They betrayed you.
After the disaster that released the Blight, the warring colonies realized the futility of their petty differences and, in the face of extinction, banded together to ensure the survival of the species. Like your forebears on Earth, you and your allies constructed a massive starship to evacuate the doomed world. Computer projections showed the ship would be capable of carrying 75% of the adult population from each colony, with special considerations taken so that no child would be left behind. Most were content with this, and those that would remain behind accepted their sacrifice.
One of the allies, however, did not accept this. The renegades considered themselves more worthy of survival than any other colony, and, mere weeks before the launch date, attempted to commandeer the starship for themselves, dooming hundreds more to die. Through bravery and much sacrifice, the starship was secured and the renegades defeated, but in the end it was all for nothing. The renegades had been planning this uprising from the beginning, and had secretly planted a bomb on the ship early in its construction. Humanity's best hope for survival is now a field of twisted debris orbiting the planet.
Unfortunately, with the Blight rapidly approaching and the planned evacuation starship destroyed, a hasty terrestrial evacuation was needed, and the renegades were able to escape during the ensuing chaos, but not before hacking into your systems and deleting most of your research data.
Now, you and the survivors have evacuated to the last habitable stretch of land on the planet, only to find the renegades are here, waiting for you, and well entrenched. You are outnumbered; most of your people died during the uprising and the chaos of the evacuation. You are outgunned; with your research data gone you have no means to defend yourself. And to make matters worse, you're barely two steps ahead of the Blight.
But you still have your allies. Together, you will overcome the odds. You will survive. You will build a new starship and save humanity from extinction.
But first, you will have your revenge.
Surprise! Right when you least expect it, I show up with a brand-new multiplayer map! And just in time for Christmas and the New Year, too. This is, of course, a Survivor-type map, and it takes place on a variant of Fractures (a Land Rush map designed for 6 players). Now we have a lot of youngsters around here now who might not know what that means, so let me explain real quick.
Survivor is a Space Race variant multiplayer game. Generally they're played cooperatively; you and the people you're playing with are working together against the Blight and occasionally an AI opponent. The objective is to complete the starship and evacuate 200 colonists to orbit before the entire planet is infected. However, Survivor is heavily inspired by the campaign, and in general you're playing an entire campaign with your friends in one multiplayer session! This means you start with next to nothing and have to evacuate and relocate your colony from time to time, so be prepared!
Now here's something most of you will be excited about: this map comes with an AI opponent! Now, you might be familiar with some multiplayer AIs like on Peacekeeper, La Corrida, or some of the older Survivor maps. Maybe they attack you once or twice a game, if you're lucky. If you're not, they're just speedbumps for you to plow through.
This AI is not like those AIs. This AI personally hates you, and
wants you dead at all costs. You get a brief period at the start of the match to settle down and build up; after that the attacks come. These attacks are constant; these attacks are brutal; and they will not stop,
ever until you and your allies are dead. The AI has a massive lead on you in both technology and infrastructure, and worst of all it starts the game with access to EMP Missiles and is not afraid to use them. The AI is more of a threat to you than the Blight ever was (not that you won't be dealing with that, too), so make sure to aggressively pursue weapons technology and be constantly pumping out combat units. This is not for people looking for a fun "comp stomp"; you need to bring your A-game or you're going to lose quickly.
Now, here are some special rules to keep in mind!
- You start with a fully-loaded evacuation convoy, but the Blight is very close to you! You need to move quickly if you want to get out of this mess alive.
- You need enough Evacuation Transports for your population at all times (25 colonists/Transport). If at any time you have no structures and not enough Transports, the colonists that you don't have space for will die immediately.
- You also need to have food loaded into your Cargo Trucks when you evacuate! If you have no Agridomes left alive, your food storage will be emptied and will come from whatever food you have stored in your trucks. As soon as you rebuild an Agridome though, these trucks will automatically be emptied, so at least you don't have to micromanage that.
- Aside from the starting area, mining beacons are invisible. You will need to use a Scout to reveal them (just drive around until you find them), or launch an EDWARD Satellite to instantly reveal all mining beacons on the map.
- The day/night cycle and disasters are always on and can't be disabled. The toggles in the multiplayer lobby instead control whether the AI player gets extra "help". Turning these settings on (recommended!) will add two AI-controlled outposts near your start location, which will harass you in conjunction with the attacks from the "main" AI colony.
- The AI's difficulty scales with the number of players. So just because you have a full house of 5 human players doesn't mean you're going to have an easy time!
- Be very careful around the Blight! Vehicles can enter infected terrain, but doing so is a death sentence. Spending too much time in or attempting to leave the infected area will cause the vehicle to either self-destruct, or to become infected and start attacking anything that gets in range!
- Don't get too complacent! I've packed in plenty of nasty surprises that I'm not going to tell you about, so be prepared for anything!
Fractured Alliance is now included in the OPU Unofficial Update. Download it
here!
