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.
