Galactic Empire

2-4 Player Cooperative Campaign. Play-balanced with 3 difficulty levels.

Each of these scenarios pits a team of players against a team of enemy AIs in a campaign style mission. The players must work together in order to overcome obstacles. The AIs are given many advantages which make these scenarios interesting and difficult.

In each of these scenarios, you begin with a single Dark Archon per player. You must take that Dark Archon to one of the 3 nearby beacons to select the difficulty level for the scenario. The difficulty levels are: 1 Master, 2 Skilled and 3 No Good. Master should challenge 3-4 master players, while Skilled should challenge 2-3 master players or 4 skilled players. No Good is nearly a compstomp.



Once you select the difficulty of the scenario you will be given 3 drones, 3 SCVs and 3 probes and 2000 minerals. You must choose what race or races you are going to play. You have no starting Hatchery, Command Center or Nexus. Your first action should be to build one.



You are also given a You, (Hero Marine) if You dies, you lose.

You also have Ouruuk, (Overlord) he is your means for controlling the zerg. If you lose Ouruuk at any point, all of the Zerg units under your control will turn against you.

You also have Jana, (Ghost) and Kate (Medic). They are nonessential, but nice to have around.



Attached are 4 scenarios from the Galactic Empire Campaign. They are:

2.5 Fallback
2.6 Tribute
2.7 The Thing That Should Not Be
2.8 Until It Sleeps

2.5 Fallback is probably the most difficult of the group because it requires quite a bit of multi-tasking in the first 15 minutes. 2.6 Tribute is probably the most straightforward and easiest to complete. 2.7 The Thing That Should Not Be and 2.8 Until It Sleeps are difficult and the strategy to complete them takes time to figure out, however, I enjoy them more than 2.6 Tribute. Therefore, if you are confident, I recommend you play 2.7 The Thing That Should Not Be first, and 2.8 Until It Sleeps Second. If you are a little less confident in your team, try 2.6 Tribute first.

Specifics about each scenario follow:


2.5 Fallback

IMO the most difficult of the Galactic Empire Series to date.

This is the only scenario with more than 3 difficulty settings. Because the first 15 minutes of this scenario are so tough I included 2 extra difficult settings. These are to be used only if you aren’t coordinated enough to multi-task to get a good start.

This scenario pits you against 4 entrenched Zerg AI.

You will start in the center of the map with your player allies. After a couple minutes zerg will start streaming from the corners of the map. This will seem like a defense map. It is not. You will need to defend the center of the map, but only so that you can establish a new base on the nearby islands. Your base in the center will be overrun. By the time it is overrun you need to have a strong base on an island. The longer you defend the center the stronger base you can build on the island. There are four islands, on per player, visible when you start the scenario.

As with all the Galactic Empire scenarios both strategy and tactics are important. You may have to attempt this scenario several times to learn what strategies and tactics are most effective.


2.6 Tribute

IMO the easiest Galactic Empire scenario to date.

This scenario pits you against 3 entrenched Zerg AI and one spawning Zerg AI.

You will start with your player allies in the Southwest corner of the map. There are enough minerals and gas initially visible for everyone to get a good foothold. But, don’t get too comfortable, this isn’t a money map.

As with all the Galactic Empire scenarios both strategy and tactics are important. You may have to attempt this scenario several times to learn what strategies and tactics are most effective.


2.7 The Thing That Should Not Be

IMO if you are only going to play one Galactic Empire scenario, let it be this one.

This scenario pits you against 3 entrenched Zerg AI and one spawning Zerg AI.

You will start with your player allies in the Southwest corner of the map. There are enough minerals and gas initially visible for everyone to get a good foothold. But, don’t get too comfortable, this isn’t a money map.

One of the difficulties of this scenario is that space is very limited where you start. Use your space wisely and plan to expand.

Another challenge is the everspawning Doom Mutalisk. It will spawn early and regularly throughout the scenario. It is tough and should not be ignored.



As with all the Galactic Empire scenarios both strategy and tactics are important. You may have to attempt this scenario several times to learn what strategies and tactics are most effective.

2.8 Until It Sleeps

This scenario pits you against 3 entrenched Zerg AI and one spawning Zerg AI.

You will start with your player allies in the Southwest corner of the map. There are enough minerals and gas initially visible for everyone to get a good foothold. But, don’t get too comfortable, this isn’t a money map.

In this scenario you control the Doom Mutalisk. However, you only control it while it sleeps. When it’s rage grows too great it will awaken and turn on you. It will fight against you until it sleeps. You might kill the Doom Mutalisk for your safety, but if you do you will not be able to defeat the Invincible that wait for you. You can win without a living Doom Mutalisk, it is just harder.

As with all the Galactic Empire scenarios both strategy and tactics are important. You may have to attempt this scenario several times to learn what strategies and tactics are most effective.

Attachments:

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 20 2009, 2:51 am by GalacticEmpireSaga.

I received a suggestion to add images to my campaign scenario descriptions.

Each scenario begins with difficulty selection. The purpose of the difficulty selection is to allow players of different skill levels to enjoy the scenarios. Also, this allows you to play the scenarios with fewer players. I have conquered each scenario with only two players on "Skilled" skill level. I would be impressed by anyone who could two-man these scenarios on "Master" skill level. Simply bring your Dark Archon to a beacon to select your skill level.



In each scenario you are given three heroes. You is Raynor. Jana is Kerrigan. Ouruuk is a modified Ygasadril. Kate is the Medic, as you know there are no hero medics. Together they are a pretty good early game team. Don't let you die though. That ends the scenario in defeat. Also, don't let Ouruuk die. Ouruuk is your means for controlling your zerg units. If Ouruuk dies, your zerg turn on you.



Also, in each scenario you begin with drones, SCVs and probes. You can play with any or all of the races. I recommend sticking to one.



Lastly, in two of the scenarios there are Doom Mutalisks. They have 12 armor initially. In The Thing That Should Not Be Doom Mutalisks spawn and attack you early and often. Prepare adequately. In Until It Sleeps you control the Doom Mutalisk while it sleeps. When it awakens it turns on you, until it sleeps.

Hey there, this is Krazy from CC. You wanted some feedback, so here we go.

I mostly just played the first mission, although I tried all 4 in singleplayer. I haven't taken them online yet, don't know how that would go.

First, let me ask, do you just use regular staredit? I would suggest picking up Scmdraft2 or X-tra editor. The simple things they add (stacking, text color editing, certain alternate trigggers) really help. I don't know, when you didn't edit the name of the medic I suspected you didn't have the patch that allows you to edit regular unit names.

I'm still impressed with what you've managed to do with what appears to be just staredit. Anyway, here's a list of some thoughts on mission 1:

-Consider adding a countdown timer for when the masses come. Since they seem to come at regular intervals, this would give the player a better sense of what's going on in the map.

-You explain what happens in the map much better here in this thread than you do in the mission briefing. I would try to carry more of that clarity over. The mission briefing (both in the "mission briefing" segment, but also in game when you check f10) should remind you what the victory conditions are, what the defeat conditions are, and a brief sense of what will happen in the map. I somehow missed that Jana and Kate were expendable from the initial segment and was confused when Jana died and I didn't get defeat.

-Obviously, I had no idea what was going on, who these people were, or why we were invading the zerg, but for right now I'm just going to ignore that.

-I would change the names of the lower-difficulty settings. You always know a map is basically going to be impossible when the difficulty settings aren't "difficulties" but instead insults.

-In my second run-through I actually almost survived the hk mass that I presume was the final mass trigger; I still had some buildings left in center and none of the comps seemed to be building very much.

-I sitll don't see the difference between the difficulty levels, since you start with the same amounts on each one and the mass triggers seem about the same.

-I actually felt it was the best of the three mostly because of the similarities to a defense map. The other three I had a harder time getting interested in because they seemed to similar to the "there a zillion zerg and you have to kill them all lololol" maps that there's something like ten billion of floating around the internets.

Thanks for playing these, and thanks for your suggestions. I will reply now, then make changes over the next week, and then try to repost the scenarios incorporating your suggestions.

First, yes, I used only staredit. You can change regular unit's names with staredit, but there is no hero medic unit, so if I were to change the medic's name, then all the medics would be Kate.


I think a countdown timer to the first wave of Zerg would be helpful. The first time I played this with friends they were surprised how early the first wave came. After the first wave they do come regularly, and the later waves hardly end before the next begins. I think a timer for the first wave would be appropriate, but I don't think I'll do any beyond that. Thoughts?


I know what you mean about the clarity of the mission briefing. The difficulty comes because I am trying to keep it a mission briefing within the context of the story (especially because the briefings are where most of the story is actually told) and not turn it into a description of the map, designer to player. I will definitely revisit the briefing though. I think the use of words like "intercardinal" and even "cardinal" may have been more confusing than just saying "corners" and "sides". But I may decide to use North, East South and West. That is more verbose, but more like a briefing and less a scenario description. Do you have any suggestions?

Mission Objectives, okay, I will add details there as well.


The first scenario is mission 2.5 of the war, I have already created 7 scenarios that precede this one. They are not as complete as these ones, so I am not ready to post them yet. I plan to incrementally post them though. Perhaps some time when I have more time I will post a story description that give the context of this Zerg planet campaign, you are not the first person to mention this.


Okay.


Wait, you survived all the waves? Did you get a text message? If you survived all of the masses I am very impressed. What do you mean the AI didn’t seem to be doing much? Did the AI begin or were they off?

You are not supposed to survive the masses. They are supposed to destroy everything in the middle. The point is not to try to survive it, but to survive long enough to build up on the islands. Then, when you lose the middle, you are supposed to use what you built on the islands to take out the Zerg in the middle and everywhere else.


The three harder difficulty levels are all exactly the same for the defense phase of the map. The difficulty level is really only supposed to affect play after the defense phase. The defense phase is meant to be just the initial phase of the map where you are forced to multitask to defend the center. After the initial phase the difficulty level should significantly change the game.

I understand your sentiments about the similarities to ten billion other maps. I guess the real difference is that this one is designed for 2-4 players. Also, I find the geography that I have created strategically interesting. (It is not visually interesting, I readily admit.) But strategically the geography should force you to make some interesting decisions.

Again, thanks for giving these a try. Let me know if you play any of them again.

3-4 waves before the final wave:



In the midst of the final wave:



I did get a text message saying "Impressive."

I did write up a slightly longer resposne but somehow staredit failed to post it; basically build a few cannons with help from heroes; never bother building a CC, use zerg for pure economy and protoss for cannons/economy. Mass cannons for win

As you can see from screenie, my economy was about 25 drones/25 probes before my defeat. I think if I had ever managed to get a second hatch up and gone 35/25 I would have had more than enough cannons to survive the final mass.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 14 2009, 4:11 am by LokiArexon.

I just reloaded 2.5 Fallback with an updated version, incorporating your suggestions. Thanks again.

Wow, you defended it. Really that wasn't supposed to be possible. I am really impressed.