If you are already thinking about what kinds of missions that you are most interested in designing, then this section will set you on your way. In WarCraft II, there are only three basic types of missions. Hopefully, you will notice that the designation of each type is based primarily on the play of the computer, not on the human player. This is because, as an editor, you want to enforce control over how the computer plays, without greatly restricting the play of your audience.
The following is a loose definition for these three types, each containing a listing of how you can expect a computer-controlled player to build and upgrade. The build-up lists themselves are based on the optimum growth of a color group when not hindered by physical map restrictions, resource restrictions, modifications to the unit, or upgrade properties.
This includes any type of mission that involves a primary battleground over land. This can include up to eight players, if segmented properly, and usually involves a lot of frantic build-up and heavy assaults. These missions may involve some ships and air-based attack units, but this is usually because they are edited to begin with these types of units. There may even be a computer-controlled player set to sea attack via the PLAYER PROPERTIES menu within the main editor, but if these players are usually secluded and weak, do not think of it as a sea mission. You should consider this a land mission for all practical purposes.
TYPICAL COMPUTER BUILD-UP: LAND MISSIONS
A mission that can be categorized as sea-based is obviously going to have quite a bit of water in it. Sea missions are the rarest of the bunch, as they involve a lot more time and resources in building and upgrading, rather than searching and fighting. At any rate, a sea mission usually has one very powerful sea-attack or two or three weaker sea-attack computer players. Rarely will you find a sea mission with more than four total players, as the oceans become crowded very quickly.
You should know now that when the computer is operating under sea-attack, it will only build a land military big enough for a weak defense. Because of this, you will usually want to provide the computer players with free land units and towers in your maps. Another good idea is to have one computer-controlled color group building as a land-attack player in the same area as a sea-attack color group. This will give your audience a good, strong coastal battle with a tense land fight to quickly follow.
TYPICAL COMPUTER BUILDUP - SEA MISSIONS
An air mission is, in most cases, merely a land or sea mission where the computer player is set to air-attack through the PLAYER PROPERTIES. This will cause the computer player to move as quickly as possible up to the castle/fortress stage, and begin producing griffins or dragons. Special care is needed to ensure that the computer player builds properly. The progression from basic hall to castle/fortress has many steps, and offers many chances for problems to arise.
As in a normal sea mission, a computer controlled color group will build only the bare essentials on its way to the top, usually training only five or six ground units as it goes. Because of this, you will probably need to give an air-attack player a lot of starting defense to ensure that it survives any preemptive strikes. Also, because of all the construction that will occur, coupled with the high costs of air units, you will need to provide a high amount of gold and lumber for an air mission to be successful. This can easily backfire, however, due to the near geometric growth rate of griffins and dragons in a good air mission.
TYPICAL COMPUTER BUILDUP - AIR MISSIONS
Of course, you didn't actually expect it to be that simple, did you? Beyond the three basic types, there are four more subdivisions of mission type that apply to all. They are: rescue, search and destroy, siege, and defend. Before you attempt to create the greatest WarCraft II mission of all time, make sure that you can construct each of these kinds of missions using each of the above attack settings. Here is a breakdown of the four subdivisions.
The rescue, while seemingly the most simple of mission types, offers the most variety in both design and strategy. In basic form, a rescue involves the placement of a color group on the map in either rescue-passive or rescue-active mode, so that once you encounter these units, you will "rescue" them, allowing you to control and manipulate them. A variation of this is to place some of the human-controlled player's units in a hostile area, and make the player actually rescue themselves.
In an advanced form of rescue tactics, you can use the placement of the "to-be-rescued" color group as an integral part of the mission. A rescue-passive group will not be attacked until you've rescued them, so you can hide them in the middle of an enemy camp to add some excitement. One thing to remember though, is that if you capture the to-be-rescued group's main hall, EVERY UNIT of that color group will come under your control and become a target for your enemies. Make sure that the computer cannot easily slaughter the units upon rescue if you use this "capture the hall" tactic. If you should decide to make a color group rescue-active, this group will grow and attack the computer players all by itself until you capture it! This is the closest that you can come to playing a single-player game with an "ally".
The rescue mission is in agreement with the fearless maniac play style. On the other hand, the defend and horde play style will have a hard time here. For an example of a rescue mission, please play BOOK07.PUD or BOOK23.PUD.
NOTE: One of the most important lessons that you can learn is that, no matter what we say, no matter what you experience, and no matter what you hear, you will never be able to gain 100% control in editing WarCraft II. As a direct counter to the rescue information that you have just read, I invite you to load up BOOK25.PUD, and join forces with the "rescue group" involved in that mission. As you will see, you will occasionally find quirks in the game play of an editing mission. One of your jobs is to use these quirks to your advantage.
The majority of missions that you will encounter or create will fall into this category. This covers land, sea, and air attack missions where the general objective is grow faster than another opponent, engage them, and tear them limb from limb. In most cases, the opponent will not start out with any clear advantage, so all players are on a basically equal level. It is, however, difficult to create a mission with only one computer-controlled color group, as most players will quickly win against those odds. A good search and destroy mission will usually have two or three unsegmented enemy color groups to allow the player a choice of where to build and who to attack.
With all of the different ways that a search and destroy mission can be put together, it can cater to all four play styles. Likewise, it can shut down all four play styles. How any particular mission will work will depend on how many enemy color groups there are, the size of the map, the aggressiveness of the enemy, and how much stuff you start the human player with. For an example of a search and destroy mission, please play BOOK08.PUD.
A mission falls under the category heading of "siege" when a computer-controlled player is given massive amounts of military units at the very beginning of a game. This immediately puts the player into a tense building phase, where he or she must be wary of strong attacks from the enemy color groups.
In designing a good siege mission, you must be very careful, as there is a thin line here between playability and insanity. If you provide the computer with too many troops at the beginning, you need to ensure that it will not immediately attack with these units. If it does, then changes must be made, or defense for the human-controlled unit must be added. Also, if you include too many walls, towers, or other restrictions to the attack options, you may accidentally take the player right out of the game!
An excellent option to consider in building a siege mission is to include one or two additional computer-controlled players as small targets outside of the fortified area. No one likes to continuously slam his or her head against defensive walls, so including a couple of targets outside of the protected zone lets the player have some fun while preparing for a major offensive. All in all, a siege should make a player spend some time building up and securing his or her own position, but once the offensive begins, you should reward efforts by letting the player break through without too much hassle. A quadruple layer of towers with walls all around the computer's color group is not strategy - it's annoying.
A siege mission will usually be played best by a defend and horde or a slow-aggressive play style. Unless you decide to place a weaker computer player outside of the fortifications as an easy target, a fast-aggressive or fearless maniac play style will lead the player to lose all of his or her forces upon ramming up against the enemy defenses. For an example of a siege mission, please play BOOK09.PUD.
The defend mission is hard to create. Like a siege mission, it is easy to make the computer-controlled color groups attack and fortify themselves like maniacs, but you have to give the player a way to save his or her own neck! Only experience will help you design a good mission here. As a general rule, in a good defense mission, you should start the player with lots of units, towers, walls, buildings, and troops. If it really is a defense mission, most of these things will be destroyed in the beginning, so give players some options and leave it up to them as to how they save themselves. (Upgrade weapons and armor? Pump out more ground troops? Air units? Towers?) The more choices you give, the better the mission will be.
Another key is that you should purposely make one or two of the computer players rather weak, so that the human controller can wipe them out and even the odds. In a defend mission, players will spend so much time saving themselves, and later rebuilding, that the computer has lots of time to upgrade, build, and fortify. A defend mission can get out of hand quite quickly in these circumstances!
Defend missions are mostly agreeable to the fast-aggressive play style. Defend and horde and fearless maniac players will usually be caught off guard by the sudden assault, and get slaughtered in their confusion. A slow-aggressive player will most likely understand the need to upgrade quickly, but only after a few losses will he or she realize the need to build large numbers of troops! For an example of a defense mission, play BOOK10.PUD.
