That One Level/Video Games/Real Time Strategy: Difference between revisions

 

 

* The final mission of the terrain campaign, the enemy has no qualms of doing stuff like irradiating your [[SC Vs]], nuking your base, or locking down YOUR ENTIRE FREAKING ARMY!!!! There is literally nothing that a ghost cannot lockdown outside of marines(which are almost useless in this level), firebats(which are useless in this level), and your own ghosts(actually good support units, but they are not taking down an army).

* One of the Zerg-arc missions of has you trying to hunt down Dark Templars on Char. There are several exits on the level, and they'll make a break for it if you ever move a single Overlord out of position, or leave it unguarded by regular troops. And if a single one escapes, mission fails. Thank god for level-skipping cheats.

* Far worse is the Protoss [[Civil Warcraft|civil war]] mission. The enemy Protoss forces have every unit you do (except your extremely limited supply of Dark Templars and the special characters which you can't afford to risk) plus they get the dreaded Carriers and Arbiters which you DON'T get. They have two large bases and massive supplies of reinforcements which can crush any attack force you send. The saving grace of the level is that a backdoor entrance to their base lets you use the Dark Templar, who are invisible normally, to infiltrate their base and destroy their Nexus. It's a bit of a [[Guide Dang It]] though, since said backdoor is way down at the very bottom of the map, you don't know it's even there or that it has no detectors so the Dark Templar can get inside safely, and the mission objective "destroy the heart of the Conclave" doesn't state it means specifically to destroy the Nexus, so you're liable to think you have to level their entire base like most every other mission.

* The second to last mission of the Protoss campaign gives you 2 heroes that have to survive the mission and a small strike force with a few probes to build up your base. Your gas and minerals are miles away from each other, and zerg start attacking very quickly. The zerg also regularly send out defilers to cast plague on everything in your defence which deals up to 300 damage to everything it hits ''ignoring'' your shields, but luckily can't actually finish anything off, leaving them at 1 hit point. That includes your heroes, which you simply can't not rely on for defence in the first 15 minutes. It's not even the worst part yet. Once you think you have a decent defence up, and are considering going on the offensive, you'll get bombarded by guardians from a safe distance, while armies of mutalisks also attack you and prevent any anti-air from actually going to the guardians. If you manage to hold all that off, then congratulations, you can finally start slowly making your way through gauntlets of zerg defensive buildings and units, to the 2 main bases where one of your heroes has to deal the killing blow to the special cerebrate buildings, but that's rather trivial if you survive the first 20 minutes.

* Two Zerg levels fit the bill: one that requires destroying every. Last. Protoss before they escape in a set time limit. This is difficult on it's own, but you have to do it with 5 minutes to spare for the bonus level unlock. Then there's the final zerg level which has you pitted against two terrans and one protoss. Oh, and they each have massive amounts of units that work especially well against the zerg and require different strategies to handle each.

** Aformentioned final ''Brood War'' Zerg mission is notorious for its pure, unadulterated [[Nintendo Hard]]-ness. You could apply damn near half of the [[Classic Video Game "Screw You"s|CVGSY library]] to it and it would still be an understatement.

* The eighth Zerg mission is no picnic either. The enemy is a combined Zerg-Terran force, thus they have access to every unit you do and can combine it with the Terran army for extra efficiency. Late in the game you can easily get swamped by a fleet of Mutalisks, Wraiths, Valkyries and Guardians, which will absolutely slaughter your own air units, and without Dark Swarm to protect your ground-units they'll slaughter them too. It doesn't help that your objective is on the other side of the map guarded by two full enemy bases, in addition to the full dual-base in the middle of the island and the two bases to the north and east of your starting position. You can have some fun in this mission though by taking advantage of being able to place Nydus Canals on enemy creep, thereby allowing you to clear a back entrance to their base with Guardians, then build a Canal there to instantly transport your ground forces to the hole you punched.

* The Protoss mission "In Utter Darkness" is an ironic example, since it cannot actually be lost. Your only win objective is to hold out until your base is destroyed, it doesn't matter how long you last or how much of a fight you put up, once you're wiped out, the mission is complete. The catch is that the bonus research objectives require you to hold out for 25 minutes and to destroy a certain amount of enemies. This mission also suffers from a greater [[Difficulty Spike]] than other missions on higher difficulties, because the amount of enemies you need to kill for that bonus objective increases, in addition to the fact the enemy forces come in greater strength.

** You can actually lose. The number of units you have to kill is not the bonus objective but the victory condition. Once you kill enough, you can safely let the zerg and hybrid slaughter you.

* ''[[Plants vs. Zombies]]'' has level 5-5. You're only able to plant if you put flower pots down first, like the rest of the 5-x levels, your only offense besides the one-use Cherry Bombs are the [[Awesome but Impractical]] [[Man-Eating Plant|Chompers]], and let's not forget that [[Random Number God|you only get plants via a conveyer belt at the top of the screen.]] And on top of all that, you have to deal with bungee-jumping zombies that either drop off new zombies or steal your plants.

** There's also 4-10, a level that's completely [[Blackout Basement|in the dark]], illuminated just briefly by flashes of lightning. Considering you have the dreaded Digger Zombies, Balloon Zombies, and Pogo Zombies all to deal with, it's nightmarish enough. But the kicker? It's a conveyor level. Good luck with that.

** And [[It Got Worse|it gets worse]], there's a [[Game Breaking Bug|particularly frustrating glitch]] that causes the game to keep tracking the convoy's movement ''even if you destroy it!'' Meaning that if you take to long, [[Fridge Logic|an invisible, dead convoy will beat you to the end and you'll lose.]]

** Several of the strongholds in later expansions count, but a special mention must go to the Tau stronghold in ''Dark Crusade''. For starters, their early-game rush is much, MUCH stronger that any of the others in the game and can outright kill you on harder settings if you aren't properly prepared. Secondly, the map is completely mobbed with Fire Warriors that start with all of their upgrades. Finally, there two command posts at opposite ends of the level that start spamming high level units if left for too long. Merely having one of them start makes the level really hard. If both of them start producing units, the level becomes practically unwinnable.

** And that's still not the most aggravating level in the game. Good candidates for that honor include Jihad, (in which you start with few resources, are besieged by three enemies at once, and need to find some way to wipe out one of them quickly, since they build a wonder for a special victory), The Lombard League, where you start the level [[All Your Base Are Belong to Us|getting run out of your base and have to find a new one]]. What's worse, your new base probably doesn't have enough resources to win, and you've got four enemies that attack you from land and sea. Oh, and the expansion has a level in which every one of your four enemies will take turns building wonders to try to take you out, so you have to break into their heavily fortified cities to destroy the wonders first. And one of the enemies even goes for the wonder twice in that level, so you have to take them out twice!

** ''Age of Empires II'' packs more of there. The ''Pope and Antipope'' scenario in Barbarossa's campaign seems fairly bearable at first - the only real enemies are across a river and their periodic coastal raids can be fought off with towers. However, the player has to cross the river to defeat the Milanese forces, who are not only equipped with an AI that's both extremely territorial and quick to repair damaged walls, but who also have the resources to keep [[We Have Reserves|churning out more troops for hours]]. And if you fail to destroy that harmless little town to the south, [[Not So Harmless|they'll supply the River Guards and Milan with additional resources]], meaning you'll be dealing with transports full of Milanese soldiers steaming up the river.

*** Nineveh, Nineveh, ''Nineveh''. You start out with a sizeable base, loads of resources, a small standing army...and no villagers. You have to go out and convert an enemy villager without provoking unnecessary wrath, then come back to your village and build up enough to upgrade to the Iron Age. You need to be in the iron age to assault Nineveh, which is building a wonder. After advancing, you have to fan out to find more resources whilst avoiding conflict, since you don't have time to fight off an attack. Meanwhile, you have to chip away at Nineveh's nigh-impenetrable defenses so you can conceivably land a force without getting massacred. Then, you have to invade Nineveh and smash through walls, towers, and a tremendous defensive force to destroy the wonder before time runs out. On the easier difficulty settings, this is a pushover because the AI is too stupid to assign multiple villagers to the wonder, but it's brutally [[Nintendo Hard]] on Medium and above.

** The ''first'' mission in the Yamato campaign, 'The Assassins'. You have to kill the leader of a nearby enemy tribe, and are given three broad swordsmen, a cavalry, and an archer. This involves trekking all the way down a fairly large map along a road infested with lions and elephants, all of which are aggressive. The lions aren't too much of a threat, but if you stumble across an elephant, it can easily put a serious crimp in your assassination plans. Then, you work your way into the base, which is loaded with catapults, towers, and powerful long swordsmen. After you find the tribe leader, you have to kill him, which is nigh-impossible without exploiting an [[AI Breaker]].