Fortress - Multiplayer Coop Assault 2.0

Fortress Assault v1.1

Type: Assault of heavy position

Players: Max=6, ( 1-3 ) vs ( 1 AI + 0-2 ) 

Background:
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The fortress of Sulgard Secundus has fallen six days ago to a chaos legion. This fortress holds the controls of a gigantic warp generator. It seems the device is now active and fresh troops are now flowing through at an ever expanding rate. 
Intelligence reports that a huge entity (chaos god?) is also trying to pass through. 

Your orders are clear: recover the fortress and shut the device ASAP, whatever the cost! You will be dispatched in the desert zone south east of the fortress were lower defense activity has been reported. 

Some support from other races can be expected as well. The crossing of a chaos god would be a disaster to them as much as to ourselves.

Intro:
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This map is designed for up to three cooperative players attacking a heavily defended fortress. The fortress is defended by 1 scripted AI with the support of up to 2 more AIs.

Players (attacking or defending) can be played by AI or human. Map can be played in skirmish by 1 player alone and up to 6 players can join together using LAN or Online. Best experience is with 1-3 players attacking and 1-3 AIs used for defense.

Screenshots where taken in DarkCrusade with (wonderfull) BETA WitchHunter Mod active. 

This map is the result of a team work. I want to thank Dabangster, Warren, Blade44 and especially Gunfood and Kirigi for their help. 

Hope you will enjoy playing as much as we did!

Dark40k.

Warning:
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- Don't go for Insane at first try. Highest levels are designed for players who know the map very well and have found where lie the defense weak areas.

Install / Game Settings:
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Installer provided: Unzip, Run Fortress_1.0.exe and follow instructions.

Use the following setting for game (don't know exact english names so these are approximations):
- quick start on : start is very hard without it. 
- team lock on 
- starting position locked : starting positions must not be exchanged  
- defined teams
- High rate income : not necessary but useful
- victory condition: annihilation or HQ

When setting the game,6TH PLAYER MUST BE ACTIVE, SET TO CHAOS, in a different team than player 1. 

Goal:
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The goal is to destroy the HQ at the summit of the castle as it is the source of all defense and counter-attacks.Be warned that it is invulnerable while one of the 4 relics next to it remains property of one of the defenders. Remnants of the defense are easy to sweep after summit is taken.

Lost defenders will spawn from the warp at warp doors. Warp doors are a runed drawing on the ground with several burning fires around it or a light column at the center. These fires and light column indicate that the warp door is open.
Closing the door can be achieved by taking relics / strategic point / strategic objective :
- at the center of the pentacle drawing for fires
- in the red and blue areas for each of the two light columns
- surrounding the daemon creation at the summit.

Counter-attacks will spawn from time to time at the warp doors to try to reconquer the lost strategic points. A message + alarm sound warns you of the new counter-attack. Be careful with the red and blue areas where counter-attacks can change size. Plan carefully: each new counter attack will happen after a shorter delay! So don't stay idle too long.

AI has unlimited resources: you will need strategy and good cooperation to get through! Expect 1-2 hours playing and up to 1000 units dead on YOUR side!!!!

Multiplayer level selection:
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In multiplayer, level is not fully set using the standard setting when creating the game. A probe is created near the 1st player base and Player1 has to kill it several times (select + Del key) to increase game difficulty (works up to Insane).

Adding attackers increases difficulty one step: defense is the same for (3 attackers/Easy) and (2 attackers/Standard). Max difficulty is reached in Insane with 3 attackers.

Be warned that adding comp allies increases the difficulty level as if they were human. However, they are far from being as helpful. Conclusion: it is harder to play with comp allies rather than playing alone.

AI additional Allies or Opponents:
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USE OF Skirmish AI (or a mod that includes it) IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED WHEN USING COMPUTER ALLIES. 

An AI Ally in position 2 tends to do a good job by helping in the defense of the base, but does rarely attack by himself. Dark Eldar seem to be the most aggressive race though.
An AI in position 3 is a quite lazy base builder, it does not build vehicle buildings. So an AI Ally on Position 2 is helpful, Position 3 is better put up with a human ally. Note that additional allies result in a higher difficulty level, as stated above.

If you choose to spice up the defending force to be more aggressive and set up defending AI in position 4 and 5 (which are located on the lower left and upper right corner of the map), you should be aware that position 4 AI is quite smart and techs up properly. Position 5 AI has limited buildspace, normally resulting in building only infantry. So you can use this for further adjustment of your preferred difficulty level.

Informations / Questions:
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If you have any questions or comments, then please post them on:
http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=182490

SCAR code behind the map is generic. If you want to make an assault map yourself, look a this a tutorial:
http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=177410

Legal:
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This map and associated scar files can be used as long as credit is given.

Update:
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v1.1:
- Fixed SCAR Error occuring in specific reinforcement situations
- Fixed error where castle HQ would stay invulnerable when restarting from saved game 
- increased slightly cover zone on north-east corner for better defense
- changed cover zones for northern counter-attacks on base that were under heavy cover
- improved castle entry to allow better pathing and avoid units going through tank traps

v2.0:
- lagging significantly reduced for slowest configs
- final victory sequence added
- new loading picture
- new FXs to show active/inactive zones
- improved speed and reliability of code using battlefield core code,
- better handling of attached units (no more leader standing alone)
- special abilities + jumping for defenders
- automated teams and races in case of wrong initial settings
- prebuilt bases for all SS base races