Best of the Alpha Sector

[Ceraus]

I tend to dislike huge maps: they usually take too long to beat and are repetitive the whole time. There's a point where you're clearly winning, but still need 20 minutes to push back Creeper on a large front (I call such missons front-pushers). Also, scrolling through them to micromanage is a pain.

With that said, some of my favorites:



Link327 (bottom left)

The Gatekeeper
A three-part, no-Aether medium-large map with early pressure and strategy. Once you're safe, the final push against the enemy castle is fun to optimize.

An old friend
Small map, easy on the eyes; quite hilly, lots of emitters, including an AC one.

Unknown Scenario - Part 2
Medium-large, tons of energy income, race against time. Creeper takes a while to spread, allowing total map control. Possible to win before spores! Dunno what Part 1 is.



ShadowDragon7015 (bottom right)

The small one
Very, very tiny, lack of space to build. No real threat to build; challenge is in taking over other islands, which I found very fun. Major micromanagement needed for good time; I had to juggle units just to make place to build others.



Fisherck (right of virgilw)

Earth
A classic medium map, but a front-pusher.

Solar System Shakeup
Long horizontal map where you island hop through the solar system. Varied challenges and approaches. Got a crazy score.



MadMag (up from virgilw)

Creeper Hollow
Small, tight map, nice terrain, clear stakes, pretty hard. Many possibilities at start. Emitters intentionnally too close to map edge; only spore towers leave usable Power Zones.



teknotiss (upper middle-right)

All those maps have interesting concepts, but in general, I found that they overstayed their welcome, making you go through the same challenges multiple times. Still have a few I want to try.

get the gear
Fun concept: can only build very few things; need to advance to unlock more. No Nullifiers until end, but more and more emitters.

creepy castle
Medium-large, nice terrain. Two castles to conquer on the way to the final emitter (would've preferred just one).

shield shove
Tons of energy, but only small number of weapons allowed.

pyramid power
Medium-large map with overpowered emitters in the center and Meso-like shield/AC pyramids around.



J (upper left)

Tons of interesting concepts around, much CRPL, some confusion. On the hard side. Have only tried a few yet. Note: "Creeper Wall" is NEVER a metaphor.

asteroid map
Very very tiny, almost no space to build at all, powerful emitters, quite hard. Start with 7 full Guppies and 1 full Bomber. I hate Johnathon.

[NNR_Alex]

Just finished all but one of teknotiss's maps besides thor thunder, waiting on the fix for that one.  And I didn't bother submitting a score for point to point since I just kinda screwed around on that one and said "I'll let the pyramids do all the work for me.  Only weapons I built were Bertha's to speed the process up and of course beams.  So many beams.  Overall all your maps are fun.  You like to give us a pretty generous start on most maps and overpowered weapons, which are just fun for destruction's sake.  The hardest maps I had I think were 'Get the gear', and 'AC is the Key'.  Runner farm was an unexpected, but delightful surprise.

Spoiler

I had to quickly destroy my half charged nullfier that was about to wipe out my lovly AC supply

[close]

[teknotiss]

Just finished all but one of teknotiss's maps besides thor thunder, waiting on the fix for that one.  And I didn't bother submitting a score for point to point since I just kinda screwed around on that one and said "I'll let the pyramids do all the work for me.  Only weapons I built were Bertha's to speed the process up and of course beams.  So many beams.  Overall all your maps are fun.  You like to give us a pretty generous start on most maps and overpowered weapons, which are just fun for destruction's sake.  The hardest maps I had I think were 'Get the gear', and 'AC is the Key'.  Runner farm was an unexpected, but delightful surprise.

Spoiler

I had to quickly destroy my half charged nullfier that was about to wipe out my lovly AC supply

[close]

cheers dude  :)
i like to play at various speeds on maps so i make them with speed runs(ish) and overbuild options most of the time. my first run on point to point was only using beams and pyramids, it took ages!
i also love the massive explosions and tons of spores thing too.
i think i'll prob mostly go for smaller maps in future, i know the slower machines have a hard time on the massive ones, still some maps just need to be huge! ;)

[Ceraus]

Continued exploring the J system.

The 3 Creeper Wall missions are worth a try.

• CWall 1 has you take out 2 emitters (1 hidden) while a literal wall of creeper crosses the map every minute or so. Shenanigans quickly ensue.
• CWall 2's wall is much slower but way overpowered, needing sustained Bertha fire to dissipate.
• CWall 3 is a vertical map; the wall quickly loops left-to-right, bringing all creeper and AC with it and making Mortars entirely useless.

The Pit looks broken to me.

The Totem's totems make AC rain around the map and getting a foothold on the central island is hard. The Totem 2 has you island-hopping to activate totems that, in this mission, also depower the final emitter, which is so powerful it threatens to seep into space.

Both Tucana's have you play around with 10-cost Collectors, 20-cost Relays, Cannons and Mortars; no Reactors or Nullifiers! The small version sports hard energy management while the big one is more of a classic push.

Xeniveral is described, at the beginning of the mission, as "the first mission from the old alpha versions that seemed impossible". Seems I was the first to beat it.

[J]

Some maps have invisible towers due a fix in late development. 4 of them are fixed in the next update (-->signature). I won't fix and wipe out all scores of CreeperWall 1 because it is pretty clear where the tower is.
Xeniveral: This map is now possible due some balance changes as this map is very old (before the blog post of 1 April '13). In beta we tested this map in late development and G said that the two maps he put in his system were even harder.
Note that even in The Totem 1 the totems decrease the power of the emitter.
Nice to see someone exploring my system :)

[Ceraus]

Note that even in The Totem 1 the totems decrease the power of the emitter.

Oh! Well that explains why that AC seemed so very effective.

I tried Grauniad's Aigues-Mortes and it was pretty easy: the beginning position is large yet easily defended and taking out the Inhibitor wins the mission. But his Waternaris map is ridiculously hard! You have little space to build and while the creeper takes 2 or 3 minutes to mount pressure, it quickly overwhelms.

Redlemon's two maps are quite hard too. Bardel, discussed in the impossible maps topic, only gives you 12 collectors for energy (no reactors!) and little in the way of weapons. Took me over an hour. RunnerUp was probably harder in alpha, but it's still quite interesting as-is, with no good start position and tiny, far-away islands to invade.

[Helper]

Waternaris was the source of a great deal of discussion within the Beta group and remains one of my Top Ten favorite games. It is a very tight game, but manageable. Starting at the landing pad at the lower left, your only focus for the first two+ minutes is building power.
From about 2:10-2:15 you will have to build a couple of PC's and maybe a Mortar, but increasing your power - while defending a small footprint was the key for me.
I have some old screen shots if you're interested.
H

[Helper]

Seems I was the first to beat it.

The games in the Alpha sector got a pretty good workout during the Beta phase. Virgil wiped all of the scores prior to release.

I remember playing "Xeniveral", but my score was nowhere close to yours. Nicely done!

[Wally]

Just wanted to congratulate MadMAg for "Creeper Hollow" map, I just finished it in about 25 minutes.

I love those tiny maps were every packed counts, every bit of terrain is a pain to conquer, you have to start it over a dozen time to figure out how to survive the first 2 minutes. But in the end you jump all over the room when the last emitter dies !

Thanks for this grat map !

[MadMag]

Thanks! Have you tried the original from CW1? :)

[Wally]

Thanks! Have you tried the original from CW1? :)

Yeag, many years ago, since I bought and played and replayed all CW series.

[Ceraus]

Thought I should keep logging the maps I liked.



hoodwink (top left)

Those maps aren't hard, but they test your assault capabilities and I can't seem to speedrun them properly.

Tide is a very long, narrow, flat horizontal map. Two Totems at one end, 5000 Creeper per second at the other. Very nice practice.

Paradime is a straightforward island-hopper where the single challenge is a Guppy-fueled deep Creeper assault. Nice practice too.

Nomland has easily-crossed space that makes you start position trivial to defend. From there, you get to assault a huge Runner island and another one that's pretty deep in Creeper and whose Emitters are hard to reach.



MuadDib

Pothole is a quick, tiny map where you start in a deep crater surrounded by basic Emitters. But in the crater, you have equivalent Anti-Creeper Emitters to protect you. How fast can you get out?

ThunderBluff, obviously inspired by the Warcraft region, is small and full of strong Emitters, but you have easily defendable plateaus. Still, it's easy to get overwhelmed.



Cavemaniac (top)

Almost no CRPL in this system; most missions give you the usual arsenal and send you on your way. However, some map layouts are very unique.

Riftworld and especially Airbase One are island-hoppers with islands where even Guppies can't land.

Pop-Up is full of walls that prevent you from attacking until the Creeper melts them.

The Bardel Redemption is a real mind-twister: your Command Nodes automatically land mostly in space, there are no legal spots to move them, you have almost no build area and Digitalis is incoming. Good luck!

Descender gives you a good start against weak Emitters on a central island that's surrounded by Spore Towers mostly protected by no-fly zones and unreachable by Relay (Power Zone-less, anyway).

Beau Jest starts you in a nice fort with pre-built weapons, Reactors and Forge. But the map is huge and the enemy Emitters are overpowered; luckily, you can get to build Thors. Although two of my Thors bugged during construction and were stuck at 585/500. Which makes even less sense when you realize that they cost 800 in this mission.

Stairway 13 is hard. There's quite a lot of space, but while the Emitters are stuck at the bottom of 9-deep Olympic-sized pools, they're so overpowered they flood out before you can even make a Cannon. Digitalis, Runners and Spores soon join the party.

Among the other maps, The Bardel Convention and Pamukkale are classic pushes with nice terrain. Leapfrog and Runner Wash are interesting, but I found them tedious.



Hunter Seeker (top right)

Wind is a vertical, large-front map with lots of build space and available Anti-Creeper and a nice wind source that keeps pushing down toward the Emitters.

Boss starts you with non-Bertha Power Zones and tons of Anti-Creeper and build space, but you have to maintain a huge front against some of the most overpowered Emitters there is. Luckily, some kind of gravity keeps the Creeper dense, so it spreads slowly. But occasionnally, the enemy CRPL-attacks, either sending Spores, blocking your view temporarily of quickly sending a spear of Creeper towards you. I had to learn the hard way that non-auto-target Berthas keep firing on the spot you tell them to.



Lich98 (left, slightly down)

Demo World is straightforward but does allow a few different approaches.

The Name looks slightly ridiculous but is a big island map that rewards strategy. Good coordination is key for a good time.

The Start is a small, brutal map with Digitalis and Runners and terrain that's hard to cross.



Michionlion (up-right from center)

Little Gliese is the smallest interesting Creeper Worldmap ever, I believe. You can't really lose, but victory is not straightforward: Structures have an unusually low cost, you start with two loaded Guppies and can't land a Command Node. Pretty fun.

Twisted Island has a main island with strong Emitters and other islands that require a variety of approaches.

Trae Noria has a really tight start that I had a hard time making work: if you can't Nullify those few Emitters really quick, you have to fight them. Then it's typical moving from island to island.

Altiar is a medium map with standard terrain where the Creeper gets dense and you have limited Energy and weapons.

[Helper]

Madmag's Metroid -
Wow! I'd forgotten how much fun it is to watch his games in action.
The custom pieces (bad guys and good guys) he's put together made me forget to play and just watch them work.
This is one great map!

[NNR_Alex]

Finally beat MadMog's Metroid.  I had to restart I dunno how many times, but I finally hit the perfect starting balance of Beams and energy production.

I gotta say you had a few surprises in there to overcome.  I'm still not sure exactly why you call it Metroid though.  Is it cause your mobile units sorta look like Metroids?

[Loren Pechtel]

Give "Earth" by Fisherck a try. Good throw back to the CW1 days.

So far I've been overwhelmed every time.