Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Uber Ling in Jungle 3.0?

Thanks for Kratos to bring it up to me. It ends up raising Cat's default armor to 3 brings a side-effect -> Uber Ling and Defiler. All players now have Zerg's armor as 3 by default, which is intended to give Cat an additional 3 armor to protect itself against Cannons. It turns out it also gives Ling and Defiler the armor so they're really hard to kill.

My stands about this? This is certainly a big overlook, but I don't think I would fix it until sometime later.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Jungle 3.0 is now Official

it's finally out... :-)

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Features of Jungle 3.0

Here's a quick through of features added in Jungle 3.0
- A new, smarter AutoBan for BSer
- A more strict conditions to boot players
- Rob Money can now rob $2000 or $3000 at once with additional dts
- New sounds and minimap ping to enhance game play
- Fix the loophole for players using PenguinPlug with Observe Mode on.
- All restrictions/limitations on units for Mice are now GONE!
- Terran Infantry upgrades are now FREE!

Jungle 3.0 into Beta stage

The map is basically completed. Triggers have been audited and went through QA process, and now it's in beta stage.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Rigged Ball ($35+3)



Type: Unit
HP: 9
Armor: 0
Shield: 0
Attack: N/A
Default Mana: 78
Price: $35 (max $80)
Price Factor in Hard Mode: $3/purchase
Spawn: at unit spawn location located below Mice Save beacon
Abilities: Feedback (30 mana), Maelstorm (85 mana)

This support unit contributes alot in Mice's game play. It's renamed to Rigged Ball due to its nature that Mice players normally over-use this unit with its Maelstorm ability. To counter the tactics of Maelstorm and rebuild wall at the same location, Cat can use Invincibility for 10 secs so Mice cannot maelstorm, or use Mind Control Surrounding Units to mind control the wall under construction.

Mind Control Surrounding Units (1DT)



Type: Spell
DT required: 1
Duration: permanent for mind controlled buildings, 6 seconds for mind controlled units
Affect Area: 2x2 matrix at Cat's location. This implies area within Cat's attack range.

This spell allows Cat to take over units and buildings at Cat's proximity. While buildings will be taken over forever, units will be taken over for 6 seconds, then die. Please note that when Cat has a Mind Control GOD, the captured units will not die after 6 seconds.

This spell was designed to reduce the effect of shield upgrades applied on walling. By taking over the buildings, the shield will be reset to 0 (Cat has 0 shield upgrade) and this makes killing much easier. Also if Mice has any defense (eg. Cat's Poison) these defenses will help killing the wall as well.

Obviously there are many other new strategies / usages came up from players, and one of them is to prevent Maelstorm/Rebuild-wall strategies. However, it's up to you to figure out how to "properly" use this spell.

Base Raider (3 DT)



Type: Special Unit
HP: invincible for first 2 seconds upon spawn, 2HP after the first 2 seconds.
Attack: 9999+0 damage
Armor: ?
DT required: 3
Duration: 6 seconds in total
Spawn: next to Cat

This ling is uber against strong walls such as Hardest and Space Cheese. Its 9999 damage provides immediate path-finder to let Cat go anywhere it wishes. Note that this unit is vulnerable to attack after its first 2 seconds of life, so always accompany it with your Cat as units will automatically attack your Cat. Also, this ling runs on par of the probes, so the ling wont catch up with the probe in a straight chase. The ling is automatically killed after 6 seconds.

Invincibility for 10 secs (1 DT)



Type: Spell
DT required: 1
Duration: 10 seconds
Affect Area: N/A. Only to Cat and Kitties

This spell makes Cat and all Kitties temporarily invincible for duration of 10 seconds. This spells breaks the ability for Mice to perform some cheesy tactics, such as Maelstorm + Rebuild Wall, and Stack SCV attack.

Stupid Rodney (Scourge) ($85+2)



Type: Unit
HP: 12
Armor: 0
Attack: 25
Price: $85 (max $105)
Price Factor in Hard Mode: $2/purchase
Spawn: at unit spawn location located below Mice Save beacon
Default Mana: N/A
Abilities: N/A

Rodney is the ultimate weapon against Cat's flyers like Monkey Vessel and Queen. However, when it fall short to Acidic Slaughter due to its high attack.

Stupid Thing (Zealot) ($125+5)



Type: Unit
HP: 5
Armor: 1
Shield: 5
Attack: 24x2 (Twin Psi Blades, show as 48 in game but in reality it's 24x2)
Attack Factor: 2x2 (so it's 48+4 in game)
Price: $125 (max $200)
Price Factor in Hard Mode: $5/purchase
Spawn: at unit spawn location located below Mice Save beacon
Default Mana: N/A
Abilities: N/A

These stupid things are among the most popular choice of units to kill Cat. They are apparently weak on both armor and attack. But they get competent with upgrades. With each level of attack upgrade x 4, Cat's armor would barely withstand it. With a zealot dealing 50 damage after lessing Cat's armor, even with the help of Medic, a zealot could still deal a 30 damage per twin-hit.

Space Cheese

To seal the path with Space Cheese so that you can go through but Cat can, all you have to do is to build the Space Cheese while leaving a 1x1 space horizontally for your Mice to go through. Below are 2 examples that the walling work:




The below example is a walling that DOES NOT work:


The reason why this wall doesn't work is that there's a 1x1 space "vertically" between the edge and the wall, leaves it open for Cat to go through.

Mouse Magnet (1 DT)



Type: Spell
DT required: 1
Duration: activates once affecting all movable units, activate 0.5 second later affecting only to probes.
Affect Area: the entire arena

This spell should now be a famous and is most-used among the new spells introduced after version 2.2. Upon activates, it orders all movable units, air or ground, towards Cat's location at that time. At 0.5 second later, it activates once again but only ordering probes to move.

This spell is effective against Mice players in two situations:
- Mice that are afk and not completely sealed in themselves will have their probes unknowingly moving towards Cat and eventually get killed.
- Mice that are staying too close to Cat will have little time to move back, especially when they are not expecting this spell would be casted.

Observer (1 DT)



Type: Support Unit
HP: 100
Shield: 500
Armor: 3
DT required: 1
Spawn: at Mice save beacon

This observer has the same stat of the ones that is buildable by Mice. It features plenty of shields just to make it withstand defenses of most of the heavily guarded bases. It is a very potent unit that gives vital information from the whereabouts of the probes to what kind of things are in the bases behind the walls.

Probe Locator (2 DT)



Type: Spell
DT required: 2
Duration: the rest of the game

Probe Locator gives Cat the ability to locate any probe (Mice) in the arena by pinging the location of the probe in minimap once a second. This gives Cat a valuable piece of information of the whereabouts of the targetted player's probe to help deciding which spell to use against the player.

Upon buying this spell, Cat will get a token (a DT) to choose which player to be pinged in the minimap. Cat can also freely switch to other players at anytime. If Mice has 2 probes, the ping will simply locate either one of them.

Introduction to Random Cat n Mouse Jungle 3.0

Jungle 3.0 is a co-operative project with RedKatana (again :-D).

The main goalfor this version is to re-define the way to enhance overall game play. Most of the Cat n Mouse maps on StarCraft are designed in a fashion of havin Mice to gather resources and build/buy army, and Cat just search and destroy Mice and its belongings. Prior to this version, all of my Cat n Mouse maps are based on one single belief -> Cat has too few options, Mice have too many options. Based on this belief, I came up with a solution of putting in limitations such as maximum amount of units for players to buy, and put in challenging and somewhat rigged spells for Cat, which puts Mice players in a controlled environment of gameplay and degrade the gaming experience.

This version will change all those mentioned above. There will no longer be any limitations for units and buildings. Through the introduction of Up-Keep (similar to the one in WarCraft 3), which applies to majority of units (and buildings), most of the limitations and unbalanced spells can finally be removed.

Up-Keep works in a fashion of "you pay to maintain what you already bought/built", which means that for each second, you'll have to pay certain amount of money to just keep the units/buildings you currently have. That may sound crazy, but this system works very well in WarCraft 3, so shall this in Cat n Mouse.

For example: SCV will have up-keep (15, 30), meaning that you will have to pay $1 each second if you're having 15 or more (and less than 30) SCVs; $3 each second if you have 30 or more SCVs.

In turns of this Up-Keep system, all previous unit-max limits are removed, meaning you can get as many SCVs as you like, given that you have the $$ to pay for the Up-Keep.

Meanwhile, Kill All Buildings (3 DTs) and Ghost (2 DTs) are removed from the Cat's spells collection. A new spell is added in though -> Rob Money, similar to the one you found in Cat n Mouse Winter.

Instead of re-doing all triggers and locations, this version is based on an unreleased version of Jungle (ver 2.3). Since this is a 2-men project, I have no idea when this map will be finalized. But one thing is certain, this version will be more fun for both Cat and Mice.

Map Feedbacks

Please post your comments/opinions/suggestions for my maps here. Remember to specify the version of the map if applicable.

Switch: Turn $1000 to DT



This switch allows Cat to either save up to $1000 and convert the $1000 into a Chooser (DT). This switch also allows Cat to save more than $1000 and use the money strategically.

Ban beacon



This beacon allows 2 Mice players other than the targetted player to ban other Mice players in game in case of bad-manner, noobish, annoying, or BS'er.

If the targetted player has killed a probe before, no only the shield would be removed, and the ban only requires 1 Mice player other than the targetted player to activate.

Mouse Hole ($50+7.5)



Type: Unit
HP: (Hard Mode 225 to 450 progressive) (Easy Mode 450)
Armor: 3 for Mice players, 5 for Brown.
Shield: N/A
Attack: N/A
Default Mana: N/A
Price: (Hard Mode $50 (max $200)) (Easy Mode 100)
Price Factor in Hard Mode: $7.5/purchase
Spawn: at unit spawn location located below Mice Save beacon
Abilities: N/A

This unit serves as a mobile walling mechanism that provides a flexible, fast deploy.

One of the weaknesses is that it often needs 2 civilians to deploy a full wall at early game, which is costy and not so reliable compare to Hard Cheese (Stargate). Another weaknesses is that these walls are affected by Cat's Mouse Magnet spell, which moves them away from their designated position.

Second Probe ($400+65)



Type: Unit
HP: 2
Armor: 0
Shield: 2
Attack: 30
Price: $400 (max $1050)
Price Factor in Hard Mode: $65/purchase
Spawn: at unit spawn location located below Mice Save beacon

This second probe extends your manuverability by almost 5 times. Having a second probe brings alot more strategies than having a single probe. The second probe is treated as a regular probe, thus no difference when Cat kills the second probe.

$1000 Minerals (1+1 DT)



Type: Spell
DT required: 1
Secondary DT requirement: 2 DTs must be possessed.
Duration: 20 seconds

This spell refunds a DT into $1000 minerals in a span of 20 seconds. It first refunds $400, and refund $30/sec for the next 20 seconds. Also, in order to refund a DT, the Cat player must have 2 or more DTs, although only 1 DT is required to buy this spell.