[Campaign] Timed City Defense & Escort Mission

[Dagomar]

I'm trying to make a map which would be part of a 'campaign' with said campaign serving as a way of tying together different maps I make. The map is set in the days/weeks/months just after the end of the Warcraft III Human campaign which shows what happens to the people of Lordaeron - trying to hold off the undead, retreating to allied lands etc. However a basic city defence and an escort mission feels like it'd be too straight forward and boring so I wondered if anyone has any ideas on how to spice things up.

 

[Wark]

Are you thinking about something along the lines of a "hub" map? Like, something that brings different regions together?

 

[Dagomar]

Ah not quite. I just realised how my first post reads, I'll edit so it's clearer. What I meant was, the campaign would tie all the different maps together into one story. A hub type map could be cool as well though. Or it just occurred to me that you could have a sort of caravan of people that follows the action throughout the story and gets upgraded as it goes along. Sort of like the craftsmen in Diablo III. Rescuing certain characters on previous maps could provide access to new vendors or troop types from within the caravan.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Escort mission: Bringing Terenas' ashes (in a cart) to Uther for safekeeping, with Undead trying to steal the cart.
* Bandits attempt to attack the convoy for ransom.
* Optional quest: The cart contains Terenas' uncremated body, and the side quest involves getting the cart to Uther. If the cart dies, Terenas' ashes are in the urn, making it much easier to transport but failing the quest.


Defense: Civilians are fleeing to a port city then sailing west, you have to ensure as many of them make it to sea alive as possible. Personally, I really don't like timed missions, maybe make it number of people saved or something, and instead of concentrating solely on defense, have some units sent out to escort caravans or something.
Some of the refugees:
* Are carrying the Plague and they start zombifying behind your lines.
* Are disguised acolytes and start building a base.
* Are disguised bandits and will steal your resources.
* Have various types of Doom and will spawn demons if killed.

 

[Dagomar]

These are some good ideas. My original idea was for the escort mission to take place sort of concurrently with the defence mission, where you would have to both defend the town while moving the convoy east and south of the town while picking up more people from the surrounding villages. After getting the convoy to a particular spot they would be moved over to another part of the map and you would then control only the troops in the town who would then have to make their way to safety. Adding the threat of concealed acolytes and refugees infected with the plague would certainly help spice things up and I like the idea of having to transport King Terenas' ashes.

 

[cleavinghammer]

I dunno, that sounds like two separate missions to me as you need to focus your attention on two places at once. Maybe the first part of the mission could be the defense (defend a cathedral until Terenas is properly cremated, with refugees trickling in all the while and sending troops to small villages to get them into your base, which reduces the number of refugees you need to wait for and getting useful units like healers and builders), and the second part is the convoy (get the cart and refugees to safety).

Make the cart controllable (and give some useful auras), and the refugees AI-controlled so that they always stay within a certain radius of the cart.

 

[Trill]

Let city defense and escort happen offscreen (or onscreen, but played by computer, or simply scripted altogether).

Player controls a strike force that makes those things possible.

For example:
Escort mission.
A huge map with a road, undead base and lots of things to do. You have a hero, some troops, no base.
You can
1) Fight some forest trolls to steal their lumber mill and use lumber to build a barricade across a side road, so Undead can't attack there.
2) Sacrifice some soldiers to hide and ambush the Undead that will try to stop the caravan.
3) Fight or sneak by some bandits, steal their loot, and use it to bribe an Ogre Lord to attack Undead base.
4) Liberate some soldiers from gnolls, and either keep them with you, or send them back to town to join the caravan, increasing its chances of success.
5) Fight some kobolds, get gemstones from their cave and trade those gems to a goblin merchant for, I dunno, mechanical orcherstra with fireworks and timed mechanism, which you can set some place away from the road and it will distract the Undead when caravan will be riding by.
6) Clear the murlocks from the lake by the road, so they won't interfere with teh caravan.
7) Find some building stone in the ruins of a village and wall the entrance into a crypt so Undead can't raise a powerful sorcerer whose corpse lies there.
8) Find some healing herbs for an old woodsman to heal his wife, so he is free to go with you and see if any trees by the road are rotten enough to be quickly used to make a roadblock - and remove them.
9) Obviously kill as many undead as possible, especially necromancers and scouts, to reduce enemy force. If you're feeling ballsy you can even trigger goblin orcherstra and Ogre attack right away, and try to burn down the base in the commotion, but that's like extra-hard mode, but an insta-win too.

You have set amount of time, and each thing you do increases caravan's chance of success, and reduces damage it takes, affecting your strength/troops/resources in the following missions.
Afterwards you show a cinematic showing the caravan making its way and how Undead attacks are countered by things you set up.

City defense
Two thirds of a map are wilderness, one third is ruins of the outer city. City citadel it on the cliff, ramp leading there and ruins are occupied by the besieging force. Note that citadel and fighting itself need not even be visible. Once again you have a hero and a limited force. You're invisible in parts of the ruins, allowing you to play a stealth mission if you want. There are some important targets, like trebuchets or powerful wizards.
You can
1) Cut down trees and make roadblocks so enemies can't get reinforcements.
2) Start fires, cause diversion and disrupt the siege camp.
3) Kill enemy sappers digging a tunnel - or let them finish, kill them, and then either use the tunnel to send your warriors to reinforce the city, or use it to call a sortie out to attack the siege camp.
4) Steal explosives from ammo stockpile and destroy the trebuchets.
5) Cause loud diversions in the forest to draw some enemies away from the fighting.
6) Light smoke signals calling down artillery strikes from the city.

And so on.