[Release] Coop Campaign - Ixian Invasion

[Cm_blast]

For the first time; I am releasing a Coop Campaign, mean to be played by 2 humans.
Keep in mind that this is not a made from scratch, but instead, I picked my "Herectic alliances" Campaign (which presented an Ally AI for all the missions) and I transforme it into a proper coop campaign.

The herectic alliances mission 9 is more open than the original mission, now you can attack different enemies instead forming a big bottleneck as the vanilla mission was. Also, one of the herectic alliances mission wasn't suited for 2 humans, so I remove it and instead added a different mission from another campaign (so this is still a 9 mission campaign).

I took in consideration that two humasn harverst more, so there are lots of more spice everywhere, both players and enemies.

STORY:
Well, since online/coop games doesn't have any sort of briefing and I don't want to add extra .txt files to read for every mission; the generic story goes on how the Ixians started to conquer Dune, and they all already defeated several strong Houses on their path.
It's up to the last 2 sides that can still hold to pushing back the Ixian invasion into their own capital and defeat every one of them.

CAMPAIGN:
This campaign just reuse most of the events, like reinforcements, spanws and so on, but several parts have been oversimplified as they don't made sense for the coop. However; I altered multiple things, mostly on the terrain so the 2º player (or even both at the same time) has enough room to deploy a full base.

This is a comparison:
vanilla mission -- Coop version

Same map and terrain but bigger, also there are much more spice so two humans can still get money in the long run. Enemy ais also get bigger mine field to harverst.

About the objetive of every mission, there will be a message appearing at the very beggining of the mission that will write "destroy the Ixian base" or "protect the Smugglers". There is no really other objetives than either destroy the enemy or defending your ally (or both), avoiding specific objetives or goals.
Even for secondary objetives such as "build the starport to get extra deliveries", instead writing them off, the player that gets those units for free will beging the mission with the Starport already placed on the map.

This also makes this mission not set up in a mirror match up, as most of the time (but no always) the player 1 will start with the CY and several units, while the player 2 may start with certain structures there, and probably much less units or even with a lower amount of credits than the other player but, in return, it gets those free units later in the game.

The enemy Ai values are very similar on what the enemy used to have in the vanilla campaign, although considering that there is a second human player (more usefull than an AI) I made the enemy to increase their speed production after all/most the enemy drops are done.

HOW TO SET UP GAMES:
I tried to be as simple as possible, and as clear as possible, so I don't want to bring a ultra-high explanation or plenty of screenshots to set up every mission. Instead, the name of the maps will tell you exactly what kind of IAS you are to face.

Like this: Ixian Invasion 1 [Coop 2P] (Easy) Vs 1 Ixian
This means that on your lobby, you need to set up 1 enemy AI that will be "Atreides" and will wear the light-brown color.

Or this: Ixian Invasion 4 [Coop 2P] (Easy) AND Smugglers Vs 3 Ixian
This means that after the 2 players, you need to place 1 Ai that plays as Ordos wearing the dark brown-smuggler color, and then 3 more Ais, all of them being Atreides and wearing the light-brown color. <-- It is important that the "smugglers" are before the "ixians", because you will have a 3º ally on a couple of missions.

If you are wondering about what the players should chooose... There are no restriccions!
Players can play as Atreides, Harkonnen or Ordos with no limitation. The only thing that it is "banned" is the use of the dark-brown, reserved for the smugglers and the light-brown, destined for the Ixians.

It's suggested that people use canon colors (Atreides blue, Harkonnen red) and always the same houses just to feel like you are indeed playing a campaign that last for multiple missions; but you can use your imagination and pretend that Atreides and Harkonnen do an desesperate alliance just to defeat the Ixians... or you both can play as Atreides in blue and Atreides in grey (Fremen); or Harkonnen red and purple (imperials) or as Ordos in Green and Yellow (mercs) and pretend that you are the only alliance that has been not defeated yet by the Ixian assault.

The reinforcements the player will get, and even the initial units may vary depending on what the player choose:
So if a player with a free-loop delivery pick Atreides, you will get 2 Atreides Combat tanks, 1 missile tank and 2 Trikes;
But if the same played chose Ordos, then you will get 3 Ordos Combat tanks and 2 Raiders instead.
 <--- 3 reinforcements are scripted, player will get only one of them based on which version of the CY you started playing as.

As an extra note: Ordos always get a slighly early advantage over the other 2 houses. It could be some extra initial units, or a few raiders instead light infantry, or even 500 more initial credits. Nothing crazy, just a small early advantage.

OTHER OPTIONS TO SET UP:
things like "tech - credits - units" it doesn't matter, the .ini will give every player their thing; sometimes the first player will start with 6000 credits while the second player with 4500 (because it has some structures already there).

You need to activate sandworms or else it won't appear even if I tried to forced them into the game. there is only 1 sandworm per map, so nothing crazy.

I suggest to keep active the turrets, even if for challenge purposes you don't want to use them; at least gave the AI the option to rebuild them.

EASY AND HARD DIFFERENCES:
Two difficulties have been added, one intended for people that simply want to play this coop campaign with a friend for fun, and the other for more skilled players.
Easy: The missions are pretty much the same as the originals. The enemy Ai values are roughly the same as they had (or a bit slower-faster); after all the enemy carryalls have stopped dropping units, these ais will increase their speed production. Anything else is the same.

Hard: Enemy Ai has be altered to build really fast on most of the situations. Enemy reinforcements or deliveries may be bigger, or may have extra units and/or turrets around the base even for maps where the tech is not enough to build turrets. Sometimes the ais have more factories or an extra CY; it depends on the map itself

FINAL NOTE:
I didn't play this on coop with anybody, although I checked as much as I could, and I ran small personal tests checking if the player gets the proper version of the combat tank based on the CY/starport or whatever script. So if there is any big error send me the report; I check every mission like 10 times (and everytime I fixed something that it was wrong).

However, I don't fully understand how the online-thing goes; so I don't know exactly what will happen with the smugglers, although for the most part they are only a small ally but they still get use of the "enemy build faster on the hard version" and things like that.

FILES:
Coop Campaign Ixian Invasion Easy & Hard.rar
Both difficulties are added to the zip. All share the same name but "easy/hard"

Edited September 24, 2021 by Cm_blast

[Adrian]

so the maps are from Herectic Alliances missions?

[Cm_blast]

5 hours ago, Adrian said:

so the maps are from Herectic Alliances missions?

Yes, 8 of them.
mostly the same, but with the 2º human player controlling the area of the AI ally you usually play with.

[Cm_blast]

I release a really important fix.
I didn't know it, but 3 files were given too big names (AND smugglers) resulting on those three not appearing on the online lobby.

At the same time, on the final mission the 2 players will face 3 ixians, but on the lobby it appears as "AND Smugglers" which it is not right.

First post updated and file reuploaded.

[Cm_blast]

Another update, on mission 4 (hard) 1 of the players had silos on top of the enemy base, now it is fixed.

And for mission 7, I was told that both easy and hard were too easy considering 2 humans playing, so now both are harder:
For Easy: the amount of enemies spawned are double (tanks, sardaukar/Fremen) and triple (light vehicles).
For Hard: The amount of enemies spawned also double/triple, but now there are more repetitions, so they keep spawning during the whole duraction of the game.