Tiberian Dawn - The Other Side

[cn2mc]

I haven't made a mission in quite a while. In fact, it was so long ago I last tried that I can't even remember if I uploaded it anywhere or I was dissatisfied with it... Anyway, this one here lives up to my standards and I hope you have as much fun playing it as I had making it. It's a fast paced tactical mission with (very) limited resources and it should keep you busy until you figure it out. All the triggers and teamtypes seem to work like I intended them to, although I haven't tested them that thoroughly. Please report any glitches and check back for eventual updates of the map here. Everything you need to know at this point is in the briefing:

 

Our field hospital in this region was cut off. The last communication we received is that Nod are already harvesting Tiberium from this new impact site and conducting experiments on civilians. Get to the other side of the river and re-link with our outpost. If the bridge has been demolished, you'll have to find another way across. It is imperative that you capture the Nod tech. centre and refinery. Act quickly as they have more forces in the area. We do not. Use everything at your disposal.

 

Oh, and by the way, I'm lazy and didn't check if there's another mission with this name. If there is, sue me.

scg70ea.rar

[Nyerguds]

Looks great! I'll see if I can find some time to play it.

[MattAttack]

Played the map today and it was pretty cool.  I kind of like how small it was yet it was fairly challenging.  I must stress that this map is visually appealing and had creative use of shore tiles.  I hate maps where there are unfinished cliff edges and misaligned tiles and at least some care was taken to make this map interesting looking.  Things I'd recommend spiffing up: Make the celltriggers 2 cells thick as infantry sometimes have a hard time setting them off (look at some of westwood's maps for examples), make the tech center "Cap=win/des=lose" (again just copy from a westwood ini), give Nod a little more starting money, and **SPOILER ALERT!!** maybe mention in the breifing that you need to capture the comm center to get the chopper (or just have it there waiting.) Overall though I like this map because it's tough but doable.  Good job! 

[cn2mc]

Hey, thanks for the feedback, Mr_Killt. And yeah, I like to make my maps pretty, so I appreciate you appreciating it. About the CT's, I'll look into it, but they seem to work just fine as they are. The tech. centre, I just couldn't get it to work right with cap=win...etc. Will look into that too when I get to releasing a new version of the map. But it's not really crucial. I don't think that Nod really needs more cash in the beginning but I might just give them some more.

About the chopper, well, it's just 2+2. You have a comm. centre, a Hand of Nod and a power plant and you get two engineers. You have to be a complete dolt  not to capture the comm. centre. It sells for the value of an engineer and gives you between 3 and 5 minigunners at full health, which you may very well need. Capturing the HoN has some nasty consequences, but it gives you a very important tech., bazookas. But enough spoilers. I'm actually worried about some other triggers and features of this map, but I'm already working on them. I'll just wait and see when people start noticing them.

[Nyerguds]

The cap=win trigger is ALWAYS, without ANY exception

 

win=Any,Cap=Win/Des=Lose,0,None,None,0

 

The only thing you could change in that is the actual trigger name at the start. The rest should be kept exactly. Then you just link the trigger to the building you need to capture to win or destroy to lose.

[cn2mc]

The cap=win trigger is ALWAYS, without ANY exception

 

win=Any,Cap=Win/Des=Lose,0,None,None,0

 

That I know. What I couldn't really do is make an allow win trigger work with the refinery (player enters). You always seemed to win if you capture the tech. centre, even if you haven't captured the refinery. Anyway, I might switch up the victory conditions a bit in the next incarnation of this map, but that'll happen later. Now I'm knee-deep in the making of another mission (or two).

[MattAttack]

yeah, now that you mention it I sort of remember making a mission where I was trying to have several buildings that had to be captured and as soon as the 1st one was captured, the mission was over... cant remember if I ever got around that.  Well, time to do some trigger research!

[Nyerguds]

Ah, I don't think cap=win can be combined with Allow Win triggers. It just always makes it win.

 

For passive buildings (like a com center) you could make it of a different side, give them some unreachable power plant somewhere inaccessible, and work with a "# of buildings destroyed, 1" trigger on that house, cancelled by a "Player Enters, destroy trigger XXXX". Though these setups are always kinda hard to get right since the player enters thing would happen at almost exactly at the same time as the lose trigger.

 

Do note, in general, blowing up a building with a commando has the exact same Player Enters effect. So with a commando mission, it's NOT a good way to try to detect capture.

[MattAttack]

yeah, I tried:

win=Any,Cap=Win/Des=Lose,0,None,None,1 (note the '1' on the end) but it didnt work. If you destroyed any or all of the 3 buildings you wouldn't lose, or if you destroyed 2 and captured 1 you'd win; overall it's a mess.  And using a '2' just acted like '0'. 

[Nyerguds]

Hmm. Repeat status 1 acts differently on each trigger, I guess. Nice idea, pity it won't work.

[cn2mc]

Also, '2' acting as '0' on a 'cap=win/des=lose' trigger with multiple buildings makes perfet sense. It means that if any of these buildings are captured or destroyed the trigger is fired. Pity that the '1' doesn't work though. I tried that too before settling for Player enters with a '1' loop.

[MattAttack]

Well, I always liked this map so I recorded a vid of me playing it while commentating on it's strengths/weaknesses.  So I'll bump it, bro!  Thanks to cn2mc for letting me dissect and criticize it. here's the video.  Oh, and PLAY THE MAP,  it's cool.  (And I have ridiculously high standards when it comes to this sort of thing.)

 

Also, regarding the discussion we had here about trying to make multiple buildings cap=win/des=lose:

Ah, I don't think cap=win can be combined with Allow Win triggers. It just always makes it win.

 

For passive buildings (like a com center) you could make it of a different side, give them some unreachable power plant somewhere inaccessible, and work with a "# of buildings destroyed, 1" trigger on that house, cancelled by a "Player Enters, destroy trigger XXXX". Though these setups are always kinda hard to get right since the player enters thing would happen at almost exactly at the same time as the lose trigger.

 

It worked, Nyer!  I just had the triggers ordered properly so that the lose one came 2nd and it worked.  yay

 

next would be GiftS "after war mini campaign;" I think that is really good too and I might as well bump all the quality missions to the top.

[Nyerguds]

I honestly never considered that the order of the triggers in the ini would have any influence on that kind of thing... or any influence at all, really  O_o

[MattAttack]

whoops! I was wrong about the trigger order thing in this one.  Just figured I'd test it so I wasn't spreading misinformation.  Here's how it works:

 

[TRIGGERS]

XXXX=# BLDGS DSTR.,LOSE,1,BADGUY,NONE,0

XXNO=PLAYER ENTERS,DSTRY TRIG 'XXXX',0,GOODGUY,NONE,0

 

[sTRUCTURES]

000=BADGUY,HQ,256,329,0,XXNO

 

However, if you reverse them and have the # of bldgs. destroyed as the 'destroy trigger x' and the 'player enters' as the lose, it wont work.  (btw I destroyed it with a commando and lost heh heh, capture with engi didn't lose! )

 

Ordering the triggers does work in other instances, though.  I've recently been experimenting with 'stacking' built it triggers.  Here's how that works:

 

BLD1=BUILT IT,CREATE TEAM,15,GOODGUY,X,0

BLD2=BUILT IT,CREATE TEAM,15,GOODGUY,Y,0

BLD3=BUILT IT,CREATE TEAM,15,GOODGUY,Z,[glow=red,2,300]2[/glow]

 

Of course 15 signifies the barracks and in this example, the goodguy is the player.  1st barracks constructed makes team 'X' the second barracks=team 'Y' the third and every subsequent barracks (note the [glow=red,2,300]2[/glow] )yields team Z. 

[cn2mc]

I'm not sure even WW knew about this shit... Nice finds. This brings us one step closer to making a semi-realistic skirmish map.

[MattAttack]

This brings us one step closer to making a semi-realistic skirmish map.

 

Yeah, it's a good way to get the enemy to send the appropriate units to attack you.  For example, spamming barracks could have you lambasted by enemy artillery, ssm, flame weapons... whatever's appropriate!  Heck if you're NOD maybe every obelisk built sends a ton of infantry at you !  I only wish the [base] function could be side specific then you could have multiple independent AI bases vs. you.  As it stands now, you wouldn't be able to control who (re)builds the structures if there's multiple houses with 'production' activated.  But 'Built it' is definitely one of my favorite triggers.  iirc, it's only used a couple times in the original campaigns and I think it's for 'allow win'  (nod 5 you HAVE to build the SAM to win)