Argonaut

It is with pride that Aralez and I announce the release of the first Survival Map Pack. Within this map pack are all of the current survival maps released, plus some other goodies in there as well making a total of 9 survival maps. All of the maps have been fixed to prevent the online dropping bug, and all maps can be played online or in skirmish without problems – as long as you follow the onscreen instructions.

This installer will install the maps into DC ONLY. Many of these maps require the DC objects and decals and as such I made the decision to make this DC ONLY.

If anyone wishes to make a survival map, there's a quick tutorial here.

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=132455

Gameplay
The gameplay is designed as players vs AI. FORGET EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT COMP STOMPS - This is not designed as a simple comp stomp you could get anywhere online, or using the Skirmish AI Mod. It is designed as a defensive map where the player must hold out against 15 levels of enemy attacks before being given the order to advance and crush the enemy. It is something of a hybrid Tower Wars style of gameplay and is meant to fill the need for defensive maps.

Setting up your game
When you set up your game, you simply choose this map as you would any other map. This has been designed with specific win conditions and game options in place. DEVIATING FROM THIS SETUP WILL NOT DELIVER THE INTENDED EXPERIENCE.
These things listed below are VITAL to ensure the map works.
1) YOU MUST put an AI player in the final player spot. If it is a 6P map, the AI needs to go in position 6, 3 player maps need the AI in position 3, 2 player maps need the AI in position 2 and so on.
2) You MUST have fixed start positions
Failure to do this WILL cause a SCAR error.
The map was designed to be played using the win condition annihilate, but deviating from this will not break the game.
You can select Quick Start or Standard resources and the SCAR adjusts the attacking waves accordingly, and if you select an AI ally, you can expect them to do stupid things and screw you over unless of course you have the superlative AI mod running.

How it works
When you load the map, the scar code checks to see which settings you have chosen (standard or QS), which race the enemy is (The AI in the final position) and how many players there are. It spawns some req points and resources for each player (So if you're on your own it only spawns enough points for you!)
Each player is given their own set of attack waves, so if you wish to play 1v1 (Yourself vs AI) You're only going to face your own waves. Obviously when there's 2 vs AI each player has their own set of attack waves and killing your attack wave moves you up onto the next 'level' and you'll face tougher enemies in your next wave. In this way, good players will advance a lot faster, and weaker players will not need to face too hard enemies too quickly.
Capturing a critical location will provide you with a much needed bonus!
Oh.. Don't rush. I'm not judging rushing as a tactic, but it isn't advisable here - this is supposed to be about defending a pass, not spanking someone into next week with vespids!
If you play as a skirmish game, you'll receive a rank - starting as a private. Whenever you are successful in completing all 15 levels you will be given a battle commendation which is saved to your player profile. When you receive enough commendations you will be promoted. Unfortunately there is no way of getting this ranking system in place in multiplayer, so I'm looking for some great 1v1 defensive maps! These battle commendations are NOT map specific, so you can earn battle commendations on any map, and they are cumulative - resulting in increased ranks! Can you make it to General? The battle commendations can only be earnt through 1v1 games in skirmish.

Userbars
Once you have achieved a rank, if you send me (Argonaut) a Private Message on Relicnews.com Dawn of War discussion Forums with a screenshot showing your rank displayed in-game, I’ll send you a userbar corresponding to your rank. Here’s some of the opening userbars – If you don’t get a reply to a PM soon, hang in there! I may get a lot of requests for userbars, and I’ll send you one, don’t Worry!







Credits

CONCEPT and CODE
All concept and code by Argonaut

MAPS

• ‘Orion Base’ by Aralez
• ‘Gauntlet’ by Aralez and Argonaut. Decals for Gauntlet by MonoRAIL
• ‘Last Stand’ by Argonaut
• ‘Hells Teeth Canyon’ by Argonaut
• 'Slash’s Demise’ by Aralez
• ‘Snowbank’ by Argonaut. Orky Decals for Snowbank by Fire81
• ‘Abandoned Outpost’ by Argonaut
• ‘Heretics Gate’ map created by Relic and Adapted for Survival play by Aralez
• ‘Sin City’ map created by Relic and Adapted for Survival play by Aralez

Many thanks go to Kindred Ravens, ‘Tom.., Slash, Gunfood, Umpalumpa and Hercules for helping me test this and refine the code. Thanks go to Brother Mattias for the awesome Userbars. I hope you enjoy playing this as much as we do.



http://files.filefront.com/Survival...;/fileinfo.html

Map pack II v 1.2 - install that first, then use this hotfix

http://files.filefront.com/Pack2Hot...;/fileinfo.html

Map pack II is know for online dropping and sync error bugs - hence the complete overhaul.

Once you've downloaded, simply unzip and double click the icon.


And now – It’s over to you. Defend your position against the enemy at all costs.


To the last man and the last round!

Ragnarok

w00t!

Cheers to all of those who made this possible!

may you continue making this awesome maps!

Argonaut

If Slash could do the honours and post this on DOWfiles, I'd be grateful for the mirror. Thanks guys!

Incarnate

Congratulations a job well done!

Im surprised your only a general argo, i would have thought youd be lord solar by now!

p.s, Nice userbars brother mattias!

Aralez

"Colonel" Aralez here. Nice to see the pack finally available! And thanks for mentioning me that often You made the most important and difficult part, the code, whereas i only had to make some maps, so the credits should belong to you.

To make the Mappack even more perfect, i made a loading screen for the "SinCity" map, you can get it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MJRJXDYU
Simply unpack the folder in the zip to your DC/scenarios/mp folder. It is optional, though, the map works without it.

Have fun!

p.s. i do have an alternative selection icon for the Abandonded Fortress map, i will post it here if Argo gives me his permission.

Gremlin Shoota

YAY!!!!

Aralez

Hm, i guess "Emperor" would be fitting
Not sure, though, ask Argo!


The Black Templars stopped the Ork attack on "Sin City"

Gremlin Shoota

Maybe you should make a journal log of the Black Templers on a campaign aralez

If you do I can't wait to read what happened in "The Heretic"

Slash

Im sorry i will be away for 2 weeks due school starting up and i must study for exams, so i cant upload the files because the time required to do it takes alot and i only have little free time.

Argonaut

Ok, no problem Slash, I'll send it in properly.

For those of you who have already asked for userbars, you can get the first three ranks from my first post. Rightclick whichever userbar you've earned and Save as. Then use your choice of imagehost to upload and host the file. Imageshack is the one I use. Aralez, expect your userbar very soon

Emberstrife

Are certain matchups(i.e. IG vs Tau on Heretic, etc) supposed to be impossible?(krootox on level 4 wtf) Also, does the AI difficulty affect behaviour of the AI on these maps? And, has anyone actually beaten The Heretic map?

On another note, the maps are pretty damn enjoyable. Haven't had that much fun in DC for a long time(not to mention never had so many layers of dead bodies on the map). Great work!

Regs_Searlon

OMG the gauntlet is a right sod to do lol, what difficulty is it?
BTW MAP PACK YAY

But i dont get my rank displayed when i start a match. Dunno if its got something to do with me delteing all the old maps before installing the map pack, but anyway i still got 1 map in the Dawn of War drectort so i suppose tht should keep the rank?
meh nvm

Aralez

Emberstrife, the Heretic map is one of the more difficult maps, i personally think it is the second most difficult after the Gauntlet map. Try SinCity, it has a similar layout but is a bit easier. (I still haven't won on the Gauntlet map :o )

Argonaut

I haven't won on Heretic yet either.

As a result of fixing the online bug, this means that your rank will only be displayed in a 1v1 skirmish, and you can only increase your rank in a 1v1 skirmish.

Gauntlet is a lot easier to complete with 2 humans.

Emberstrife - The difficulty you select in the opening screen will affect the troops and AI choices. Insane on gauntlet is stupidly hard to do. I can win on standard, and just scrape level 15 on hard. I have completed Gauntlet as a 1v1 *Player 2 slot closed) then got totalled when I attempted to destroy the base at the end...That pissed me off!

Depending upon how quiet it is a work tonight, I'll probably be online for a couple of survival games. My online name is ViolentDesire and I'll be in Eye of Terror about 9.30 ish. I'll post here to ocnfirm when I get in from work.

s1_ONE

Hi men, following the Survival mapstyle wave i'm proud to present my last effort:
Lost Relic (Survival - 2)

Here are some shots :
screenshot 1
screenshot 2
screenshot 3
screenshot 4
screenshot 5
screenshot 6

Waiting feedback...

Argonaut

D/Ling now.

[edit]
Lost Relic is a real good map. I like the assymetrical design and the cool chaos theme. The map plays well and the use of cover is really good - My only criticism is the use of the ground detail texture as it's really overused and the footsteps even go up the side of the mountain A really good map and I reccomend the download. Maybe it could go into the next map pack!

s1_ONE

because i want a jungle-mud-snowy ground... there arent ALOt of choices, if u don't want to add a lot of different decals, giving huge lag...
if u want to add the map into ur mappack, u have my permission

Ah, also on insane i've found that vs necrons is too easy to play, because they haven't alot of detector, so with chaos on slash, i found a complete army get slaughtered by csm's plasmas in attempt to reach the base.
if u play necron vs necron its ridiculous to see my completed army kill tons of pariah, necron warriors, immortals, and tomb spyders, unseen.

P.S. heretic's gate is quite easy to play, i reccomend you last stand ig vs Chaos waves, really hard to win or if u want a more exciting match try Lost Relic

Last but not least a question: does the AI level affect the ranking system? (eg. u get more points if u play on hard instead easy)

col.steel

Will haveing the skirmish ai mod installed change the survival maps any? I am running the skirmish mod in the dxp2 directly not has a mod. It seems the game wont recognize any mods i install.

Emberstrife

The ranking seems a bit odd. I've reached level 10 on Heretic(on Insane) a few times and level 5+ on some others, but i never actually completed the maps - usually screwed up or got impatient and quit to try another, however i got up to Seargeant now. Might be that the script can't tell the difference from winning and quitting a game in progress.

Also, i think the IG attack waves on Heretic and Last Stand are a bit bugged - where other races specifically send their tier 1 hero to attack in another spot, IG sends a commie instead of the CS. Though, it does remove the annoying hero harassment on Heretic from IG's side(commies on ranged can't hurt buildings)....

'Tom..

I just played sin city, and I must say its a nice map! I like the bleached minimap, but you might want to put water droplets into the water in the middle to go along with the rain effects. I also didn't notice the map was dark until I looked along horizontally, it was quite surprising, it seemed quite light from the normal camera view. Playing as eldar the possessed where a real pain, they ripped through my eldar like a hot knife through butter. I ended up getting three avatars, the bloodthirsters kept killing them! Heres a couple of screenies from the game, showing two sync kills, the bloodthirster killing the avatar and the avatar killing a bloodthirster (Try and guess which is which). Great map Aralez!

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/...lic00010yt7.jpg

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/...lic00011yq9.jpg

Survival mode is soo fun, thanks for all your hard work Argo, glad I could help fix the online bug

EDIT/ Oops, missed a screenie. I remembered to remove the ui this time http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/5205/relic00012bx9.jpg

Aralez

Thanks, 'tom! Nice screenshots, you should post them in the screenshot thread, too.

col.steel, yes the AI allies will benefit from the Skirmish AI mod. It will not play a big role for the enemy as most of the attacking units are scripted.

s1_one, the lag shouldn't be a big problem as it is a small map. I gonna test your map asap.

edit: Map tested.
Wow, awesome map! Really, really good. I can't think of anything to improve it.

Argonaut

The ranks could be something of a cock up by me. I think I left a cheat in place to allow me to test the maps. *Embarrassed* It will still take quite some time to get to the higher ranks.

S1_One - You are most likely to cause lag using ambient FX rather than decals. Hells Teeth Canyon has literally hundreds of decals and doesn't suffer with lag. Steam, Smoke and the chaos sacrifice models cause more lag, especially when the AI is storming through your base!

It's 22:10 GMT. I'm going online to try and get a couple of games. I'll be ViolentDesire in Eye of Terror. See you there!

Aralez

I'm there, too!

edit:

Several hours later. Here are our replays, the game is MUCH harder online as the AI somehow is better, see for yourself. We had to go down to standard and then even easy to have a chance!

http://rapidshare.com/files/1088429...eplays.zip.html

Thanks to all, it was a nice meeting! *off to sleep*

s1_one, you have accidently used the old scar-code, you need to replace it with the newer one. Your map is great, though!

Argonaut

Was a great game! I'll be online again after 8pm tonight. Maybe we should all turn down the graphics settings when we all reach level 14/15 again :P

Ragnarok

8pm for you is 8pm GMT?

thats -6 right?

Aralez

The lag was there, but still, the game did not crash, stable coding.
Our last match (Cascadian and me) was mainly a fight against the urge to sleep, not the enemy

Argonaut

I need some decent screenies before I upload to DOWfiles so any submissions from the map pack maps would be great!

--eFTy-->

Just felt I oughta state my apreciation for you guys' work. Cheers, you rock!

Integrity

YES!

So this is where it disappeared to

Thanks Argo!

Regs_Searlon

My contribution lol not much and not great, u want aralez to get some SS cos s\he is good at it.

Aralez

Heh, thanks Regs_Searlon.

I have around 7 replays to watch atm, let's see if i can make some good screenies.

Argonaut

I'm submitting it now, using some of your earlier wallpapers as the screenies and the two pics Reg_Searlon put up

It's been submitted, so once we get the link that won't blow a hole in my bandwidth, I'll spam everywhere with advertising.

Regs_Searlon

yay im there somewhere in this project lol. cant wait for my exmas r over i can play..... more lol

Aralez

Ok here some edited screenshots of our replays above:

Free Image Host: PicTiger!

Argonought, i added no text but if you want i can place a big "Survival mappack" on them.

Btw, the 5th one is titled "Argonought's Nightmare" It was made during the opening phase when suddenly the enemy Eldars captured the critical points and walked in with the reinforcement Wraithlords We all had ~2 squads only!

col.steel

Well good job on the map pack guys. Had fun on the slashes demise map. Welcomed the Orks to "Banblade Alley". In the end the Ig armor proved to much for the onrushing ork horde. Tried to make pic smaller first time posting pic.

Aralez

Awww, that poor Squiggy

col.steel

Aralez I have a map that I have been working on that I been playing has a play till you die map(4v2) lol. I wanted to try it out has a survival map. Is it possible to use the scar files the came with the map pack? The map is a base with a long corridor to git to rear of the base. You could probly fit 5 to 6 squads along the corridor. The maps about 80% done. Here is some screenies.

Marines and Ig hold the bridge against 4 orks
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/...lic00049mv7.jpg
Other side of corridor
http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/...lic00021qz0.jpg
Run Chaos Lord RUN!!
http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/...lic00024bg0.jpg
End Of the corridor
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/...lic00019df7.jpg

Argonaut

Send me over the file, I'll set things up in the map and debug it and send it back for you to finish.

col.steel

ok send it in a few.

kindred ravens

hey guys. i can still test. just have a chat with me next week. tell me what files i need and hey presto. you have a tester

i hope i can make maps soon. with guidence.
i'll get the mod tools on sunday. when i have time to.

nemarsde

Excellent map pack, worthwhile downloading and playing, it really revitalises the gameplay.

One note, don't try playing these maps with DoWXP. You won't get SCAR errors, but the attacks waves are timed to coincide with DC-style fast teching. DoWXP's slower pace means that you may be swamped with vehicles before you've even made it to tier 2. Still, if you want a challenge...

Argonaut

Kindred - the map pack is released! You can expect some other uber-topsekrit stuff to come your way soon.

nemarsde - All mods *should* work as it is simply a custom map with a scar file attached. I've deliberately not added in any of the new units from WA or DC to the vanilla or WA races to try and allow the code to be used universally. You won't see hordes of fire dragons or flash gitz attacking for example, and the code can be attached to a map made for vanilla and still work..

In this way, players playing as a mod race, such as Depth of Heresy gain the extra units that the AI does not but you're right, Mods mess with the balance and speed of teching and the waves were designed around the DC playstyle and *general* skill level of the players, although for some reason the AI seems to get f***ing LIVID online and is extremely aggressive, even at easy level. Try beating them at hard level and for the LOVE OF GOD don't let the bastards get the critical locations. They took all their reinforcements and pounded me into a smear on the floor :$

S1_ONE, I'll add Lost Relic to the next map pack and sort out the code to include the new stuff. Anyone else who wants to make survival maps is free to use the code as it's basically open source. All you need to do is send me a massive wad of cash, arrange a knighthood for me, or you can include some glowing praise for me in your readme. Whichever option is easiest for you but I'm really rooting for the cash

col.steel

maybe we can arrange for you to be called Lord Solar Argonaut!

ThetaOrion

Thank you Argonought for trying to take some time and help them over there at the AI Skirmish Mod.

In that thread over there, one of the original guesses or assumptions was that the SCAR was an automatic death sentence for online play and multiplayer. But if nothing else, you have proven to them and shown them that SCAR isn't necessarily a death sentence for online multiplayer.

I think they needed to know that -- another piece to the puzzle. Thank you.

I play the AI Mod and the UC Mod offline, as Aralez knows, and as long as I don't pause in the opening seconds of the Survival Maps, they work just fine for me in offline play against the 'puter. Thank you again.

I think you have made a real breakthrough here, and apparently, so does everyone else who is giving it a try. And, I personally did like the feel and the gameplay and the layout of the Orionbase. I tried some of the other maps too, but the Orionbase was my favorite, for now. As time allows, I'll give some of the other maps a try.

--
||
--

From my limited perspective, being able to play any Dark Crusade Mod of any kind online is a real breakthrough. As far as I know, Argonought, you are the first one to successfully do it and make that breakthrough. Usually the AI Skirmish Mod leads out in these sorts of breakthroughs, but as far as I know, they still haven't gotten successful online play for the masses out of their DC Mod, yet, although Arkhan has been working on it apparently, and it may come at some point.

I think you were the first to get reliable and successful online play out of any Dark Crusade mod, and in my book, that's a breakthrough of monumental proportions. Not being able to play DC Mods successfully or reliably online has been the thorn in the side of many DC players ever since the DC Mods first started coming out. So, any mod of any kind that breaks through that barrier is worthy of note and celebration in my opinion.

Argonaut

Thanks for the kind words ThetaOrion. The beauty of these maps is that you don't need to have it activated as a mod, and that's also something of a clue for the AI guys - It crashed with the basic DC running. Isuspect they've added some little bit of code to imrove the speed of the AI decision making, nad it's caused the problems.

@Col.Steel - Lord Solar is the final rank you can attain. I'm nowhere near getting there yet as it's a couple of hundred victories before I can even get to warmaster!

nemarsde

Had a CTD (crash to desktop) last night, no error message, on Last Stand. Playing DC with DoWXP v3.3 mod.

Argonaut

that is more likely caused by a conflict with the DOWXP, especially if they're using the Dawn of Skirmish AI.

col.steel

So are you guys saying I shouldnt play survival with the skirmish ai mod?

test

Argonaut

No.. I'm just saying some mods may not work properly with the survival mode maps.