| 1 | Quick thinking and flawless strategy won't always save you, but the [[IncrediblyLamePun quick save]] button sure will. In [[ThatOneLevel these levels]], frustration will be your biggest adversary. |
| 2 | ---- |
| 3 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 4 | |
| 5 | [[folder:Command And Conquer]] |
| 6 | * From ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars'': |
| 7 | ** For GDI, you have Albania, in the middle of Act 3. You have to escort a team of engineers inside an enormous Nod base and capture reinforcement bays to build an airfield. This wouldn't be that bad if it weren't for the fact that engineers die if the enemy so much as looks at them funny, and the enemy AI prioritizes engineers as the first thing they shoot. And if you lose all four engineers, game over! Even worse, if you want to also accomplish the secondary objectives you need ''all four'' engineers alive. |
| 8 | ** All three Croatia missions are ThatOneLevel for their respective faction. |
| 9 | *** In GDI's version of the mission, you don't have a construction yard, or even enough reactors to power your entire base at once, so you are tasked with juggling power between base defenses against exponentially tougher attacks, while simultaneously fighting your way to the other side of the map and escorting an MCV back to your base through constantly-respawning hordes. And the moment that MCV enters your gates of your worn-down base, ''then'' the enemy lets loose with full force. The sanest solution is to [[SequenceBreaking sequence break]] and assault the three enemy bases at the very beginning when they are the weakest, then capture their generators to power your defenses. But even that is a task in itself, for the hardest one to take out is their Air base. It's totally inaccessable from the ground, being set on top of a cliff. If you try to mount an air strike on it, you discover that the base is full of Heroic Stealth Tanks and Missile Squads, which work with the SAM turrets to blow your Orcas to tiny pieces. The only way to do this mission is to airlift an attack force onto the small part of the cliff that the enemy can't hit with their anti-air and then hope you can take those Stealth tanks out before they rip you to pieces. |
| 10 | *** In Nod's version of the mission, you have to break through a GDI base defended by Mammoth Tanks. The only harder Nod mission, Kane's Tower, is the last mission of the campaign. |
| 11 | *** In the Scrin version of the mission, both other factions possess heavily fortified bases and will often launch heavy attacks at you in your nearly defenseless base. Even if you do fend off the attack, you will occasionally randomly lose the mission because a GDI mammoth tank trundled through the Nod base and blew up the building you were supposed to capture. Luckily, if you completed the previous mission with your Mastermind still alive, it shows up in this mission too - its mind control lets you steal Mammoth tanks to protect yourself, and the teleportation power makes crippling the GDI base a cakewalk. If the Mastermind died in the previous mission? [[LuckBasedMission Good luck]] to you. |
| 12 | ** For Nod, Operation Stiletto. Your mission is to capture two GDI Construction Yards and two Scrin Drone Platforms, in the middle of an all-out battle between the two factions. You ''have'' to capture all four Construction Yards/Drone Platforms intact, while the respective AI of both factions will mercilessly pummel each other, and usually taking down one Yard or Platform will fundamentally weaken that particular base to the point where the enemy will stomp clean through the defenses and crush you, or turn around and attack the ''other'' base which is now drastically weakened since you took out its support. Worst part is that you get almost no warning that the enemy is going to destroy their opponent's base, and usually by the time you know its going to happen, you don't have the troops ready to stop them. |
| 13 | ** The worst of the lot has to be Kane's Tower after the patches (which did wonders for skirmish and multiplayer, but more or less ignored their effect on the campaign, which was balanced for the unpatched game)--the last patch slowed down everyone's rate of income, but someone forgot to tell that to the campaign AI, which has additional independent funding. The mission was pretty bad even before the patches. It involves protecting three Scrin structures from GDI attack; doesn't sound too bad, until you realize 1. the Scrin are hostile to you, making protecting them difficult, but they're also nowhere near powerful enough to stop GDI. 2. You start out with one medium sized base at tier 2, GDI starts with two tier 3 bases, one of which is larger then yours, and the other much larger. 3. GDI will happily build not one, but two Ion Cannons before you can even begin construction of your own Nuke. 4.GDI starts with a fully functional small airbase, which will bomb the Scrin to the ground if not disposed of 5. Your two starting tiberium fields are both in harms way, one from the Scrin, the other being the main avenue on GDI's attacks on your own base. 6. GDI is shelling the structures you're supposed to protect from the second the mission starts with unique artillery that out-ranges normal artillery by a factor of 5--capture-able sure, but only if you manage to get to it while simultaneously dealing with all the other difficulties at the same time with your very limited early game resources. Winning the mission often depends on luck more so then anything, as the GDI attacks on the Scrin vary in size, from manageable, to an armored column consisting of a dozen mammoth tanks supported by twice as many lighter vehicles and about as many infantry squads, as well as every single reinforcement support power in the GDI arsenal. Losing (which will happen very often) will earn you a chewing out by Kane himself, despite the fact that his request to protect the Scrin structures is completely unreasonable. |
| 14 | * One Nod mission in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun'' tasks you with finding a UFO with Kane's Tacitus inside. You are given three light infantry, three engineers, two light buggies, and one attack cycle. There's a sizable GDI presence on the map, including a couple of Titans that will catch up to you if you pause for too long and will annihilate you if they do. After you sneak your way around the map to the UFO, you find that Vega snatched the Tacitus and have to stop the train before it leaves. You sneak back around the map to Vega's base, and have to dash past his defenses and ''pray'' you've got enough oomph left in your tiny force to destroy the train before Vega's men either catch up to you and finish you off. Oh, and if you're too slow to reach the train, an engineer repairs the broken bridge, and the train leaves. If you lose your attack cycle (and might I add, attack cycles are the epitome of FragileSpeedster), then chances are good you won't be able to stop the train. Did we mention this is only ''Mission 5''? Have fun. |
| 15 | ** However, the second part of this mission turns out to be a cakewalk [[GuideDangIt if you happen to know]] that there is a backdoor entrance to Vega's base, making all that dashing past defences unnecessary. Instead of following the train, just go south and walk along the cliff surrounding the base, until you find a weak spot (a little west of the broken bridge). Shoot at it and move up the resulting passage -- you will end up in the middle of Vega's base, with no passive defences bothering you, and the train standing right there, ready to be deprived of locomotive. |
| 16 | * ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianDawn'' had an [[http://www.cncworld.org/?page=games/tiberiandawn/walkthrough/gdi8eb mid-game GDI mission]] where you have to protect a village. The problem? The villagers wander randomly, and there's a tiberium tree which will poison them when near it. You can't evacuate them via APC, either. It appears that it's supposed to be a TimedMission, but the random wandering makes it more of a LuckBasedMission if all the idiots decide to go breathe in the delicious gases. Thankfully you can choose another mission instead of this one. |
| 17 | * Let's not forget the GDI mission 11 from ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianDawn'' that had your team hitting the beach in an effort to raze a Nod base in the area. No, not the first mission. The one later, where your infantry team has to clear beach turrets to make room for an MCV to land. Then you have to protect the MCV as you get to the spot where the tiberium is, all the while armed only with infantry. The best part is that you have about 3 minutes before an enemy flame tank--which eats infantry for breakfast and structures for lunch--comes rolling into your base, and unless you have your refinery in a pixel perfect place to maximize the rate of income, you probably don't have any vehicles by that point, causing your torched troopers and scorched structures to be the last thing you see before you reload your saved game, repeatedly. |
| 18 | ** Then there's two missions from 'Covert Operations' bonus disc. C&C: Death Squad and C&C: Under Siege. First one includes you playing as NOD, you have to destroy GDI's Adv. Com. Center with following units: Two Stealth Tanks, Flamethrower Tank, two Minigunners, one Bazooka Infantry and Commando. Problem comes from that GDI haves fully upgraded base and can replace their lost units. Latter one includes you playing as NOD, having fully upgraded base, you're surrounded by cliffs having only three exits. However, there's loads of GDI units on each exit and you don't have any money with you. GDI also likes to use Air Strike in your base fairly often. |
| 19 | *** It actually isn't that hard, if you realise you've got a Stealth Tank and that [[FridgeLogic churches have monies in em.]] |
| 20 | * ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert'' has the second to the last Allied mission taking place inside a Soviet tech center. The objective is to send your engineers to place charges on the generators within a time limit. You're split into two teams having to shoot through hordes of enemies and you'll likely lose units quickly. The former mission to actually ''get into'' the Tech Center is also pretty damn stupid due to starting with a truly tiny amount of forces and hardly any minerals to get money from. |
| 21 | ** Similar to the above is the first indoor mission for the Allies, which sees fit to ask you to disable 4 nuclear missile silos from the inside, for which you are given only a tiny team of soldiers of which most in turn are unarmed, while the enemy has many more rifle soldiers, attack dogs which will OneHitKill yours, flamethrower towers are more. Plus you are given a time limit that, depending on your performance in the mission ''before that'', may not even be enough to finish and you are given no warning whatsoever. |
| 22 | ** Speaking of, the mission before the first Allied indoor mission is yet another ThatOneLevel, because you are at some (random!) point given a time limit before the Soviets nuke all of Europe (which you have to prevent), again without warning, while there's hardly any ressources near the starting point (so you have to go north where enemy artillery are already waiting) and the enemy base is among the biggest encountered in the whole game ''and expansions''. |
| 23 | * "Legacy of Tesla" from the Counterstrike expansion is incredibly counter-intuitive. The idea is to destroy a prototype nuclear [=MiG=]. A "prototype" that can be replaced over and over, mind you. So, these new Tesla Tanks must be important to the mission, right? No. The [=MiG=]s landing strip is overseas, but you don't have a Construction Yard or Sub Pen, so you'll have to capture the Allied Naval Yard. Don't capture it though, as this provoke nuclear retaliation. What you're supposed to do is capture a Construction Yard, build a Naval Yard and many AA Guns to ward off helicopters, and send units to attack an island. |
| 24 | ** - Counterstrike was even harsher to the Allies, which had no less than three missions where supply trucks would cause you to lose by running off the map at various points. The second had seven convoys, the sixth of which would come from offscreen through your base, possibly dropping nuke crates which may destroy most of it. On this mission, these's no Soviet base to destroy; stopping the trucks is the only win condition. If you can even find the last one with your radar destroyed. |
| 25 | * - The Aftermath contains a mission where the Soviets have to face the Molotov Brothers, who in exchange for their Tesla Tank (and some other units you can't produce either) get most of the Allied ground vehicles and base defenses GAP Generator included, plus the Allies reinforce them with some units they didn't already have. |
| 26 | * ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2'' penultimate Soviet Mission. The enemy can attack rapidly, mind-control your units, and is highly resistant to artillery attacks (since your artillery units' projectiles get shot down). The enemy has the Iron Curtain which makes its units invincible for a time. They will spawn Terror Drones which can't be easily removed from your vehicles without Allied units, forcing you to keep all your tanks next to multiple repair yards. There are very limited resources, and the enemy will gladly throw its full might against the few outlying oil derricks that you might capture. If you successfully turtle, you can nuke the objective building, and there's also a few passages that you might not notice because you're too busy trying to turtle. Sending your initial Kirovs to force-bomb the passages to your base also helps, but is far from perfect. |
| 27 | * ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3'': |
| 28 | ** The last Allied mission. Your objective is to destroy seven strategically placed Iron Curtain machines, which make the Soviet Premier's palace invulnerable, and then take down the palace. Every one of the Iron Curtains is in the middle of a Soviet base except one, which is in the middle of an urban area whose all apartments are garrisoned full of Soviet infantry. This wouldn't be that much of a problem were it not a TimedMission: On easy you have an hour, on medium and hard it's thirty minutes. The island you and your co-commander are given as a base location is pretty easy to defend, but has only four ore mines and two oil derricks, a pretty small amount compared to most maps in the campaign (considering you probably are too busy taking down the Iron Curtains to clear yourself a way for a secondary base to increase your resource gathering speed). The enemy begins by sending huge tank rushes, which are easily countered. Then, when about fifteen minutes of your time has passed, they suddenly send an enormous infantry assault, just in case their lack of such attacks has made you forget to build anti-infantry defenses. About the same time, the Soviets start attacking with V4 launchers (which in this game can't be countered by shooting the missiles, so you are required to have units to take them down before they can reduce your base into shreds) and their superweapon activates. Five minutes later, the soviets start to bring Dreadnoughts against you via the river and attacking you with helicopters and zeppelins. At this point, even the hardiest Allied general is reduced to a crying pile on the floor. |
| 29 | ** Ditto the final Soviet mission. While it is not timed, you have to put up with massive enemy forces. You have to worry about aircraft carriers and constant airstrikes bombing you to oblivion, paradrops right behind your base, and if you think it couldn't get any worse, the enemy will start using the chronosphere to drop vehicles at undefended parts of your base, and also bring a Proton Collider online. Not to count your co-commander often did a poor job at fending off the Allies navy. |
| 30 | ** These two missions are easy compared to THAT one Empire mission. Remember the one you have to fight off both Allies and Soviet commanders with Shinzo as your co-commander? They are across a stretch of water, so land vehicles are out of the equation. Send amphibious units or battleships? You might be able to destroy about five defense emplacements and about two power plants close to the water, then watch the ships break apart. Or get turned into the world's biggest and most fragile piece of ice. Or get sucked into space, never to be seen again. Maybe. You better hope not. Or... Anyway, you finally decide to send air units. Great. See THOSE funny looking trucks with the massive cannons and twin-barreled guns? Or those unassuming cars which fire off a MacrossMissileMassacre? They are also fast enough to run away before you get close enough. On the hardest difficulty, it takes so much planning and micromanagement to make an Allied commander proud. And you have to (strategically) sweep their base aside before you lose enough units. Because while you are building another wave, they are building another base. And about the only use of Shinzo (for any other missions too, for that matter), on the hardest difficulty, at least, is as cannon fodder. Seriously. Try asking him to 'hold position' between you and the enemy. |
| 31 | ** Pearl Harbor is a map made halfway of water, where the Allies will send relentless bombing runs at you. No problem, just use your waterborne AntiAir units! Except you don't get any. Have fun watching your Tengus get shot out of the sky, then your naval forces get frozen, then bombers soar merrily overhead to take out both your refineries. Yes, ''both'' of them- clearly half a dozen sacred monuments being threatened with destruction doesn't warrant you being granted enough money to actually defend them. You also have a co-commander whose main function seems to be spending your money to build units then get getting those units killed. |
| 32 | ** Uprising has the second Imperial mission, where your forces and your base aren't in the same place, you're under constant attack from several directions, and what few places you have to place refineries are open to attacks from subs. |
| 33 | * ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals - Zero Hour'', General's Challenge Hard, Alexis Alexander. You start with the standard-issue command center and single construction dozer on a small island in the left bottom corner of the map. Alexander has a sprawling base covering most of the opposite corner and a ring of missile batteries in the archipelago between the two bases. If you make the slight mistake of building ''anything'' on the western side of your island at the start, Alexander destroys whatever you were building with a triple A-10 airstrike and sends a trio of Comanche choppers to whittle down your command center ''30 seconds into the mission.'' This is way before you even have a barracks built, much less base defenses or anything else that can answer to aerial units. Aside from that little curbstomping surprise, the entire mission is basically about exploiting the AI's tendency to act on invisible triggers. If you can't trick the AI to waste its Particle Cannons on one or two cheap structures in the same spots every time, you are going down. |
| 34 | ** Don't forget that said missile batteries are EMP missile batteries, and will shut down vehicles they hit. If said vehicle happens to be a flying vehicle, bad things happen... |
| 35 | ** Alternately, you can play her tricks against her. Assault the one P-Cannon that's on your island (but don't destroy it). Use one of your abilities to knock it offline (to prevent her from selling it on you) and immediately capture it. She'll voice a complaint about your use of [[CombatPragmatist "lack of sportsmanship"]], then shoot her particle beams at it. To really play her good, initiate the sale of it about 8 seconds before she shoots, letting her waste the shots ''and'' getting $2500 from it. One P-cannon down, two to go. |
| 36 | ** There is also the 3rd Zero Hour Chinese mission. Your base is on the outskirts of a huge, sprawling city absolutely infested with the GLA. Your objective is to destroy all of the statues in the city before your 'international opinion' drops too low. On hard difficulty, this mission is the biggest nightmare imaginable even to a veteran player. The GLA has stinger sites, tunnel networks, and demo traps absolutely littering the city. All of them are stealthed, so the stingers and tunnels will almost always get the first hit on you and the demo traps will destroy entire tank columns if you don't advance very carefully. Meanwhile, the GLA is sending nonstop waves of [[DemonicSpiders rocket buggies]] and SCUDs at you. These units are much, much, MUCH faster and longer-ranged than anything in your arsenal for this mission, and they're smart enough to retreat as you slowly charge at them. A typical scenario might be a SCUD firing on a tank column from an entire screen away and instantly killing or crippling half of it. As the tanks pursue, the SCUD falls back. Determined not to let the enemy go, the player orders them on... and they trigger a demo trap which kills everyone. If you instead let the SCUD go to avoid the risk of falling into an ambush, you can expect it to be back as soon as it has had time to reload. |
| 37 | ** [[SmugSnake Prince Kassad]]. He has TWO bases along two different routes of the map, both guarded by stealthed, mutually supportive stinger sites, tunnel networks, and demo traps. Once you destroy a stinger site he sends a worker to rebuild them ALMOST IMMEDIATELY and the construction site becomes stealthed after a few seconds. He continually sends rocket buggies, technicals full of terrorists, and demo trucks to harass your base from TWO directions. There is an oil derrick and reinforcement pad to the North, but the land route is protected by demo traps and you still have to deal with stinger sites and a tunnel network. If any mission requires you to just turtle and unleash six or seven superweapons, this one is it. |
| 38 | *** He '''loves''' to use the Sneak Attack, Rebel Ambush, and Anthrax Bomb gen powers. The Sneak Attack is countered by a handful of tanks kept near your Command Center; the Rebel Ambush by widely distributing infantry-mowing Snipers or Gatling Tanks; and the Anthrax Bomb aircraft always follows the same path, so load it with AA weapons to kill the bomber before it can drop. The Scud Storm will fall to just about any combination of two high-damage support powers. |
| 39 | ** Also in the running is General Shi-Tao "The Nuke." He has up to ''five'' nuclear silos, all of which activate within minutes of the start (guaranteeing you don't have the capability to take them out, even with the generous twelve minute timers. The area around his base has spontaneous radiation fog, and he keeps a steady stream of nuclear powered tanks, nuclear artillery, and infantry to your base. Fortunately the infantry are near death anyway, but the artillery will blow up just about any structure in two hits. Oh and since the projectile is a shell, it ''can't be intercepted.'' The only real relief in this Gen Challenge is that the Nuclear Missiles are scripted to only target specific areas on the map, with the first nuke he fires is thankfully slightly north of your starting base, so as long as you don't building anything below the second supply dock above your base (it's fine if you build a second supply-gathering building above said second supply dock, but not below it AKA south of it) and keep only a small amount of structures away from the scripted nuking area, you'll be safe from the first nuke and hopefully the second, but normally the third or so nuke he fires is aimed DIRECTLY at your starting CC location, so utilizing Black Lotus, Demo Jarmen Kell or Colonel Burton to eliminate the two less-guarded silos located to the northeast of your starting base are a MUST. |
| 40 | ** The (usually) penultimate, General Townes' level contains stealthed observer drones that are ''coded to be invincible'', yet all your AA guns will immediately target them upon detection. This would not be a problem except for the fact that he constantly sends attack choppers to engage your assault groups. Because your AA guns are automatically targeting the drones, guess what they're ''not'' shooting at. |
| 41 | ** [[DragonLady General Leang]] has the best picks of all weapons available to all three sides to suit a refined tank assault style (She gets Paladin tanks, [[MightyGlacier Overlords]], [[DemonicSpiders Rocket Buggies]], all three special characters, all three superweapons (timed to fire simultaneously) and a sprawling base studded with gatling guns and patriot batteries fitted in places unaccessible to normal range tank guns. She can also use tech combinations that are impossible for the player, such as Chinese Overlord tanks with the U.S. Composite Armor upgrade. She WILL make you fight bitterly for every inch of ground. However, her superweapons are all on generously long timers, which can be reset by destroying one of several poorly-defended structures scattered around the map. She also doesn't have any offensive support powers. This means that whereas previous generals were constantly harassing you with artillery strikes, A-10's, anthrax bombs, and superweapons, the only thing you really have to deal with when fighting Leang are her units. She does use the Sneak Attack though, but if you know when and where it will appear (namely once you build your Tech Center and it will always be the same location), just build a small structure in that location and the problem is solved. |
| 42 | [[/folder]] |
| 43 | |
| 44 | [[folder:Starcraft]] |
| 45 | !! '''''[[VideoGame/StarcraftI Starcraft]]''''' |
| 46 | * In the penultimate Terran mission of the original campagin, "New Gettysburg", you are introduced with an object that is in no other official Starcraft campaign mission - you cannot destroy any Zerg structures. Where are the Zerg you ask? Directly right behind your base. You're free to kill any of their units however, meaning you have to carefully set up your defenses to where you can attack the incoming Zerg, but keep the buildings untouched. Assuming you're going in order, it's also your first mission against the Protoss, which are far more durable than the Terran and Zerg units you've been dealing with so far. The mission itself isn't too difficult once you start getting established (you even get access to the Battlecruisers, which are rather costly), but your initial position is rather poor. You have very little room in your main base, which you'll need to fill up with defensive units if you want to survive against both fronts. |
| 47 | * In "The Hammer Falls", the final mission of the Terran campaign, you're getting pounded from two directions by enemy Terran forces with all of the same units you have, your base is surrounded by cliffs so you can get attacked by units you can't see, and your starting area is quite small, so if you aren't smart with your building placement you could end up with no room to build. The enemy has no qualms of doing stuff like irradiating your [=SCVs=], bombarding your base with siege tanks, or having ghosts lockdown your mechanical units, which are the backbone of the Terran forces. And that's not getting into the ''nukes'', which will blow apart your bunkers, missile turrets and tanks, leaving your defenses crushed in an instant, and because ghosts can and will use nuke from outside the range of your missile turrets and siege tanks, even if you find them you probably will not be able to move fast enough to kill them before the bomb drops. |
| 48 | * The Zerg campaign mission "Eye for an Eye" 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. Due to the how the particular exists are placed, it's impossible to build any defensive structures (Spore Colonies for detection or Sunken Colonies for anti-ground) directly around them either. Thank God for level-skipping cheats. |
| 49 | * Far worse is the Protoss [[CivilWarcraft civil war]] mission "Homeland". 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 GuideDangIt 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. |
| 50 | ** The truly brutal logic of this mission is that it has an inverse [[ViolationOfCommonSense punish/reward system]] where attempting to build up a strong, defensive base, upgrading all of your research, letting the AI waste resources throwing units against your base and then making a strong counter-attack just makes the mission ''harder'', as the enemies will increase in power over time better than you will. Instead, you should just take your starting Dark Templar units (including the [[TooAwesomeToUse leader Zeratul]], and make a beeline for the backdoor as stated above, and you can finish the mission in about a minute after starting. |
| 51 | * Protoss Mission 6, sees you inside an installation overrun with Zerg, well over 100 of them. How many units do you get? 3. In all fairness, you do get reinforcements in the form of Terran Marines throughout, but they die incredibly quickly, and even the fully upgraded Zealots that accompany you are quickly felled when multiple Hydralisks are against you, so you have to completely rely on the Hero Unit Tassadar. What ups this level into frustration, is the fact in addition to the lower tier Zerg throughout the base, there are Infested Terrans - [[SuicideAttack suicide bomber]] units that [[TakingYouWithMe instantly kill any unit they touch]], including your Hero, who is [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou required to complete the mission]]. And there are LOTS of them, often hidden inside packs of Zerg, and some are even [[FakeDifficulty burrowed]], and only come up [[GuideDangIt AFTER you've passed them]] in a corridor. Most of the mission is spent waiting for Tassadar's mana to regenerate, because his abilities are really the only way through the huge blockages of Zerg and Infested Terrans. The Pissed quotes can only entertain for so long. |
| 52 | * The penultimate Protoss mission "Shadow Hunters" 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 defense in the first 15 minutes. Once you think you have a decent defense up, and are considering going on the offensive, you'll get bombarded by Guardians from a safe distance, while armies of Mutalisks 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 all the way to to the 2 main bases where one of your heroes has to deal the killing blow to the Cerebrates. But if you survive the first 20 minutes, that's rather trivial. ''If.'' |
| 53 | |
| 54 | !! '''''[[VideoGame/StarcraftI Starcraft: Brood War]]''''' |
| 55 | * ''Brood War'' gives us yet another brutal Protss CivilWar mission in the form of "The Insurgent": Not only are you outnumbered at least 2:1 to start, but the enemy Protoss have a much more fortified base and exclusive access to Archons, which are extremely powerful and bulky, and Arbiters, which provide passive cloaking and let them warp in troops from base to wherever they're needed. Your exclusive access to Dark Templar doesn't help when detectors are everywhere, and Dark Archons, your other exclusive unit, are as AwesomeButImpractical as ever. The mission revolves around killing Aldaris, and since he has two clones out there[[GuideDangIt you'll probably waste precious time and resources attacking the wrong base in your first try]]. |
| 56 | * The last 4 missions in ''Brood War'' are notably harder than the rest of the Zerg campaign: |
| 57 | ** The seventh Zerg mission "Drawing of the Web" requires you to bring Duran to 5 beacons. Duran is frail, his cloaking is worthless near the beacons thanks to omnipresent detectors, and it's an automatic game over if he dies. Each beacon is on its own separate piece of elevated terrain, with one ramp in/out, and a small base surrounding it. The elevation gives the defenders a damage & armor bonus against anything approaching from below, and there's a large, untouchable Protoss base at the center of the map providing reinforcements. Overlords can't transport units in this mission and you don't have access to Mutalisks, making the terrain problem unavoidable. Attacks on your base start early, hit hard and never let up; Archons will show up in the ''early'' attacking waves. |
| 58 | ** The eighth Zerg mission "To Slay the Beast" 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. |
| 59 | ** The ninth mission "The Reckoning", which requires destroying every. Last. Protoss before they escape in a set time limit, while fending off Terran attacks on your base. This is difficult on its own, but you have to do it with 5 minutes to spare for the bonus level unlock. |
| 60 | ** The final Zerg level, "Omega", has you pitted against two Terran forces and one Protoss force. They each have massive amounts of units that work especially well against the Zerg and require different strategies to handle each, with well fortified bases and large, organized attacks on yours. Resources are finite, so expanding your resource gathering operations beyond the starting base is practically required, but the attack on your new hatchery will be so fierce that you'll spend most of your new resources just to keep the AI from destroying it. |
| 61 | |
| 62 | !! '''''[[VideoGame/StarcraftII Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty]]''''' |
| 63 | * The Protoss mission "In Utter Darkness" is a weird example, since it can only be lost if you intentionally try to do so. Your only win objective is to kill a certain number of enemies: once you meet that quota, you can die and the mission will count as 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. The enemies come in massive numbers from three directions, are accompanied by EliteMook [[spoiler:Hybrid units]] in increasingly higher numbers as the mission progresses, your walls are regularly attacked by mutalisks and brood lords, and later you're regularly attacked by nydus worms unleashing waves of broodlings on your base, and they can pop up anywhere so you need to plant cannons all around your base out of paranoia. The common strategy for this mission is to wall off the base entirely and rely on air units and siege units to kill enemies from safety, but even then you need a lot of micromanagement to focus down the enemy air units and mentioned Elite Mooks before they bust those walls down. This mission also suffers from a greater DifficultySpike 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 numbers and upgrade their stats quicker. This is the only mission where the achievements (going over the kill score by certain amounts) can all be done on Normal difficulty, and good thing because you'll have hard enough time meeting the base requirements themselves. |
| 64 | * Hard mode "Zero Hour" is only the game's third mission, and is a Wake-Up Call Level for the rest of Hard mode. You have to hold your base for a half an hour, and this is quite easy on Normal. On Hard however, the zerg are more aggressive, they call down pod drops to spread creep to increase their movement speed when they attack, they destroy the neutral structures around the map to deny you vision of their movements, they will drop creep on your base unleashing zerglings, and of course they attack more aggressively and in greater numbers. The achievements for this mission require you to destroy 4 Hatcheries on Hard mode, and going on the offensive is ''not'' easy because all you have are medics and marines, and the zerg bases are on high ground, forcing your units into a bottleneck while the zerg defenders swarm the top of the ramp to push them back. And you have to time your attack too, because if you move out while a wave of attackers is preparing for an assault, guess who's going to get caught in the open and devoured. |
| 65 | * On Normal mode, the campaign is pretty tame, and even on Hard it isn't too tricky if you're familiar with the game. Then you come to the final mission, "All In". It's a HoldTheLine mission where you must defend a special building until it charges up energy to 100%, the mission lasting over a half hour, during which you fight off waves and waves of Zerg trying to destroy it. This is hard but not overly impossible, until you factor in that you face a RecurringBoss unit that can kill most units in two or three hits, and has two spell attacks, one that does heavy area of effect damage, the other of which instantly kills any unit. Oh, and this boss unit has a lot of HP to boot. The level also has a unique gimmick depending on which of two missions you did beforehand--you can either deal with Nydus Worms regularly sending out additional waves of enemies to attack you, or you can face waves of Mutalisks, Corruptors and Broodlords who come with a second Boss unit later in the mission. The mercy of the mission is that the building you're defending can regularly put out an energy wave to kill all nearby enemies. You will definitely be needing it, and for fun, one of the Achievements is to win the mission on Hard and only use this energy wave ability once in the entire mission. '''''Good luck'''''. |
| 66 | * The aptly named [[HarderThanHard Brutal Mode]] can turn almost every mission into ThatOneLevel, as enemies are much stronger and much more competent, in particular utilizing area of effect-damage units (Banelings, Ravens with Hunter-Seeker missiles, Colossi and High Templar) to great effect. They also get access to much stronger units than they have on regular difficulty, such as Banshees and Ravens on "The Great Train Robbery", a mission where depending on the order you're tackling them, it's possible that your only source of anti-air power is the basic Marine. Said mission requires you to destroy a series of trains, which have several thousand HP and come with garrison units to protect them. On all other difficulties, the Dominion sends out a Marauder team to patrol and defend, but on Brutal they send out ''two'' teams. The Marauder is a beefy anti-armor infantry unit that slows down units it hits inside its explosive's radius, too bad the ideal unit for this mission that you ''have'' to build in great numbers to win is an armored unit whose strength is the ability to attack while moving. Siege Tanks can help whittle down the train's health and take out its escorts including the Marauders, but even they can't defend against the Hunter-Seekers. |
| 67 | * "Engine of Destruction" can be tricky if you don't know what you're doing. It's an EscortMission with a LeeroyJenkins hero that will barge into enemy bases with no sense of self-preservation, and it's up to you to keep repairing his unit to keep it from being destroyed. Thankfully this hero is a OneManArmy and actually ''is'' strong enough to take out those bases on his own like he's trying to, but you're still liable to find yourself screaming at him for not giving you enough time to repair him before he goes charging in again. Also fortunate is that after this mission comes "Media Blitz", which is a good contender for the campaign's SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome. |
| 68 | * "Supernova". Dear God, "Supernova". You're on a planet that has an [[AdvancingWallOfDoom advancing wall of fire]] going from left to right, and which will rapidly destroy any unit or building it touches. This means the player is forced to move the main base constantly to outrun the wall of fire (preventing said player from building up a substantial attack force). Add to that relentless attacks by the Tal'darim protoss, and some of the best bases being well-protected by said Tal'darim... well. And the player can't dillydally in acquiring the research points, lest the fire get to a protoss artifact before the player's units do. Thankfully, for once you don't have to build Supply Depots for your army, or this level would be ''far'' worse than the final mission. |
| 69 | |
| 70 | !! '''''[[VideoGame/StarcraftII Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm]]''''' |
| 71 | * The Crucible. It's the one mission where you don't get Kerrigan as an overpowered hero unit, and to no one's surprise its the hardest of the lot. You have to defend an objective building for 25 minutes, similar to "All In." The problem is that the Zerg absolutely suck at playing the defensive. The new unit for the mission, the Swarm Host, is actually rather useless here, enemies attack in multiple directions forcing you to defend multiple choke points, they hit in large numbers, and they also send air units in to backdoor you. You can use a locust spawn every few minutes to summon minions to attack, and it is pretty much a requirement to stay alive. |
| 72 | |
| 73 | !! '''''[[VideoGame/StarcraftII Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void]]''''' |
| 74 | * "Last Stand". Imagine replaying "In Utter Darkness" from ''Wings of Liberty,'' but with no tech beyond Gateway units except for Immortals, a smaller base, no fallback position, ''and'' the Zerg are smart enough to send Banelings to bust down your wall-off. The mission pretty much forces you to turtle behind walls of turrets and wait it out. |
| 75 | * "Salvation", the final mission. Think of "All In" and "In Utter Darkness" ''combined''. You have to hold out zerg forces (With some BrainwashedAndCrazy protoss support) until the Keystone is fully charged. Problems are: The Keystone is '''again''' in a very unconvenient position, at the center of the map; you have three entrances that are only guarded at first by somewhat weak allies who will be attacked constantly (And Alarak has a very nasty tendency to [[LeeroyJenkins charge and die without giving you time to save him]]); finally, and while there are no hybrids to fight against, you instead have to fight the Golden Armada's divisions (Which ''will'' tag along with the zerg forces) as well as campaign-only zerg units, with ''Guardians'' among them, ready to hammer your base defenses if you decided to put Photon Cannons as meat shields. In terms of resources, there are aplenty, but like in "In Utter Darkness", your expansion is in a vulnerable position, next to the northern entrance - if you do something as mundane as keeping a Pylon near it, your expansion's going down as soon as Vorazun's base is overrun. [[OhCrap And this is not all]] - the Spear of Adun's active abilities are being deactivated the further you are in the mission. The last point of mention is that, while obvious, you don't control the best defensive faction in this mission (The terrans) unlike "All In". To sum up: Good luck, you will need it and '''much''' more. |
| 76 | * "The Essence of Eternity," the penultimate level in the epilogue, is actually ''more'' difficult than the actual final mission. You have to defend ''four'' chokepoints, the way the terrain is laid out your high ground advantage is not very significant, the enemy will hit hard from all directions using units from all three races, and the attacks come early and frequently. You're given a unique hero unit that, like the drill from "The Dig,", can attack across the entire map for heavy damage. However, using the hero unit delays its power charge, making the mission last longer since the objective is to defend it until it reaches full power. Additionally, you're given two AI allied armies to help you, but they're barely a footnote in the mission's gameplay; they suffer from ArtificialStupidity that results in a weak and easily broken defense, because of the way the alliance was programmed your Medivacs and Science Vessels won't automatically heal them, and one of the allied armies is Zerg, whose creep stops you from reinforcing them with defensive structures. The end result is similar to "All In" from ''Wings of Liberty'' made even worse. |
| 77 | * "Amon's Fall" itself is no walk in the park. The goal is to destroy rotating crystals when they're above ground. Kerrigan's energy reserves don't regenerate nearly as fast as they did in ''Heart of the Swarm''. Amon will constantly summon void crystals that not only summon more troops, but ones that can ''damage yours very heavily'' as well. Don't count on your AI allies to help much; they don't pitch in enough troops at a time to make a dent against the crystals that get close to their bases. As if fending off enemies and the [[DemonicSpiders defense crystals]] weren't bad enough, Amon quickly resorts to ''taking out chunks out of the ground belonging to your base and your allies' bases'', rendering the resources on those locations [[PermanentlyMissableContent lost]]. Finally, and unlike other missions involving spots that summon Shadows of the Void, they cannot be permanently destroyed - at best you can make the Void Chasms dormant for some minutes, so it does not actually get easier at any point. |
| 78 | * "Templar's Return". Part 1 is simple enough. Part 2 is where the fun starts - it is an UnwinnableByDesign[=/=]UnintentionallyUnwinnablelevel where proceeding is impossible if you do not have an army totalling 60 seats. Kill off too many mechanical enemy units? You're hosed, since there's hardly enough resource to build an army of 60 (and it's just too easy given Fenix's eagerness to rush into battle). And then there's Part 3, with it's AdvancingWallOfDoom and corrupted zerg pulling off a constant unending ZergRush on you. |
| 79 | |
| 80 | !! '''Co-op Missions''' |
| 81 | * Scythe of Amon being based on the Host, the mission that features one of the strongest enemy presence in the entire trilogy, makes it hard enough already. But the real kicker here is that damn bonus objective: a grandiously oversized shuttle that charges straight into enemy strongholds, all over the map, that forces you into a ''very'' tight timer clearing out most of the heavily fortified map. It is not that bad even on regular Brutal once you and your ally both know the optimal order in which to clear out the map, but few question that it is without a doubt the single worst bonus objective in all of Co-op missions. |
| 82 | * Cradle of Death is considered the worst Co-op mission of all time: You and your ally are both forced to drag an unwieldy truck to disable otherwise invincible evil Xel'naga constructs that block parts of the map, and you have to clear out over two thirds of the entire map in this fashion, with a not-so-lenient timer and attack waves constantly dropping down right on top of your head to harass you. It really says something when the South Korean server ''deems it an acceptable behavior to RageQuit as soon as this map is matched.'' |
| 83 | * ''Any'' mutation with the Void Rifts mutator is this: Void Rifts periodically spawn in random locations throughout the map, constantly spewing out units to harass your base and units. The longer you keep them alive the stronger units emerge in larger numbers. No combinations of commanders can hold out for an extended amount of time against the unrelenting onslaught of void entities, making the only viable option to seek out and destroy the void rifts as soon as possible. There is a good reason it is considered the single hardest mutator out of them all. |
| 84 | * '''Aggressive Recruitment: Permanently cloaked Propagators that are even faster than upgraded zerglings, constantly rushing your base and army down.''' It has thus become known as one of the hardest mutations in Starcraft history. |
| 85 | [[/folder]] |
| 86 | |
| 87 | [[folder:Others]] |
| 88 | * Typically any RTS game with a HoldTheLine scenario. |
| 89 | ** In the 11th mission in ''VideoGame/DungeonKeeper'', you have to defend your dungeon from wave after wave of heroes, coming in four directions. You can use lava traps to block off the entry points from any creature that can't cross lava, giving you time to build your army. |
| 90 | *** Some levels, including the one before this one, have a "Transfer Creature" special that lets you bring your most badass fighter with you to the next level. |
| 91 | ** "Batezek" from the ''Deeper Dungeons'' expansion takes everything that made Hearth tough and sends it straight through the roof with groups of heroes coming in at all directions. If you don't wall yourself in, the stronger heroes that the tunnelers will release at one point will destroy you unless your minions are somehow maxed out in level. |
| 92 | ** ''VideoGame/WorldInConflict'' really loves to abuse this situation. Only it takes it a step further. Since the way you control territory is by means of control points, not only do you have to defend up to three points, you have to press on an offensive elsewhere. This wouldn't be bad if you had more than 4 tanks and 6 squads of troops, and you need about 1 tank and 2 squads minimum to hold a spot for a respectable amount of time. |
| 93 | ** One of the worst ones is in ''VideoGame/CompanyOfHeroes'', mission 12 and 13. Your main objective is to defend not one, but '''two''' locations: Hill 317 and a little town nearby called Mortain. The first part isn't too bad, it's mostly driving the Axis out. The second part however, will really test players, as if the game wasn't hard enough up until then. Not only will you be pounded from every direction on Hill 317 (and you have to defend Mortain), but the Axis will pound you with mortars and 88 flak guns. And all you're given is whatever you were able to save from the last mission plus a howitzer. |
| 94 | ** Mission 8 of 'The Liberation of Caen' campaign from ''Opposing Fronts'' has you use what force you have left from the last two missions to defend agaisnt the Panzer Elite onslaught from three different directions, and the enemy just loves throwing [[DemonicSpiders heavy tanks]] like [[LightningBruiser Tigers, Panthers]], [[GlassCannon Hetzers]], and the worst nightmare of all, [[MightyGlacier King Tigers and Jagdpanthers.]] Not only you have to deal with all of them at once, the AI loves to make use of the ruined city landscape and the heavy night storm to hide themselves from sight and sneak past behind your defenses and surprise-attacks you where your defense is lacking, forcing you to send your precious tanks to deal with them first before they completely destroy your entire base, all the while leaving the areas where you are ''required'' to defend vulnerable to further attacks. The final mission is even worse if you wanted to do the bonus objective. Flak 88s and Panzer groups made the large open ground a killing field, and the aforementioned King Tigers and Jagdpanthers have their cannons ridiculously buffed so they can now almost one-shot kill your tanks. To put in perspective, the bonus objective of this mission requires you to lose no more than 10 tanks, while your enemy has ''more than 30 tanks, including the deadly Flak 88s'' in their arsenal, and their tanks have heavier armors and hit harder than your tanks. Have fun. |
| 95 | ** Another terrible defense scenario is the Hard difficulty version of the mission "Reinforcements," from ''Warhammer: Battle March''. You get attacked from multiple directions by waves of leveled-up, angry Chaos units that outnumber you by a ridiculous margin - so that you can recruit ''one'' tribe of Orcs to your cause. The final wave is especially hellish, as the Chaos units rush you with hordes of maxed-out heavy cavalry and monsters. |
| 96 | * ''VideoGame/EmpireEarth:'' The Novaya Russia campaign has some doozies. |
| 97 | ** The second Novaya Russia mission, where you're surrounded by enemies at a higher tech level (read: they get [[HumongousMecha giant killer robots]]) and have little in the way of ressources, so you mostly end up having to protect your workers from attack. |
| 98 | ** ''[[MeaningfulName A Bad Case of]] [[ThisIsGonnaSuck Deja Vu]]'', the final level where you try to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, is easily the single most difficult scenario in the entirety of the game. To clarify, you have Modern Age technology, and command the near-worthless city of Voronezh you destroyed effortlessly in the first scenario, while Grigor II has both Russian cities allied with him, with time vortexes warping in Nano Age technology constantly, nevermind the fact that Volgograd has completely functioning production buildings upgraded to max. What's worse? Your gate is nuked in the opening cutscene, that's what. Oh, and the vortexes themselves are at the very back: Volgograd has one too, so Grigor II has doubled unit production, and the only way to reasonably destroy one is [[NukeEm to nuke it]], which, because AA tanks and AA guns are all over the place is quite flatly near impossible. The entire scenario can be summed up simply by saying that TheComputerIsACheatingBastard, and that you're on the receiving end of the CurbStompBattle that was the first scenario. Oh, and 2.0 added Hard Mode. Good luck. At least Grigor II himself you can cheese with flying units to avoid his usually formidable retaliation, but good luck ''getting'' there. |
| 99 | * In ''VideoGame/EvilGenius'', there's one mission in which you need to steal 25 crates of technology in order to build your DoomsdayDevice. Each mission takes only 15-30 seconds, and repeat indefinately until you personally stop it. What makes it so difficult is that this indefinately-repeating mission has a high ''Heat'' rating, meaning even stealing ''one'' of these crates drastically increases the likelihood that the Forces of Justice will send shoot-first-ask-questions-later Soldiers and Veterans to your ElaborateUndergroundBase. Either you spend ''hours in real-time'' stealing one crate, waiting for Heat to die down, and stealing another one... or you run multiples of this mission in different areas of the globe, and pray that the game remembers that [[EnemyCivilWar you made each Force of Justice hostile to each other in an earlier mission]]... which it [[GameBreakingBug has a habit of forgetting about]] about half the time. |
| 100 | ** And heaven forbid you're trying to pull off one of these operations in a region of the globe where a Super Agent is still active. Starting any missions while a Super Agent is active on the world map draws them like flies, and when they arrive they'll start whacking your minions like a chainsaw through saplings. |
| 101 | * ''VideoGame/ImpossibleCreatures'' has 'The Island of the Crazies'. Basically, Rex gets infected with a virus that'll make him crazy THEN dead and has to destroy the defences around the sole container of antidote on the island and move him onto it within 15 minutes. Also, your creatures have the virus, too, but it takes less time for them to go crazy (rendering them uncontrollable). Take into account that you need to go get some new DNA to help you out, and the length of time that building a base, making creatures, gathering resources, advancing research levels, etc., requires, and...well, not much time left. |
| 102 | * ''VideoGame/LocksQuest'' has The Well Cluster, in which you have to capture THREE points in THREE different missions (as well as hold on to the other Source Wells you captured.) and to top it all off, ''you have to defend all three Source Wells spread accross the map from each other, and you cannot lose a single one.'' |
| 103 | * ''VideoGame/ParaWorld'' has Mission 15: New World Order. Quite literally, it's spears against machine guns. Unfortunately, you've got the spears. And limited resources. And enemies on either side. And a timed mission which involves capturing five pumping stations. The timed mission doesn't seem so hard until you capture the third station, whereupon masses of enemies spawn, and two cannons appear that do 500 area damage in one hit. |
| 104 | ** Don't forget the mission one or two before the final one, that prison break mission. I gave up the game for months because of that mission. If you defend from the land attacks, they hit you from the sea (the tip that allowed me to win was "sink the ship making the transport vessels"). Oh, and did I mention [[DemonicSpiders those fucking robots]]? Pretty much every SEAS unit carves through yours like paper, including your defensive walls. Ugh. |
| 105 | ** From the boosterpack missions, the very first of them will have you screaming in frustration. Basically, you're caught between two opposing bases, and you have to build your own, take both bases out, and transport a set amount of units to a set point within a time limit. As soon as you start building your base, the enemy forces will swarm through on either side and destroy you. Oh, and the route to the point is lined with vicious dinosaurs. Have fun, kids! |
| 106 | * ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies'' 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 AwesomeButImpractical [[ManEatingPlant Chompers]], and let's not forget that [[RandomNumberGod 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. |
| 107 | ** There's also 4-10, a level that's completely [[BlackoutBasement 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. |
| 108 | ** In the [[VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies2ItsAboutTime sequel]], we can pretty much just throw the entirety of the Big Wave Beach area under here, particularly the hellish second half of the world. The area introduces [[DemonicSpiders some of the toughest and most annoying zombies in the game]], many of the new plants you are given are not being very effective in beating said new zombies, and the tide mechanic frequently [[ScrappyMechanic is difficult to work with]]. To make matters worse, it's also the longest world in the entire game for whatever reason. |
| 109 | * ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': |
| 110 | ** ''VideoGame/Pikmin2'' has the Submerged Castle. It has every elemental hazard a dungeon can have, except only [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman Blue Pikmin]] can enter. Right off the bat, the first floor has a Fiery Bulblax, which needs to be lured into the water so the Blue Pikmin don't catch fire. The Bulblax is hardly the biggest threat here, however. What makes this dungeon truly ThatOneLevel is the [[EldritchAbomination Water]][[StalkedByTheBell wraith]]. |
| 111 | ** ''VideoGame/Pikmin3'': [[MeaningfulName The Formidable Oak]] is a maze of puzzles and enemies while you are hunted down by the Plasm Wraith. |
| 112 | * ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'': |
| 113 | ** ''[[ExpansionPack Winter Assault]]'' has the fourth Disorder mission, which is a timed one. To top it off, one of the two losing conditions is sneaky: If you stop the imperial convoy from reaching the destination gate, but forget to stop the teleporting Eldar base, it will appear behind the gate before you know what hits you. There's also a [[GameBreakingBug 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, [[FridgeLogic an invisible, dead convoy will beat you to the end and you'll lose.]] |
| 114 | ** Also in ''Winter Assault'' is the third Order mission. The first half is an Eldar raid to assassinate an Ork leader, followed by a frantic withdrawal that can be easily lost if the player doesn't know how to [[GuideDangIt teleport the Webway Assembly]], but can be won once the player learns to teleport the Webway Assembly twice and get as many Guardian units on the map as possible. The second part, however, is a NintendoHard HoldTheLine mission as the Imperial Guard, facing a Squiggoth, four looted tanks, and [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard more Orks than the player has Requisition]]. To even ''survive'' long enough to see the reinforcements that arrive in 10 minutes, the player must capture all four strategic points behind his walls, build listening posts on all four of them, and spend Requisition ''only'' on Guardsmen, Hellhounds, and Requisition-increasing upgrades for the aforementioned listening posts. |
| 115 | ** 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. |
| 116 | ** Orks don't enjoy the Chaos base very much either. Why? An Ork Trukk can hold one unit and takes up 3 vehicle slots. There are lots of pillars that pulse out infantry-killing blood shockwaves every so often, meaning you have to hide your infantry in vehicles unless you have ''really good'' timing. |
| 117 | ** The Necron stronghold will trip you up if you go there before you have anti-vehicle Honour Guard to kill the Tomb Spyders while your other men fight off the initial Necron rush. That's before the rest of the funky effects scattered around the level kick in unless you destroy the Necron beacons first. |
| 118 | ** A non-Stronghold one is the one to unlock the "Advanced Base". When you attack this land, you have ''no'' base. When the Orks control the territory (which is the case by default), they can level your force (even with a full honour guard) by sending a tide of flash gitz, looted tanks, and a new Squiggoth as soon as the current one dies. |
| 119 | *** Every race starts with a powerful force when assaulting the Hyperion Peaks, typically even including Tier III infantry and vehicles along with a super unit or two. Every race, that is, except the Tau Empire. You don't start with a single squad of Fire Warriors unless they were in your honor guard. Their super unit, the Greater Knarloc, is a slow oversized Komodo dragon with no ranged attacks that typically spends most of its time turning around. You have two Hammerheads and a couple of stealth suits to take on about three WAAAGH's worth of armor. |
| 120 | *** Chaos doesn't get much better for that mission as well. The biggest problem with this mission is the fact that you get no Chaos Space Marines or Khorne Berzerkers (The latter being at least unobtainable without Tier II). Instead, you get some Possessed Marine squads, which would be excellent if it weren't also for the fact that you also have to work with a mob of puny cultists as well. For the record, cultists are pretty much useless without new weapons or at least a champion, and you can't use any honor guards to attach them. The only real benefits you get are the vehicles (3 Predators and Defilers) and the Daemon Prince, your mightiest unit ever, which can at least heal itself. |
| 121 | ** Another non-stronghold mission that closely resembles trying to wrestle a man made of knives for fun factor is the Demes Northlands if you foolishly let the Eldar survive until late-game. Taking on two Eldar bases is not easy, especially when they're throwing tanks at you before you've gotten the ability to build them, swarming you with a seemingly infinite string of Wraithlords, and choking the map with apparently the entire population of the Craftworld. Oh, and if you've committed your forces to dealing with one Eldar base, that means there's a second overpowered army heading for ''your'' base. |
| 122 | * ''VideoGame/HaloWars'' level ten. Shield World. Lets recap. You have ten minutes to save three squadrons of men (who by the way, are absolute nobodies apart from three SPARTANS). Your base is in the least helpful location, you don't have time to build up the forces necessary to really take on the enemy, so your only option is to spam low level units which you can't make enough of because of the [[ArbitraryHeadcountLimit mind-numbingly stupid headcount]]. The only way to increase your time is to EMP four pylons, each of which grants you five minutes [[FridgeLogic (which makes no sense, since they are the only thing imposing the time limit, so with all of them gone, why the time limit?)]] The enemy get [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard constant refills of forces]], and since your fighting the flood, anyone you lose becomes one of their number. And the barriers you have to destroy have magically respawning health, so you have to take them out in a single raid, while being pounded with artillery fire, air units, and ever increasing ground units. Not for nothing is this the level which made [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] rage quit. |
| 123 | * ''VideoGame/BattalionWars'' has some levels that fall under this: |
| 124 | ** Their Finest Hour in ''Battalion Wars 2''. Due to the shaky controls of your options in the Airbase defense, you have to contend with either potentially jumping out of the MG Tower without warning and not necessarily knowing how to get back into it, or if you switch to either air unit, you have to keep track of how you handle the Wiimote or else you might crash into something. Either way, the starting part is annoying. Oh, but the worst is yet to come: there are AA units all over the place, the Airbase you spend the whole time trying to capture will produce Fighters and Gunships that are already on top of you to be DemonicSpiders ''before Pierce or A-Qira mention that they have been sent out'', and all you get to fight them with is the Fighters, which, of course, have to contend with the AA units even if you do overcome the faulty controls. It's no wonder the time limit for a Perfect S Rank is 16 minutes. |
| 125 | ** In the first game, X-Day. How many times did you die on that beachhead? Or right after that beachhead? Or... |
| 126 | *** There is a way to get through the Artillery at the start of that level. [[spoiler:Direct your units to move near the fence, so that they'll get right within the Artillery's safe zone.]] |
| 127 | ** There's also "Siege of the Vladstad", which is a perfectly acceptable level right up until the end. And that's even ''if'' you realize [[spoiler:the Vladstag has a side entrance]]. |
| 128 | ** "Road to Xylvania" tops all of them. First of you have a Battlestation which unlike the sequel cannot turn to aim and thus you have to position yourself perfectly to beat the Pillboxes that will kill everything else in a heartbeat.On top of that the path is so curvy giving Heavy Tanks an advantage against the Battlestation. That's a just ridculuosly in itself,but then you have Gunships constantly after you mercilessly attacking anything in sight,and you only have 6 Missile Vets.You can spam the Y button all you want,they'll still get ya' down. Not to mention acid pits that are too easy to step into. At least Vladstag has assistance. |
| 129 | ** Bonus Mission 3 may be a BonusLevelOfHell, but it has earned its place here. At the start, you're immediately bombarded by 2 Artillery, each guarded by 3 Rocket (Bazooka) infantry to deter your Heavy Tanks. You must destroy this Artillery ASAP or they'll destroy the fortress that the game [[GuideDangIt doesn't suggest is destructible]] and give you an automatic mission failure. You would want to work on tasks other than the Artillery because once the Artillery is destroyed, a respawning Bomber appears to make your life miserable, and you don't even get any anti-air units unless you're willing to count [[spoiler:Assaults, which still do likely too little damage to be worth considering]]. And to top it all off, your only units for destroying all of the enemy vehicles are Heavy Tanks, which are slow and big, which means thanks to similar reasons as to why Pit in VideoGame/SuperSmashBros is a {{Skill Gate Character|s}}, are given grief by the Anti-Air Vehicles' attack spams causing them to repeatedly bounce along with all the damage they take. Oh, and guess what is ready to hammer your infantry and further mess up your Technique score? ''Two more Artillery!'' And if you finally get past ''all'' of this, say hello to a Bomber and Gunship spam to give your Fighters (which arrive, '''about time''') misery in killing them all quickly, which you need to do because of the fact that your Heavy Tanks are still [[EscortMission mission critical]], even if you wiped out every enemy vehicle. And if you're looking for a good score, you have so many units that basically amount to being little more than target practice for the Bombers that your Technique will be based on [[LuckBasedMission whether your units feel like surviving all the abuse]]. |
| 130 | *** It turns out that thanks to [[spoiler:a [[ArtificialStupidity Bomber AI exploit]] that [[LeapOfFaith violates common sense beyond belief]]]], doing the mission with [[NoCasualtiesRun no casualties]] and a Perfect S-Rank is possible, as shown [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLD4eH9UfkQ here]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZryqxsj2bY here]]. Unfortunately, it's still a LuckBasedMission thanks to [[spoiler:AIRoulette]]. If not for these FakeDifficulty issues, the linked run would be a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome. |
| 131 | ** The Reckoning in the sequel borders on being ThatOneLevel, but doesn't quite manage it because it's the last mission. However, if you want that perfect S-Rank, have lots of hair ready to be torn out. Technique, although having a ridiculously high minimum (a whopping 70% with just the Battlestation, the mission critical unit, alive), doesn't hit 100% easily, so you have to keep plenty of units alive, which means you'd want to get through the first half of the stage without anything lost, because the second part is full of [[spoiler:[[DemonicSpiders Fighters and Strato Destroyers]]]], which are bound to tear apart your units like paper, and [[spoiler:your Anti-Air Vets have laughable lock-on range for their job if you thought you could [[GlassCannon switch to one to erase the air units faster]]]]. But things get really bad if you want 100% in both Power and Speed. Not only does the game place 2 Heavy Tanks and some Grunts behind the [[spoiler:Mining Spider]] but Speed is absurdly strict for the fact that you'd have to deliver the [[MightyGlacier painfully slow Battlestation]] from one end of the map to the other in order to do anything to the [[spoiler:Mining Spider]]. [[MasterKnight This troper]] has done ''every'' other mission in the game on a NoCasualtiesRun with a Perfect S-Rank (including Their Finest Hour, actually except Under Siege but he's convinced that one is possible with a competent teammate) and finds that a NoCasualtiesRun ''at all'' is harder on The Reckoning than on any other mission between both games except ''maybe'' Bonus Mission 3 in the first game, if it's even possible to do, never mind trying to do it in the time limit. |
| 132 | * ''VideoGame/{{Majesty}} 2'': there's a level in which your castle is trapped between two camps of enemy heroes. On one side, endless rogues and elven archers that can slaughter your heroes due to poor anti-archer AI. On the other, paladins with healer support. Your only chance is to get lucky enough to kill early enemy heroes before they level up. |
| 133 | ** The archers aren't too difficult. They're weak. It's the paladins that are horrible. Once they level up, they get insane dodge, health potions, and everything. There's basically two ways to win. South and east are safe, so build in that direction. Either use a house of lords ranger to destroy the paladin's marketplace early (if you have one level 35+), or tower up heavily. Otherwise, you either die or get the fun fun opportunity to have a brutal multi hour slog of attrition. |
| 134 | *** Let's not forget one of the early missions where enemy wizard attacks your base all the time, damaging all your buildings unless you get level 2 wizard tower. Oh, and by the way... There's chance that [[BossInMookClothing level 15 Werewolf]] will come in your small-not-prepared-for-such-thing base and destroy it. There's also that it does 100 damage per hit, killing normal, level 1 heroes with one hit. |
| 135 | * ''VideoGame/HostileWatersAntaeusRising'': In the level where you return to island zero, If your first wave fails to cause crippling damage to the bugs' main production facilities, it becomes almost impossible for you to collect enough energy to clean the island. But the bugs, of course, have no similar problems. |
| 136 | ** Also the isthmus mission. Recycle everything. Create a wave straddling the isthmus. Inch forward. Create carnage, a little bit at a time. Advance to protect the recycling units. Use almost all the recycled bits to replace thrashed units. Repeat oh, maybe a dozen times. Then hope there's enough energy left for your main assault. |
| 137 | * ''Franchise/StarWars: Rebellion'' had a couple. |
| 138 | ** If you're a Rebel and your opponent plays the "Defense Star" tactic, putting a Death Star with shields and a sizable fleet with a lot of TIE Defenders over Coruscant, preferably with some Interdictors just for fun, your fleet ''will'' be destroyed. To explain, Interdictors prevent a jump to hyperspace, TIE Defenders are the most badass starfighter in the galaxy, and if you have Death Star shields, you can't lose. Finish this up by stocking the Death Star with stormtroopers to prevent a sabotage attempt. Yes, if you've survived long enough to get TIE Defenders, it's easy to drag the war out as long as you need as the Empire. |
| 139 | ** If you're not playing headquarters-only, capturing Luke or Vader can be extremely difficult because of their damn high Combat statistics. It gets worse for the Empire if Luke's been on a lot of missions; every successful mission gives him "Force points" which he can use to increase his level and with it, his stats. |
| 140 | * In ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'' |
| 141 | ** The Fourth Night Elf Scenario: with only a few troops, you must move your base along a twisted, very long path with tons of obstacles in your way (including feral Furbolgs, a whole human base and a wood which is totally filled with undead monsters that re-spawns until you kill their chief (a high-level wraith)and include mainly Banshees, who have the nasty habit of possessing your soldiers when their health is low. Oh, and you must also look out for casual Orcs and Undead fliers. The re-spawning MoneySpider enemies encountered later can ease the frustration of the limited resources by letting your heroes slay them for extra gold, but you must fight you way to them before bankruptcy. |
| 142 | ** On normal difficulty, the missions will generally not be too much to handle for an average RTS player, but once Hard is enabled, the pain truly begins. To avoid swarming the page with entries, some notable stand-out levels on hard mode are as follows: |
| 143 | *** March of The Scourge: The enemy applies considerable pressure, attacking with a much stronger army and siege weapons to makes your towers unable to HoldTheLine on their own, and they send a lich hero to "death and decay" your towers and [[KillItWithIce nuke your army]] for good measure. Base expansion and multi-tasking skills are [[DifficultySpike suddenly required]] in a campaign that has not been too difficult up until this point. |
| 144 | *** Into The Realm Eternal. An early Undead mission, the prime reason for it's frustration is that you have ''three'' units available to you. Ghouls, necromancers, and the meat wagon siege weapon. The limited troop types means that a balanced force is impossible, and there is only on strategy available to you; the ZergRush. And even by ZergRush standards your troops ''suck''. Ghouls are fragile and don't deal all that much damage, meat wagons are slow and fragile, and so are necromancers. Their ability to AnimateDead is vital early on, but the computer ''knows'' that the troops they summon will fall apart after a while, and doesn't bother to attack them until all the things that matter are dead. And when the priests start to show up in large numbers their dispel magic spell can wipe out swathes of animated skeletons in seconds, as well as buffing their troops and healing them through ghouls' attacks. |
| 145 | *** The last Undead mission, Under the Burning Sky, is considered by some to be the hardest in the game. It is a HoldTheLine mission where you have to defend squishy wizard, Kel' Thuzad for 30 minutes until he summons the local Archdemon. There are three ways to get to them, one of which is defended by your base and the other two, which hold a spirit tower each. Your opponents? 3 human bases with their full arsenal. The last few minutes are particularly terrifying as your opponents proceed to dump their full arsenal into you. |
| 146 | *** The expansion pack ''The Frozen Throne'' had a number of teeth grinding levels, however the one which stands out is in fact the very first Undead level "King Arthas". In it each of your three heroes is tasked with holding a different path off the map from escaping humans, whilst also advancing down each and knocking out their camps. These camps are protected by teleporting high level paladins, making each an involved fight- whilst escaping humans trickle down the other two paths and if allowed to the friendly AI is aggro'ed into allowing them through. You can't build any defense towers of your own, each of your heroes can only construct one or two types of unit for themselves, and needless to say if too many humans escape you automatically lose. Even the very last level seems less annoying in comparison. |
| 147 | *** The last mission in the "Sylvanas Windrunner" story arc "A New Power In Lordaeron" can hurt your brain. What makes it painful is the Undead in the main city at the center is protected by Burning Legion demons as well as Balnazzar himself (A Dreadlord hero on crack). The main army will repeatedly send powerful summons to Garitho's Alliance army to distract you from planning your attack. After demolishing the support camps on the edge of the map, you'll likely attempt to assault the capital with both of your armies, only to see that the Undead army and the Burning Legion support can easily turn your troops to bloody goop. After a few hours of failing, you may then realize that it is [[GuideDangIt best to teleport your Alliance army over to your own Undead one]] (or vice versa) for a steamroller attack, but even this does not make the assault easy. |
| 148 | * ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'': |
| 149 | ** The first game has the 10th mission, the "Supernova Station". The basic premise of the mission is already hard: Your units have to follow a very specific path through some [[SpaceClouds dust clouds]] or be blasted by intense radiation that will wear down their HP, and you have to destroy certain groups of enemies within a very tight time limit to avoid alerting the whole fleet and getting bum-rushed. But what makes it a stand-out example of this trope is that the mission comes right on the heels of ''three missions in a row'' where you've probably been depending heavily on fighters and corvettes... which are now essentially useless because if they're out of position by a few pixels they'll lose a quarter of their HP every few seconds. |
| 150 | ** 2'' has some notoriously difficult levels, due to the fact that at the start of every mission, the AI gets a fleet several times your own which also happens to have the perfect counters to your ships. In fact, hacking the game files and giving yourself more ships than your quota would allow '''will''' backfire since this will increase the size of the enemy fleet EXPONENTIALLY. Never mind that the AI ignores unit limits anyway. |
| 151 | ** [[NintendoHard Thaddis Sabbah]]. As mentioned above, the scaling enemy fleets can make parts of the game ridiculously difficult, but this level takes it up to eleven. Your objective is to rescue a prisoner from a space station. The fleet guarding said station ''at least'' outnumbers your own three to one. You can only have two battlecruisers at the same time - your enemies will have seven - and as mentioned on the ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' main page, their fighters will possibly outnumber every fighter you've built in every mission in the entire game combined. If you're unlucky, you could easily spend something like a third of the total playtime on a playthrough trying to beat this one mission. ''Out of 14''. The difficulty was nerfed in a patch, with good reason. |
| 152 | *** Actually not that bad at all if you realize the AI is dumb as a rock. Sure it's got a massive fleet, but it will gladly feed ships into you piecemeal. The battlecruisers attack one at a time, and if you shoot out their engines with bombers they can't maneuver to aim their main gun, allowing you to destroy them while taking minimal damage. This isn't possible in the next two missions since the AI will cluster their battlecruisers together where they mutually support each other. However in this case, you can just send a pack of corvettes to bypass the capital ships and take out the main objective. |
| 153 | * God have mercy on you if you play ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis III'' as one of the indigenous North or South American societies, even if you start in 1399. You do have some breathing room until the European countries show up on your doorstep, but you start out extremely poor, with no forts in your provinces, with your slider far on the decentralized end of the scale, and with your research way behind most other countries in the game. You might stand a chance if you manage to Westernize, but that requires that you survive for a fairly long time and have more than a bit of luck. Better hope that in your game the Ottoman Empire invades at least most of Europe! |
| 154 | ** Hell, just playing ''any'' small country with a much larger, stronger neighbor is a huge challenge that seems to require lottery-winning luck more than skill. For instance, if you're playing Scotland, pretty much your only chance of just lasting to the 1800s is if England is invaded, breaks up, or your dynasty inherits their throne. No wonder EU III uses a skull and bones to denote the hard end of the challenge scale in the start menu... |
| 155 | ** Or playing as any country that neighbours a Horde country in the ''Divine Wind'' expansion pack. These horde countries will always go at war against you every time their truces expire, and will always field armies that will be always larger, stronger, and better led than whatever you can throw against them. A notable example is Georgia, which shares borders with three of these countries, and all of them will mercilessly destroy it until it gets erased off the map. Really, the only chance to beat them is to go through the land technologies as fast as possible to be able to beat them. |
| 156 | * ''VideoGame/EldritchLandsTheWitchQueensEternalWar'' has Medium 18. It seems unassuming for the first minute or so, but eventually, you are flooded by massive numbers of annoyingly long ranged muskets, backed up by numerous tanky enemies in front. Even if you've been meticulously upgrading your troops, you may need to go onto the Hard levels for some time before coming back and finishing this one. |
| 157 | * ''VideoGame/DarkReign'' has mission 5, which is infuriating no matter whose side you're on. The Freedom Guard get a hopeless level where they have to save up 30000 credits, while holding off waves of Imperium tanks. Wouldn't be so bad, if the [[GameBreaker Tachion Tanks]] didn't make their debut appearances in this level. As a result, the only viable tactics are to constantly build units, meaning you'll never hit your goal, or gather up everything you start with, bring it back to your base, and only build when absolutely necessary, meaning you'll get near your goal but get stomped by Tachion Tanks. As the Imperium, you have to destroy the Freedom Guard while protecting a MacGuffin located ''inside their base'', which they attack the moment you show up on their doorstep, meaning the only possible way to win is to build a horde of Tachion Tanks and pray you can break down their defenses quickly, destroy the units attacking said MacGuffin, and then hold out long enough to build some reinforcements and get them up there to mop up the rest. Oh, and the Freedom Guard get access to Martyrs in this level, meaning taking your eyes off your base for more than a minute means you'll find smoking holes where all your buildings used to be. While the rest of the levels after this get harder and harder, this one takes the cake for sheer frustration. |
| 158 | ** Or, you could look at level 11. As the Freedom Guard, you have to move your base and find a suitable location to establish it in (thanks to malicious spring placement, easier said than done), and wipe out the Imperium. It'd be fairly standard if the Imperium didn't get access to a Rift Creator, which will tear anything it's being fired at apart, ''and'' if you didn't have to protect Jeb Radec, who has a habit of attracting Shredders, which are a OneHitKill against infantry. The Imperium, on the other hand, have to deal with [[ZergRush waves and waves of infantry]] which can overwhelm Neutron Accelerators through sheer force of numbers fairly easily. In addition, the Freedom Guard are guaranteed to throw at least one Shockwave at the Imperium, which usually happens very early in the mission, before you have the army built up enough to handle a defensive breach. |
| 159 | * Tucana from ''VideoGame/CreeperWorld''. You start in the center of the map with creeper generators at all four corners, and there is no high ground large enough to move Odin City to. Of course, once you know how to beat it, you can hold the creeper off with only two mortars |
| 160 | ** The level is so infamous, when the player-created level pack was released, one of those levels went meta, resembling a computer playing the Tucana level, and spilling out of the (in-level) monitor. |
| 161 | ** Farbor, the penultimate story mission in ''Creeper World 3: Arc Eternal''. There's a large island with smaller islands to the south and west, all with creeper emitters. Only the northwest and southeast island have terrain high enough to land the command nodes on and not be immediately overrun, but the creeper isn't the big threat in this mission. There's automated machinery on the main island building a prism ship, and if that ship launches and activates, it will [[ApocalypseHow destroy the whole system]] as a side effect of the transmission burst it will send out. Automated freighters are being sent to ore patches across the map, and while snipers can be used to destroy them, it's only a delaying tactic as they will respawn, and two of the ore patches are on the far side of the main island where you can't reach. Stopping the ship entirely will require assaulting the main island and destroying the four ore processors sending out the freighters. It's likely that on your first attempt, you won't be able to destroy the processors before the ship takes off, at which point it's revealed that is not the failure condition. Now you have [[TimedMission twenty minutes to destroy a modified totem]] further up the main island or you really will fail the mission. So many complaints were made that the developer provided a save file on the forums that allows players to finish it and move onto the final story mission, at the cost of a really bad score because it had been dragged out for over two hours. |
| 162 | * Level 4-3 from the flash game ''Paladog''. The levels that restrict the player's selection of units and spells had always been annoying, but this one takes the cake. Wave after wave of [[MightyGlacier miner goblins]], all of which will easily [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou take out Paladog]] if even one of them gets close. Your main force consists of the ''vastly'' OverratedAndUnderleveled Monkey the Pirate, who can barely scratch the goblins, even in groups. Your backups are Defensive Tortoise, who can't attack at all and gets overrun easily, and Penguin the Wizard, who is actually useful but is a GlassCannon with the inexplicable tendency to get close to the goblins. The only spells you can hold are Fire (which is so close-range that by the time it would be useful, you're probably already dead), Ice (which only hits one enemy), and Turn Undead (which is a purely luck-based OneHitKill). About the only "strategy" that will work here is repeated abuse of Turn Undead, which means lots of prayer to the RandomNumberGod. |
| 163 | * Power games in ''[[VideoGame/AnnoDomini Anno 2070]]'' is the only three-star difficulty mission in the original game, for very good reason. The victory conditions are as follows: |
| 164 | ** Eliminate all 4 opponents. This includes a pirate who you can be sure has many more ships than you do, and will [[ZergRush throw every single one at you from the start of the game]] if you don't constantly bribe him, an oil baron who will complain and outright attack you for not buying his hideously overpriced oil, A militaristic guy who manages to throw aircraft at you before you have any way of fighting it, and worst of all, Keto, with her [[TheMotherShip flagship ]] [[BaseOnWheels Anaconda]] and ''dozens'' of [[DemonicSpiders Sharks]] in tow. |
| 165 | ** Build both an Eco and Tycoon Monument. Monuments take literally two hours just to build the thing, and eat up power, income, and ecobalance like no tomorrow. [[HypocriticalHumor Yes, even the Eco's Leisure Center.]] |
| 166 | ** Accumulate 1 million credits. not particularly hard, but very time consuming. |
| 167 | ** Settle 5000 Eco executives, 5000 Tycoon executives, and 2500 researchers. Again, not particularly hard, but very time consuming. By the way, the average time it takes for a ''good'' player to finish this level is [[MarathonLevel over twenty four hours.]] |
| 168 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Stronghold}}'', the original one that is, there's mission 15 and 18, both of them dealing with taking out The Pig's castle. In both of them the castle is heavily fortified and defended, while you are given a rather small, non-replaceable quantity of troops. Winning this mission on anything above Easy difficulty is an exercise in patience and micromanagement, and even on Easy it's no walk in the park. Especially odd since the rest of the missions aren't too hard. |
| 169 | * The final missions of all three ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'' faction campaigns are quite difficult, but the UEF one is the worst, especially if you don't know what is coming and don't prepare for it beforehand. You'll think your massive starting base is invincible until the map opens up and your expansions are nuked into glass - followed by five Monkeylords stomping in from off-map to obliterate your base. The best part? [[MarathonLevel These missions are easily over an hour long at best]]. At least you can save in the middle of missions. Even before then, the Cybran Mission 3 and 5 and Aeon Mission 4 and 5 can qualify to a lesser extant. |
| 170 | ** The expansion pack ''Forged Alliance'' is ''[[NintendoHard even worse]]''. Every single mission counts as ThatOneLevel (no matter what faction you play), as you're pretty much forced to make a base entirely from scratch and destroy gigantic enemy bases teeming with T3 and experimental units. However, Mission 4 takes the cake: you will be mobbed by strategic bombers while you're still building up, and they ''will'' overwhelm a sensibly built base - it takes ''unreasonable'' levels of shielding to withstand their first attack, and it's virtually impossible to kill them before they can release it unless you know they're coming and build stupid amounts of AA along their attack vectors. There's also the ending where you have to [[HoldTheLine defend yourself]] against numerous waves of Seraphim experimentals that mob you the moment you complete the previous objective ''and'' off your ally Dostya in a cutscene. Mission 5 flat-out eats the cake since you have [[LeeroyJenkins General Fletcher]] to deal with for two thirds of the level. Thankfully [[EscortMission protecting him]] is optional. |
| 171 | * In ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander2'', the first mission in the Cybran campaign features an absolutely ridiculous DifficultySpike with no corresponding increase in tech level. To elaborate, the moment the mission begins, you're swarmed from three sides by never-ending waves of units. Point-defense towers won't shoot the artillery sent in said waves half the time. You have almost no mass generation to speak of unless you reclaim units, which is complicated by constant waves of reinforcements. And that's just the first half. For the second half, you have to manage to escape before the enemy Zerg Rushes you into oblivion with a mass of experimental air units, gunships, and ground forces that will utterly overwhelm your defenses unless you've turtled like crazy. Worse still, one of the achievements requires you to wait long enough to shoot down nine experimentals. |
| 172 | * ''[[VideoGame/{{Syndicate}} Syndicate Wars]]'' has the infamous mission ''The Dead Zone'' (Church mission 18). Your objective is to penetrate a compound and ''persuade'' a certain Eurocorp soldier and take him back to your starting point. The first problem is that the entire city is full of booby-traps, which are very difficult to see and will kill at least one of your agents if you run into them. The second problem is that someone has control of a defence satellite above the city, and will use it to bombard almost every area outside the compound soon after you enter any given area (though they will not target the same area twice). The third problem is that the city is absolutely crawling with Unguided; while not too tough, chances are that they will distract you or hold you up while your agents fall foul of one of the previously mentioned threats. The fourth problem is that you need to ''persuade'' 15 civilians before you can ''persuade'' your target - due to all the explosions that will occur because of everything mentioned above, there is a very real chance that not enough civilians will be left alive at the end. The fifth problem is that the compound is heavily guarded, and a few of the guards are armed with extremely powerful Plasma Lances - if you are not careful, you can easily lose more agents here. The sixth and possibly most frustrating problem of all is that, once you attack the Eurocorp soldiers, you have only a limited amount of time before a lone Eurocorp agent decides to kill your target. Finally, you actually have to return your target to your starting point, which is normally easy, but might not be if you weren't thorough in neutralizing all the threats outside the compound. |
| 173 | [[/folder]] |
| 174 |
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/context.php
FollowingContext ThatOneLevel / RealTimeStrategy
Go To
- Show Spoilers
- Night Vision
- Sticky Header
- Wide Load
