Dawn of War: Dark Crusade
From Lexicanum
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Warhammer 40000 Dawn of War Dark Crusade
Game running Notes
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade is the 2nd Expansion pack to the award winning RTS Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. Dark Crusade offers new features such as a larger map, and selection of battles, 2 new races the Necrons and the T'au. The Dawn of War Series is created by THQ and Relic, and partners with Games Workshop.
This version differs markedly in that it doesn't need the original DoW CDs to play and install, however, if a user wants to use the Space Marines, Eldar, Orks and Chaos in online play they need valid DoW Cd-keys. These are prompted for at start up.
Likewise, the use of the Imperial Guard in online play needs a valid Dawn of War: Winter Assault CD key.
DoW:DC adds two new races, a whole new type of campaign and a slew of new multiplayer levels to the other two games. The new races are the Tau (including Kroot) and the Necrons
Notable Characters
Commanders
- Brother-Captain Davian Thule, the commander of the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Blood Ravens companies on Kronus
- Dark Apostle Eliphas the Inheritor, leader of the Word Bearers forces.
- Warboss Gorgutz 'Ead 'Unter, the infamous Ork warboss.
- Farseer Taldeer, commanding the Ulthwe forces.
- General Lukas Alexander, commander of the 1st Kronus Regiment.
- Shas'O Kais, commander of the Tau forces.
- Necron Lord of Kronus, leader of the Necron army on Kronus.
Other Notable Characters
- Tomas Macabee, a Necron Pariah who served as adviser and spokesman for the Necron Lord of Kronus.
- Ethereal Aun'el Shi'ores, the Ethereal tasked with returning Kronus to the Tau Empire and immediate superior to Shas'o Kais.
New campaign structure
DoW:DC does not follow the standard linear campaign structure of the previous installments. Instead; it employs a dynamic meta-map structure. Whereby players are presented with a "home region" to defend. Enemies are likewise given the same thing. The important difference is that the player starts with only a 'home region', while the AI starts of with the rest of the planet. This gives a 'New Arrival' feel to it, as combat starts as soon as the player starts to take regions.
The player destroying the home region of an enemy AI knocks that team officially out of the game and off the planet Kronus. If the same thing were to happen to the player, it's game over.
When a fight is initiated by the player either against an enemy or by the enemy against the player, the following happens:
The player starts on the map with just a Headquarters, a builder, that armies main Character, and what ever Honour Guard they have earned to that point. They then have to build an army from scratch to defeat the enemy in that region. The winner steals that area from the clutches of their adversary and takes what ever special bonus that region supplies.
Special features
Players are allowed to requisition "special units" in the form of pre-built buildings (allowing the circumvention of certain tech requirements) and personal guard or entourages for the patron sides main commander. Usually, these special units are more powerful than their regularly-built equivalent; but come in smaller unit sizes. These are referred to as "Honour Guard".
The use of these units and the placement of buildings requires Planetary requisition. This is accumulated according to the amount of territories you hold.
Commanders are also allowed Wargear similar to that done in the tabletop game. the wargear of all races is allowed to be added to a races commander only at certain occasions. They serve two purposes: Aesthetics. as many players requested some form of commander customization more than that offered by the army paint system and performance; as all the items enhance the hero's abilities and statistics in some way; whether it be in close combat power, long range damage or new abilities such as teleportation.
A special mention must be given to the Necron race due to an altered economy.
Unlike the rest of the races, the Necron's economy is centred around the power resource. where other races need both requisition and power to construct units, Necrons need only power.
The Necrons still use Strategic points, Relics and Critical locations in an altered sense to what the other races do. The addition of more Strategic points, Critical locations or relics to any other side increases the rate at which the Requisition resource is gathered.
For Necrons, capturing these points, and building the Obelisk (version of Listening post) upon them only decreases the Build time of their units; up to a maximum factor of 100%. This represents a factor of the increase, i.e. when 100% is reached, the Necron player can build units twice as quickly as at 0%.
