared would spawn multiple workers.
  • Unholy Frenzy and Anti-Magic Shell will no longer be cast on the Shade.
Previews
Contents

Desert Strike V2.0.1 (Map)

Reviews
Shar Dundred
Map appears to be functional Approved!
Level 1
Joined
May 23, 2020
Messages
2
Big Thanks LazZ for this amazing game . Same like SC2 mod game !!
Map very nice , Close yours eyes and download it !!!!!!
Tauren infinite resurection is So funny ^^
Thx
Long Life to your map .
 
I really like your map, we play it a lot.

Do you plan to implement additional features from SC2 Desert Strike? There are till many things missing.
Thx for playing ^^
I don't think I've missed any features from the SC2 version, unless you're referring one of the many other versions out there? To be clear, this one is based on "Desert Strike Euro" AKA "Desert Strike 1338" created by Sylon, which can only be found on the EU region in SC2. The only missing feature I can think of is the scan ability that reveals invisible units.

But yes, I'm currently thinking about adding an additional game mode with more races, heroes and more.
 
Level 9
Joined
Dec 31, 2016
Messages
313
To be honest I don't really know, that's what some of my friends who played SC2 Desert Strike told me. :d I will ask them about the version they meant.

They mentioned something about disabling and enabling abilities for specific units. I guess that you can tell some shamans to only cast bloodlust for example. I don't know in which version of Desert Strike this feature is though.

Will let you know more tomorrow. :D
 
Level 14
Joined
Feb 7, 2020
Messages
386
Some feedback from some games I played:
- stasis traps seem overtuned (do they have an expected counter?).
- recommend disabling resource trading / making it a mode (amateur players get overwhelmed by this strat when the 1st tower falls, they can't keep up from there; seems to be known and disliked strat by people I played with).
- recommend reducing the gold gained from the 1st tower falling by 25-50% (or even remove it entirely); if the other team is winning fights then they already get the center control bonus more often, so this is stacking the deck twice in their favor (win-more effect).
- following the above point, seems like a catch up resource akin to booms is necessary to prevent perma snowball (I don't recommend booms per SC2 Desert Strike, they're boring; maybe a one-time use unit that is sent down the lane? not sure.).
- orc peon builder has different extractor build hotkey.
- desync issue commonly occurs for a single player (can't identify a clear cause yet).
- saving for and spamming endgame AoE units (particularly frostwyrm/chimaera) is done by a few repeat offenders and seems unbeatable if you didn't preemptively build strong AA units (has no counterplay either because it all arrives at once and you aren't sure which unit will be massed).

I think, overall, this map is in a good state. However, my play sessions have mostly devolved into the same thing from opponents: people pool for tier 3 units, they show up all at once, and the first 7-10 min of the match end up not mattering. But, still fun :)
 
Last edited:
I agree stasis traps needs some work, either radius reduction, stun duration or something entirely different.
Resource trading was disabled since v1.0.2.
The tower mechanic is something copied directly from Desert Strike Euro, so I'm not sure what would happen if I changed it. I believe it serves as a good counter for people who rush T3 units, along with the fact that you probably had middle control up until that point as well.
The desyncs are probably caused by players having their fps sliders set to something low. Ever since reforged, periodic triggers have been known to go out of sync for players who has their sliders set to something less than the frequency used by the triggers, and this map has a lot of overlapping periodic triggers, income especially. I recommend setting your sliders to 300 before you start a game.
It's hard to counter AoE and T3 units late-game, and it's the same in SC2. I think it's just the nature of the game. However, there are hard counter plays against Chimaeras and Frost Wyrms for some races. Web and Ensnare can bring them down to your ground units. Humans also have great AA units like the Dragonhawk, Siege Tanks and Flying Machines. I think I'll need to play some more sessions to see how powerful they are.

Thx for your feedback ^^

EDIT: You're right, Frost Wyrms and Chimaeras are too OP.
EDIT 2: Resource trading wasn't actually disabled. That's a mistake.
 
Last edited:
Level 1
Joined
Jul 1, 2020
Messages
1
Hey LazZ I wanted to report a bug to you (well more of an unfair exploit), people can pool their gold to a single player on Desert Strike with the send money tool so that a player on their team can rush to late game units before anyone on the other team so say for example if two players on a team want to pool to the Undead player on their team so that he can rush the enemy team with Frost Wyrms they can do that and win the game really quickly.
 
Hey LazZ I wanted to report a bug to you (well more of an unfair exploit), people can pool their gold to a single player on Desert Strike with the send money tool so that a player on their team can rush to late game units before anyone on the other team so say for example if two players on a team want to pool to the Undead player on their team so that he can rush the enemy team with Frost Wyrms they can do that and win the game really quickly.
Thx for the report. I'm aware. I have released a beta version on my discord with a lot of changes and additions. I think the resource trading problem is fixed in that version, but I'm not sure since I didn't check when I tested with players. Let me know if it's still a problem if you play that version.
 
Level 12
Joined
Mar 4, 2014
Messages
204
Hi i played this map 3 times now with random people and unfortunately i had a very bad experience in all of them...
Things i hate:

- There seems to be no counter play in this game, as in there is no specific counter to one unit by other unit, the only counter to a unit is to build the exact same unit, ex. all air units (especially demon air) , ranged units (especially archers) and sometimes even melee units (there just are no serious magical counter to them with some races (demon race). It seems very flawed in my opinion, in all 3 games my opponents always either did one of those two things: 1. Massed the same units (ranged or air) and overwhelmed my units since i had no counter, or 2. they went maxed income and tier up and build only tier 2 units and air and destroyed my tier 1 units again forcing me to build the exact same units but is always too late each game they destroy the tower and then i cannot come back, pretty lame.

- It seems like going upgrades is a big nono as well, i tried to counter the enemy army that had 0 upgrades with mine that had 2/2 upgrades and guess what, i still lost somehow (even tho he only had 4 more units than me, i had 20 units he had 24 units) the upgrades seem to be totally useless unless u are winning already, very bad design!

Suggestions:

- Make ground ranged units focus air units to be able to counter mass air!

- make units be able to counter each other better like this : Melee counters ranged ground aka focuses them when they have the chance, ranged ground focuses air, and magic dmg units focus heavy armor units, etc. its simple.

The map seems fun and i like the concept, but the gameplay is pretty bad and gets boring fast, will wait for more updates.
 
Hi i played this map 3 times now with random people and unfortunately i had a very bad experience in all of them...
Things i hate:

- There seems to be no counter play in this game, as in there is no specific counter to one unit by other unit, the only counter to a unit is to build the exact same unit, ex. all air units (especially demon air) , ranged units (especially archers) and sometimes even melee units (there just are no serious magical counter to them with some races (demon race). It seems very flawed in my opinion, in all 3 games my opponents always either did one of those two things: 1. Massed the same units (ranged or air) and overwhelmed my units since i had no counter, or 2. they went maxed income and tier up and build only tier 2 units and air and destroyed my tier 1 units again forcing me to build the exact same units but is always too late each game they destroy the tower and then i cannot come back, pretty lame.

- It seems like going upgrades is a big nono as well, i tried to counter the enemy army that had 0 upgrades with mine that had 2/2 upgrades and guess what, i still lost somehow (even tho he only had 4 more units than me, i had 20 units he had 24 units) the upgrades seem to be totally useless unless u are winning already, very bad design!

Suggestions:

- Make ground ranged units focus air units to be able to counter mass air!

- make units be able to counter each other better like this : Melee counters ranged ground aka focuses them when they have the chance, ranged ground focuses air, and magic dmg units focus heavy armor units, etc. its simple.

The map seems fun and i like the concept, but the gameplay is pretty bad and gets boring fast, will wait for more updates.
I appreciate your feedback, but I would've loved if you didn't rate the map based on the BETA version.
 
Level 2
Joined
Nov 24, 2016
Messages
17
MMM, I'm pretty sure desert strike origin was in sc1 rather than sc2. In any case is good to see a old classic getting a remake for wc3. I support this map, gonna test it someday, if i get my hands in reforged.
 
Top