Specifications:

• Dimensions: 192x256
  
• Tileset: Desert (ended up regretting this choice, it's so bright)
  
• Players: 1-4
  
• Genre: Extended Melee (for Homeworld Commander) & Tactical Warfare (for the three mercenaries)
  
• Size: 237 KB
  
• SC Version: Version 1.16.1 (0.14) / Remastered Only (with new ramps) (1.00)
  
• Current Map Version: 0.14 / 1.00
  
• Special Thanks to C(a)HeK for making version 0.14 compatible with SCBW v1.16.1

Description:
This is intended to be a spiritual successor to the original Mercenaries map by Blizzard, but in practice the gameplay feels completely different because of all the changes I made. Players consist of two forces which are allied: the Homeworld Commander (1 player) whose gameplay is much more similar to the players in the original Mercenaries map, and the Mercenaries (up to 3 players) whose gameplay is more tactical in nature, having limited resources and unit choices available to them, but with a greater capacity for upgrades (up to 10) and select heroes available. The Homeworld Commander functions as the backbone of the team, being responsible for base building, expansion, and the majority of army building. The players face up against three computers, one of each race with large pre-placed bases and basic AI scripts and repeating scripted attacks of increasing difficulty. Attack waves increase in size according to number of players in game. There are two difficulty settings Easy and Hard. Easy mode uses Expansion Campaign Difficult scripts, less frequent scripted attacks, and no scripted retaliatory attacks for base destruction. Hard mode use Expansion Campaign Insane scripts, twice as frequent scripted attacks, and killing pretty much any base structure will result in retaliation by the offended computer.

Gameplay:

• As homeworld commander choose a special unit which when produced always turns into its heroic variant. Eight total possible heroic unit choices with four random ones being offered as choices each game
  
• As a mercenary choose one of twelve heroes which all have some EUD edits to make them more special, and each hero has an army selection of 12 unit(s) for purchase
  
• Mercenaries have limited mining capacity with only 4 mineral nodes and 1 geyser available to them. Additional miners cost 400 ore (purchased by building a nexus in the mining area)
  
• Mercenary heroes hp, shields and energy can be restored to full by building a pylon in the mining area; these take time to build, so don't expect it to pull you out of a pinch
  
• Mercenaries may use their scanner sweep to recall their men back to the base, this is great in a pinch
  
• Mercenary heroes will automatically revive at the cost of 1000 ore and 500 gas
  
• Two selectable difficulty modes: easy and hard; homeworld commander will be given the option to select by default, but if he is not present, one of the mercenaries will get the choice instead
  
• Easy mode should be beatable by pretty much anyone who has the patience to get through the map, hard mode I'm not skilled enough to beat

Screenshots:

Version 1.00 Map Image (Remastered Only):


Version 0.14 Map Image (Version 1.16.1 Compatible):


Starting out as Homeworld Commander in 1.16.1:


The Elite Battlecruiser:


Gameplay Video (special thanks to DK):



Download:

DOWNLOAD VERSION 1.00 (REMASTERED ONLY) HERE!

DOWNLOAD VERSION 0.14 (VERSION 1.16.1) HERE!

PLEASE NOTE: EUD Enabler is required to allow this map to work in SCBW v1.16.1. Anyone who downloaded version 0.14 before approximately 7PM EST on 6/29/2020 should re-download for proper compatibility. There was an issue with my version of euddraft being too new and causing problems with the previously uploaded version.

Special Thanks to C(a)HeK for making version 0.14 compatible with SCBW v1.16.1!

Map Specifics:

• Homeworld commander is always terran with one free expansion area in the main base as well as a nearby expansion available for taking (starts out occupied by zerg enemy)
  
• Homeworld commander may choose between the following elite units: marine, firebat, ghost, vulture, siege tank, goliath, BC, science vessel. Some of these have EUD edits, so they aren't always exactly what you might expect. Notable examples: elite ghost does normal damage instead of concussive, elite science vessel has an entirely different ability set (feedback, plague, broodling, psionic storm)
  
• Protect the Power Generator at the heart of the player base, if this dies, the game ends in defeat
  
• The Protoss and Zerg bases have Psi Disrupters near the back owned by the Terran player. Destroying these Psi Disrupters will cause the respective computer player to unally their allies. Due to the positioning of the Psi Disrupters, they don't practically come into gameplay often, but it's there as a feature, so someone might find a way to use it to their advantage
  
• Each enemy race has a spawning building in the heart of their base (Overmind for Zerg, Ion Cannon for Terran and Warp Gate for Protoss) which when destroyed will stop enemy spawned timed attacks as well as retaliatory attacks. Any attacks generated by AI scripts will still happen
  
• Players may donate resources to needy allies via the flags in the bottom of the player base
  
• All mercenary heroes as well as elite units have health regeneration. All mercenary heroes also function as detectors and generally have +1 or 2 to their base attack range and sometimes decreased weapon cooldown speeds
  
• All mercenary heroes have a scanner sweep located in the heart of the player base, these scanners also have the ability to recall which can be very handy (almost necessary for some heroes)
  
• Tom Kazansky hero focuses on Terran air units with modifications to his hero unit to extend his vision range and attack
  
• Stukov hero (placed in Hyperion BC) focuses on Terran mech units with modifications to his hero unit to add D Matrix, Restoration and Feedback to his abilities
  
• Jim Raynor hero (placed in modified Stukov shell) focuses on Terran infantry units with modifications to his unit to give him a gauss rifle as well as his abilities changed to Stim Packs, Dark Swarm, Spawn Broodlings and Nuke. Has ability to buy defilers to further support his infantry army
  
• Sarah Kerrigan hero focuses on long ranged killing with modifications to her hero unit to greatly extend her attack range (to 8) as well as add Psionic Storm and Feedback to her abilities. Has ability to buy arbiters to support the stealth of her army
  
• Infested Duran hero hybridizes a terran and zerg army giving a more unique army composition. His hero unit has modifications resulting in his end ability setting being: Stim Packs, Cloak, EMP Shockwave and Nuke
  
• Infested Kerrigan hero focuses on all zerg army with the ability to buy medics to heal her army. She is one of the less modified hero choices
  
• Unclean One hero mostly focuses on a zerg army, but has the ability to purchase arbiters resulting in some interesting potential for perma-cloaking burrowable units and being able to cloak long range artillery units like the guardian. Hero unit abilities remain the same
  
• Zeratul hero has powerful anti-ground and anti-air units being the only hero able to purchase the elite corsair (which has the added ability to cast EMP Shockwave) and is one of only two heroes who has access to elite dragoons
  
• Tassadar hero focuses on the might of the templar while also having access to elite scouts for air support. His hero unit has abilities modified to include disruption web and maelstrom
  
• Artanis hero (placed in an uncloaked DT with spellcasting abilities) focuses on Protoss infantry with his hero having the ability to cast feedback, mind control, maelstrom, and psionic storm
  
• Aldaris hero (placed in a permanently cloaked scout) focuses on general Protoss armies with access to several high end elite protoss units
  
• Danimoth hero has the greatest variety in army selection, having access to units from all three races giving him the potential to pursue many different combat strategies. His hero unit has disruption web and EMP shockwave added to its abilities

Final Notes:
Overall if I made this map from scratch, I would do a few things differently. Primary changes would be the choice of tileset as well as the map dimensions (I realized in the play-testing phase that vertical maps are inferior to horizontal ones because of the dimensions of screens and StarCraft leaning towards the longer side being the horizontal one). I'd also probably put the player base more in the center of the computers rather than off to one edge. I might also change the dynamic of the Mercenaries compared to the Homeworld Commander as many players seemed to feel the discrepancies between them made the mercenaries feel inferior to the Homeworld Commander. That being said, the gameplay can still be enjoyable, and hard mode presents a very real challenge to the players, one that I haven't managed to beat yet (my melee skills are noob, so this isn't saying a ton). If anyone has any small changes to request for gameplay, I might be up for it, but I'm not up for making any major changes to the project at this point.


Update 2/9/2024: SaviorSword pointed out that there was a bug with Zeratul's Elite Dragoon unit selection only giving 1 unit instead of 2, this has been corrected. Price of Elite Marines for Jim Raynor and Infested Duran heroes has been increased from 100 minerals each to 150. Version number advanced to 1.00. I don't anticipate any future updates on this project unless any other major bugs are reported.

Post has been edited 12 time(s), last time on Feb 10 2024, 1:39 am by Ultraviolet.

Greetings, will you make 1.16 version?

Hey, thanks for your interest. I did consider it after your request, but looking at the map, the amount of work that would go into re-structuring the terrain to be 1.16 compatible would not be worth it to me. Here's an image to illustrate all the ramps that would have to be modified:




One thing that I think could work if you were interested in trying it out, but don't want to purchase SC: Remastered is using the current version of StarCraft, but use the free to play non-Remastered version. This should still be compatible with the new ramps.

Edit: Also, if you were personally interested in making the necessary modifications to the terrain for the map to be 1.16 compatible, I'd be happy to share the source files with you.

Look screenshoot please. I can't open your map. Maybe do you know?

I just sent you a PM with the source files that are modifiable.

Any planned updates on this for balance changes and whatnot? If not, I am ready to try this out on my own and showcase it.

I have no particular balance updates in mind. I'm open to making small changes like these if folks play and complain that certain units are too imbalanced, but from my play tests, it seems like nothing is so imbalanced as to ruin the gameplay. I tried to follow a general formula (with some exceptions) for buffing heroes in regards to their normal counterparts, so everything should be at least semi-balanced. I'd be interested to hear about your experience after you play

Updated original post to include link to version 0.14 (thanks to C(a)HeK for updating!) which is compatible with earlier versions of SCBW. Map images for both 0.13 and 0.14 are displayed to show terrain differences. The changes are very slight, C(a)HeK stayed faithful to the original design, but I imagine his version may be slightly more prone to CPU unit clogging since pre-remastered ramps weren't quite as wide and versatile.

Hey man, I just checked out your gameplay video on YouTube, it was really fun watching you play. Thanks for posting! For anyone who wants a preview of what gameplay is like being on the Mercenary squad, please check out DK's video:

It seems the links of EUD Enabler are down, do you know where I can download the latest version of this software ?

The link found in Farty's thread still works for me. Make sure you have a program capable of opening .7z files (I use ALZip's free trial software, I'm sure there's others that work just as well or better too). Also make sure your browser doesn't automatically delete the file, I got a warning from Chrome that the file was not downloaded very frequently and might be dangerous (but it's not). You can also avoid all that hassle by simply playing the map on the current version of SC which is free to play.