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No Units
You are not allowed to make any units whatsoever, or call in Mercs.
Hardest difficulty completed: none. I expect this to be doable on Normal.
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I'm playing through this challenge currently, mainly because I wanted a fun way to play through Normal, having done Hard and Brutal enough for my tastes.
It's pretty easy so far, I'm about 1/2 of the way through the game, just finished The Dig, which was annoyingly easy. The only difficulty presented so far was on the Safe Haven level. Since you cannot make any more units at all, you've pretty much gotta beat everything with the 3 starting Vikings. Was easy tho after I realized I have to use the vikings as tanks and just bust the front door. (Not sure if you could do this on Hard)
It's fun though, I love how simplistic the AI is on Normal. I'm already really only worried about All-In, but I'm thinking with judicious use of bunkers, PFs and saves, it should be fine.
Or I could just get Hive Mind Emulator and do Air for EZ win.
UPDATE: Completed on Normal, both All-in Air and Ground. Pretty much every level has been done on Hard by now as well, with the exception of All-in.
Disclaimer: Had to build units one-time on Gates of Hell in order to trigger 100 supply script. Built SCVs then killed them with Siege tanks after hitting 100 supply.
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this doesnt seem doable on any difficulty higher than normal (if even that), but i look forward to seeing how u fare.
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I was going to say it was impossible until I realised that you were allowing research/upgrades, which makes it actually very easy, just PF spam+hive mind emulator your way to victory in every mission, This is probably possible on hard without any major trickyness
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Hard to spam much of anything with limited SCVs - same problem the mercs only challenge has.
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On January 11 2011 02:55 sylverfyre wrote:
Hard to spam much of anything with limited SCVs - same problem the mercs only challenge has.
Build CCs for mules for extra economy, use the starting scvs for gas if needed
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Yea, I just realized that, The Dig being my first post-PF mission. Prior to that, it was somewhat of a challenge to stay defended with just Shrike Turrets and 4-6 marines. The PF does make it somewhat trivial, but the aggressive portions remain the only real challenge in this mode regardless. It's certainly easier than a standard Brutal run. But it's quite a bit of fun, IMO.
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Done a few more missions, still nothing really stands out as difficult. Supernova was interesting, as I just pushed all the way to the end, rather than cheesily using the north border of the map to EZ mode it. One thing I've gotten doing this mode is a decent bit of micro practice, and getting comfortable with how fast SCVs can repair in various numbers.
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I miss all of the campaign levels in age of empires 2. Man those were good times.
Is this possible on all levels?
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I decided to try this at hard difficulty. I just beat The Dig, unlocking the protoss missions and with that most of the research. I did:
liberation day, the outlaws, zero hour, smash and grab (strategy as in mercs only)
Then delay the evacuation some more and do the devil's playground. Somehow (don't really understand? Shouldn't I have 3 zerg research now?) that got me enough Zerg research to get the Shrike Turret. While the fortified bunker is better in the end game, the shrike turret is critical for beating the evacuation. That's what I did next. The strategy was to build 3 to 6 bunkers near the three places where zerg tend to attack. I then filled those with my two firebats and had some repairing scvs protecting the bunkers. You have to walk around and collect all the minerals to get enough money. The zerg research is also nice of course.
You can then do the great train robbery, which is tricky but doable. Get the diamondbacks ASAP and build some shrike turrets near the tracks. I killed the marauders by attacking them from the high ground when they were at the north end of their cycle. I didn't kill the units that supported the last train. Rather I delayed them with shrike turrets while my diamondbacks killed the train.
Cutthroat is quite easy. You can kill everything with your four vultures. By this time I had PFs, so I converted my main into a PF. I made a second one but there is no need.
That unlocks the dig. This mission is also quite easy. I started with bunkers on my ramps, which I later replaced by PFs; still later I added bunkers back. Concussive shells for your single marauder is quite useful. Float a building and use the drill to get the artifacts. (I collected them with a medic).
I can now access Zeratul's missions, which I know are doable because I did them on the Mercs only playthrough.
On January 11 2011 02:47 Shiladie wrote:
I was going to say it was impossible until I realised that you were allowing research/upgrades, which makes it actually very easy, just PF spam+hive mind emulator your way to victory in every mission, This is probably possible on hard without any major trickyness
Obviously the upgrades are crucial, but you can't "spam" PFs for lack of money, and there are quite a few missions before you get PFs, and there are only 3 missions where you can use the hive mind emulator. Also it is not always trivial to push with PFs. While it's not impossible and undoubtedly easier than the thing you tried to do, I don't think it's "very easy"; it's a lot harder than playing Brutal normally for example.
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build a million Orbital commands and use massive mule call downs to attack!
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On January 13 2011 09:40 GreatFall wrote:
build a million Orbital commands and use massive mule call downs to attack!
Except MULEs do not have attacks 
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On January 13 2011 11:43 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2011 09:40 GreatFall wrote:
build a million Orbital commands and use massive mule call downs to attack! Except MULEs do not have attacks
Thats what you think
I cant imagine being able to do this O_o
Can you upload some runs on youtube so i can see you doing it?
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I really wish Blizzard would allow us to save replays of the campaign, much craziness has already been unfurled without anyone seeing it except the player who did their crazy run/tactic.
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lol i doubt this is possible. it took me a few tries for some of the achievements for some of the missions when i run straight in
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@13_Doomblaze_37: Sorry, not I'm not going to record the thing
@datacrashe72: given that I got this far it should certainly be possible. The only tricky missions ahead that I have to play are supernova and gates of hell, and if I can't beat those straight up with PFs/mind control I'm sure there are some other cheesy strats that will allow me to win. Enter the jungle is not required, and it seems hard, so I'm delaying that until I have mules and automated refineries (which will allow me to build many more turrets and PFs).
My experience so far is that everything is tricky, but doable if you (a) do missions in the right order (generally from easy to hard, so that you have more upgrades for the harder missions, and do the Zeratul missions as soon as you can), (b) get the right research and upgrades to help make things easier (combat shields and +1 bunker range for smash and grab, shrike turrets for the evacuation, etc) and (c) think about your strategy for each mission a bit. You will have to play a lot of missions a bit differently from what you're used to.
@Alekh47 I'm going to do all-in air which will be a piece of cake with the hive mind emulator, there's threads about that. That's certainly not going to be the hardest mission. Shatter the sky and especially all-in ground would be quite a feat though, does anyone feel up to that challenge?
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Eh at least this one would allow you to do whatever you want with the upgrade cuz you would have so much money.
i'll may try this one too
edit : shoop, for supernoavae maybe saving your initial banshee, puting them to the far right, floating your cc to the botom far right of the map, and let the fire damage the vault (and finish it with your banshee) would do the trick
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can you make pforts and turrets (or bunks with guns)?
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On January 13 2011 08:46 shoop wrote:
Cutthroat is quite easy. You can kill everything with your four vultures. By this time I had PFs, so I converted my main into a PF. I made a second one but there is no need.
Could you elaborate more on that, please? How can you take out siege tanks, bunkers and a planetary fortress with just some vultures?
I don't see how you can take out the planetary without being able to train extra units. How'd you do it?
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Well when you have enough minerals there is a bunch of extra units that come with the second base. You technicaly don't "train" them so you have the right to use them.
vulture can kill everything before the second base to collect the scrap minerals on the map
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EPT
