Dark Crusade campaign metamap. The player is controlling the Space Marines, and the campaign has just started, without any moves having been made yet.
The single-player campaign in Dark Crusade differs from the linear, scripted campaigns seen in Dawn of War and Winter Assault. The campaign in Dark Crusade uses a strategic map – often referred to as the "metamap" – where the factions move their army in preparation for actual fights on the smaller tactical maps. The area is divided into 25 territories or provinces, each representing a single tactical map.
Since the player can choose how and in which order to do their conquering, the campaign becomes more freeform and non-linear than the previous campaigns. In addition, most of the battles are freeform skirmish matches against the AI instead of scripted missions like in Winter Assault. Only some special territories have scripted battles.
Difficulty levels
The Dark Crusade single-player campaign has three difficulty levels. The in-game descriptions – suggesting your units would be stronger than the enemy on Easy, equal on Normal, and weaker on Hard – are misleading when comparing the statistics between the player and the opponent. In actuality, you have a crazy advantage on Easy, a good advantage on Normal, and equal stats on Hard.
- Easy
- Player units have 250% health
- Enemy units have 25% health
- Start with 600 planetary requisition
- Normal
- Player units have 200% health
- Enemy units have 100% health
- Start with 400 planetary requisition
- Hard
- Player units have 100% health
- Enemy units have 100% health
- Start with 200 planetary requisition
Of course, the player health bonus is mitigated by circumstances during actual battles since the enemy often starts with two different bases each controlled by a different computer player against the player's smaller strike force.
The strategic map
The strategic map in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade has 25 different sections in total. Each province provides different bonuses or Honor Guards when conquered.
When the player starts the campaign, his faction will only control the section they start (the homebase) on whereas the AI leaders will each have 3-4 sections under their control. Each faction has its own homebase which are sections of the map that are best left until the end of the campaign as each one will be extremely challenging while being completely different to all other maps that you have played.
Each section on skirmish corresponds to a tactical map that you can play at any time (apart from homebases)
Province strength
1 to 3
Computer provinces with this value have bases that are at Tier 1.
- The enemy commander is a skilled combatant.
- The enemy force likely consists of basic infantry.
- The enemy has a single base.
4
Computer provinces with this value have bases that are at Tier 1 and have several unit production buildings.
- The enemy commander is a skilled combatant.
- The enemy force likely consists of basic infantry.
- The enemy has a single large base.
5
Computer provinces with this value have bases that are at Tier 2 and have several unit production buildings.
- The enemy commander is a hardened veteran.
- The enemy force likely includes elite infantry.
- The enemy has a single large base.
6 to 7
Computer provinces with this value have bases that are at Tier 2 and have more unit production buildings.
- The enemy commander is a hardened veteran.
- The enemy force likely includes elite infantry.
- The enemy has two bases.
8
Computer provinces with this value have bases that are at Tier 2 or higher. They also have more turrets surrounding their Headquarters by default. Some turrets are fully upgraded to counter Vehicles.
- The enemy commander is a hardened veteran
- The enemy force likely includes elite infantry
- The enemy has two large bases.
9 and higher
When the player is defending their province from an incoming enemy invasion, the player will sometimes encounter the enemy under this strength level depending on the attack strength of the opponent. It is as if the player is attacking an enemy province that has this value, though, with the exception of turrets surrounding the enemy base.
- The enemy commander is a hardened veteran.
- The enemy force likely includes elite infantry and vehicles.
- The enemy has two large bases.