I've seen a saying pop up for "Dawn of War" over the years: "Buy "Dark Crusade" for the campaign, buy "Soulstorm" for "Ultimate Apocalypse"." If you're not familiar with "Dawn of War", it's an RTS set in the "Warhammer 40,000" universe. I... briefly touched on that lore in the "Fire Warrior" video, but if you want a comprehensive overview of "Dawn of War 1" and the expansions, check out the ThunderPsyker videos. They're really good. For a mod like this, I have to assume you're familiar with the base game, because this is essentially "Super Dawn of War". This is the result of nearly 15 years of modding. The credits lists dozens of contributors. There are probably even more people that contributed to the mod in some way, even if they didn't know it. It's a big mod, and you'll need to take some steps to install it just right. The version on Mod DB includes an installer. This includes all the game files you need, except for the Tyranids mod, which you have to go download separately. This will work fine, but the mod has an update that's not on Mod DB - it is on Mediafire. This doesn't have an installer. You go in the directory and manually overwrite the files. If you don't have it already, the mod page includes a large address awareness patch. This will let the game use more than two gigs of RAM. You're gonna be needing that. Finally, you're gonna want the Salcols fan patch. It's basically a mod for a mod. You especially want this for multiplayer, since most players are using it. The changelog for this patch is nearly 60 pages. This doesn't even include a lot of the bug fixes. After talking to Salcol himself about some of the stuff he fixed, I would mark this as being essential. I'll post the handy guide of links in the pinned comment, and if anything changes, I'll update it. Using the mod manager is also a good idea for caching anything you missed. Even if you're completely new to modding, it's not too bad. So what's the background? Well, in tabletop 40k there is a game mode called "Apocalypse". It's for people who spent their college tuition fund on "Warhammer" figures. They looked at the three Baneblades their tuition earned them, then went out and bought even more. It's less about balance, more about spectacle. The mod certainly carries on that spirit, but when I asked the creator Cylarne about it, its origins were more humble than I expected. CYLARNE: "Basically, the thought of my Predator tanks being limited to, like, two or something..." CYLARNE: "and me wanting to have more Predators and stuff... More Terminators, basically... More Pariahs..." CYLARNE: "Especially Pariahs, because I played the Necrons. And I developed, like, an idea to create an Apocalypse Monolith." CYLARNE: "And then after that, it just became the Apocalypse Mod." So what started as a guy wanting more tanks, ended up with giant robots and nuclear warfare. Modding is a hell of a drug. Covering all the additions made would be near impossible. I'll still cover the major features point by point. Let's start with what's immediately visible. As you probably guessed from earlier, the Tyranids are in the game now. They're the first of three new factions; the second being the Inquisition Demon Hunters; the third being the Chaos Demons. I remember playing the standalone Tyranid and Demon Hunter mod years ago, so it was cool to see them back. The standalone mods are great in their own right, and "Ultimate Apocalypse" gives them some more stuff to play with. The same goes for all the base factions. Everyone has a gigantic pile of new stuff. Each faction has about a dozen new units minimum, but some have several times that. Some of the units of the new factions actually look better than the stuff in base game "Soulstorm". Some of the existing units got new textures, models or variations. Some are units for mods like "Firestorm Over Kronus" and some are brand new. The painter for your armies has been beefed up with a lot more options. There's also new stuff to choose from on the technical side. In vanilla, you couldn't zoom out especially far, but now you can see just about everything on the map. The camera was serviceable in the base game, but you're controlling a lot more units here - and bigger ones. The scales of the fights have grown so massively, that using the default game camera would probably drive you crazy. A few of the new units might actually fill out the screen in the vanilla game. Others are so massive that I'm not sure you would be able to see them at all. Maybe just their legs... To accommodate the new scale of war, there are plenty of new user-made maps. Some of the existing maps have also had tweaks for the mod. Then there are the dozens of new game options. There's enough here to accommodate just about any play style I can think of. You want more super weapons and giant units? Easy! Maybe you don't want those things - you just want to play with the regular new units, so it's more like vanilla. No problem! "Ultimate Apocalypse" is all about having options. Let's get into that more. So you want to play a game as the Imperial Guard, or Astra Militarum - whatever they are now. Instead of having Guardsmen, now you have Conscripts. They're weaker, but cheaper and have more numbers, and boy do they reinforce quickly! You can use these guys with the Guardsmen to help tarpit the enemy. They are near useless in combat, but they hold the enemies still for the.... rescue team. [mighty cannon shots] If you want to focus on artillery, you can specialise in it. You can choose a permanent doctrine for your army. You could focus on artillery in one game, in another - air support. Several races have similar sub-faction options. Space Marines can be a generic chapter or a Legion of the Damned. That locks off a few units, but makes new unique ones like the Death Guard available. You could choose a clan as Orks, or a god to follow as Chaos Demons. Having sub-factions like this helps mix up your playstyle even more when playing the same faction. In the case of the Imperial Guard, you can pump out a lot more artillery for cheap. Besides helping mobile artillery, it would also strengthen turrets and artillery buildings. Yeah, the Guard can build artillery buildings now. For when you really need people to go away. [*boom*]
“Someone called for earth-shaker?” “Someone called for earth-shaker?” [punchy barrage of artillery fire] If you have a lot of money, you can build a Basilisk Magnus that can hit about anywhere on the map. If you have even more money, trick it out with apocalypse rounds. [w00p!] [big badaboom] I think we got em... Alternatively, you can invest in a Death Strike nuclear missile launcher, but that has to get in range before it can fire. So you could build a nuclear center and pay a lot to hit anywhere. What upsets me most about the nuclear option is: I can still see some Tyranids moving around in there. So you could pay less for an orbital laser. Or build a Titan factory and start churning out Titans. You don't have one endgame option - you have several. This isn't exclusive to the Guard. Every faction has their own super weapons and super units. Just about every faction has options for striking across the map. It definitely seems more balanced for the larger maps. On the smaller maps, you can be hit by a lot more if your enemy is close by. It's like playing "Warhammer Supreme Commander", but you have a lot less countermeasures than that game. Not everybody has the luxury of building a shield generator. Or that thing. Or whatever this pyramid launches, which is kind of disappointingly small... Well, never mind... Don't underestimate the super weapons. MANDALORE: "Okay, I think this will get them off the doorstep..." MANDALORE: "Oh, that's a big shock-wave! That's a big shock-wave!"
"Oh! Oh! Too close, too close, too close!" MANDALORE: "Ehh..." MANDALORE: "Ah, those generators were decaying anyways..." It's really the variety that impresses me most of all. They didn't give everybody a nuke, but instead a unique way to give your enemy The Galactic Finger. That could be a huge bombardment, a way to recruit units for free, or a gigantic, nearly unbeatable unit. End game units and technologies are expensive, but the game-ending ones are about triply so. The engine can barely comprehend them. MANDALORE: "Okay, how big is it gonna be? I'm kind of afraid..." MANDALORE: "How... [chuckles and wheezes mandalorly] "Is it big, Mandalore?" MANDALORE: "It's just... It's stupid..." "OH MY...!" MANDALORE: "You know, I don't think the map was meant for something like this..." MANDALORE: "Does this thing have a range? I don't think it has a range..." MANDALORE: "This is Big Dick One. We're crossing the Rubicon. How do we fit on the bridge?" The Titans and super weapons are definitely the most prominent feature, but there's a lot in between that. A lot of the new units are variations right from the tabletop game. In the base game, the Imperial Guard had one variant of Russ tank. Now they have nearly a dozen. They had one pattern of Baneblade. Now they have several types. This was their most powerful unit in "Dawn of War". Things have escalated so much that a faction's most powerful unit has become a variant. Complete with having upgrades from buildings. Even Chaos has one in their lineup. And they still have THEIR scary big new vehicles. Everything that a faction had as a strength has been amplified. Your faction's most powerful hero typically has a much stronger one now. Every hero can be upgraded, a new war gear can be unlocked. Getting new war gear improves stats and even changes their physical appearance. Some of these items were locked in Campaign, but now they're in Skirmish. There's something like 500 different war gear items in total now. It's a complete rabbit hole. But it's a fun rabbit hole, and you want to see what else is in there. What really surprises me is, despite all the new units, powers and abilities, the AI is pretty ok at using all of them. That's a lot of units you need to manage. CYLARNE: "The variety of units was another thing, like, ehh..." CYLARNE: "Before Thudmeiser came along and did the AI, basically, the Space Marines, for example, only built, like, the Land Raider Phobos or something." CYLARNE: "And now they can build all five, so... Leman Russes especially for IG. IG can build all tanks now as the AI, so that's pretty good." That's the one downside when it comes to the Salcol add on. The AI can't use everything in it just yet. However, I think all the fixes and features far outweigh that factor. So what are a few flaws with the mod? It sets the bar very high for itself, so things that would be more forgiven in a regular mod can stick out a bit more. Some people think power armor is cool, others think it's a fur suit for people who want to be robots. I think we can all agree that the Dreadknight is just too far. To be fair, it is from the lore. It's mostly some of the super units that really stick out. A lot of the Titans look incredible and fit right into the rest of the game. Others look very much like placeholders. There's not a ton of them, but they do stick out. Some of the Titans are just too big, even for the maps that were made for them. Not only does it look out of place - the tooltips are blank. It's clearly not done. I only had the game crash twice, and both was from building a Titan. Voice acting and sound work can range from "excellent" to "not so good". [deep, menacing voice]
"Imperial forces... Submit to your masters and die violently against my wailing sword!" Awesome! [low-pitched, but kinda casual voice]
"Chaos demons, hear me!" Ehh... [T-Rex roar] MANDALORE: "Did anyone hear a T-Rex?" "Yeah, I heard it!" The engine can also struggle sometimes. "Dawn of War" was made with the same engine they used for "Impossible Creatures", and it's being pushed to the limit. Disabling corpses can help, but it can really chug when it gets busy. CYLARNE: "Crashes are enough to make anybody not play "UA" for a while. I know it did me for a while." CYLARNE: "Another reason is lag. The amount of units that "Ultimate Apocalypse" has, cannot make the engine feel good." The other big issue is multiplayer, since there are so many versions floating around, and you need the exact same files to play multiplayer with each other. The team is working to fix all these problems. It does follow the "Dawn of War" formula, where you need map control for better units, but it'll never be completely balanced. There's just too much. A dozen factions with hundreds of units being worked on by volunteers isn't gonna be hyper-competitive. Weapon upgrades are spilling into different panels. This isn't "Starcraft". There are mods like "Firestorm" that add new units while keeping balance in mind, but most of those people work on this now. It's definitely worth checking out for your favorite faction. After all, it's free! You can play with Titans that don't yell at your wallet and don't make you watch poker ads. CYLARNE: "It's an awesome and fun mod that adds in Titans and nukes. If you love Titans and nukes - there you go, play it!" Big Thanks to Cylarne for talking with me about his mod, and to the rest of the team who's still working on the next version. You can get the most up-to-date info on the mod from their Discords or from Cylarne's YouTube channel. While I've been working on this video, I've also been working on the next one, for a German role-playing game. Thanks for watching! I'll see you next time! And an especially big thanks to the backers! Since I'm not dying this time around, I can answer some questions. I burned out that infection good! Alright, question one: "What is the most bizarre title you've played?" Ehm, nothing I've made a video on - those are still made by teams and not made by crazy people. I've played games made by people who weren't well and the games were kind of an outlet for them. I probably won't do a video on most of them because, they're kind of exploitive to do that, but others that weren't made by crazy people - maybe one day. "Will you review "Mount and Blade: Bannerlord" when it comes out?" I'll probably be dead by then, but if not - sure. "What was the first multiplayer game you played extensively?" There were a lot of multiplayer games I'd play from time to time, but the first one that I think was uh, like a daily ritual, was "Age of Mythology". Most people's experience with the "Warcraft 3" custom game scene - that was me and "Age of Mythology". Eventually, I started to make maps for it - really simple stuff like cat and mouse and archer arena, but that was a long time ago, so they're probably gone. "Are there any games you want to feature but can't for some reason?" "Metal Wolf Chaos" was one, but that's getting a PC version now. They're typically gonna be games that are just hard to record and get in a nice format. There are some games I'm pretty sure they put on PS4, so should be easier to record, but I'm not doing any console stuff yet, since I'm still in the moving process. Speaking of which: that move is gonna be in August, but I'm not sure on the exact date, because the place is still being built. There's still a video or two to come before that gap. So I'll see you then. "Looks like everything's in order, sir!" ♂ Classic GachiGASM ♂
The Dawn of War videos he mentioned in the video.
Dawn of War
Winter Assault
Dark Crusade
Soulstorm
Still my favourite set of rts games ever,, had each game singly and bought the full box set as soon as it came out, spent months in time playing them all, I'll be giving this mod a go ASAP, glad to know there's still some love for this franchise
How, just how did Relic drop the ball into the center of Earth with Dawn of War III ?
Dawn of War 1 and its expansions will always be my favorite in the franchise. Back then, Relic was not as interested in creating the next StarCraft style competitive/e-sport sensation and as such, DoW1 was a more immersive, more free-form experience that really captured the spirit of the Warhammer 40k universe as opposed to being a highly abstracted sport based on it.
This mod is exactly the right kind of thing for the game. It doubles down on the lore without getting too mired in any sort of high-level competitive balance.
I remember in one of the versions of this mod you could pump out an unlimited number of imperial guard conscripts, and with an upgrade that either made them free or a negligible cost. They didn't even count towards the population. You could set up multiple barracks across the map, set the rally points to the enemy base, and set them to auto construct. Sure, they die to basically one shot and it takes hundreds of them to kill a single space marine, but does that matter when you throw (I believe the casualty number was) 35000 men at them?
They patched it out, but god I loved playing this mod with my friend back when I had internet!
Also, they have grot tanks!
Dawn of War 1 + expansions is still the best of the series. Dawn of War 2 was okay and Retribution made it better but 1 is still WH40K done right. Dawn of War 3 made me so sad knowing that it may have killed the franchise but the design leads just made terrible decisions; textbook example of chasing trends and losing sight of your core gameplay and fundamentals.
It sucks. No more Starcraft content. No more Dawn of War content. At least there's Battletech.
My game drops to 11 FPS with Imperial Guard and various other races at normal squad cap but its still great.