Successfully finished the campaign (time limit mod & videos)

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t4ngld
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Successfully finished the campaign (time limit mod & videos)

Post by t4ngld »

Hello all,

Glad to share with you that after having played through the campaign many many times over the last few years, I've just finished it again, employing a faster and more aggressive approach this time, and scored a total game of 8:17 with my best attempt at the last Nexus mission being 31:32 so far. While redoing the missions over and over again, I evolved from a turtle-style player who "milks" the mission up to the very last timer second into one who makes use of commanders, lightly armored, fast hover / wheeled / HT units and a kind of hit-n-run tactics.

Big thanks to NoQ for making stress on commanders' usefulness! Even one hero commander that I used throughout the campaign helped make the gameplay much faster and easier at the same time.

Warzone version used 3.1.2 on Fedora Linux, with a FullHD 24" screen. (That's in case someone considers this time to be worthy, and wonders what might have helped me with it. I'm sure that the warzone pros will do it in <= 7 hours, for me, the above mentioned time is an achievement, given how I used to score 24 hours or even slower before.)

Update:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... y0qeJaAttm

Alternatively, search youtube for "mostly fast warzone2100" :) Be sure to select "720p" in the right-bottom corner menu.
Last edited by t4ngld on 10 Aug 2015, 20:44, edited 4 times in total.
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montetank
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Re: Successfully finished the campaign

Post by montetank »

Try this mod :wink:
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=5292
Strong/hard level? Your time is fantastic.
In case the WZ-game ends in a draw , the game winner will be determined by penalty shoot-out.
t4ngld
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Re: Successfully finished the campaign

Post by t4ngld »

Thank you :)

Yep I've actually checked my times against NoQ's in the "Yet Another Walkthrough". I'll give it a try nevertheless, maybe my time distribution between missions is indeed different than that in the mod.

I think it was "hard", any way to double check this in the savegame files? Honestly, I don't know how "hard" exactly it's meant to be, since the enemy is being so passive most of the time! They rarely try to rebuild those defenses they've already lost, except maybe the "capture NASDA" mission in Beta (used to believe it was a real nightmare, until I found a shortcut :) ) and the "proceed to the second LZ, do not engage" in Aplha.

Also, what has bugged me over years is how the enemy attacks in Beta base missions: one tank after one, they won't try to gather a sizable force and just smash you. Do they have enough money for that, maybe that's the reason?

Missions that cost me many days of replay:
* "we are the new paradigm you will be defeated" in Alpha, as well as its 2-hour-long follow-up
* the first 4 missions in Alpha where I even had to draw a tank production plan on the whiteboard xD
* also 2-3 days of improving on the final "kill Nexus" mission
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montetank
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Re: Successfully finished the campaign

Post by montetank »

Haha-i downloaded this game 8 years ago from a german site, because it is free. I didn`t knew, that there exist a walktrough and this forum. So, i had to solve all the missions with my own ideas. I played the whole campaign without a commander and 80% with artillery. But i solved after a half!!!! year :lol2:
I like the "new" campaign in the master version. (Still in work by NoQ and others). The behaviour of the scavs is much better. I can`t wait to play the whole campaign in master. By the way, i waste the most time in Alpha 7(?), because of the bug. Here is my way:
viewtopic.php?f=45&t=11621
In case the WZ-game ends in a draw , the game winner will be determined by penalty shoot-out.
t4ngld
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Re: Successfully finished the campaign

Post by t4ngld »

Well, as I see it now, arty can be more useful as fire-support than as the main driving force. This time, though, I didn't use MLRS up until the very last mission, to my own great surprise. (There actually was an economical rationale behind this decision.) In that last mission, I just got annoyed by those two batteries in the main campus and sent in a CB squad of 10 Angel Tiger Tracks xD (can afford that when there's no follow-up to prepare for)

montentank, is the campaign you mention here a re-make of the existing one (Alpha, Beta, Gamma) or is it the all-new Delta campaign that takes place after the (supposed) Nexus defeat?

Alpha 7 - well, yep, i used to struggle a lot with it, but with 3.1.2, it appears to work fine. OK, to confess, I actually read the .js file for that level to understand the enemy logic and the winning conditions ;) Seen your plans in the linked topic, too, that's a sure way to get it right, but kind of expensive. On the other hand, since building 4 repair facilities reliably completes the mission every time for me, I don't build defenses - the units are fast enough to locate take out the enemy paratroopers anywhere on the plateau.
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montetank
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Re: Successfully finished the campaign

Post by montetank »

t4ngld wrote:
montentank, is the campaign you mention here a re-make of the existing one (Alpha, Beta, Gamma) or is it the all-new Delta campaign that takes place after the (supposed) Nexus defeat?
It is the original campaign with some good changes (time-bonus). But still in work.by NoQ. Only the first 4 or 5 Alpha missions. Yeah-i see, there is a newest version (16th 07.) http://buildbot.wz2100.net/files/master/windows/

Tell the developers your feedback here viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12002
There is a great change in the skirmish games. To build oil cost money. Would be nice, if you try it out.
In case the WZ-game ends in a draw , the game winner will be determined by penalty shoot-out.
t4ngld
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Re: Successfully finished the campaign

Post by t4ngld »

Thank you for the link, will do later, I have some feedback to share, indeed.

Done the whole campaign again, this time with NoQ's time limit mod, total game time 7:15. Great mod! Although apart from the early Alpha missions, it didn't really change my tactics / strategy. Still, for a change, I played the last Alpha mission and the whole Beta campaign using tracked units instead of hovers. Sometimes it felt faster than with hovers, sometimes slower, but overall it felt pretty much the same.

Version 3.1.2, using the beautiful Jorzi's Art Revolution mode.

Anyone interested in a video series showing how this was done? I might do it later given there is real interest, though it will surely take a month or more.
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Tzeentch
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Re: Successfully finished the campaign

Post by Tzeentch »

sure lets see it in action!
t4ngld
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Re: Successfully finished the campaign

Post by t4ngld »

Indeed, it was hard to believe what I saw at the end of the campaign, too :)

Well, that will take some time, a month I think, given I have to study now in preparation for some autumn exams (doing masters' in CS).

Thanks to montetank, I now know about OBS, which appears to work well under Linux with a proprietary NVIDIA driver. Thus I'd appreciate advices on resolution / encoding settings for uploading to youtube, from your own experience. Thing is, I have a display with quite a rare aspect ratio of 16:10 and a resolution of 1920x1200, so that probably will result in some black bars on youtube. I'd like to give credit to the gorgeous work of Jorzi and co, and record it in a higher resolution - any advice on what could be the sane resolution for youtube?

Also: is the "Hard" difficulty setting really the hardest in 3.1.2? I'm not so sure that it's really "hard" - the AI is mostly being quite passive, and at times it feels rather strange.
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montetank
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Re: Successfully finished the campaign

Post by montetank »

Hmm-i record with dxtory. Dxtory works with linux. I like the frame limit option in dxtory and the lagarith loslecc codec. Then i compressed with the freemake video converter to youtubes standard format. The quality is good. For 5 minutes with 32/FPS (absolutely enough for WZ) it makes about 40M

PS.: Dxtory records the mouse cursor. Fraps for example not. OBS is nice but reduced the benchmark (tested it).

PS2: Here is a good comparison https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq8n7-vDTv8
In case the WZ-game ends in a draw , the game winner will be determined by penalty shoot-out.
t4ngld
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Re: Successfully finished the campaign

Post by t4ngld »

Thank you, will have a look.

Right now I've got OBS to record the gameplay on Linux, and it's producing laggy recordings

edit: the ultrafast preset seems to have done the trick!
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Re: Successfully finished the campaign

Post by vexed »

t4ngld wrote:Hello all,

Glad to share with you that after having played through the campaign many many times over the last few years...
You know, the campaign has been made drastically more easy on certain missions :(
Don't know if you noticed it or not...
/facepalm ...Grinch stole Warzone🙈🙉🙊 contra principia negantem non est disputandum
Super busy, don't expect a timely reply back.
t4ngld
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Re: Successfully finished the campaign

Post by t4ngld »

Well, most probably yes.. Let me guess: the Beta "destroy SAM sites", the NASDA Central, I think even the "destroy satellite uplink" and "establish safe haven" in Beta have been nerfed. The VTOL's used to attack way more aggressively, as well as the ground units.Basically, the whole Beta campaign is a Hollywood blockbuster, player being the Rambo..

Any plans on changing the current state of things in master? Also, what's the hardest version of the campaign, 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, what do you think? I'd be glad to play through that as well.
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Re: Successfully finished the campaign

Post by vexed »

t4ngld wrote:Well, most probably yes.. Let me guess: the Beta "destroy SAM sites", the NASDA Central, I think even the "destroy satellite uplink" and "establish safe haven" in Beta have been nerfed. The VTOL's used to attack way more aggressively, as well as the ground units.Basically, the whole Beta campaign is a Hollywood blockbuster, player being the Rambo..
Quite a few of them that relied on units being in formation, I suppose I should make a list...
Any plans on changing the current state of things in master? Also, what's the hardest version of the campaign, 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, what do you think? I'd be glad to play through that as well.
1.x is the most "truest", in the sense, that is how the campaign should be played.
Everything after that has suffered various different things because of code changes.

Yes, there is a plan to port over WZscript to Javascript, mostly headed by NoQ.
It will be easier to tweak things with JS, but, that can't fix some of the code issues though.
/facepalm ...Grinch stole Warzone🙈🙉🙊 contra principia negantem non est disputandum
Super busy, don't expect a timely reply back.
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Re: Successfully finished the campaign

Post by t4ngld »

Guys I got smth wrong with the colors, way too much contrast, when recording with OBS. I'm a bit busy right now, but tonight I'll post the OBS settings being used as well as a sample video recording. Basically, the problem is that the unexplored areas look way too dark, almost black, when I'm watching the recorded video in VLC, surely not like what I'm seeing on the screen while playing. Must be some color space or format problem, I reckon.

Re easy / hard campaign - vexed, thank you for the hint, later on I'll play through 1.x, too, though probably it's going to be much later. Also, let me guess: Alpha sub_1_3s suffers from formation problems, too? (And thus the enemies attack in a semi-random fashion.)
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