Nice scenario M. Poireau. I really enjoyed not knowing what to expect in the beginning, had to restart a few times. The income system on this map is very interesting and really adds a role-play feeling.

The only downside is that there is very little challenge once you get decent income and late game becomes to tedious. Maybe putting more wastelands of increasing size in the DNA chain would slow down the player? That would force more dynamic play on the map itself.

Excellent ideas. I'm going to adjust the scenario to make the start more challenging (give up on the "surprise" of the zombie attack and just allow him to attack the player on the first turn) and also make it more difficult for either party to traverse the DNA chain. Feel free to play again if you're interested!

Edited 11/26/2015 22:53:41

Great scenario. Just wasted a few happy hours on it :) Hope to see more of this sort of thing.

Thanks for playing!

I've updated the scenario once more, to make it more balanced/smooth.

Ideally, for replay value, I would make several versions with the "wastelands" in different places, but I don't have time to do that right now.

I DO wish Warlight had an option to assign wastelands *after* territory selection, so you could have preset starting positions for players (or manual distribution) AND randomized wastelands. It would have been handy for this scenario!

Further update: I've put up a new version of the map with the Sanctions cards enabled, for extra difficulty.

Here it is:

https://www.warlight.net/SinglePlayer?TemplateID=763881

(I've edited it into the original post above, as well.)

I really enjoyed your template but haven't finished it yet.
IMO this would be a template which would be really nice to add to singleplayer. (There is a discussion about that in a diffrent thread.)

Edited 12/10/2015 22:04:17

Very difficult challenge, but I am thoroughly enjoying my third attempt. The wastelands always seem to show up in the worst possible spots and the zombies seem to always be around you, but my favourite thing about this challenge is that I have no idea if I'm doing well or not. It's a completely foreign map with unexplored problems and challenges and it keeps me on my toes.

Exceptionally well done. I hope you come up with a new single-player challenge for us soon.

Thank you! I think it's an interesting one. Unfortunately, the creator of the map seems absent from Warlight (unfortunate, because there are a few missing connections on the map).

I'm updating the scenario one more time; unfortunately, I can't find any way to make the AI in the hospital attack in the desired direction consistently.

Thank you for playing!

The Walking Dead? Who gives a shit. It's a terrible map and a shitty show that was relevant to normies 3 years ago.

I'm not a fan of "Walking Dead".

I like Warlight, however.

If you don't want to try the scenario, no one's twisting your arm!

Oh, alright, that's cool. I thought the scenario was about the Walking dead because it's named that and it's a zombie map. Just make sure it isn't about that because I fucking hate that.

I love these, I think it would be cool to develop more, games with missions, there's so much available in the game in maps I think there might be some cool things possible :)

Thanks again M. Poireau :)

As you're clanless, could I invite you to join our clan? One of the things we want to work on is a database to store and rate templates, including single player ones :)

We already have another member collecting up single player templates and training missions, if interested that would be great, but I understand if you're not :)

ah fleecemaster... I asked him too... now we have to fight! ;)

Sorry to disappoint you, but we have candy ;)

EDIT: Poireau can always join with an alt if he wants anyway, we allow for that :)

Edited 12/13/2015 00:11:14

Ha! You guys are hilarious.

Thanks all the same!

For those curious about the scenario:

When I play it, I use the deployment limit as a handicap (which I definitely encourage; I think it's far too easy without it in play).

Given that, I typically finish the scenario in 40 turns (that was my last run-through). Of course, however, I have an advantage due to knowing a lot more about the scenario than you might on a first attempt, but, nevertheless, there you have it.

As a general rule for the "early game", you want your production count to match the turn number (very roughly), so that by turn 15 you're producing 15/turn or so. That means you're likely "doing well".

Join our clan, seriously, we have like 3 other players making these sort of maps :)

Fleecemaster, send me a private message with more info - that sounds interesting! Cheers.

Multi-attack is enabled

Holy shit, what?!? *RTFM*

Hah, neat so far. Played it once and lost. Now that I know it's multi-attack I should do better! lol

I didn't understand the whole DNA bonus activation scheme until several turns in, also. Again, I guess I should RTFM first, eh? :-) (Actually, it looks like you don't have an explanation of that system in your scenario description? If not, might be a good thing to add.)

Here's one suggestion that will probably help you when balancing this further:

*spoilers*

Currently, it's a coin flip whether the big stack goes toward the player or away from the player on the Human side of the DNA strand. That's because the AI stack is neighbouring two neutrals. When neighbouring multiple enemy territories (incl. neutrals), there is always some random component to where the AI will attack, and with how much of its stack. If you want to ensure it goes *only* in one direction, you have to make sure there is only one neighbouring enemy (incl. neutrals). Therefore, if you want the big stack to immediately start going towards the player every time, you need to make sure the Creatif DNA territory is *not* an enemy (or neutral). Therefore, if you simply make that territory owned by the AI at the beginning of the game, rather than neutral, then the big stack will have no possible alternatives to attack, it will always attack Primal DNA with its entire stack. You don't even need to make it 0 neutrals, which is kind of a give-away clue that something fishy is down that way.

In general, if the AI is not going the way you want it to, you need to reduce its choices by giving the other territories either to that AI or one of its team mates.

Another thing you might have noticed is that the neutrals, especially the big wastelands are kind of 'sticky' to passing AI troops. They tend to congregate around them uselessly. This occurs when the AI doesn't have enough income to take the neutrals in one attack. It's basically trying to build up a stack until it's twice as big as the neutral stack. So if there's a wasteland of 12, and the AI's income is too small, it will slowly try to build up until it has 24 armies so it can attack.

This can either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you want the AI to do, but usually it's an annoying bad thing. There's no easy solution, but ensuring that the AIs have some decent income, enough to make big enough stacks that can attack neutral stacks, will help. Making the wastelands smaller will help, too. But sometimes you don't want to give the AI a lot of income or make the wastelands small. In that case, you're pretty much stuck with the stupid AI loitering around big neutrals. Sucks, but that's why it happens.