[Release] Butlerian Jihad: War Machines - Dune 2000 Campaign

[Cm_blast]

Here I am featuring a new campaign. Butlerian Jihad: War Machines. A straigh sequel to the original Butlerian Jihad. I got inspiration from the War of assasins campaign from Feda (and other maps) to create this campaign, more simple in terms of gameplay (for the most part) but with the inner's not so simple.

Anyway; it is highly recommended to play the original Butlerian Jihad first to get all the story. If you didn't play it, the next lines will get spoilers, although you don't really need to get too much into the story to understand what it is going on. In the case you already play it, if it was before August 2018 could be desirable to play it again, because I changed a few things on that map, I made the plot with a bit of more sense and the new enemy, instead just using Ixian/Sandworm colors (Atreides buildings and units) and give them Harkonnen and Ordos units via reinforcements/deliveries, now that new enemy will make use of buildings from any house, which gives more variety and makes more sense with the overall idea. Also that new enemy make use of an specific color (no Ix/sandworm) that will reappear here.

Of course, the player will play with the three Houses during different maps, indicated on the briefing to know which faction you are playing with. Also I took inspiration from the War of Assasins from Feda to make a few of "triple threat" missions. Maps with more than two sides that may fight each other and/or against the player too.

Backstory (spoilers from the first campaign).
At the end of the Butlerian Jihad, the three main Houses joined to defeat the Emperor and his vast army of machines (Machine = any vehicle unmanned; controlled by an A.I.). With the defeat of the Emperor, the A.I. were not controlled by anyone and become easy to defeat. The Harkonnen saw this as a chance to conquer all Dune by figthing their former allies.

Story
The powerfull Harkonnen have defeated everybody. Now only remains some A.I. vehicles without any mastermind behind. Because of that now are more easy to defeat but also more unpredictable since they don't apply human logic while figthing. The Harkonnen are powerfull enough to deal with these enemies but... are the Machines really finished or the Harkonnen are underestimating the Machines numbers?
Atreides and Ordos are barely alive, can these two recover his strengh?

Gameplay
For this campaign I decided to make the maps more simple in terms of "what to do". Don't expect overcomplicated task. The player will start with some kind of base and face the enemy or enemies bases, as simple as that; although I tried to make enough variety in the way the maps are present, but overall you expand your base, build an army and defeat the enemy/es.

Instead overcomplicated task/jobs to do; this time I tried a new concept: Randomized drops. Although it's not exactly total random, I scripted the maps to trigger a good amoung of the enemy early reinforcements (that drop around your base) to trigger in different spots per play. This means that in you first walkthrough that first 5 Quads that were dropped to your right, the next time you play they may drop to your left, or down, or...

The timer when the enemy drops happens and the amount of units it's always the same, but the position where they land it is not. subsequent drops are independent and also randomized.

This is like spoiling my own campaign; but I made a map where the player share his control with the AI, literally. Your units will be in control of the inner AI of the game, so there are a few special rules (explained on the briefing) that will be applied on that specific map. The most important: you can only move your units 1 by 1. The player will struggle with the inner AI of the game to beat this map, since some times your units will do things on their own.

Theme
For the campaign I tried to keep the main points:
1 - Harkonnen are strong. Because of that their maps usually start with plenty of units and resources. But be carefull, the Harkonnen are attacking the most dangerous areas first, so you may expect enemies being more aggresive too.
2 - Atreides and Ordos are almost wipe out. Their early maps are about "recovering", but later will need a plan to defeat the Machines, since they don't have the strengh to face the enemy as the Harkonnen can.
3 - Nobody has control over the A.I., but the program is still running with a task "defeating the Three great Houses", code implemented by the Emperor. The Machines are very numerous, not very efficient and unpreditable. The inner AI (gameplay-wise) behaviour of the Machines it's not going to act the way the player expects from the more traditional maps. The Machines will do something that Atr-Har-Ordos units won't do and viceversa.

Any casual player won't get too much the third point, since it is not used to the game, but people that play regularly will encounter how sometimes the AI (again, only against the Machines) don't act the same in specific situations as one may expect.

Screenshots


New tactical map on the spoiler, don't open if you didn't played the previous Butlerian Jihad 

Spoiler

(New Tactical maps included)

FILE:
Butlerian Jihad War Machines.rar

HOW TO INSTALL:
Unzip the file and copy every folder into the root of the game.
Any folders included will go to the path that it is suppose to go.
Do not copy any pgn (screenshots) nor the readme.txt (instructions).

Mission launcher 1.2 is required.

Edited January 22, 2022 by Cm_blast

[Fey]

hUzZaH!!1!

I'm gonna check out the updated maps first, then hop into this one. Soon as I can.

[Cm_blast]

After a couple of months and replaying the game, I found a couple of mistakes; first post updated with these fixes:
- Mission 3: several changes: AI will send some early attacks, so the player no longer have 10 minutes to prepare everything it wants. map's design slightly altered, now the sandworm will go more often after the player. Starting money adjusted. Other fixes on the diplomacy.
- Mission 5: A part of the script was wrong, displaying a message that may or not may match what happens on the game.
- Mission 7: One script now trigger on loop.
- Mission 9: A warning "enemy coming" was missing; fixed now.

[Fey]

1 hour ago, Cm_blast said:

After a couple of months and replaying the game, I found a couple of mistakes; first post updated with these fixes:
- Mission 3: several changes: AI will send some early attacks, so the player no longer have 10 minutes to prepare everything it wants. map's design slightly altered, now the sandworm will go more often after the player. Starting money adjusted. Other fixes on the diplomacy.
- Mission 5: A part of the script was wrong, displaying a message that may or not may match what happens on the game.
- Mission 7: One script now trigger on loop.
- Mission 9: A warning "enemy coming" was missing; fixed now.

XD I'm not the only one who changes stuff after the fact!

No worries, it's good that it's better now. Always a step in the right direction. Still, it sounds like you didn't change too much... if you're gonna change something, I'd urge you to see about anything else you'd like to add! Might as well since it's being updated anyway, right?

Still awfully busy x_x But I'm glad to say less-so than before! So, maybe I can get back to actually playing, or mapping, at some point soon. lol

Edited June 4, 2019 by Fey

[Cm_blast]

57 minutes ago, Fey said:

XD I'm not the only one who changes stuff after the fact!

No worries, it's good that it's better now. Always a step in the right direction. Still, it sounds like you didn't change too much... if you're gonna change something, I'd urge you to see about anything else you'd like to add! Might as well since it's being updated anyway, right?

I usually upload the campaign but I replay it after 2-3 weeks or so (2 months this time) so I can play it more blindy and see if the last time I played the map was easy just because I know beforehand what it is going to happen, or if that map that was intended to be hard, now playing withouth being 100% sure where the enemy it's coming (or the power of the attack) the map it's not possible to win if you ever do a single mistake (different building order, for example).

Those changes are about mistakes or simply wrong scripting or, if the map it's too easy (like mission 3 here) then I take some time to change waves and all the stuff and test the map multiple times.

But that's it; now unless there is a broken map or an unexpected thing happening... the campaign it's 100% done.

Edited June 4, 2019 by Cm_blast

[Fey]

2 hours ago, Cm_blast said:

I usually upload the campaign but I replay it after 2-3 weeks or so (2 months this time) so I can play it more blindy and see if the last time I played the map was easy just because I know beforehand what it is going to happen, or if that map that was intended to be hard, now playing withouth being 100% sure where the enemy it's coming (or the power of the attack) the map it's not possible to win if you ever do a single mistake (different building order, for example).

Those changes are about mistakes or simply wrong scripting or, if the map it's too easy (like mission 3 here) then I take some time to change waves and all the stuff and test the map multiple times.

But that's it; now unless there is a broken map or an unexpected thing happening... the campaign it's 100% done.

Right, I feel ya XD

...Imma break yer maps, fam