PITCH4K.PUD "Pitchfork" 2 Player Co-op, quite hard. One player should be human, the other should play orc. 6 Computer opponents, play with default resources unless you want a serious (impossible? I don't know, haven't tried it much) challenge. Percent Land: 88.78 Arable: 39.10 Mountains: 2.69 Forests: 29.68 Available Gold: 2980000 (mostly available to the computer players) Lumber: 486200 Oil: 300000 (only really available to White) Player Town Army Navy Air AI Red 3 2 0 0 * Human Blue 3 2 0 0 * Human Green 16 2 0 1 Land Attack Violet 16 2 0 1 Land Attack Orange 18 10 0 1 Land Attack Black 20 10 0 1 Land Attack White 16 2 0 1 Sea Attack Yellow 13 3 0 1 Air Attack Neutral 16 25 0 0 Land Attack This PUD was made using the map editor which came with Warcraft II. I made the above report using WarIIxEd. This my first PUD, I learned a lot making it. My goal was to make a two-player cooperative map which was quite difficult but winnable. I particularly wanted it to stay difficult throughout the game. Typically you either grunt rush taking out or crippling most of the computer opponents, or build up an army which overwhelms them. This PUD has several limited mines which you have to work for. The play has been scripted so that the challenges increase as play progresses. Hopefully you can keep up! The computer players start with buildings and defenses to give them an advantage. They each start with a scout so they will know where you are and what you are up to from the beginning. This PUD also features a trick I figured out (I think I've since seen it in other people's puds - I wish I could claim credit): the area between the computer's halls and mines has been changed to dirt so that he can't build buildings in the way. This made a BIG difference in this PUD. Also the sea guy kept making (useless vs. land troops) turtles, so I made them prohibitively expensive. The sea guy still doesn't sail around to find places to bombard you. I couldn't figure out how to get him to do so. Oh well. --- Josh Levenberg kali: JoshBuckler email: jlevenbe@math.berkeley.edu www: http://math.berkeley.edu/~jlevenbe/ Playtested with: --- Darin "Hoss" Goldstein kali: Daring email: daring@math.berkeley.edu Don't read any farther until you have played the level. I have put detailed spoilers and strategies for beating this level below. (Yes, the level is beatable -- Darin and I beat it after a few tries; my favorite thing about this level is that I had a great time even when we lost). Start off with the lumber bug and a fast build order. You are going to be attacked very quickly, so get that barracks up. I recommend the strategies on Methos' Warcraft page for this. Expect repeated attacks on your home towns, including by a dragon or two. There is a path connecting your two home towns so you can bail each other out if you run into problems. You are going to need to build a ballista/catapult fairly quickly to take out the towers which prevent you from going down. Don't bother getting the second hall upgrade, you don't have that much cash in the first mine. Concentrate on getting ogres/knights, upgrades, and some archers. Once past the first line of towers, follow the coast (an arrow points the way, though it is easy to miss) with some troops and the siege engine. You'll have to take out two towers, but you will be rewarded with a second mine. If you are fast, you can get there before your towers there fall. If you aren't there to protect them, when the computer finishes with your runestone, some knights and catapults will take that mine. Getting this mine quickly is very important. If you run out of cash in your first mine before setting up at the second, you are going to have major difficulties. Around this point, expect a significant number of dragons to harass you. Upgrade to a fortress when you get to the second mine, and work on mages or lust. Towers are your friend too. Soon you will find that there is a large number of (upgraded) troops waiting just outside the trees which are rapidly being chopped down. Use your ballista/cat to take out the towers. Don't use blizzard or death&decay since that will take out the wall as well. Once the towers have been dealt with, it is safe to use blizzard to take out all the peons and forces on the outskirts. Chop to the third mine when you get a chance since mine 2 only has 25k. The computer players have no interest in this mine until you break down the wall surrounding it. You can cause a lot of damage to his peons when you free this mine, however. When the first mine is dry and you've built up enough, chop out and attack. You should have at least two barracks by now and sizeable forces. Important: Leave a farm. I repeat, do not eliminate the computer player completely. If you eliminate anyone, the unit max will be raised. The computers have been mining and upgrading like mad while you've been busy -- as soon as unit max raises you will be flooded with enemy troops. I have a lot of trouble fighting and building troops at the same time, the computer has no difficulty. Your goal at this point is to secure the very large mine at the edge of the map. This is an exposed position, so expect to be very busy even at the slowest speed. Build a hall above the mine and wall it in. Towers may be helpful, but he will catapult and d&d/blizzard them. It seems the best strategy here is to build a very long wall stretching east-west across the map. If done on both sides, you will be able to hold this position and build up forces. One side should have enough forces to maintain the position, all excess should be sent to the other side to form a big, joint army. When I played, I was playing the humans, having a few ogres to lust my troops made all the difference. When you are ready, start the final battle. Open a hole in the wall, pour huge forces through and blizzard everything in sight. You can get a big initial advantage by strategically blizzarding the path he has to take to your troops. Next blizzard the long line of towers and balistas. Paladins should exorcise any death knights, all your troops should be lusted at all times and all of your opponents should be slowed. This will be a big and long fight, so remember to be building replacements. At some point you may want to raise unit max, but only do so if you can build very quickly from that point on and the computers have been attacked and are below unit max. If you can cripple the opponent, then have your reinforcements join you and continue on. If you are not so lucky, just retreat, reseal the wall in, and build up again. Hopefully your first attack will take out the tower line and a barracks or two. Your second attack should hit just as he's rebuilt his buildings but before he's significantly rebuilt his forces. After taking out this guy, you will need to take out a huge number of towers, blizzard the sea guy's ships, and eliminate the air and sea guys from the bottom center of the map. The last guy should not put up too much of a fight against a combined assault from two sides.