Introduction
Halo Wars 2 is the Halo Reach evolution of my FPS/RTS hybrid map Halo Wars in Halo 3. Halo Wars 2 takes the innovative concepts of my original Halo Wars map, uses the superior Reach tools, and adds great gameplay. Halo Wars 2 combines the strategic elements of an RTS with the combat elements of an FPS—creating a strategic, unique, fun, and amazing Human vs. Covenant Halo experience. The idea may seem complex at first, but the map is quite intuitive and easy to play!

Overview of Covenant side

The Basic Idea
The basic idea of Halo Wars 2 (10-16 players) is this: the Commander of each team chooses what loadouts, power weapons, and vehicles his team uses. However, the Commander has a finite amount of money (sniper ammo), so he/she must choose carefully what to give his team to ensure their victory. As the game goes on, the commander must adapt to the enemy’s strategic moves, collect more money, and even provide some artillery strikes.

At the beginning of each round, one player spawns in the Commander Room for each team—this player is the Commander for the remainder of the round. The rest of the players spawn in the Spawn Room (each team, obviously, has separate Commander and Spawn Rooms). From the Commander Room, the Commander can purchase power weapons, loadouts, and vehicles for his/her team. To do this, the Commander uses his/her sniper to shoot fusion coils and mines, allowing the purchased item to fall into the spawn room through a one-way shield door.

In the Spawn Room, the players can pick up their desired armor abilities, weapons, and vehicles. Then, they can go through a teleporter, transporting them to the actual map where combat will occur. If a player goes through a teleporter with no vehicle, they will spawn in a safe room at their team’s main base; from here they go through a one way shield door and begin combat! If a player goes through a teleporter with a vehicle, they spawn inside a secondary base across from their team’s main base; they are forced through a one way shield door and onto the combat map.

When they are not purchasing power weapons, loadouts, and vehicles for their teams, Commanders have other activities they can do. They can collect more money (sniper ammo) in the Hemorrhage section of the map, and they can use a Gauss Hog above and far away from the map to help defend their bases.

The "Crab Base" with a Commander perch in the background

Concept Details
When a loadout or vehicle is purchased by shooting a fusion coil, the fusion coil does not respawn for three minutes. This means that that loadout or vehicle will constantly respawn and be available for that team for three minutes (For example, Warthogs won’t keep respawning over and over—there will be a max and minimum of one Warthog available, when one Warthog is purchased, for three minutes). Power weapons are one time purchases. Some vehicles cost more than others: for example, to buy a mongoose, the Commander only has to shoot one fusion coil. However, to buy a Warthog, the Commander has to first shoot a mine, and then a fusion coil to purchase (the mine blocks the view of the fusion coil, ensuring that two shots must be spent).

All players spawn with swords (only weapon that can't shoot anything). In the Spawn Room, all players spawn on top of a Assault Rifle (Humans) or Plasma Repeater (Covenant). Next to each spawn, is a grenade spawn marked by a cone. The grenades, frags for Humans and plasmas for Covenant, respawn infinitely (so all members of a team can quickly pick up two grenades each upon spawning.

The Commanders spawn with four sniper shots that respawn every three minutes. Now, four shots would hardly buy anything for three minutes, so the Commander should probably go collect more money in the Collection Zone...

Overview of Human Spawn Room

The Collection Zone
The Collection Zone is where each Commander can collect more money (sniper rounds) in order to purchase more stuff for their team. Each sniper has about half of Hemorrhage to explore and search for sniper ammo. There are six total snipers to find for each Commander, each with four rounds. Three of the snipers spawn every three minutes (and DO NOT spawn at start). These three snipers are in easy to find places and are simple to collect. However, the other three snipers for each Commander to find are hidden (or at least a lot more hidden than the other snipers). These snipers only spawn at start and do not respawn (AKA you can only collect them once). The three hidden snipers for each Commander to find are in some tricky places—some are on high ledges and some are hidden under low cover (Note: no snipers require a vehicle to collect).

Each set of three snipers are about equal total distance to collect. For each Commander, collecting all three hidden or non-hidden sniper takes about two minutes to collect round trip on foot. Tired of walking? Then purchase a vehicle to help you! The Humans can purchase a Mongoose (by shooting a Covenant Shield Door twice) to help speed up the collection process, while the Covenant can purchase a Ghost. Collecting sniper ammo is crucial to any team’s success, but is the extra speed worth the cost?

Overview of the Collection Zone boundaries

Commander Perch
The Commander Perch is where each Commander can purchase (by shooting a Covenant Shield Barrier blocking a path—don’t dilly-dally after unblocking the path because the barrier will respawn rather quickly!) a Gauss Warthog to help defend their own base (Just to clarify: Each Commander’s Gauss Hog faces THEIR base, and cannot hit the enemy base). A Custom Power-Up is used for each Commander to make them invincible and invisible when using the Gauss Hog. The Custom Power-Up only lasts 90 seconds, but can be picked up infinitely. The Commander will notice his/her Custom Power-Up wearing off when his/her overshields start depleting.

To transfer between the Commander Rooms, Collection Zones, and Commander Perches, the Commanders have access to a series of three way teleporters. This means that the Commanders have a 50% chance of going to where they want to go each time. This unfortunate randomness is due to the lack of teleporters. However, it really should not waste any more than like 5-10 seconds of time maximum.

The Commander firing a Gauss Hog from the Commander Perch

The Combat Zone
The Combat zone of the map is on the Island of Forgeworld. Each team has a main base with a vehicle spawning base across the way. Each base has a Mancannon to launch players towards the ocean side (like away from the mountains of the Forgeworld) and multiple floors/levels. There is a large base on the ocean side of the Island I like to call Crab Base because it reminds me or a *GASP* crab. There is a rock bridge on the mountain side of the island connecting the edges of the bay-like feature of the Island. The rock bridge has large and small boulders for cover. In the middle tunnel of the map, there is a little bit of cover too. Also, there are some extra rocks scattered throughout the map to add more cover for foot players, without obstructing vehicles.

The main Human Base

The Power Weapon, Loadout, Vehicle, and Miscellaneous Costs (1 shot=$1)

Humans:

Power Weapons:
- Rocket Launcher (default clips): $1
- Spartan Laser (default clips): $1
- Sniper Rifle (default clips): $2

Loadouts:
– Sprintx2, DMRx2 (max clips): $1
– Armor Lockx2, Magnumx2 (max clips): $1
– Jetpackx2, Grenade Launcherx2 (max clips): $1
– Hollogramx2, Mounted Machine Gunx2(each turret only lasts once per purchase): $1

Vehicles:
- Mongoose: $1
- Warthog: $2
- Falcon: $2
- Scorpion: $3

Miscellaneous:
- Mongoose (per use in Collection Zone): $2
- Gauss Warthog (per use in Commander Perch): $2

Covenant:

Power Weapons:
- Fuel Rod Gun (default clips): $1
- Plasma Cannon (default clips): $1
- Focus Rifle (default clips): $2

Loadouts:
– Evadex2, Needle Riflex2 (max clips): $1
– Active Camouflagex2, Plasma Pistolx2 (max clips): $1
– Jetpackx2, Concussion Riflex2 (max clips): $1
– Drop Shieldx2, Plasma Turretx2 (each turret only lasts once per purchase): $1

Vehicles:
- Ghost: $1
- Revenant: $2
- Banshee: $2
- Wraith: $2

Miscellaneous:
- Ghost (per use in Collection Zone): $2
- Gauss Warthog (per use in Commander Perch): $2

A view of the Humans loadouts and Power Weapons

Gametype
I only made and tested one gametype for this map (Territories), but many gametype are supported including: all team variants of Slayer, CTF, Assault, KOTH, Stockpile, and Territories. I am sure some of these would work well, I just haven’t tested them. (If you make a gametype that plays well, post it! :))

The main gametype is a five plot Territories game. There is one round (You can play it twice so each team plays with the Humans and Covenant if you want!). Capture time for the territories is 15 seconds and there is unlimited scoring. Armor abilities can be used in territories. Player damage, health, and physics are default—waypoints are allies only. I figure standard Halo Reach gameplay plays pretty well already, so why change it?

The five territories are located at the following locations: one in the Human base, one in the Covenant base, one in the center of the center mountain tunnel, one on the center of the rock bridge, and one in the center of Crab Base.

Rock bridge with a territory on it

The Bad Things
There are a few bad aspects of this map that were either out of my control or sacrificed for a better feature. First, the 3-way teleporters for the Commanders are a slight nuisance—nothing major though. Second, Swords are kind of a powerful starting weapon. However, the map is pretty big and players have plenty of weapons to destroy sword users with (and they spawn with Assault Rifles/Plasma Repeaters and grenades too). Third, the Commander can kill himself in a few ways: he can jump past the Gauss Hog and into the water, and he can jump off a high cliff in Hemorrhage multiple times—be smart and no unwanted deaths will occur! Finally, vehicles get damaged from the fusion coil explosions. You can still use them, or destroy them with a sword or grenades and wait 15-30 seconds for a new one to respawn if you want a fresh vehicle. The vehicles are only damaged on their first spawn during the three minutes!

I wonder how to get up there? Don't fall!

Tips and Tricks

Having trouble finding all of the hidden snipers? Each hidden sniper points to another hidden sniper. So if you can find one, it can point you in the right direction towards another.

Want to make a last ditch effort at the end as a Commander after spending all your money? Kill yourself and join your team in the final seconds of the battle!

Don’t forget you can buy a vehicle in the Collection Zone to more quickly collect resources!

Blow up newly spawned vehicles to quickly (15-30 seconds) get a fresh one if you can’t stand a little damage!

Jump after landing from Mancannons to get extra distance!

Mix purchases up! If you buy all vehicles, you will have trouble capturing territories, but if you buy all weapons and loadouts, you can get overwhelmed by vehicles. Decisions, decisions....

The Commander shooting down a Mongoose in order to more quickly collect money!

Conclusion
Halo Wars 2 is a huge improvement over the first—gameplay, function, aesthetics, everything! Halo Wars 2 is like no other map because it is a hybrid of an FPS and an RTS. I would appreciate any sort of feedback from you guys! Let me know if find another gametype that plays well on the map.

Thanks for reading this book,

-CheeseJam

The main Covenant Base

More Pictures

Human player spawn

Covenant player spawn

Another view of the main Human base

Covenant vehicle spawn

Inside the crazy Covenant base!

Human vehicle spawn

The mechanism for purchasing the Gauss Hog

A view of the Human Warthog, Falcon, and Scorpion from the Spawn Room

The Human Commander shooting down a Warthog

Overview of the Commander Room

Update--v2:
After over 5555 downloads, some great feedback, and even more rigorous testing, I have released an update for Halo Wars and HW2-Territories--Halo Wars v2 and HW2-Territories v2! Here are the changes to the map and gametype:

Map:

Fixed portable shields restore glitches. When the shields were only shot once, and they charged back up, they would launch the vehicles/weapons, only costing the commander one shot instead of two. I fixed each Commander Collection Zone vehicle and the purchasable sniper for the humans. I also raised the portable shields so they could not be hit by swords (I shouldn't have tested with just snipers, doh!)
Flipped all vehicles right side up. Vehicles could be flipped from inside the Spawn Room, through the one way shield doors, by using a jetpack--this made some vehicles "free". Vehicles now take less damage from the initial fusion coil blast and respawn right-side-up.
Fixed a glitch where you could barely purchase a Scorpion for two shots instead of one.
Made the vehicle spawn teleporters as good as possible--vehicles now enter the map through teleporters in the straightest way possible.
The turrets now take five seconds to respawn instead of instantly--this was causing purchased turrets to occasionally get stuck.
Fixed very minor aesthetic details.
Fixed the Spawn Room's Mongoose spawn time so it is now 180 seconds (instead of 30).
Made the shootable power weapons fall down perfectly now (about 1/20 times they would not fall down).

Gametype:

Changed the rounds from one to two because Red/Blue teams would not switch teams each round.
Changed the round time limit from 12 minutes to 15 minutes since there is only one round now being played (24 minutes was a little long too!)
Armor abilities are now able to be used in territories--I decided it would mix up the gameplay without being too cheap.

Thanks to all who downloaded the original version--over 5555 downloads is way more than I hoped for! I looked forward to everone's feedback on v2. I believe all glitches have been fixed and the gametype is tweaked to excellence, but if you find anything you think I should change, don't hesitate to mention it!

Thanks,

-CheeseJam