an idea

[Blake8]

I was thinking about making a map for a campaign where the goal of the mission is to destroy one particular building (the enemy's HQ) now its a map where you have to fight your way from the bottom of the map to the top where this building is located, however I don't want the player to be able to easily win this mission by using his air units to destroy the building, what other alternatives are there to making sure the building is not destroyed by air units besides disabling air units in the mission, making only air units that cannot attack ground units available, or having the air units have "magic" type attack and giving the building spell immunity?

 

[Nowow]

Giving the HQ huge anti-aircraft attack?

 

[Blake8]

Might not be possible due to the model, plus it would still be vulnerable if it gets swarmed by air units, I dont need the player winning this by simply swarming it over and over until its destroyed

 

[cleavinghammer]

Shield generators: Each generator keep a defense layer invulnerable, and the castle is invulnerable until all the generators are destroyed.

Fog: The base has a permanent Cloud cast over it, modified to prevent air units from attacking instead of ground units.

Dummy anti-air units embedded in the castle's model to quickly take out attackers.

Also, unless you're giving the player infinite resources I don't think there's much risk of swarming as a valid tactic.

 

[Blake8]

Shield generators: this is just not gonna work, I've tried this and it would just frustrate the player and it would still be possible to eliminate them by air units (i dont wanna have the base filled with 30 towers just to prevent this)

the fog idea cannot be implemented because the player would not be able to see the enemy base if it was, I experimented on this, unless there are some other fog models out there its not gonna be good

strong anti-air would not solve the problem, the player would get 150-200 food in the mission, and lots of gold, since its supposed to be a big battle, if the player sees its possible to just swarm the enemy base with air units, he will do so because it would take more effort to go the ground route

 

[cleavinghammer]

If you don't want the player hitting the castle first thing, why not make it invulnerable from the start, and make it vulnerable once all other objectives are completed?

If visibility is a problem, have a permanent superpowered anti-air Monsoon or Starfall over the base.

Honestly, not really seeing why it's a problem if they're bored enough to wait for their units to finish before swarming.

 

[Blake8]

I just don't want the player to finish the mission using only air units, I don't care if he combines air units with ground forces to storm the final base, but I dont want it being swarmed with flying units alone, if I make a permanent starfall over the base it would just prevent prevent air units from comming in the area, which I don't necessarily want,

 

[LordDz]

Pathing Blockers (Air).
Hugely strong anti air towers / Units, it would promote the player to attack them with ground units.
Make air more expensive.
Etc.

 

[Blake8]

I want the player to be able to use air units in the battle, but just no solo it with air units so pathing blockers are out of the question

suggestions 2 and 3 wont solve the problem but will make it less likely to occur, so I may try some combination of them

 

[Alok]

Events:
A unit is attacked

Conditions:
And - all conditions are true

Attacked unit-type equal to HQ
Or - any of the conditions is true

Attacking unit-type equal to Flying unit 1
Attacking unit-type equal to Flying unit 2
... (list all flying units players can use)​

Actions:
Order Attacking unit to Stop

 

[Nowow]

I don't see a problem with massive anti-air attack for HQ. You can give it a barrage ability or change the projectile properties to allow extremely rapid fire. The other possibility is air pathing blockers. All other options I can think of are complicated and messy.

If you give your HQ ~150 chaos damage against air, and mess with projectile properties to allow 4 shots per second, AND give it the barrage ability so that each attack goes to maximum 5 units, your HQ can dish 600damage to 5 air units per second. Against normal melee units it will probably take a gold mine and a half to destroy something like a tier 3 hall. And that's without pushing the abilities' limits.

Anyways, both options rely on the range you need to use it on. You know what's the attack range of your air units in the map. Give HQ an attack/pathing blockers that will match the range +100 distance for buffer.

 

[Blake8]

most of these solutions have been discussed before (Unique battles) in this mission the player will be able to mount a massive air raid on the base if he wants to however I not only want it to be ineffective, I want these raid to be pointless, so the player wont do them at all, all while allowing the player to use air and ground units in unison to beat the enemy

 

[Dehua_Darbuya]

You could create a negative Command Aura which only affects air units.

 

[Lord Siler]

Me and blake were busy developing various idea for this purpose, from having the hq cast things like hex, curse or charm on the flying units to creating a whirlwind spell that would suck in and destroy all incoming aircrafts, however we didn't think of a negative command aura that effects only air units,

 

[Alok]

most of these solutions have been discussed before (Unique battles) in this mission the player will be able to mount a massive air raid on the base if he wants to however I not only want it to be ineffective, I want these raid to be pointless, so the player wont do them at all, all while allowing the player to use air and ground units in unison to beat the enemy

If you want air units to be able to attack the HQ when there are ground units owned by attacking players in range, then this is the trigger:

• NoFly
  • Events
    • Unit - A unit Is attacked
  • Conditions
    • And - All (Conditions) are true
      • Conditions
        • (Unit-type of (Attacked unit)) Equal to Castle
        • ((Attacking unit) is A flying unit) Equal to True
        • (Number of units in (Units within 800.00 of (Position of Castle 0000 <gen>) matching ((((Matching unit) is A ground unit) Equal to True) and (((Owner of (Matching unit)) Equal to Player 1 (Red)) or ((Owner of (Matching unit)) Equal to Player 2 (Blue)))))) Equal to 0
  • Actions
    • Unit - Order (Attacking unit) to Stop

It stops any attacks by air units on the HQ when there are no ground units owned by attacking players in range.
Or you can use the Command Aura trick to reduce all the damage done by air units to 0 and then remove the aura when there are attacking-player-owned ground units in range.

 

[Lord Siler]

@Blake8

Still not ready to admit that my idea regarding modifying the HQ armor is likely the best as well as most practical solution?

 

[Blake8]

Ok I'll admit it was ONE of the top idea, however that other idea of having the HQ building produce units that basically cast big bad voodoo on the HQ is pretty good as well

 

[Lord Siler]

It require more work and the air raiders can still damage the HQ if they simply get rid of these units...its much less practical also

 

[Blake8]

Look man, I'll look at a few other good idea, if its really the best one we'll go with it

 

[Lord Siler]

Alright, I'll let you know if I come up with any good ideas

 

[Blake8]

It require more work and the air raiders can still damage the HQ if they simply get rid of these units...its much less practical also

It does have its flaws, but it was a unique solution that's why I liked it

 

[Lord Siler]

It's unique but you'll have to do lots of technical work to make it work right, plus how are you gonna make sure it only targets the HQ and not all the other things around it?

 

[Apostle]

The aerial raiders will simply destroy the units casting the invulnerability shield and proceed to destroy the HQ, it's not a hard counter for an air raid, it's more it makes a successful air raid more difficult but not impossible to accomplish