[Release] Battle Royal single map - Dune 2000

[Cm_blast]

I am bringing a new experimental idea as a single map to play. The map it’s called “Battle Royal”, a skirmish type of map (but played as a single campaign map) where the 7 factions face each other to death starting with the classic MCV, 10 units and 10.000 credits. On top of that every side starts the game with some kind of advantages that the other players don’t.

There is a version per side (so 7 maps in total), and the AI it’s prepared to attack each other as well; it’s even possible to see one AI defeating another while the player it’s dealing with their own enemies.

Only the three main houses (Atreides, Harkonnen and Ordos) will start with a tech level of 7 (all weapons available); meanwhile the others will have a lower technology so both Fremen and smuggler can’t build special tanks, palaces or rocket turrets, for example.

This is the list of the three unique advantages every faction starts with:
Atreides: Atr. High Tech Factory + Atreides Palace + Repair pad.
Harkonnen: Heavy Factory + Ix research centre + the 10 initial units are combat/missile/siege tanks.
Ordos: Ordos Palace + 4 Rocket turrets + the initial units are deviators instead combat/siege tanks.
Emperor: Imperial Palace + Barracks + 10 extra initial units.
Fremen: Outpost + Vision on all the initial MCV positions + fast Fremen (unit) reinforcements.
Mercenary: Light Factory + 4 Gun turrets + big constant Deliveries (starport).
Smugglers: Starport + 5000 extra credits + 2 Harvesters.

This isn’t really balanced (I mean may be easy as Atreides and harder as Harkonnen), but overall the game it’s easy. Game may last long since you need to defeat 6 enemies that build fast (although in the long run AIS may kill each other). The AI acts as the practice one, so take the core buildings and he will sell everything.

These images only show the advantages per side, the map was borrowed for an original skirmish map.

Update (Different difficulties added).
Open the spoiler to see the changelog:

Spoiler

I changed the 2 initial carryalls for the Atreides for a Repair Pad since playing as Atreides already have a High-tech factory. If you want carryalls you only need to build them; if not, you still can use the airstrike to help you; but overall the harverster are not going to be slowed by early carryalls.

Also I added two alternative versions from the original idea. This it's intended to give expert and god players the opportunity to play a challenge game instead just the very tamed original concept (also briefings updated).

-Battle Royal (for average players): The two closest enemies now have the player as the initial target. If any of those Ais it's attacked by another AI may not attack or maybe in midway they turn into another enemy, but if there is no other interference at least 2 Ais will focus the player. Also all the AIs has been given a boost of 10.000 extra money to compensate the poor placement of the refineries; This way the AI won't run out of money too soon (but still running out of money).

-Battle Royal Hard (for expert players): The player plus 1 AI will face against the alliance of the other 5 enemies present. By default all the Ais will have the player as his first target, but may change the attack into your ally. All the enemy Ais are given a boost of 20.000 extra money; your ally, on the other hand, starts with only 20.000 credits. Collaborate with your ally, use it as a human shield or let it die; you only loose if the player itself die.

-Battle Royal Nightmare (for master player): The player it's alone to face the other 6 factions. All they start with a 40.000 credits, enough to make all the Ais to have most of the buildings and still don't running out of money. On top of that the Ais on this alternative version have the production of refineries reduced, so they will focus more on running all the other buildings before placing multiple refineries.

aarmaageedoon himself played through the Harkonnen nightmare version, which he thinks it's probably the hardest of all the factions due the initial position and he beat that level; he even said that could be possible to win playing on hard. I don't know if the other 6 maps can be defeated, but I will upload it as I have it now for the moment. If later aarmaageedoon (or any other master player) show here to report a victory or defeat on my maps I'll do/don't changes.

To summarize; the map has three versions:
Battle Royal = For the average player; all against all. Small initial credits advantage to the Ais.
Battle Royal Hard = For advance players; Player + 1 AI vs the other 5. Medium initial credits advantage to enemy Ais.
Battle Royal Nightmare = For expert players; Player against 6 Ally Ais. Big initial advantage credits to enemies Ais. Ais care more about building an army that collect more money.

FILE: (include the alternative maps): 
Battle Royal.rar

Extract and copy the maps on the correct folder. The three alternative versions are there and can be included all in your folder, but everybody it's free to just copy the version/s that you want.

Edited January 26, 2022 by Cm_blast

[Fey]

Hey Cm! This is pretty neat. I'll have a look when I can.

[Cm_blast]

41 minutes ago, Fey said:

Hey Cm! This is pretty neat. I'll have a look when I can.

If you have the skill you can try the hard version too :P. But that version may be not possible to win.

I am tempted to give two 2 Ais an attack building priority, to make at least those Ais to attack the player regularly (but the others still figthing each other) because right now the map it's just too easy. I'll try that, meanwhile the "1 player vs 6 ally Ais" idea it's still going, so feel free to try it and tell me if can be considered "hard, but fun" or "impossible, turn at least 1 AI ally with the player"

 

[Fey]

I'd say you could safely use allies on the maps for certain factions, like mercenaries / smugglers / ordos, atreides / fremen, you know. I dunno about Harkonnen or Imperials though

[Cm_blast]

2 hours ago, Fey said:

I'd say you could safely use allies on the maps for certain factions, like mercenaries / smugglers / ordos, atreides / fremen, you know. I dunno about Harkonnen or Imperials though

For the "normal" version I'll try to play with a couple of Ais more focused on the player (the two more near to the player, for example), but still everyone it's on his own side. Still, the game it's not going to be hard, which I don't mind, but better if the player needs to kill some units while it's buildings the stuff (and not alliances so you can use every trick you want to lure 1 AI to attack another).

For the "hard-challenge" version, directed to very good players, my idea (if fighting against 6 it's impossible) it's to turn one AI ally with the player, but this way: For example, As Atreides you'll have Smuggler as Ally; as Smuggler you have Fremen, as Fremen you have Emperor, As Emperor Harkonnen and so on.

I don't want to use a Mer/smu/Ords vs Atr/Fre vs Har/Emp (or Atr-Fre-Har-Emp together) because Ord-mer have initial turrets, so those AI are not going to need too much help from the player to survive, and the smuggler are tougher than they look: Having 5000 extra credits and 2 initial harversters gives the AI a very good start and building more units than the other AIs. So far Smuggler are winning against the Atreides in my multiple games. 

There are videos of people playing the original practice game 1 vs 7 allied AIs an defeating the game very easily. For that reason I want someone experienced to play the Atreides version I uploaded in the first post (Which I think it's the hardest of all the sides) and tell me if it's possible to beat or not. If not, I'll turn 1 AI ally with the player, which I think it's enough because no that many units will go against the player.

[Fey]

I see! I'll disable my mod and give it a try later today, I think I'll have time.

[Hopachi]

This is a great idea! Thanks for the map.

Will try it out.

[Cm_blast]

I did a small update to the normal version. I make 2 AIs to focus a bit more the player, but with the interference from the other AIs the player still only recieve low attacks, so the game it's still easy (it's not really a big change).

 

[Hopachi]

Free for all is more difficult when human player base is located near center on the map, since AI attack nearest neighbor(s) mostly.

I played the Emperor version, indeed easy but nice, you really have a padishah-emperor-effect; a lot of resources + spice.

NOTE: After a hour or so of gameplay there's this error throwing the game on the desktop: "too many deliveries". Only me, the Ordos and the Smugglers remain on the map; it happened between and after an attack wave, tried to load but repeats at gameticks 140000.

EDIT: error happened on version one, the updated version wasn't tested yet. So if you also changed starport timings, ignore this note.

Edited February 26, 2018 by Hopachi

[Cm_blast]

2 hours ago, Hopachi said:

Free for all is more difficult when human player base is located near center on the map, since AI attack nearest neighbor(s) mostly.

I played the Emperor version, indeed easy but nice, you really have a padishah-emperor-effect; a lot of resources + spice.

NOTE: After a hour or so of gameplay there's this error throwing the game on the desktop: "too many deliveries". Only me, the Ordos and the Smugglers remain on the map; it happened between and after an attack wave, tried to load but repeats at gameticks 140000.

EDIT: error happened on version one, the updated version wasn't tested yet. So if you also changed starport timings, ignore this note.

If you were playing at max speed the Mercenary probably were being too pasive and the deliveries started to accumulate. To make sure that's what happens load the map and use debug mode (if you can) and change the control to mercs. Check how many units he has grouped in his base.

Tell me if he has tons of units, or it was just the Starport placed in a bad spot (not to much room to drop units, or the units are blocked by other buildings/terrain.

Either way sell his Starport and return to your faction; all the current queue deliveries will got discarted and you will have more time to beat the map (Mercs will rebuild the staport, probably in another position).

I fell you had bad luck; I played the 7 sides (before the update, which it's smaller anyway) and the game didn't crashed, although in some game I end the map before 1 hour (normal speed).

Edited February 26, 2018 by Cm_blast

[Hopachi]

11 hours ago, Cm_blast said:

If you were playing at max speed the Mercenary probably were being too pasive and the deliveries started to accumulate. To make sure that's what happens load the map and use debug mode (if you can) and change the control to mercs. Check how many units he has grouped in his base.

Tell me if he has tons of units, or it was just the Starport placed in a bad spot (not to much room to drop units, or the units are blocked by other buildings/terrain.

Either way sell his Starport and return to your faction; all the current queue deliveries will got discarted and you will have more time to beat the map (Mercs will rebuild the staport, probably in another position).

I fell you had bad luck; I played the 7 sides (before the update, which it's smaller anyway) and the game didn't crashed, although in some game I end the map before 1 hour (normal speed).

OK thanks. Will try that.

Well, I always play on normal speed; patience available. 

The Mercenary lost their Con Yard, thanks to my sardaukars, then an Ordos invasion wiped them out of the map; they sold everything quite early since they were in dire straits after many Harkonnen raids. All deliveries were sent out very quickly and the starport was always accessible.

As I said, only Ordos and Smugglers remained on map. If Ordos don't recieve bonus deliveries then must be the Smugglers.
We'll see. I didn't discovered the Ordos starport yet but the Smuggler one was surrounded by units; they kinda jammed their base with bad building placements.

[Cm_blast]

3 hours ago, Hopachi said:

OK thanks. Will try that.

Well, I always play on normal speed; patience available. 

The Mercenary lost their Con Yard, thanks to my sardaukars, then an Ordos invasion wiped them out of the map; they sold everything quite early since they were in dire straits after many Harkonnen raids. All deliveries were sent out very quickly and the starport was always accessible.

As I said, only Ordos and Smugglers remained on map. If Ordos don't recieve bonus deliveries then must be the Smugglers.
We'll see. I didn't discovered the Ordos starport yet but the Smuggler one was surrounded by units; they kinda jammed their base with bad building placements.

My bad, for some reason I read "Only me, the Ordos and the Mercenaries remain on the map".

Only Mercs and Fremen recieves a bonus (a delivery and a reinforcement) while the other just buy their own stuff. The Smuggler base have only one exit, so that'll happen. Just bad luck with the randomness of the AI.

If you want to finish the game then you can still use the debug mode and sell some windtraps for the smuggler or the buildings that are blocking their path, just to let the units jammed to be able to move and avoid the crash.

If for some luck playing as another faction the problem reappear I'll add a second entry/exit in the smugglers area or something like that.

Edited February 27, 2018 by Cm_blast

[Hopachi]

4 hours ago, Cm_blast said:

My bad, for some reason I read "Only me, the Ordos and the Mercenaries remain on the map".

Only Mercs and Fremen recieves a bonus (a delivery and a reinforcement) while the other just buy their own stuff. The Smuggler base have only one exit, so that'll happen. Just bad luck with the randomness of the AI.

If you want to finish the game then you can still use the debug mode and sell some windtraps for the smuggler or the buildings that are blocking their path, just to let the units jammed to be able to move and avoid the crash.

If for some luck playing as another faction the problem reappear I'll add a second entry/exit in the smugglers area or something like that.

I've tried. Still same outcome, same time exactly.

The Smugglers were indeed jammed. I sold a couple of buildings both the starport and even the Ordos starport + palace (seems AI don't use the saboteurs too often since they gather at palace)

I know it's not the palace. AI both rebuild the starports... but still, I can't figure it out yet. Might as wel try the new version; so no big deal for me.

 

[Hopachi]

A side note, for debugging purposes only: as Emperor, I couldn't build any palaces after capturing enemy Con Yards. Must be a sub-house thing. You can get the airstrike from Atreides or Fremen Con Yards though. In any case you really don't need other palaces than the Emperor Palace if you're a sardaukar commander.

I then captured the Harkonnen palace itself, just to make sure, and still don't get the missle available.
 

Edited February 27, 2018 by Hopachi

[Cm_blast]

20 hours ago, Hopachi said:

I've tried. Still same outcome, same time exactly.

The Smugglers were indeed jammed. I sold a couple of buildings both the starport and even the Ordos starport + palace (seems AI don't use the saboteurs too often since they gather at palace)

I know it's not the palace. AI both rebuild the starports... but still, I can't figure it out yet. Might as wel try the new version; so no big deal for me.

 

I don't know. There are only 1 delivery for mercs and 1 reinforcement for Fremen. I forgot to make the Fremen to stop receiving reinforcements when destroyed, but since they "leave" doesn't really matter.

The Ordos sometimes send the saboteurs, but seems the AI uses them as part as the "Guardian units" (patrolling the base, "defending" it). By the time he has enough guardian units he will send some Saboteurs against others. However, since his bases continue to increase, more units are required to full "guard" his buildings, so new saboteurs may patrol the base.

Can you pass me that save game? Maybe I can't load it and try something, but at least tring and find what's happening (if it loads).

Anyway, if you try another faction and the game for some unlucky thing crashes I'll think about adding a second exit to the smugglers or something.

19 hours ago, Hopachi said:

as Emperor, I couldn't build any palaces after capturing enemy Con Yards. Must be a sub-house thing. You can get the airstrike from Atreides or Fremen Con Yards though. In any case you really don't need other palaces than the Emperor Palace if you're a sardaukar commander.

That's because Emperor have a Tech of 6. With a tech of 7 you could build the Harkonnen Palace (when you deploy a MCV) because when deploying one the game "gives you" a Harkonnen CY (so Harkonnen Palace can be builded).

As Emperor having a CY already placed that wouldn't happen, but you couldn't build the High Tech Factory (after deploying one yes).

Edited February 28, 2018 by Cm_blast

[Hopachi]

23 hours ago, Cm_blast said:

I don't know. There are only 1 delivery for mercs and 1 reinforcement for Fremen. I forgot to make the Fremen to stop receiving reinforcements when destroyed, but since they "leave" doesn't really matter.

The Ordos sometimes send the saboteurs, but seems the AI uses them as part as the "Guardian units" (patrolling the base, "defending" it). By the time he has enough guardian units he will send some Saboteurs against others. However, since his bases continue to increase, more units are required to full "guard" his buildings, so new saboteurs may patrol the base.

Can you pass me that save game? Maybe I can't load it and try something, but at least tring and find what's happening (if it loads).

Anyway, if you try another faction and the game for some unlucky thing crashes I'll think about adding a second exit to the smugglers or something.

That's because Emperor have a Tech of 6. With a tech of 7 you could build the Harkonnen Palace (when you deploy a MCV) because when deploying one the game "gives you" a Harkonnen CY (so Harkonnen Palace can be builded).

As Emperor having a CY already placed that wouldn't happen, but you couldn't build the High Tech Factory (after deploying one yes).

Sure, I've added the file(s) here.

Thanks for the explanation, makes sense now: tech level 6.

S0.SAV.zip

[Cm_blast]

3 hours ago, Hopachi said:

Sure, I've added the file(s) here.

Thanks for the explanation, makes sense now: tech level 6.

S0.SAV.zip

Thanks for the savegame.

Ha! I found the culprit. As the original guys, the Fremen once more stealthed to crash the game and... ok, enough metaphors.
But that's the true. The original side that it's making the game to crash are the Fremen.

Yes, the game talk about "too many deliveries", but I did my own test to know what has happening.

Indeed the game crash with the same error as you got. So I tried to make the Ordos leave (crash) and then the smugglers leave (still crash).

then using my own playground map I made the mercenary to recieve lots of deliveries in loop for short timers; use the "leave" command and still nothing. At this point I also notice that the error said "140.000 ticks", but the mercenaries have their deliveries to 11.500, so the times don't match up.

So... what about the Fremen?
I made the fremen to recieve plenty of reinforcements and make them leave after a few seconds aaaaaaand that's it. The game crash with the "too many deliveries".

Seems that carryalls, even for sides that already leave still appears on the game (or they are counted for the game) so with too much stuff the game crash.

So thank you again for the save. I am going to add a "base NOT destroyed" event to the Fremen reinforcements, so once they leave the game those reinforcements are cut off from the game, preventing more crashes.

First post updated with the fix!

[Hopachi]

Glad I could help.

Nice work!

[Fey]

Hey Cm! I tested the hard mode map. Without my mod in place, of course.

Despite turtling up very well, massing Combat Tanks very quickly, protecting the Harvesters, etc., it seems a liiiiittle too hard. Maybe if I went for one of the AIs and murdered the crap out of it ASAP on the map, it would have turned out better, but I played it blind so I didn't know where all the AIs are or what I'd be up against. I think that idea you had of having one AI be friendly for each side would be really nice! I could see doing this map pretty reasonably well as long as those Fremen helped me out, but all versus one was just unfair.

The normal version played out very nicely, without incident. And, even in the rigged version with all versus one, the AI unit compositions were fun to play against.

Hope that helps!

[Cm_blast]

7 hours ago, Fey said:

Hey Cm! I tested the hard mode map. Without my mod in place, of course.

Despite turtling up very well, massing Combat Tanks very quickly, protecting the Harvesters, etc., it seems a liiiiittle too hard. Maybe if I went for one of the AIs and murdered the crap out of it ASAP on the map, it would have turned out better, but I played it blind so I didn't know where all the AIs are or what I'd be up against. I think that idea you had of having one AI be friendly for each side would be really nice! I could see doing this map pretty reasonably well as long as those Fremen helped me out, but all versus one was just unfair.

The normal version played out very nicely, without incident. And, even in the rigged version with all versus one, the AI unit compositions were fun to play against.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the help.

I imagine that having all those enemies with some previous buildings was going to be too hard. I uploaded a new version. This time you have one ally; I choose one of the nearest AI so at least they'll help defending from one side.
The file it's uploaded in the first post. Atreides and Ordos against the others.

I am expecting to make the maps: Atreides and Ordos vs all; Ordos and Mercs vs all; Mercs and Harkonnen vs all, etc... So everyside have a different ally too.

In this scenario Harkonnen may go against the player or the Ordos, whoever it's the most near, but probably any experience players know how to make a good use of this ally (which have rocket turrets as the basic advantage, so they don't need too much help from the player).

Anyway; first post updated with the new map and the new ally. I hope this is enough to make the game more playable; If not I still can add a second AI to be allied with the player, but for now this is enough. Test the map when you want.

Edited March 5, 2018 by Cm_blast

[aarmaageedoon]

Was quite boring and not challenging. I was never put in narrow situation. The hardest thing were starting carryalls. I had fucked up economy for almost whole game because of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb7485Z4u74&feature=youtu.be

[Cm_blast]

Well, this it's a problem. The 1 vs 6 "seems a liiiiittle too hard" and "but all versus one was just unfair." and here we have aarmaageedoon playing the 2 vs 5 and gets bored because it's too easy (and probably even the 1 vs 6 would be easy for him just by looking how he plays).

I have no idea what to do now, I'll think in a solution, if there is any.

Thanks for both of you for the testing, a shame I can't do a expert map with the current design.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Cm_blast

[Fey]

From the looks of it, Cm, aarmaageedoon didn't really have any attacks coming his way.

I had tanks dropping by in, like, the first... five minutes? And just because I said it was a liiiiittle too hard doesn't mean I didn't beat it! Just that it felt like it overstayed its welcome you know? Would have liked to progress the map sooner. So... I dunno what happened but maybe you screwed up the AI somehow and caused it to build pretty much nothing in the new version?

[Runtowin]

From what I've gathered from his video. The AI almost never attack together, and often attack in small wave. Moreover, they only built one production building of each type. So they tend to be worse in late game where number is important.

 

[jbil1989]

Haha, your are crazy man Cm_blast . I played 1 vs AI :D, I enjoyed a lot of, I sweated a lot, thank you brother.

 

 

My first campaign Time Based Smugglers Campaign - Protect Mercenaries

Mini Campaign - Mercenaries Revenge ( Last 3 Mission )

 

Edited March 20, 2018 by jbil1989