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- Title : Walled Cities
- Author : Leslie Styles
- lms@soton.ac.uk
- Players : 4
- Filename : WALLCITY.PUD, WALLCTY2.PUD
- Building : From scratch, 1.5 hours
- (At least 30 mins of this was changing my mind)
-
- Description:
-
- Each of the four players (2 Human, 2 Orc) start in one corner of the map,
- with one Peasant/Peon and a Town Hall/Great Hall. Their start area is
- sufficient in size to build a large city, and surrounded by a three-layer
- wall. There are two entrances, each protected by three Cannon and two Guard
- towers. In the corner of each city is a Gold Mine, each containing 100,000
- gold. The walls of the city also enclose a deep forest.
-
- The cities are connected by a series of interlinked islands, each of which
- contains a Gold Mine with 50,000 gold, and a few trees. Each player has one
- direct path onto the islands, and one blocked by rocks. Each player's direct
- path is opposite another player's blocked path, so while you cannot initially
- attack directly, by removing the rocks you enable a path. Remember of course
- that you also give your opponent a path to you!
-
- Each player starts with 10,000 Gold, 5,000 Lumber and 10,000 Oil, allowing
- them to build the first few units straight away. I prefer this to starting
- with a set group of buildings as it allows the player more freedom to choose
- their own strategy whilst still getting the game going quickly.
-
- This level is designed for four-player combat, although two or three would
- still be nearly as much fun. Playing against three computer players is pretty
- tough, although they are pretty stupid.
-
-
- WALLCTY2.PUD is exactly the same level, only each player starts out with one
- Human Peasant and one Orc Peon. This allows you to build and utilise all units
- in the game. There is a seperate section at the end of the Tactics that lists
- a few points about playing with both races.
-
-
- Tactics:
-
- The cities themselves are relatively easy to defend. The walls take some
- time to batter through, and the trees form a further defensive line behind
- them. However, as time goes on you continually shrink the tree barrier. A
- close watch on the peasants is needed to prevent weak spots appearing too
- quickly. The two entrances are reasonably defended from an early attack, as
- troops would be damaged marching through or slowed dealing with the towers.
-
- For those that prefer an attacking strategy, there is sufficient Gold to
- sustain an advancing army, although Lumber is limited. Attacks on a heavily
- defended city would be costly, although if you can contain your opponent
- attrition would eventually take it's toll.
-
- This level calls for a mixed attack or defence force. The thick walls mean
- that Archers/Ballistas or Axe Throwers/Catapults are vital in attack or
- defense. These in turn require a force of close attack troops for defense,
- which means they'll be needed for attack. The walls are most vulnerable to
- Dwarf/Goblin Sappers, but carefully placed traps can make this a costly
- strategy. Long range magic spells can wreak havoc on both attack and defence
- forces, and are particularly useful if the tree barrier is still too thick
- for projectile weapons. This is also true of air attack units.
-
-
- Playing with both races:
-
- In WALLCTY2.PUD you start out with one Peasant and one Peon. The first Peon
- (if you're Human) or Peasant (if you're Orc) will be a different colour, but
- any you build will be in your colour. They will also have the voices for your
- race, not their own.
-
- The key to playing successfully with both races is knowing what you need to
- build just for one side, and what you need to build for both. The most obvious
- point is that if you want to build Grunts you need an Orc barracks, and for
- Footmen you need a Human barracks, and so on for all the people. Slightly less
- obvious are some of the others.
-
- Town Hall/Great Hall. You need to build one of each if you wish to produce
- Peasants and Peons. However, you only need to upgrade one of them to produce
- advanced buildings and units.
-
- Farms. You can build farms for either race, or a mixture. The output of all
- farms is taken as a whole, not per-race.
-
- Barracks. You need to build one of each if you wish to produce both Human
- and Orc troops.
-
- Lumber Mill/Blacksmith. You can build one of these for either race. Building
- one Lumber Mill (Human or Troll) will give you access to Elven Archers and
- Troll Axe Throwers. Any upgrades performed on any Lumber Mill or Blacksmith
- will affect both Human and Orc troops, eg if you produce a Human Lumber Mill
- and do Ranger training, you will also get Bezerkers. The three Ranger upgrades
- map directly onto the three Bezerker upgrades. Ballista upgrades also affect
- catapults etc. The same is true if you build a Troll Lumber Mill.
-
- Stables/Ogre Mounds. Again you only need to build one of these to get access
- to both Knights and Ogres.
-
- Dwarven Inventor/Goblin Alchemists. As these buildings produce people, you
- would need to build both to get access to both races, but as there is really
- no difference between them it may just be a waste of money
-
- Church/Alter of Storms. This one is slightly more tricky. If you build either
- of these, the first upgrade affects both, ie if you build a Church then you
- can upgrade to Paladins and Ogre-Mages in one go. However, all magic spells
- are treated independantly. Therefore if you only build a Church you can get
- Healing and Exorcism, but you won't get Bloodlust and Runes. You really need
- to build both of these.
-
- Mage Tower/Temple of the Damned. You need both of these too for the same
- reason: The magic upgrades are treated independantly. Also these buildings
- produce people. It can therefore be very expensive to get access to all magic
- spells, especially in the early parts of the game.
-
- Gryphon Aviary/Dragon Roost. Again these two buildings produce people. If
- you want both, you need both buildings.
-
- As this is a land-based level I'll ignore water-based units.
-
-
- Earlier versions:
-
- The first version of this level had fewer bridges between islands, but this
- meant that every player had to go through the middle island to advance. This
- led to fairly boring games with each player having a large army on the nearest
- island and just sending them all onto the middle to attack. I therefore linked
- all the islands together to provide alternative paths and to allow players to
- circle opponents and attack from behind or in a pincer movement.
-
- Copyright and Permissions:
-
- These levels are copyright L.M.Styles, 1996. You may use this as a base to
- build other levels, no matter whether it's a minor tweak or a major change,
- but it'd be kinda nice to get a mention 8-)
-
- Contacting the Author:
-
- Please feel free to send any comments, suggestions, money etc to:-
-
- lms@soton.ac.uk
-
- If you know how to alter the properties for Rangers and Bezerkers in the
- editor I'd be particularly keen to hear about it.
-