RTS games: How to turn skirmish maps into a second campaign game.

Sometimes you just haven't gotten enough from an RTS after you've played through the single-player campaign scenarios. Or sometimes the RTS' campaign game is too short. Either way, it would be nice to have a second single-player campaign or a campaign frame work for playing against your friends. While playing Dawn of War Dark Crusade, I came up with a frame work for doing this. If you don't mind a little paper work, it works nicely.

First, simply look over all the skirmish maps and begin to imagine how they might fit together with what you know about the enemies you'll be facing. See what story ideas or themes emerge from each skirmish map.

Next, take a sheet of graph paper (regularly spaced horizontal and vertical lines making a field of squares on it.) Are the squares large enough to write three or four sentences of a title or description? If not, then take a bold marking pen and draw horizontal and vertical lines until you have larger squares consisting of four of the small squares. The idea is to have a page of regular squares with squares large enough to write some information on. This will be your campaign map that you will assign skirmish maps to.

Now look at the skirmish map list. Notice how many maps there are that have the maximum number of player slots (starting positions) the skirmish mode allows. (In Dark Crusade, this was 8 slots). For each of these maximum number maps, assign a graph paper square for each player-slot the skirmish map has and then pick a place on the graph paper to outline the skirmish map on the graph paper campaign map. Use the general shape of the skirmish map as the general shape on the graph paper campaign map. For example, http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/dawnofwardarkcrusade/map/31907.html is a 6-player map that's is a rectangle. On your graph paper campaign map you could put it in the center and assign it six squares. The six squares would be a rectangle that was either long-side horizontal or short-side horizontal. Don't forget to write on the graph paper map the name of the skirmish map as it appears in the game's skirmish map selector so you will know which graph paper campaign map assignment refers to which skirmish map in the game.

Now assign the other maximum player slot maps. Spread them out enough to leave room for the other, smaller skirmish maps that come later. As you are deciding where to assign the skirmish maps on the graph paper campaign map, consider what theme or story you want to develop and position the maps accordingly. Sometimes a large skirmish map and some seceding smaller maps share a theme and can be grouped together to develop that theme. Again, don't forget to write the name of the skirmish map as it appears in the game's skirmish map selector

When you are finished assigning the maximum player slot skirmish maps, go on and assign the skirmish maps with the next lower number of player slots. In Dark Crusade, the next lower number of player slots in a skirmish map was six, and the next after that, four. The four player maps took the form of a regular sided square. On the graph paper campaign map, I assigned them four squares in the shape of a regular sided square. Position these skirmish maps on the campaign map so that they connect the maximum player-slot maps you've already just assigned. Again, while you do this, pay attention to themes and stories you want to develop for the campaign.

In Dark Crusade, the next lower number of player slots was three, but they were squares. So I assigned them to the graph paper campaign map as squares consisting of four squares.

Now you fill in some more space on the graph paper campaign map by assigning the skirmish maps with the next lower number of player slots. In Dark Crusade, this number was two, and the maps were rectangles with either long side horizontal or short side horizontal. I fitted them onto my campaign map by assigning them two squares, either long side horizontal or short side horizontal. Again pay attention to the themes and story lines you are trying to develop.

By now you should have filled up most of the squares on your campaign graph paper map. If any are left, assign impassable terrain (like mountains) to unassigned inland squares and assign a "sea" to any squares that are next to any squares that can form a "coast."

You now have the basic outline of your campaign map on the graph paper. The next thing you should do is rename the skirmish maps on the graph paper campaign map according to the themes or stories you have developed for each area of the campaign map. Put these new names on the squares of the skirmish maps on the graph paper map. Do not erase the original skirmish map names, because they can't be renamed in the game and you will need to recall what the original name was to select it in the game's skirmish map selector. So each skirmish map outlined on the graph paper campaign map should have its original skirmish map named in parentheses and its new name for the campaign not in parentheses.

Now you are ready to write a few pages of history or rationale for the graph paper campaign map and each of the skirmish maps on it. Have a lot of good creative fun with this.

And then after that, you can annotate (in pencil) which side (or race) is in control of which skirmish map to start with. (If one of the forces or races is an invader, then it can be assumed that they can begin a fight anywhere by dropping in by a drop ship, (or bubbling up from underground to the surface like the Atlantians in Universe at War). You can further annotate the graph paper campaign map with the skirmish map options to be used (i.e. high or low starting resources, easy or hard difficulty, Victory by annihilation or points control, etc.)

As the forces on the graph paper campaign map battle for ultimate control, the ownership of each skirmish map can be erased and rewritten in pencil. You should define before hand what the victory conditions are for the campaign map. You can play one race or force and just go through the campaign maps defeating each owner, skirmish by skirmish. (In this mode you can simulate a response from the enemies by rolling a die to see which skirmish map they will attack next.) Or you can rotate through each race or force doing a skirmish for one before going on to the other.

Now why go through all this trouble of book keeping and fiddling with graph paper? Well, even when playing alone, I find that this way of playing through the skirmish maps tends to add a direction and purpose to each skirmish that makes them much more fun to play. I find that it adds "personality" to each skirmish and to the campaign as a whole.

One way this method can be improved upon is by having a friend work up a graph paper campaign map for you while you work up one for him. You each become a sort of "Dungeon Master" for the others user-generated single-player campaign. Of course, this can also be adapted for creating multi-player campaign maps where one non-player really does act as a DM for the campaign. This can be a lot of fun and extend the replay value of any RTS game that has skirmish maps. And then there are other campaigns that can be made out of skirmish maps created by various user communities.

Tomorrow I will post part of the Dark Crusade campaign I created for myself so you can see what I am getting at.