Dawn Of War Dark Crusade Difficulty

[Mariu Carlton]

Inthe Dawn of War series of games, each installment has a campaign mode for those players who are interested in pursuing the single player aspect. A (spoiler heavy) compendium of dialog between characters in the campaigns can be found here.

In the original campaign of Dawn of War, you must lead Gabriel Angelos on an expedition across the planet Tartarus, seeking to discover a Chaos plot in the midst of an Ork invasion. Accompanying Gabriel is chapter librarian Isador Akios, who is a childhood friend and powerful psyker, and on occasion Carus Brom, an Imperial Colonel tasked with the defense of Tartarus. Inquisitor Mordecai Toth initially suspects Gabriel of being tainted by Chaos, since he had willingly put his home world of Cyrene to the torch, but later realizes it is Isador who has become corrupted. A fourth party to the events on Tartarus is the Eldar, who have sent farseer Macha of craftworld Biel-Tan to prevent the release of the Chaos daemon of the Maledictum. Seeking to gain favor with the dark gods, Lord Bale and Sorcerer Sindri Myr are trying to awaken the daemon, all while Warboss Orkamungus leads his Waagh! across the planet.

In the Winter Assault campaign, General Sturnn of the Imperial Guard has been tasked with salvaging the Imperial Titan Dominatus discovered on the planet Lorn V with the aid of Space Marines of the Ultramarines chapter. However, Farseer Taldeer of Ullthwe Craftworld has foreseen that Necrons would soon awaken on that world and she must move to stop them. In addition to this, the Ork Warlord Gorgutz has chosen the planet as the site of his Waagh and the forces of Chaos are present, as well.

The campaign is divided into two halves, the Order and Disorder campaigns. In the Order Campaign, the player leads the Imperial Guard and Eldar forces to awaken the Titan and defeat the Necrons. In the Disorder Campaign, the player leads Chaos and Ork forces. The player is forced to change factions at certain points within missions and in later missions can change at will (that is, one can change from Eldar to Imperial guard and back, but not switch to Chaos or Ork).

In Dark Crusade, a new type of campaign known as a meta map campaign was created, different from the linear storyline of the previous two games. The meta map is a turn-based strategic map showing each of the seven races and the respective provinces under their control. The goal is to gain control over provinces by fighting for ownership of the territory and, ultimately, to annihilate all of the opposing factions.

By controlling certain territories, the player can gather planetary requisition at the beginning of each turn on the metamap. This requisition is distinct from that used in normal battles and is tracked separately. It is used to purchase special honor guard units to accompany the commander around the map or purchase garrison units to hold critical territories.

On easy difficulty, the AI opponents have just 25% of their usual health for all their units while the player has 250% health for theirs and starts with 600 planetary requisition. On normal difficulty, the AI has normal health and the player has 200% health and starts with 400 planetary requisition. On hard difficulty, both players have normal health and the player starts with just 200 planetary requisition.

Players-controlled provinces can be attacked by the AI-controlled factions, and the player may either auto-resolve the conflict or fight off the invaders. Auto-resolving is generally not recommended, as the player is far more likely to lose. Note that all player-built structures, except those immediately around the enemy base, are still present from when that province was conquered in the first place. This can make defensive battles particularly easy. Some players find it worthwhile to take and fully-fortify every point on the map before finally destroying the enemy stronghold (keeping the enemy 'pinned' with a large mass of troops just outside the base) and even build turrets or minefields outside the base to make early point-capture extremely difficult for the invading enemy. If this is done, a defensive battle can be won in a matter of minutes, allowing you to build a force and attack at your leisure. Also note that the base of the invader is usually in the same place as the original enemy, and if the enemy had two bases, the invader will have those two bases as well.

The following territories provide special bonuses to the faction who holds them. Some of these have special mission objectives that must be met to win the scenario. In addition, each race's stronghold will have its own particular objectives in addition to simply annihilating the enemy.

Each race receives a special commander that leads their forces. This unit will always be present at the start of any attack you launch, as well as any defenses on the same or adjacent territory to your army's current location. If the commander is not automatically available at the start of battle (such as when defending a territory distant from your army) or is slain during the fight, he can be purchased from the appropriate building with all of his acquired wargear intact.

During the course of the campaign you have the ability to earn wargear for your primary commander, improving his base stats or even granting himnew abilities. In order to earn wargear, you must achieve one of the following goals during a battle. Although you can earn multiple pieces of wargear in a single battle by meeting multiple wargear requirements, each requirement can only be achieved once. See each commander's page for a list of the specific wargear that can be earned for that race. Wargear effects that are applied globally (such as Lukas Alexander's Governer's Raiment) persist even if the commander is slain.

Conquests are earned for taking over an enemy-held territory. Kills are the total kills inflicted by your forces throughout the whole of the campaign and are not specific to the enemies personally slain by your commander. Defenses are earned by personally leading your forces in the defense of one of your territories and cannot be earned by letting the computer automatically defend the territory. The 3-to-1 kill ratio also requires a minimum of 200 kills during the battle. Defeating enemy factions requires that you personally conquer the race's stronghold, not just that an AI player defeats the race.

Each territory that is neither a stronghold nor one of the special territories listed above grants an honor guard unit. These special squads and vehicles form a cadre that follows the commander around the map, allowing a player to rush an enemy base very quickly in later stages of the campaign. Honor guard units are purchased with planetary requisition and remain with the commander until slain. Strangely, honor guard commanders (Commissar, Librarian, etc.) must be repurchased if attached to a squad at the end of a mission.

Most races receive squads of honor guard troops, but Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines receive individual veterans. Honor guard units do not use squad or vehicle cap, but require requisition and power to reinforce. The AI will receive honor guard units not available to a human player, such as Grey Knights for Space Marines. Fortunately, the AI honor guard is entirely comprised of regular units rather than the super powered units available to the player.

The metamap campaign is in the same nonlinear fashion as Dark Crusade, but has been expanded for Soulstorm. A Warp Storm has trapped the nine races in the Kaurava System, leaving them all on their own in the coming war. Until one faction has achieved complete victory, no one will be leaving. The Warp Storm also prevents space flight between the four planets (several provinces on each) and three moons (single provinces) of the system, restricting interplanetary travel to a series of Ancient Gates.

The most important changes from Dark Crusade are that victory is achieved through annihilation of all unit production buildings (similar to the Annihilation multiplayer victory condition) instead of just their headquarters, and bases built when conquering a territory are no longer persistent. Rather, basic buildings can be garrisoned in conquered provinces the same way units are.

Each Ancient Gate is linked to only two others (The Dark Eldar stronghold is a special Ancient Gate, see the Special Territories section). Ancient Gates are fought as Take and Hold missions, and are conquered by holding a majority of critical points for six minutes. Victory can be achieved by annihilation, but it must be total (down to the last man) rather than simply destroying the enemy buildings.

A new concept of Supply Lines has been introduced. If a path of controlled provinces from a territory to your stronghold no longer exists due to enemy conquest, your Supply Lines have been broken and the province no longer produces planetary requisition. Reestablishing a path from your stronghold to the province restores the Supply Lines and planetary requisition production. Chaos has a special ability that makes them immune to supply lines, see the Special Territories section below.

Difficulty levels have mostly increased for a greater challenge. Easy now gives the player 250% health and the AI 60% health. Normal is 200% player health and 100% AI health. Hard is 100% player health and the AI 120% health.

Each race has an intrinsic bonus. The bonus of other races can be claimed by conquering their stronghold. Stronghold provinces are labeled with their corresponding race. Their are also two standard provinces that provide resource bonuses. For convenience, special territories are listed by planet with moons being subsets of their corresponding planet.

When defending a province, you do not start with your commander or have the aid of your Honor Guard unless your commander is in (cannot be next to like in Dark Crusade) the province being attacked on the metamap. You may use your commander once you have built them at the appropriate building. Commanders no longer engage in dialog with each other during most stronghold missions, only certain pairings have banter (e.g. Dark Eldar attacking Eldar).

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