Urban Turmoil

Hi and welcome to Urban Turmoil!

War is random and when watching the high level replays I got the feeling that the players know exactly what is going to happen just from the map and the races. This does not sit well with me, there does not seem to be a fresh experience every time you play.

With that in mind I set to pushing DoW to it's limits.

This is a map I am calling a 'dynamic concept map'. What this means in English is that the content of the map is generated when you load it, so the strategic points, slag deposits, critical points, relics and some scenery are altered when the map is loaded.

For the strategy points there are 3 layouts - turtle, offensive and hybrid, each of which should encourage a different play style.

For the critical points, there might be one, two or none. 

Slags are either there or not, as is the relic.

I have designed the map as a grid, which is largely reflective of real cities (or Sim City, as your prefer). In game terms I have set it up so that infantry are generally the only ones who can enter buildings. As in the real world, this tends to be through the door. Walkers especially are at a disadvantage, but tanks are also of less use than the norm.

Originally the SCAR was going to include what now exists as the Ambient FX mod - random weather conditions and day and night vision cycles. Where possible I recommend playing with these mods on as the vision especially was intended to ebb at night to allow night storming of buildings by melee units.

In this project I hit the limits of the DoW engine quite repeatedly. I found that you can:
Move/Remove relics
Move/Remove slags
Add CP/SP's
Add/Remove scenery

However I found that you cannot:
Remove a SP from the map
Remove a CP from the map
Move a SP on the map
Move a CP on the map
Persuade the AI to use content added to the map

With the last reason in mind I have included two versions of the map - the random one, which gives the intended experience but is only usable by 2 humans, and a non random one which is usable against the AI.

To install the map(s), extract all files to C:Program FilesTHQDawn of War - Dark CrusadeDXP2Datascenariosmp (or whatever your equivalent path would be). To get a new layout you will have to drop out to the main menu and start a skirmish/multiplayer game - just selecting restart will not trigger it.

This was an interesting project, I hope you enjoy the results.

TTFN,

Fuggles