Fight your way through the city ridden with racial conflicts and stop the Citadel Mages from taking control of your armies. To uphold command of your forces, you'll have to work together with your opponent and destroy the Grand Citadel before it's too late...
OVERVIEW
A Racial Issue is basically a melee-type map with a few tweaks. It can be played either as a
2v2 or
FFA with unlocked teams, but in the end players will end up in a Free for All scenario, since in the game they will be portrayed as greedy generals who ultimately care only about themselves. Before you proceed to killing your opponents, however, you must get rid of the
Citadel situated in the middle of the map or else the mages within it will seize control of everyone's forces, resulting in everybody losing. The only way of eradicating the structure is to
kill the bosses located in the eastern and southern sides of the city. Once the Citadel falls, players turn against one another and eventually one of them defeats the rest and is granted the ultimate prize - victory.
The Bosses
The are
four Bosses - two to the east and two to the west. Their souls sustain the massive Citadel which would otherwise collapse due to its ridiculous proportions. Each boss possesses unique and deadly abilities and drops powerful items needed to defeat the Citadel Mages and other players. It is advised to approach the bosses with an army able to take on a regular red camp with ease or with help of an ally. There are several runes scattered around the Citadel Guardians' locations containing information about the local boss.
• Archbishop - located in the western human district, the cathedral's archbishop is protected by four Holy Knights. Though the priest himself is fragile and weak, his bodyguards are a force to be reckoned with. The best way to get rid of this boss is to
nuke the Archbishop, take his item and escape before his honor guards unleash their wrath upon you. Is it inadvisable to kill the knights as the Archbishop's aura provides them with
high health regeneration. After the boss dies, his former guardians become
permanently immolated, dishing out even more damage than before.
• Elder Wildkin - inhabitant of the orc district, this formidable beast is able to call upon the forces of the moon to
eradicate his enemies in a large area. The best way to kill him is to
stun or
silence him every time he is casting his ultimate ability or try to
evade it.
• Arcane Guardian - an ancient wizard and the teacher of the Citadel Mages now inhabits the eastern human district. He spent centuries mastering illusion magic and is now able to create mirror images of himself that wield the same power as he does. The only way to distinguish him from his illusions is using
dispels, so silencing him before he casts
Mirror Image is the best option.
• Soul of the Forest - this embodiment of nature is located in the elven temple. It is said that when the Soul dies, so will the forest. As this boss
regenerates its life very quickly and is
immune to magic,
nuking them is the only way to victory.
The Citadel Mages
The rulers of the Metropolis will be the fiercest foes you'll face during your conquest - they possess various destructive spells which will tear you to shreds if you aren't well equipped and don't have durable units. The best way to defeat them is to sneak up on them via
Invisibility and silence them all at once. They'll still be able to dish out high amounts of damage ith their attacks, but the fight will become much easier to handle.
• Warlock
Wielding powerful single-target,
high-damage spells and an ability to summon an
Infernal, Warlock is able to deliver death to any opponent who comes unprepared.
Disabling and
invulnerability potions will be necessary to avoid potential damage.
• Sorceress
Able to cast multiple
area of effect spells, the Sorceress makes it necessary to
disable her first if you bring along units with heavy armor or few hitpoints.
• The Grandmaster
Most powerful of the trio, the Citadel's Grandmaster has
access to most abilities of the previous Bosses which means he'll usually be the last mage standing. Every item and ability which
disables or
deals damage will prove invaluable during the fight with the Grandmaster.
The Metropolis
This city sports a wide range of enemies, varying from elven rogues and orc brutes to enormous beasts and ancient, powerful creatures. There is a heavily guarded gold mine in each of the ethnic gardens and four more in the gardens of the Citadel. Using all three heroes during the conquest is a viable decision since there are many neutral camps in the city granting lots of experience.
Citadel's Fall
When all the bosses are defeated or when the Citadel is somehow destroyed with brute force, three powerful mages will emerge from its ashes. They are no longer able to cast the mind control spell, but are yet to be killed. At that moment all players will turn against one other as the mages shall no longer pose any immeadiate threat and thus the game becomes a classic Free for All with an addition of powerful boss items.
The treasures of The Metropolis await you, warrior...
Changelog:
- updated tavern not offering all heroes
- increased main objective time from 20 minutes to 30 minutes
- added a few doodads in garden areas (near fountains) and edited terrain throughout the map
-
secret merchant selling less common items is now available near green racial camps on either top or bottom part of the map
- made the city much more lively; the number of citizens on the streets greatly increased
- added towers around the Citadel
- fixed a few textbox and pathing issues
- Citadel Mages drop
Chaos Orbs when killed; upon picking an orb, a hero turns into a powerful
Avatar of Greed, retaining former levels and items, but changing abilities as well as increasing damage and health drastically
- Powerlust: Increases target unit's attack speed at the cost of life (a stronger version of Unholy Frenzy)
- Bloodwave: A stream of blood healing multiple targets (more powerful Healing Wave)
- Teleportation: Teleports a caster to an explored area after a short delay
- Blood Pact: Kills any unit or building and deals damage to caster equal to damage dealt; if the damage dealt to the caster is high enough to kill them, the target remains unharmed
REVAMPED:
-
DIFFICULTY LEVELS (
Normal,
Hard and
Godlike) which will allow the player to adjust the game's tempo to their own preferences (Normal difficulty has timer set on 30 minutes, all bosses remain unchanged, Hard grants 25 minutes to destroy the Citadel and makes bosses slightly more durable and Godlike gives only 20 minutes to kill the bosses, which deal much more damage and are very durable <killing bosses on Godlike difficulty will require buying specific items, powerful armies and cooperation of all players>
-
FOUR METROPOLIS FACTIONS added (Metropolis Militia, University Wizards, Elvish Guardians and Orcish Sentinels); units from these factions are scattered across the map and are initially neutral, but when a player attacks them or neutral passive units corresponding the factions' races, they will retaliate
- added even more city inhabitants (some of them will give quests in the future)
- changed secret merchants' items; some of them will be very helpful in fighting the bosses (Sleeping Powder, Gem of Negation and Null Crystal)
- slightly nerfed Avatar of Greed so that it won't be able to single-handedly kill everything in its path
- heroes can now creep and gain experience even after level 5
- certain creep camps have been balanced
- more doodads added in order to make the city look prettier
- the University now offers Stone Token and Inferno Stone
- certain abilities of heroes buffed (Blademaster's illusions now deal minor damage, Paladin grants greater armor bonus, Mountain King's Thunder Clap deals more damage and has greater attack speed reduction and Far Seer's Chain Lightning has shorter cooldown with each level and Far Sight lasts longer and costs 50 mana at all times)
1.1:
- changed the camera angle of the Citadel's Fall as the previous one didn't really work (thanks to JesusHipster for pointing that out)
- Forest's Essence now makes the hero transparent and green, so that it's easier to see recognize which hero is Magic Immune
- added detailed in-game tips on how to fight the bosses efficiently
1.2:
- changed the icons and models of items dropped by the bosses and made them
droppable on death (this includes Forest's Essence) so that the power struggle is more entertaining
- added special animations to all boss items, so that they're easy to spot on a hero
- the timer now stops at the exact moment when all the bosses die instead of having a delay
- added visible hotkeys to the Avatar of Greed
- changed the models of Night Elf Rogue and Assassin creeps to Sentries, so that they don't like like the Wardens controlled by the
Elvish Sentinels
- modified the price of some items dropped by the Citadel Mages
- fixed position of the
Spell Immunity granted by Sprit of the Forest; now it's always next to Hero Skills button
1.3:
- Night Elf Rogue and Assassin are now Satyrs instead with new custom models and fight in melee combat
- The starting Gold Mine only has 10000 gold now, the natural expansions in ethnic gardens yield 15000 gold and the gold mines in Citadel gardens contain 17500 gold; this way, players are rewarded for sacrificing their time and units in order to expand
- added two new items which are sold by the secret merchants -
Throwing Knives (deals 100 damage upon use, 3 charges) and
Scroll of Arcane Bolt (deals 250 damage and stuns for 3 seconds, one-time use)
- added Night Elf Villagers to the Night Elf District (new custom models)
- Removed units not supposed to be where they were (Medicine Men on the bottom part of the map)
- changed the terrain so that it's not so flat in the expansions
- fixed minor issues such as creeps not dropping right items
The Grandmaster Update (1.4):
- drastically changed the
Citadel Mages; each mage is now a different unit with a different model and unique abilities; they are now the most powerful units in Metropolis
- added two new items which are dropped by Warlock and Sorceress -
Doom Rod (doubles damage dealt by targeted abilities) and
Fel Scepter (launches a Felball that deals 300 damage and additional 200 damage in a small area while stunning the target for 3 seconds;
15 second cooldown and
150 mana cost); these are items, just like Boss items, are
dropped upon carrier's death
- fixed
Blood Pact ability which now works with spell immunity and can't be cast on self (previously Avatar of Greed didn't lose hitpoints if it was spell immune (thanks to
deepstrasz for pointing that out)
- improved animations and effects of several items and abilities such as the animation of Holy Tablet or Forest's Essence pickup effect
-
changed icons of various spells and abilities, so that they are easier to recognize and look nicer
- fixed certain creep camps not behaving properly (
Elvish Guardians attacking Furbolgs)
- sorted triggers into categories in order to allow easier editing and grant more information to the user
- changed colors of tooltip runes so that they look nicer and fit the theme of each region better
- minor terrain tweaks
1.5:
- fixed a bug where whenever an illusion of the Grandmaster died, a notification of a completed quest appeared
- fixed a problem where the Avatar of Greed would shrink after consuming Forest's Essence
- fixed a problem where the Avatar of Greed would shrink after being revived
- added
special effects and buffs to the bosses so that it's easier for players to see what they do without necessarily having to read detailed tips
- changed
Arcane Guradians and
Ageless Mirror's animation
1.6:
- the creeps at the Fountains now drop a random level 4 item
- changed icons for
Throwing Knives and the
Arcane Scroll
- changed the missile model of the Arcane Scroll
- fixed a problem where
Orcish Sentinels would attack neutrals
- fixed a few text tweaks in Boss tips
- changed map name to The Grand Citadel as Racial Issue failed to depict the map's nature
Resources used:
D2SorceressV2 by: Apheraz Lucent
Female Satyr by: PROXY
Night Elf Villager by: Sin'dorei300
DarknessBomb by: nGy
BTNKnives by: -Berz
BTNLawOfBloodScroll by: PeeKay
Bloodelf Mage by: General Frank
Bloodelf Wizard by: General Frank
Ancient Explosion SFX by: WILL THE ALMIGHTY
DivineBarrier by: JesusHipster
GreatElderHydraAcidSpewV.153 by: kellym0
BTNINV_Wand_06 and BTNINV_Wand_04 by: Blizzard Entertainment
BTNPCIFireball by: Palaslayer
BTNFireStaff by: kola
BTNVortexOfUnreal by: JollyD
orb_big03 (Defensive Barrier) by: EdwardSwolenToe
I'd be delighted to hear your opinions on my first Hive Workshop map and would greatly appreciate reports of any bugs or problems with the map!