[Custom Map] Attempt to "program" a different sort of victory condition into a single-player battle

Alright, let's get this faux plot out of the way:

. . .

You are called upon to quash a bizarre magical incursion in the mountains. Locals report that first they spied strange lights within abandoned huts at the mouth of a mountain cave, and thereafter a chill wind and locust plague beset them. You must stamp out whatever magic has arisen in these huts before a new Demon Portal can take hold . . .

In this single-player map, nothing matters except hitting each "hut." You should have way more power than you need to do so.



I wanted to test whether it were possible to expand on victory conditions in the game without actually programming new code. There already are "get to the other side" battles (like mine), but how about "capture the flag" or "get to several key locations; you don't actually have to stay there afterward" battles?

My logic:

1. To implement "objects to capture," you'd have to have a one-time victory point reward.

2. You ONLY get one-time rewards by killing enemies.

3. So you'd have to pin a really weak enemy to these key locations, and have those enemies be the only ones worth victory points.

4. The only way to enforce this positioning is to have the enemy be pinned behind impassable terrain, and restrict the player to range 2 Attacks.

5. Okay, Giant Cockroaches versus Mercenaries, go.

Again, this map is biased toward the player. The point is that something like this could be a START on alternate victory conditions. I hope that the layout lends itself to basic movement strategy, and seems like it could be a fun challenge with tweaking (and maybe new programming . . . ).

 

Yeah, I could probably have won it with just one merc, no servant. (And wow, I wish I had Impaling Stab when I was fighting roaches in the campaign.) If I was doing this, I'd put a victory square in the farthest cabin to create a time limit (you'd still have to kill all the imps, since you can't reach the square yourself).

Which gives me an idea for a "search for treasure" map: have a bunch of large monsters on islands, and one of them is sitting on a victory square. But because they're large, you can't see the victory square until you kill them.

 

Have you tried it with just one? Did the difficulty seem right?

Because I'd be concerned such a setup wouldn't allow you to cover the ground quickly enough, and then you'd feel obliged to fight all the cockroaches. The plan here was to keep you moving to the real targets, and keep enemy movements meaningful (instead of massing up). If only there were stronger zero-victory-point enemies available so as to vary the threat; I thought Orcs worked as such, but of course that was wrong.

Alternate level designs replaced one or more player-controlled characters with a Troglodyte or a Kobold Spearman. You can judge for yourself how well that would work.

And sure, you could build in a timer. Folks have done that before (like here, on in Against the Cockroaches itself), so that wasn't particularly the mechanism I was trying to "program."

 

Okay, one merc isn't enough. I also tried with a wisp, but that was even worse. Xanthicius can solo it easily, of course.

Edit: Veldar the Dashing (Demo MP Warrior 1) can solo it easily, but he has to kill all the roaches first, because he only has 3 cards (out of 30) that can hit the imps.

Traplings used to be zero points, but that changed with the latest Melvelous nerf.

 

. . . And I just noticed that I left the cheerful, peaceful "Town" sound file as the background in the scenario. Ah, the little flaws.

And yes, I'd tried Traplings. I really wanted them to work. They would have been a great "creeping doom" coming out from the back of the map.

 

Very nice three thumbs up... it was so awesome i had to borrow one from a willing peasant donor.

 

[deleted]

 

To put my mind at rest, Wuh?

 

Weird, seems like the sort of thing I should have encountered before now, I had to ask ^_^

Knowing is half the battle (apparently).

 

Whew, I'm glad you like it!

Very interesting that you should find this result with your party change. The Arcane Imps are there simply because I didn't have enough choices: the "Demon Portal" plot is completely shoehorned into the thing. What I REALLY want are enemies you can kill with a single hit: the most direct implementation of the "step on the target squares once each in order to win" idea.

But Black Oozes have even more health. Golems have Armor. Goblins or Kobolds have Blocks--and I tried to use the super-wimpy Kobolds from Ommlet but they aren't available.

I was expecting you to have enough health to survive the Arcane Imp ranged Attacks! But if you say you don't (with one Mercenary), what other enemy type would you recommend?

 

Ooh, Pokkin. That's helpful. I'll remember that for any hypothetical undisclosed nefarious plan . . .