Unique battles

[Blake8]

I was thinking about creating a map for my campaign the player as well as the enemy can only use air units to attack eachother...basically you are on an island on one side of the map and your enemy or enemies sit on another island or islands...the enemy has flying units hoovering above various places around the islands ready to defend himself....its up to you to create your own flying army to destroy the air units and eventually the enemies's structures

Essentially all you can train in this mission is air units...

What do you guys think?

 

[LordDz]

Sounds cool, kinda like Rexxars orc campaign where you could only hire boats in one mission.

 

[Duke]

Having just air units might be a little plain. You could add some other things tho to make it interesting, such as thick fog randomly appearing and weakening the units or smthing like that.

 

[Blake8]

some good ideas

 

[cleavinghammer]

Problem might be having too much freedom, especially given the difficulties the AI has with flyers.

Special units like paratroopers and mounted land units (to take objectives), bombers (clear out land units/buildings), stealth flyers, etc.

 

[Blake8]

I'm thinking you get a mix of available units

1. (prototype 1) [all purpose flying unit]
300hp
3 armor
light armor
2 food
15 - 25 damage per hit
piercing attack
300 range
1.7 cooldown time
attacks both air and land units

2. (prototype 2) [anti-air flying unit]
600hp
4 armor
light armor
3 food
18 - 33 damage
piercing attack
425 range
1.35 cooldown time
attack only air unit

3. (prototype 3) [anti-structure flying unit]
900 hp
6 armor
light armor (maybe something else if unit is mechanical or etc.)
5 food
50 -75 damage per hit
siege attack
100 - 250 range
2.2 cooldown time
attacks only ground units

something like this...and maybe get the enemy a gilneas airship or something that may act like a boss unit

 

[Razorfang]

Let me guess Blake, watching that skycrawlers film has inspired you to make a map like this?

Regardless I kinda like this idea, but the battle has to be intense in order to be fun and exciting to play

 

[Razorfang]

Use those modified phoenixes as heavy bombers, read my post in ur profile

 

[Blake8]

Let me guess Blake, watching that skycrawlers film has inspired you to make a map like this?

Regardless I kinda like this idea, but the battle has to be intense in order to be fun and exciting to play

Yes, it was the movie that inspired me to think about this idea

also idk about phoenixes as heavy bombers...their attack is too damn strong, maybe if they were made to cost like 6 food...otherwise they may be too op

 

[Razorfang]

Also check this out: Skyfire Gunship

 

[Blake8]

Thanks, I'll look into it,

also pm me when you're free

 

[Blake8]

Any suggestions on how to pan the camera and make the fog so that the map seems more realistic and exciting ?

 

[cleavinghammer]

Here's a fog tutorial.

 

[Razorfang]

Look at various campaigns on youtube if you don't have the time to play them, WOS has som air battle if you want to check that out

 

[Lord Siler]

I would suggest that you have 1 heavy bomber that you are supposed to keep alive for the whole duration of the mission and can build up to 25-30 medium type aircrafts to destroy your enemies, that way the player will not spam bombers, which will make the battle too easy. Also for the map, make it mountainous terrain with a large river or small sea somwhere such that it looks realistic. My other suggestion is to limit the amount of structures the player can build so it doesnt end up that the player has 30 or 40 towers protecting his base

 

[Lord Siler]

I'm thinking you get a mix of available units



3. (prototype 3) [anti-structure flying unit]
900 hp
6 armor
light armor (maybe something else if unit is mechanical or etc.)
5 food
50 -75 damage per hit
siege attack
100 - 250 range
2.2 cooldown time
attacks only ground units

something like this...and maybe get the enemy a gilneas airship or something that may act like a boss unit

Make the bomber more heavier and damage resistant but limit the amount of these that can be built to 1 or 2, it will make the map more challenging as the player will have to take a priority in protecting the bombers.

Here are some suggestions for the units

Airship | HIVE

Dwarven Multi Purpose Airship

 

[Cuore]

To the OP, Blake8
I remember a map that implements something similar to what you intend, but it is for starcraft 2: it's one of the maps from the custom campaign Aureolin Eclipse (the 6th map iirc) made by Eivindl.
You check it out and see if it can help you developing yours.

 

[Lord Siler]

Look at various campaigns on youtube if you don't have the time to play them, WOS has som air battle if you want to check that out

If Im not mistaken wos has one air battle, it's essentially where you're trying to take down the black dream along with your tribe allies, it's really nothing like Blake wants. I believe it's one of the last mission of book 5, if you wanna see.

 

[Colonel Aster]

If Im not mistaken wos has one air battle, it's essentially where you're trying to take down the black dream along with your tribe allies, it's really nothing like Blake wants. I believe it's one of the last mission of book 5, if you wanna see.

Im almost 100% positive that your right, WOS doesn't have any air battles, atleast not what Blake had in mind

 

[Colonel Aster]

WOS has a mission called siege of redmont, now it's not an air combat mission or anything of the sorts, but like halfway through it you get a reinforcement of an airship (their flagship) which is very strong and can really change the tides of battle, in in this case you could do essentially the same thing, starts off with no heavy gunships and then at a certain point give the player one which he cannot lose. Pretyy much the same thing Siler said, only the player doesnt have control of the ship the enttire duration of the fight

 

[Blake8]

Yes from what I remember it was only one map, you're essentially trying to destroy all the barges connected to the main ship in order to board it, and the map mechanic was not at all what I had in mind

 

[cleavinghammer]

Maybe you could design it like a melee map, with islands analog to green/orange/red creep camps. The green camps are those you don't need any particular abilities to beat, the oranges are tougher (for example, with a few Aerial Shackles casters and an anti-air tower or two), and the reds are swarming with anti-air defenses that need special units like bombers, drop troops and casters. Then add some patrols between camps.

Maybe something like captureable objectivs that give map-wide bonuses, but take some effort to obtain.

 

[Lord Siler]

That may not be a bad idea, make each base specified, with particular things it is strong against and things its weak against

 

[Grey.Knight]

Just create a bunch of small enemy bases on a map and a main enemy base, every time you destroy a small base you get some sort of resource, for instance you could could unlock an upgrade with every base you defeat, so that at first attacking the main base is impossible but after defeating all the other bases and gaining all the necassary upgrades its quite doable if not easy. . . Just my 2 cents

 

[Lord Siler]

@Grey.Knight

That's an excellent idea, I finally came out with a rough map of the level

 

[cleavinghammer]

Seems a bit empty, you should add some more small bases or creeps.

 

[Lord Siler]

@cleavinghammer

That's just a very basic layout there will be much more, the map gives very little details

All the smaller details will be put into place once the mapping process starts

 

[Razorfang]

@ grey.knight That's a very nice concept, I think Blake will like it

 

[Lord Siler]

I've just gotten a pretty good idea, let's say the main base (the one in the northeastern corner) is guarded by heavy towers which cannot be destroyed by your regular units, however once all the other bases are destroyed the enemy sends a heavy bomber-type ship to whip out your main base, once you destroy this bomber it drops an item which unlocks research that allows you to use the same weapons technology as the bomber and this weapon can really harm the towers, in my mind this weapon would be an ability like modified acid bomb which damages buildings heavily (has the buff of liquid fire) and slows their attack rate, (but can be used on buildings only)

 

[cleavinghammer]

Or capturing the bomber itself, and using it against the towers.

 

[Lord Siler]

Here is a rough prototype of the terrain (topography) of the map, open in worldeditor only

 

[Blake8]

nice, but I imagined the map to be much bigger, like 224 by 256 or so, I think this would give the player the feeling of the open space over which he has to fight

 

[Lord Siler]

@Blake8

yea, you're right,

the camera may also need to be fixed (to be further away) to give a player that feeling

On another note I watched that ra2 mission you mentioned and indeed this is a good template for a finale

 

[Blake8]

regarding the third statement: the long map prevents any form of quick victory through rushing, but one problem we have is that the player may spam air units and attempt to destroy the enemy base using these

 

[Lord Siler]

There are a number of solutions to this problem,

partial solutions are solutions that reduce the chance of this scenario (player spamming air units and destroying the final base with them) occuring, full solutions are solutions that prevent this scenario from occurring at all

Partial solutions

1 give the player weak air units that wont inflict significant damage upon buildings
2 create a large amount of anti air towers and/or units surrounding the main enemy base so that it would be extremely hard to destroy it with air units
3 give the enemy a special tower that deals with air units very effectively
4 limit the number of air units a player can build

full solutions

1 don't give player access to air units during this mission (this can lower the gameplay quality though)
2 give all air units a magic type attack and make sure the enemy's main base is magic immune
3 make all air unit available to player anti-air only (cannot attack ground units)
4 create a special effect (spell etc.) around the enemy base (such as cloud) that prevents the players air unit from attacking the base (you would have to modify the cloud ability and have a dummy re-cast it every 30 seconds or so to have this work or you can make it permanent by putting the duration to 0)
5 make the enemy's main base buildings have special armor which cannot be damaged by air units (modify normal armor and make it invulnerable to magic and piercing and whatever else your air units attack type is)
6 make the enemy's main building use some sort of invulnerable shield on itself every time a flying unit approaches
7 call jack reacher

 

[Blake8]

I'd definitely go with solution #7, but on a serious note solution #5 looks like the best option

 

[Lord Siler]

btw in that mission ra2 though, you could nuke the building twice and you've won, where's the challenge in that?

 

[Blake8]

3 times, not 2

a nuke does 5000 damage, but concrete armor reduce to 8%

5000 * .08 = 400

it has 1000 hp, so 3 times

and it takes you atleast 10 minutes to build the nuke and you gotta defend it for 30 more since it takes 10 minutes for it to prepare a missile

so atleast 40 minutes total, but I dont want this type of thing in my mission

 

[Lord Siler]

2 times

Either your calculations are wrong or it doesnt have 1000hp, check out the walk-through by Martinoz if you dont believe me, he nuked it twice and it was gone, so its 30 not 40 min total

 

[Blake8]

looks like youre right, idk maybe like 800 hp or so, because its right about at the 50% heath mark when he nukes it the first time

 

[Lord Siler]

yea, I watched several playthroughs of that mission, its interesting how people have different strategies to beat it

 

[Blake8]

didn't realize there were so many playthoughs

 

[Lord Siler]

me either, til I started looking for them

 

[Blake8]

well let me know if you come up with any other reasonable alternatives

 

[Lord Siler]

#5 is your best bet, because its really the only one which would fit your very stringent demands

 

[Lord Siler]

you could also modify the cloud ability to prevent air units from attacking only the main building, (just give the cloud a small radius)

 

[Blake8]

@Siler, btw i checked that mission out, the building has a default hp of 1000, but they changed it to 800 in that mission(so it can be wiped out by 2 nuke strikes), also it can normally be occupied but they changed that too and instead it looks like people are shooting at you from within when you come close to it, I guess they were trying to give you a number of options in how you destroy it and not make it too hard

 

[Apostle]

I just tried playing the 3rd map youve send me and here's what I think
-awful mission; very frustrating and not fun
-knight units too op
-viper unit is pointless
-whats the point of having to defend against air attacks for 40 minutes?
-nice terraining
-good amount of dialogue
-good amount of available resources
-nice hero
-great abilities