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SWR Productions Forum _ ShockWave _ Release: Challenge map for Armor General

Posted by: Seth 27 Nov 2018, 18:41

Hey guys,

since there was a bit of talk about the missing challenges, I thought I might be able to help out.

I made missions for all the generals not having one (or adapted existing ones from other mods), but never bothered to release it as a full package since I only fully have the IP rights to Ironside's, so at least I am releasing that one now. I last played it on ShW 1.1, but it should still work.

The problem: It needs to be coded into the game via campaign.ini, which I had done before but I lost the file on a disk failure. So you would have to do that part yourself.

As with all my missions: Do with it whatever you like, just give me credit and preferably change the filename if you plan to release your modified version.

WB Screenshot:



 GC_ArmorGeneral.zip ( 250.84K ) : 55
 

Posted by: Maelstrom 28 Nov 2018, 11:19

First of all, thanks for the dedication. It is very pleasing to see people liking the mod to a point of making maps and add-ons for it. smile.gif

Now, for your map, I would like to give you some input, I noticed 2 major flaws:
- First of all the layout of the General's base. I guess it is supposed to be the one on the hill, north of the map. I see there is a way to disrupt it very easily, by destroying the power plants with artillery or aircraft. They are very exposed. Which, considering the high reliance on stationary defenses, is a major weak point that can be suite easily exploited by most generals.
- Second is the difficulty. Other than the power plants, the production structures. While they are placed in places that are harder to reach, there is only one Airfield, one Barrack and one War factory. And no Superweapon. The small outpost in the bottom left corner only provides an additional War factory and power plants, not bad, but could be a bit more fortified. The town in the center right part is apparently only defended by a single barrack and an artillery platform. It can be denied easily.
For Armor General, I would rather think that his base should be similar to China's Tank general, i.e. multiple war factories, one airfield and 1-2 barracks. In the current setup, even with all the scripting you want, this fight will be over in a few minutes.

Don't take this bad, I am just giving an early feedback, and only based on the layout. The design of the map is otherwise very good-looking.

Posted by: Seth 28 Nov 2018, 16:02

don't worry, no offense taken.

From my experience playing it however, some of these points are not as big.

-the AI builds units to defend rather quickly, it's just there aren't a lot of pre-placed units.

-TBH the second point is kinda confusing. There are in fact 2 barracks, 2 wafas and a cluster missile silo present in the northern base. Probably difficult to see on the screenshot.

-you're right though that I didn't intend this mission to be bang-head-on-desk level hard as I am not a good player myself and would like to complete at least once.

Posted by: WARthog 7 May 2019, 21:38

i tried adding it into the game via changing grangers first mission from ChemGeneral to ArmorGeneral and BioNameEntry_Pos1 to Pos11.
Then i replaced the campaign.ini in the !Shw_Challenge.big, added the campaign map files from your zip with the adress maps\GC_ArmorGeneral\GC_ArmorGeneral.map

then i renamed the file to .gib and replaced the one from the mod.

when i started a new challenge with Granger, i could see Ironsides picture for one second and hear his taunt but then the game crashed due to serious error.

i dont know if it maybe is something with the map file (I play with version 1.2 and the hotfix)

so sad it doesnt work

Posted by: Seth 17 May 2019, 22:21

there is definitely nothing wrong with the map file.
Unfortunately the last time I played this map myself was at least 2 years ago. I may look into it if I have the time.

Posted by: WARthog 3 Jun 2019, 8:01

So i gave it another try this weekend because i read somewhere that in order to add a new campaign map, you have to edit the file which sits in the User Data folder where you copy the maps into to make sure that the game knows where to pull the map from.

funny enough in that file therer are paths for both an american boss (called acmericamboss...lol) and a gla boss! Another evidence that they planned boss generals for each faction and not just the crappy iteration of Leang we got in the vanilla ZH.

Anyway...i copied the map into the maps folder, edited the file there to so the acmericanboss matched the Armor generals map path, edited the campaigns ini so granger would face ironside first.

The challenge actually loaded BUT i was facing a black screen! no nice introduction and taunting by Ironside but it does not spawn your hq and you cant play it.
Also when you try to load it in skirmish you get the introduction taunt and tour of his base but again no hq spawns.

EDIT: Got it to work! the Map has to go into (Shockwave)\Maps. then in the campaign ini you have to add a new one with GC_ArmorGeneral and the Bio Pos 11 and in the MapCache ini you have to rename the "acmericaboss" to "armorgeneral". The map loads and is playable! Nice workon the map seth

Posted by: Seth 1 Jul 2019, 15:28

nice to see someone's using it. I might even play it myself again after a solid 2-3 years wink.gif

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