Enslavers Special Edition

[Eredalis]

Yeah, just like I said above, mission 1 has now experienced a pretty neat boost, whereof you can see what this Special Edition is all about. Slightly increasing the difficulty level in appropriate dosage, but as chris already confirmed, don't confuse difficulty with polishing. You did in mission 1 an amazing job to reach your self-defined goal, but in mission 2 you already have three AI's that uses MEDIUM / MEDIUM / DIFFICULT. They hit you hard in that version that I've played. Another player which generates strong attack waves burn everything down. One little mistake and you're getting smashed to pieces.

I was wondering which Starcraft version did you have played. Or you generally use for your test games.
I don't know. I can't remember if Blizzard has fixed in all those years and patches or especially for "Remastered" some bugs in all existing AI scripts. That could be the case, since you've experienced buggy AI behaviours.

I'm using only "Remastered" and I can assure you all three AI's in mission 2 worked very well in nearly every aspect. No freeze, no inacitivity. All three AI's attacked me for over an hour with all garden tools. Ouch!

/edit
Thank you very much for your posting, chris! Your two edits reflect exactly my experiences in mission 2.

[Andrea Rosa]

I had a lot of free time today (couldn't be otherwise in CovidLand), so the new version is already available.

Mission 1
- Most of the triggered attacks have been removed.

Mission 2
- The attack waves are much easier. They only contain Zerglings and Defilers, at wider intervals.
- The attack waves now come from two Nydus Canals.
- If the Player attemps to destroy the Nydus Canals too early by using Kazansky, the Orange Zerg will retaliate with Guardians.
- To avoid confusion, all small mineral clusters have been removed, except for the one located near the Refinery.

Mission 3a
- The AI for the nuclear strikes starts later.
- Battlecruisers attack less frequently.

Mission 3b
- Battlecruisers attack less frequently.

[chris]

Tried playing mission 2 (your old version) a third and final time. Got slaughtered by the ultralisks right after i dealt with the guardians. Yeah. I think I'll replace the old files with your new ones now. lol. I'm never going to be able to beat the old version of mission 2. I'm keeping your old version of mission 1 though, it was great after the first try and it didn't need changes. Going to do the new version of mission 2 now.

*some time later*

Just finished playing mission 2 (your new version), it was a lot of fun this time around! going to start mission 3 now and see how it goes

*some time later*

Third mission went well but there are a few things I would recommend doing to improve it if you want an even better score:

- "to our advantage" not "at our advantage"
- "I can try to hack" not "I may try to hack"
- give the observers their upgrades for sight and speed at the start of the mission, both will greatly help with overall pacing in the beginning of the mission.
- Give zealots the speed upgrade at the start of the mission

Other than that it was great even though I screwed up quite a few times and had to restart before I won. I will do the last mission soon.

[Andrea Rosa]

- give the observers their upgrades for sight and speed at the start of the mission, both will greatly help with overall pacing in the beginning of the mission.
- Give zealots the speed upgrade at the start of the mission

These are very good ideas, I will implement them tonight and then I'll update the file. Also thanks for the grammatical tips. So you are going for the "B" branch first, I thought you would have tried "A" because of the newly added mission.

[chris]

I have completed missions 4 and by extension the entire campaign. It was excellent. The results are in:

- The campaign is recommended
- The campaign has scored 82%, becoming the first campaign reviewed so far to get a score in the 80s excluding mass recall for starcraft 2.
- This has been the second campaign I've reviewed so far that has managed to get a 100% completion score as the campaign was done from start to end with no cheats. The only other campaign to get total completion in playthrough is life of a marine: Bootcamp

As always, here is the spreadsheet with the score, but with "notes" not being visible:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

Here is the external link to the spreadsheet, this one will show "notes" for the score cells.
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l_ink-CKwo92syCxJmivfh7zeMZu4U0p_q5Ra7HTF4U/edit#gid=0

With this, my review of the tier C campaigns is finally completed.

The tier C campaigns have indeed ended up being noticeably better than the D-tier campaigns as I predicted they would be, however very few campaigns managed to get a recommendation. 2/3rd of the campaigns in tier C were borderline recommendable. Sadly, almost none of these ultimately managed to get a recommendation either because the author decided they weren't interested in their work or because they were competition campaigns that never got a patch to fix their issues. The sole exception was Empire wars which just barely managed to get a recommendation on account of it being highly polished at the cost of being boring and repetitive and a little bit too retro for most players. The remaining 1/3rd of the campaigns fit into two groups with the first half being absolutely garbage campaigns that gave me a false impression of potential upon first impression when I added them to tier C. The second half are the 4 campaigns that ended up being genuinely good. 3 of these were actually reviewed before I even decided to organize the campaigns into tiers. All 4 are also among the newest campaigns made. Those campaigns are:

- Starcraft: Interbellum by Juxtapose
- Tales of Halcyon by Andrea Rosa
- Voices of the swarm by Andrea Rosa
- Enslavers SE by Andrea Rosa and Blizzard

All 4 are recommended for all players, especially those who want a more traditional style campaign and want the story of starcraft to be fleshed out more. Personally I consider the plot in these 4 campaigns to be canon.

Next up is tier B, I'm hoping this tier will see more recommendations as Tier C was mostly one disappointment after the other. However I'm not too optimistic because I think tier B is going to consist mostly of old RPG campaigns and past reviews of other RPG campaigns have shown that these kinds of campaigns have aged really badly as standards of the RPG genre have changed drastically since those campaigns were made. Who knows though? We shall see....

These are very good ideas, I will implement them tonight and then I'll update the file. Also thanks for the grammatical tips. So you are going for the "B" branch first, I thought you would have tried "A" because of the newly added mission.

I can't stomach helping out mengsk over the protoss who clearly have a better understanding of the situation at hand and I am really bad at defeating Protoss as Terran. Besides, A isn't canon. Eredalis is going to have to do those missions for me and make comments on their quality.

[Andrea Rosa]

I've updated the campaign with your suggested changes, Chris.

The tier C campaigns have indeed ended up being noticeably better than the D-tier campaigns as I predicted they would be, however very few campaigns managed to get a recommendation. 2/3rd of the campaigns in tier C were borderline recommendable. Sadly, almost none of these ultimately managed to get a recommendation either because the author decided they weren't interested in their work or because they were competition campaigns that never got a patch to fix their issues. The sole exception was Empire wars which just barely managed to get a recommendation on account of it being highly polished at the cost of being boring and repetitive and a little bit too retro for most players. The remaining 1/3rd of the campaigns fit into two groups with the first half being absolutely garbage campaigns that gave me a false impression of potential upon first impression when I added them to tier C. The second half are the 4 campaigns that ended up being genuinely good. 3 of these were actually reviewed before I even decided to organize the campaigns into tiers. All 4 are also among the newest campaigns made.

Maybe it's a dumb question, but I'm curious to know what you mean by "tiers", and what criteria did you use to organize the campaigns in such categories. Is it simply a global rating or there are other parameters involved?

I can't stomach helping out mengsk over the protoss who clearly have a better understanding of the situation at hand and I am really bad at defeating Protoss as Terran. Besides, A isn't canon. Eredalis is going to have to do those missions for me and make comments on their quality.

In this case I'll summarize it for you. Mission 3a is an alternate version of 3b in which you have to withstand repeated nuclear strikes; once you destroy the three Command Centers with Nuclear Silos, the mission is won. As a consequence, in Mission 4a Schezar's Scavengers won't be able to use nukes, however this mission now has it own "Torrasque", in the form of enhanced Protoss Carriers that will be warped in at the Temple: Magellan's EMP and Kazansky's firepower will be crucial during the early stages of the game, until the Player is able to build an air force, and Ghosts with Lockdown will also prove to be very useful in dealing with these special Carriers.

I was wondering which Starcraft version did you have played. Or you generally use for your test games.

Original StarCraft patched to version 1.16.1

[chris]

Maybe it's a dumb question, but I'm curious to know what you mean by "tiers", and what criteria did you use to organize the campaigns in such categories. Is it simply a global rating or there are other parameters involved?

When I began my spreadsheet my original idea was to do the campaigns alphabetically. That is why ACMD0 and Aeon of the Hawk are the first two campaigns that got reviewed.

Shortly after ragequitting Aeon of the Hawk I got curious about what campaigns I already have in my starcraft folder and I found the revengers being there despite having no memory of downloading it. I decided to check it out and I got sucked into it because playing a traditional RTS campaign after enduring the torture that is Aeon of the Hawk felt so damn good. This of course broke the alphabetical ordering of the spreadsheet and I decided to just do things randomly.

Later on I observed Pron0go more and realised that a big reason he is so negative is that playing so many campains in a mostly descending order of quality means that every experience he has is worse than the last, making him more and more bitter with each campaign he plays. You can notice a big difference between the Pron0g0 that reviewed Palinchron Concordance and the one that is currently reviewing Ascencion of Duran for example. He used to be less negative. I realized that in order to avoid this kind of burnout I need to start from the worst and work my way up to the best so that each campaign can feel like a reward rather than a punishment... but then the question is, how can I tell what the worst and the best is without playing? The answer is to look for a few telltale signs. For example, campaigns with a mod are more likely to have been given more effort than those without. The filesize of a map also was another sign of potential quality. Decent or better voice acting is the ultimate treat so I decided to do those campaigns with decent voice acting as late as possible. I also decided it is important to try and review campaigns made by the same author together. I began choosing which campaigns to review with this logic in mind while using a list of campaigns I made on mega.nz to keep track of what needs to be reviewed.

Some time later I realized it was impractical to keep using mega.nz as a reference point and wanted to put all the campaigns to be reviewed on my spreadsheet and use that as the reference point instead, the question then was which campaign should go where. In particular I noticed that campaigns were ending up in groups/tiers where none of them seemed better or worse than the other. I eventually settled on sorting those things mostly by year if there is no other hints. As this continued these groups/tiers began to become more and more defined and eventually I decided to just make it official that they exist.

Finally, I decided to retroactively move some of the earlier campaigns that I reviewed into these tiers where they would be if they hadn't been reviewed yet and all I knew was the filesizes, mods, voice acting, and first impression of the campaigns. As the tier thing is just for reference purposes for the order in which I review the campaigns I am most likely going to remove the tiers altogether when I finally finish reviewing everything as they will no longer serve any purpose

Your campaigns lack voice acting, a mod, and the filesizes are small which would mean they would have ended up in Tier D if it weren't for the fact that the campaigns managed to show they have hints of potential in other ways before I began playing them. That put them in Tier C along with all the other unmodded, unvoiced, low filesize campaigns in Tier C that similarly showed signs of potential (although ultimately only your campaigns, interbellum, and Empire Wars managed to be recommendable).

It is important to mention that the Tier system has zero effect on a campaign's score or recommendation. It only affects what time I decide to review it.

I've updated the campaign with your suggested changes, Chris.

Thanks, with this I can include a download link on the spreadsheet

[Eredalis]

The original Starcraft without the changes which Brood War brought...
I guess it could be maybe possible that some of the default AI scripts worked in a different way than with Brood War (or in Remastered). Otherwise I have no explanation why on earth we encountered on such heavy distinctions in both versions regarding the AI.

[Andrea Rosa]

Thanks Chris, that fully answered my question.

The original Starcraft without the changes which Brood War brought...
I guess, it could be maybe possible that some of the default AI scripts worked in a different way than with Brood War (or in Remastered). Otherwise I have no explanation why on earth we encountered on such heavy distinctions in both versions regardind the AI.

In terms of available triggers, starting from patch 1.04 onwards, StarCraft and Brood War are essentially the same thing, except for some small differences like the ability to use crystals and gas pick-ups. I have no idea if the AI scripts were changed with the various patches, but it could be possible.

[Andrea Rosa]

MINOR UPDATE - I have increased the volume of Schezar's evil laugh in Mission 4a/4b because it was too quiet.

[Eredalis]

Mission 3a is too hard and nearly unplayable.
In my opinion, there are way too few resources in relation to how hard and CONSTANTLY the enemy attacks.
You hardly have time to organize yourself. The atomic bombs just fly around your ears. It is not possible to withstand the pressure of attack.

Please reduce the time frame in which the opponent drops his atomic bombs. The current time frame is... every 60 seconds or something like that?! That's crazy!

In addition, there is again a lack of expansion points. It's the old problem again: you generate an even stronger attack pressure than in the original mission, and you don't place sufficient resources on the map. Why?

However, since you have added additional attacks to the mission, more minerals and gas are just simply required. Much more!
You’re just defending, and then it’s over because the attack pressure is just too high and you can’t tap into anything because there’s no more resources.

I had defeated the brown Terran, but the start is really a matter of luck, because as soon as the command center has been set up, the first battlecruisers appear.

[Andrea Rosa]

Please reduce the time frame in which the opponent drops his atomic bombs. The current time frame is... every 60 seconds or something like that?! That's crazy!

Sorry, that can't be done, unless I increase the time required to build Nukes... but if I do so, then the same time will be applied to your own Nukes (maybe I could increase it by 50 seconds). Keep in mind that Ghosts will target the nearest target, so it's quite easy to predict where they are going to strike. Of course, if you play on maximum speed this map is very difficult (I usually play on default speed, which gives more time to react). Also, try to obtain two Comsat Stations as soon as possible.

In addition, there is again a lack of expansion points. It's the old problem again: you generate an even stronger attack pressure than in the original mission, and you don't place sufficient resources on the map. Why?

The available resources are already more abundant than in the original, however I could increase them even more.

I had defeated the brown Terran, but the start is really a matter of luck, because as soon as the command center has been set up, the first battlecruisers appear.

That's strange, usually they start to appear later (after you build your first Factory). Please check the readme file and tell me its last update, probably you are playing a version released before March 19 (Battlecruisers attacked earlier in the previous versions). Try re-downloading the campaign, you may have missed some update. Please try one more time, if you still think it's too difficult I'll make some modifications.

[chris]

I kind of think that 3a and 4a should be harder than 3b and 4b. Leaving the protoss to die should definitely be punished.

[Andrea Rosa]

I kind of think that 3a and 4a should be harder than 3b and 4b. Leaving the protoss to die should definitely be punished.

I had the same exact thought. The original "Assault on Aiur" was easier than "The Final Blow", both for the absence of Torrasque and for the fact that the Protoss become inactive after the destruction of the Temple. While the Protoss still adhere to the same rule, the so-called Juggernaut is harder to counter than Torrasque (until you have a reasonable number of cloaked Wraiths, then you are settled).

[Eredalis]

Please check the readme file and tell me its last update...

Last update in readme file was March 19.
Okay, I will try it one more time.

...and for the fact that the Protoss become inactive after the destruction of the Temple...

Inactive? I don't know, man.
I didn't tell you this so far, but I've been playing also the original Enslavers missions to getting a better picture of the distinctions between the two campaigns. (Original and SE)
The Protoss have NOT become inactive. They getting removed all of their probes. But they refused to attack me anymore. They attacked pretty constantly after the destruction of their temple, especially with Reavers and bulks of Scouts (7-10) plus Carriers (3-4)...