Here's a new project I've been working on lately. Notoriously, the original "Enslavers" had several flaws, including monotonous gameplay, time-consuming objectives, improperly displayed transmissions and misused AI scripts. With this Special Edition I've tried to address these issues. Please note that this in not a remake nor a reboot, it's a reworking of "Enslavers" aimed at fixing some bugs, improving the gameplay and expanding the story, all of this while retaining its original spirit. The maps are basically the same, with more or less evident changes in aesthetics and functionality, but a new mission has been added, so to make the two plot branches symmetrical. The original storyline has been expanded, and contains some references to one of my previous works, "Tales of Halcyon", which was an unofficial prequel to "Enslavers". For the complete list of changes, see the included documentation.


THE STORY

In the early days of the Terran Dominion, Alpha Squadron was dispatched on a secret mission to an undisclosed Outer Colony where an emergency had arisen: four months after having wreaked havoc on the fringe world of Halcyon, where he narrowly escaped capture by the Confederates, and after having been hidden who knows where, the infamous smuggler Alan Schezar and his personal militia had turned up again. Willing to carry out Emperor Mengsk's directive to imprison or eliminate any outlaw who acted against Dominion laws, Alpha Squadron reached their destination and began their hunt for Schezar, unaware of his true power and intentions.


Download "Enslavers Special Edition":
http://www.mediafire.com/file/i4emgwq0kie10vs/Enslavers_SE.zip/file (5.9 MB)


IMPORTANT NOTE: This campaign was designed to be played with the original StarCraft patched to version 1.04 or later. While it is technically possible to play these maps with Brood War, this is considered cheating: the original Enslavers was created for StarCraft, so the extra units and technologies would alter the gameplay, making some of the missions much easier. If you have Brood War, please play "Enslavers Special Edition" in StarCraft mode.

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on May 14 2020, 12:38 am by Andrea Rosa.

Hey Andrea, I really love to start enjoying your Enslaver Special Edition. But I have some problem with the first mission. I remember few years ago when I start to play this kind of campaign, I insert the Brood War CD instead of the original Starcraft CD.

The first level, I got some troubling how to spend some resources to make more Siege Tanks and Goliath. There were few minerals spots were getting low (which I found the additional resources from the top right) which is hard to build an army, I waste some of them because of the enemy are harassing my Bunkers and Missile Turrets which guarded with couples of Supply Depots. When I took out of Zerg Purple base, I placed a Command Center and then I'm almost low on resources to build more armies of Marines, Siege Tanks, and Goliath. Or probably I'm to slow to rush on the paste on the Veteran Campaign.

What step did I do wrong?

Thank You.

You are playing correctly, I suppose. If you find too few resources when you arrive at the Purple Zerg base, then you probably need to speed up your gameplay (this will become crucial in the following missions, since nearly all resource nodes are under enemy control). In any case, this shouldn't be a big problem, because there's an additional mineral field located just west of the Purple Zerg base.

You may be interested to know that a new version with slightly reduced difficulty is now available. You can download it at the same link.

Oh, and thanks for playing!

A new version with reduced difficulty is available. These are the changes:

Mission 1
- Most of the triggered attacks have been removed.

Mission 2
- The attack waves are much easier. They only contain Zerglings and Defilers, at wider intervals.
- The attack waves now come from two Nydus Canals.
- If the Player attemps to destroy the Nydus Canals too early by using Kazansky, the Orange Zerg will retaliate with Guardians.
- To avoid confusion, all small mineral clusters have been removed, except for the one located near the Refinery.

Mission 3a
- The AI for the nuclear strikes starts later.
- Battlecruisers attack less frequently.

Mission 3b
- Battlecruisers attack less frequently.

Hey Andrea,

I'd like to try your modified Enslavers, but before I do...
As far as the status of this project, is it finalized or do you have some more tweaks in mind?

Andrea your campaigns are some of the best. I really enjoyed Voices of the Swarm and found the new mission in this one to be a good addition.
The difficulty I found was a bit ridiculous, although I have not yet tried the reduced difficulty update yet.
My issue is mostly the lack of available resources, just as I am about to break out from my base it seems I run dry. Smaller raids result in a steady stream of AI units responding and costing me more resources.

I'm looking forward to trying the update, and to see what you're working on next.

MINOR UPDATE - I have increased the volume of Schezar's evil laugh in Mission 4a/4b because it was too quiet.

This should be the final version (unless some bugs are reported)



Thanks for your appreciation! Yes, the old version was really too much difficult (especially Mission 2), I hope you'll find the new one more manageable.

The campaign has been updated according to feedback received from Eredalis on CampaignCreations.org

In Mission 3a, the yellow Command Centers are surrounded by Missile Turrets, just like the Stasis Cells in Mission 3b; however, contrary to Mission 3b, these turrets are not invincible and will not automatically explode after the related Command Center has been destroyed. The AI for the Red Terrans starts later (as a consequence, Battlecruisers appear later as well). The building time for Nukes has been increased to 150 seconds, thus the nuclear strikes happen less frequently. Both the brown and orange expansions contain 1000 additional minerals and 500 additional gas (this change also applies to Mission 3b).

I have also restored some of the triggered attack waves that were removed from Mission 1.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Apr 5 2020, 4:40 pm by Andrea Rosa.

UPDATE


Mission 2

- The layout of the Brown Terran base has been slightly changed. Hopefully this will fix a bug that could cause an abnormal production of units and buildings by the Brown Terrans if the campaign is played with StarCraft Remastered (I say "hopefully" because I don't have StarCraft Remastered, so I can't test the campaign with it).
- Fixed a bug that caused the respawning Hydralisks protecting the Cerebrate to behave in a very strange manner.
- Modified the trigger that keeps in check the number of the above mentioned respawning Hydralisks: the number has been strongly reduced, thus averting the risk of error messages.


Again, many thanks to Eredalis at CampaignCreations.org for spotting these nasty bugs.

MINOR UPDATE

Fixed a glitch in Mission 2 that could hinder the detection of the rescued Protoss units when the Player brings them back to his base.

How to breathe new life into an old classic. Andrea has taken Enslavers, basically a tutorial campaign affected by various problems, and has turned it into a full-fledged, highly playable product. Recorded voice-overs are the only things that are missing, but I guess not everyone is able to mimic Mengsk's voice, so it's ok. All the quirks that made Enslavers rather tedious and long-winded are gone, so, for example, you no longer need to hunt down every single Spore Colony or Missile Turret to beat a mission. But this is hardly all. A lot of work went into the detail here, with aesthetically revised terrain, many additions and new gameplay dynamics. The plot has been expanded to include more dialogues and meaningful endings, giving you 200% of the story of the original campaign while also enhancing the connection to the events in Tales of Halcyon, which was already an excellent prequel by itself. Overall, the difficulty has gone up a bit, but if you can beat the original Enslavers, then you should be able to beat this special edition too (free hint: save often!)

As per Andrea's habits, all work was done with Staredit, despite Blizzard's questionable decision to disown their own property editor in favor of third-party software. I have a deep respect for people who stick to their own principles regardless of what others might say, as long as they get the job done. Now excuse me, I'm off to play it again!

UPDATE


Mission 3B

- Fixed a bug related to the Terran technologies available in the optional objective (again, thanks to Eredalis for reporting this problem)

Hello Andrea, this is first gameplay of Enslaver: Special Edition what I'm talking about. Last month, I forgot to upload this video to show you one my stressful gameplay on mission 1. I'm not really the best starcraft player to play on difficult, but feel free to comment on my video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hli0oj6pYCU

I will watch your video and I will leave my comments on your YouTube channel. Since you recorded it one month ago, I suppose it's the old version. Make sure to re-download the campaign, because it has been updated several times with various bug fixes. Cheers!

UPDATE


ALL MISSIONS

- Auto-centering function for "End of Briefing" (mainly for those who have StarCraft Remastered).


MISSION 4A "ASSAULT ON AIUR" / MISSION 4B "THE FINAL BLOW"

- The "Thank You" text is now yellow colored

I have 3 questions.

1) Will you change Dark Vegneance?
2) I think you need delete BW units (medics, dark archons and etc.) from 1 episode, because it was in the original, but not Brood War. What do you think?
3) Why did you delete short description in missions?

additionally
>NOTE: This campaign has not been tested under StarCraft Remastered.
Maybe do you change this message? DK made it.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 12 2020, 4:37 pm by C(a)HeK.

1) Maybe in the future, but I'm not sure.
2) If I disable Brood War units then the maps must be saved as SCX: this means that the campaign will no longer be compatible with the original StarCraft, and that would be nonsensical. The original Enslavers was made before BW, and the Special Edition follows the same principle. This means that if you want to play it with BW, you can, it's just not the right way to play it.
3) I don't like the short descriptions, in my opinion they are useless. Moreover I needed that space to write that the campaign was originally made by Blizzard in 1998 and reworked by me in 2020. I used the same criterion in Tales of Halcyon and Voices of the Swarm, and I like to maintain consistency in my works.


Yes, DK played it with Remastered, but I didn't. I am the one who released these modified maps, and I cannot rely on others for what is my responsibility, because it wouldn't be professional.

You are the only one man who I know who play original SC. Why? Why not BW?


When do you want play SCR if you play original SC?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 13 2020, 4:47 pm by C(a)HeK.

I do play BW. However I only have the original StarCraft installed on the old PC that I use for map creation (it's a P4 that runs Win98 and is no longer connected to the Internet). I had a cracked version of Brood War on that PC till 2014, but I deleted it because it had no in-game music and no cinematics. Of course I have StarCraft + Brood War on my laptop (the computer I use to connect to the Internet), but I can't use the laptop for creating maps, it's not comfortable and the LCD display hurts my eyes after a while.


I'm not interested in buying StarCraft Remastered.