Mercenaries II

Mercenaries II is a Blizzard Entertainment Map of the Month, a series of free maps released by Blizzard for StarCraft. This one leads up to the secret mission Resurrection IV found in StarCraft 64.

Similar to the previous Mercenaries map, you can play this one with one to three players. The number of players determines the number and strength of enemy forces you must defeat.

Storyline
Alexei Stukov paid some mercenary commanders well to remove some of his enemies which have gathered on the dark planet below. Stukov provided them with their choice of mercenaries.


 * Depending on the head mercenary that you choose, you can play with the StarCraft race of your choice. If you choose Jenn the Vivacious, you can gain access to the Skullder Unit 004, a similar unit to the Skullder Unit 001 designs found in the map Deception.

The Mercenaries
The player, symbolized by a civilian, can select from nine groups of "gruesome" mercenaries; each player can only select one mercenary group, and cannot "share" a group with another player. Each mercenary group has a leader (a modified hero unit) and a pair of special units that correspond to a regular unit. After selecting the mercenaries, the player is granted the leader and the two special units, and the player receives four workers and a town center for the race (effectively playing the race, even though they are treated as Terran for game purposes). Whenever a regular unit of the special unit type is made, that unit is immediately replaced by a special version of that unit at no cost, providing a valuable boost to the player's forces. Furthermore, "spellcasting" special units automatically start with full energy and all upgrades, and the Tycho Reaver is produced with ten scarabs as well.

Mercenary Selections
The leader is listed first, followed by the special unit types.
 * Jenn the Vivacious (Ghost) and her Skullder Unit 004s (Goliath).
 * Minos the Malevolent (Zealot) and his Dragoons of Malice.
 * Frayne the Feral (Hydralisk) and his Feral Guardians.
 * Aios Karnage (Vulture) and his Karnage Tanks.
 * Heiberg the Heretic (High Templar) and his Tycho Reavers.
 * Eschueta the Wicked (Infested Terran, represented by Infested Kerrigan's unit) and her Eschutriarchs (Queens).
 * El Kang the Quixotic (Battlecruiser) and his Kang Science Stations (Science Vessels).
 * Pagan the Pernicious (Dark Templar) and his Paganites (Arbiters).
 * Meserole the Marauder (Zergling) and Meserole's Plague Bringers (Defilers).

Enemy Forces
Stukov's enemies consisted of Protoss, Terrans and Zerg; he considered them all to be "detestable vermin".

The brown Protoss in the northwest corner included "Mertick the Mauler", an Archon with a very appropriate name.


 * The orange Protoss in the center only appear if there are at least two players, and do not have any heroes.

The yellow Zerg in the northeast corner included "Cardis the Destroyer", a super-powered Mutalisk, who only appeared if there are at least two players.

In the three player version of the map, the white Terrans in the southwest corner were led by the Kimeran Juggernaut. The white Terrans are, presumably, the same Kimeran Pirates from Deception, and Stukov managed to track them down in order to eliminate them.

In order to achieve victory, all enemy forces must be destroyed, including the special mercenaries.


 * The special mercenaries can be found on raised ground at the far corners (from the center) of their respective bases. They follow special AI scripts causing them to wade into combat if their bases are attacked and to retreat when the player is beaten off. These mercenaries have no distinguishing characteristics visible to the player unless the player clicks on them (they have no auras and are the same color as their forces); this is due to a limitation of the StarCraft game engine. Whenever a special mercenary is killed, the player receives a message indicating the fact.