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Aggressive Castle Defense 3

This bundle is marked as useful / simple. Simplicity is bliss, low effort and/or may contain minor bugs.
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Aggressive Castle Defence 3

Singleplayer.

In this map you'll control single hero and protect your ally base.
Use your hero to scout the map and report enemy bases to have them destroyed before they grow too strong.
Each enemy factory will produce units for attack waves, so you should keep number and size of enemy bases small so your defence can handle their attacks. Map is focused on exploration and searching for enemies, not on hero development.

Gameplay:

Your ally starts with big base, but cannot build any new buildings nor repair existing ones (units are trained automatically). Enemy starts from single worker but can build and extend it's bases. It pays for buildings, but units are trained for free (for each attack wave) Player starts from single hero, 6 minutes delay and needs to protect allied base.
Player wins the game when all enemy buildings are destroyed or on timeout (all attack waves).
Player loses the game when HQ (Fortress) is destroyed.

Features:
  • All buildings destructible, including factories, altars, fountains and towers
  • Attack wave sizes depends on state of enemy development, which player can disrupt in several ways
  • High focus on scouting the map and searching for troubles
  • Multiboard showing defence status and enemy unit counts
  • Custom enemy AI, that can control and develop a few bases and use number of gold mines

Others:
  • Enemy bases can be built anywhere, they don't need to be close to the gold mines
  • Enemy is restricted not to train new workers in base that's under attack
  • Enemy building requirements are local to each of it's bases -> enemy bases are independent on each other
  • Terrain may slowly change over time (bumps, tiles)

Console commands (for use at the beginning of the game):
  • enter resize N to adjust scale of multiboard to your resolution, for example "resize 135"
  • h800 command - increases camera height to 800px, for better field of view
  • optional "no hero" command at the beginning - for 0 players (observer) mode.

Console commands for use in game:
  • attack - recalls enemy units to hero's location. Only limited number of units can be send to attack, previous attack units will expire after a minute
Older versions:
There are some smaller versions of this map in this bundle, so you can select simple and short or more advanced and longer map to play.
Map versions: 1, 2, 3
Expected playing time: 30 min, 40 min, 50 min
Time limit: 1h, 2h, 3h
Map size: 128, 160, 192
Main base - buildings count: 13 + 10, 17 + 40, 20 + 64
Assault force size: 12, 15, 18
Secondary bases: no, 4 tiny bases in the corners, 4 tiny bases in the corners
Enemy tech tree: basic, limited, full
Unit types in attack waves: footman + rifleman, footman + rifleman + knight, all human units


Changelog:

v 1.1. initial version
v 1.2:
  • minor terrain changes
  • terrain can slowly evolve over time (bumps around enemy bases, mud on enemy troops paths)
  • added short (1 - 3 min.) mini-game, just after instructions (avoid enemy units and find best place for extra tower)
  • fixed "attack" command - limited number of defence units are send to hero position, old backups will expire after a minute
  • unified hero type in all maps and prevented summoning multiple heroes
  • fixed initial camera position
v 1.3:
  • Failed mini game no longer ends whole game
  • Increased assault force size from 12/14/16 to 12/15/18 (in map 1,2,3)
No more updates expected here



Maps are protected.
Previews
Contents

Aggressive Castle Defense (Map)

Aggressive Castle Defense 2 (Map)

Aggressive Castle Defense 3 (Map)

Reviews
deepstrasz
Got minigame failed for the second map after moving the treant around and had to restart the map... Same happened on the third. Might it be because I had the map visible? Yeah, that was it. It's useless anyway if you're not allowed to leave the base...
Level 6
Joined
Nov 9, 2011
Messages
33
I've just added some smaller versions of this map, with less features but shorter playing time.
Please let me know if you start a review, to avoid situation when map is updated when review is in progress.
Other feedback (not only from reviewers) is also welcome.
 

deepstrasz

Map Reviewer
Level 68
Joined
Jun 4, 2009
Messages
18,706
  1. The camera doesn't start in the middle but in the fog of war.
  2. The terrain is pretty flat and empty and there's one tile spam.
  3. It's pretty boring and a time waste to stand 5 minutes and do nothing but watch.
  4. The enemy had acolytes and peasants and didn't even have a barracks before the timer ended while the allied base trained at least 10 units.
  5. You can summon lots of Thralls.
  6. Any other heroes to choose from?
  7. Recycled Warcraft III material. Nothing custom.
  8. Troops don't actually come to your position. They walk a bit and then return to the base.
Awaiting Update.


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Level 6
Joined
Nov 9, 2011
Messages
33
Thank you deepstrasz for the review and sorry for delayed response.
  • The camera doesn't start in the middle but in the fog of war.
Fixed
  • The terrain is pretty flat and empty and there's one tile spam.
Somewhat improved, please let me know if it's ok, acceptable or if it needs more work.
Also added some dynamic terrain - it may slowly evolve over time (enemy troops paths, terrain deformations near enemy bases) later in game

  • It's pretty boring and a time waste to stand 5 minutes and do nothing but watch.
Added a short mini-game, just after instructions, player gets summoned unit that will be replaced with extra tower on expiration. No enemy unit can see this unit before it expires, changing into tower.
  • The enemy had acolytes and peasants and didn't even have a barracks before the timer ended while the allied base trained at least 10 units.
There are 3 maps with different difficulty levels (which increase with map size) in this bundle.
After timer ends enemy is weak, however the challenge is to find and destroy quickly all enemy bases, before they will get to strong.
Even if you find first one quickly but spend too much time on destroying it, enemy will have time to build and extend other bases.
There's no such thing as main enemy base, enemy can recover even if it have no bases but just a few gold mines and workers.

Early enemy bases are easy to destroy and causes no to little threat to your main base.
Later, they gets stronger, even with defence too strong to destroy it, however they still cause little threat alone to your main base.
You still can survive with single enemy base that grows too big, but when several enemy bases will do so, situation may become out of control and it will be increasingly difficult to survive enemy attacks on your main base.

  • You can summon lots of Thralls.
Fixed. Now Thrall is replaced with Pit Lord in all maps.
  • Any other heroes to choose from?
No, this map is focused on defence, exploration and searching for troubles, not on hero development.
  • Recycled Warcraft III material. Nothing custom.
I don't plan to add any custom models, unless it's very important in nowadays maps. Is lack of custom models the problem itself or one of many ways to improve terrain?
  • Troops don't actually come to your position. They walk a bit and then return to the base.
Fixed, it was an old mechanism to limit number of units in attack group. Now it's replaced with choosing limited number of units to attack and deprecating previously recalled ones. Sometimes a few troops may return to base after fighting with enemy units on the way, if there are any, however in most cases they will reach to the target and attack it.

Please let me know it the map is ok now and what is the most important to improve: terrain, gameplay or balance.
 

deepstrasz

Map Reviewer
Level 68
Joined
Jun 4, 2009
Messages
18,706
  1. Got minigame failed for the second map after moving the treant around and had to restart the map... Same happened on the third. Might it be because I had the map visible? Yeah, that was it. It's useless anyway if you're not allowed to leave the base. What's the point of moving the treant anyway? Might as well used a peon to choose a tower spot and instantly build.
  2. There should be an ability to attack not requiring the player to write in chat.
  3. You should still think of a way to eliminated the 5 minutes of nothingness. Just create the units and research instantly. The enemy could also have some starting buildings randomly placed.
  4. On the third map, attack worked once. After I wrote it sever more times, nothing happened. Well, there was an invisible cooldown I guess... Only a few troops come.
  5. You can't scout. You waste time with one hero while the enemy rebuilds their mines and you can't send troops in more places at once or when your hero is somewhere else.
  6. Some of the gray troops remained stuck where I called them and died after a while.

Sadly, I don't see this as a good map.
Substandard.

(previous comments: Aggressive Castle Defense 3)
 
Level 6
Joined
Nov 9, 2011
Messages
33
I've made a minor update to fix only most obvious things (see changelog). There's no need to re-review this bundle.

Player should focus on searching for real threats, big enemy bases rather than trying to eliminate every single enemy unit. There are many things left to be improved.
  1. Minigame - it's still possible to leave the base and explore map carefully. Failing whole game on failed minigame was not a good idea - I've changed it.
    I also didn't expect someone will have whole map visible - there's no point of playing the map after having everything visible.
  2. Ok, there should be an ability or it should be automatic, without the need to write in chat. I won't fix it here, but I'll consider it in next maps.
  3. I don't want to place more starting buildings for enemy, to let it grow more naturally, however summoning some initial units for early defence would be ok. Player should have something to do in first 5 minutes, like exploring the map (without performing any attack) - that's the purpose of summoned unit for minigame. It would be better to use early defence instead of instantly failing minigame when enemy sees you.
  4. There is a limit how many units can go to attack, old units are deprecated and removed after a minute. Attack system needs to be reworked, to be independent from defence units.
  5. Single hero should be enough for scouting. Even if it won't wipe out enemy quickly, single hero can prevent enemy bases to grow too strong. It takes time before enemy can build a base that will cause real threat to you defence - single hero can perform more than full round trip over the map within this time to find it. Don't waste time to attack mines and single acolytes, focus on eliminating enemy bases. On the other hand, assault forces should be stronger to let you report and forget mid-size enemy base rather than wasting time constantly pushing your troops to attack it. Eventually enemy will run out of gold on the map or gets into other problem that will stop it creating new bases.
  6. That was assault force size limiter - whole attack system needs to be reworked anyway.
There are too many changes needed to do them in all 3 maps. I'll leave those maps here, in substandard section and create single map with above improvements and more.
 
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