Mercenaries (map)

Mercenaries is a Blizzard Map of the Month, a series of free maps released by Blizzard Entertainment for StarCraft.

The map can be played with with one to three players. The number of players determines the number and strength of enemy forces you must defeat.

Background
The New Trinidad Pirates, based on space platforms over the empty world of New Trinidad, have attacked ships and outposts throughout the Koprulu Sector for decades. Due to recent Terran civil wars, the creation of a standing militia strong enough to deal with them was impossible.

In an attack from their nearly impregnable space station over New Trinidad, sustained shelling from Arclite Siege Tanks led to the death of Jacqueline Angel, heiress to the Angel Shipping empire.

Emperor Arcturus Mengsk of the Terran Dominion tells the player that he must solve this problem. He doesn't have the military force available to wipe out the pirates, but he has been provided money by various shipping interests, such as the Angel Shipping empire, to hire mercenaries to wipe out the pirates. He then dispatches recruiters to the space platform to help begin the assault.

The concept seems to have been borrowed from the game system Alternity's setting, Star*Drive, another space opera setting. In the Lucullus system, the Jamaican Syndicate, a notorious pirate group, is headquartered on the planet Trinidad on the Verge of settled space, and one of the mercenary leaders, Commander Hale, is based on Star*Drive character Warthen Hale, ex-President of the Orion League. TSR, the same company that created Alternity, created a crossover product entitled StarCraft: Alternity.

Hiring the Mercenaries
The players are given a choice as to how difficult they wish the mission to be. A more difficult mission has more difficult opponents, but also results in the players being given more resources.

Then each player is given a recruiter and a choice of four mercenary groups. (The map actually has eight mercenary groups, but four are randomly selected to be available for the mission.) 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 trio of special units that correspond to a regular unit. After selecting the mercenaries, the player is granted the leader and the three 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 mana and all upgrades.

The players start at locations near the center of the map, while the enemy forces occupy large bases at the corners of the map.

Mercenary Selections
The leader is listed first, followed by the special unit types.
 * Hale's Commandos, led by Commander Hale (battlecruiser) and accompanied by Elite Science Vessels. Commander Hale is based on former Orion League President Warthen Hale (renowned for helping end a galactic war); he makes a comment about how raising his sons was harder than any war. Warthen Hale's two sons are Senator Bruce Hale (now running for President of the Orion League) and Christopher Hale, who abandoned his fatehr during the war with a very large number of troops and massive amounts of equipment to found the Bluefall Regency in a region of space quite far from the Orion League, which is probably responsible for Commander Hale's somewhat bitter comments. The Bluefall Regency proclaims itself independet of the Orion League, but maintains somewhat friendly relations.
 * Tara's Infiltrators, led by "Unholy" Tara (Ghost) and accompanied by a complement of DF/A-19 Wraith Mk2. Tara claims that her forces don't involve themselves in prolonged battles, and simply appear from somewhere to deliver painful lessons to her foes.
 * Martin's Marauders, led by General Martin (Siege Tank) and accompanied by "Iron Golem" Goliaths. He claims that his Goliaths will batter down the will of his foes.
 * Dabiri's Shadow Company, led by Master Dabiri (Dark Templar) and accompanied by High Arbiters. Dabiri says he is the leader of his people, the "tribes unseen". His forces are capable of nearly perfect stealth, as his High Arbiters can cloak any Protoss unit that doesn't naturally cloak itself.
 * Zyrkhan's Legion, led by Lord Zyrkhan (Zealot) and accompanied by Pathfinder Scouts. He says to "submit to my will."
 * Lord Blackman's Reavers, led by Judicator Blackman (High Templar, representative of a powerful Judicator psychic) and accompanied by War Reavers. Lord Blackman has been from one end of the galaxy to another, and claims that "no one knows more about revolutions than I do."
 * Swarm of the Torrasque, led by the Wise Old Torrasque and accompanied by "Empress" Queens. The Torrasque simply roars, and appears to be unable to speak.
 * Gilson's Oppressors, led by Gilson the Evil (Guardian) and accompanied by Mastermind Overlords. Gilson is capable of speech (he says that all will bend to the will of his forces), and his Overlords produce extra Control.