The Cronus Camp for Wayward Boys | No Failure Runs | Part 8
5If there is one map in Cronus Camp that I say I unapologetically hate, it's The Trenches. Where do I start with this miserable map? It is the moment when I realize what Episode 3 has turned into. Where it shed its stealth origins to turn the experience into HDest-lite, except unlike HDest it doesn't even have the host hospitality to give you some body armor.
Now, it is possible that the map is designed specifically to force you to use your equipment. I realize that I've managed just fine running earlier maps with just pure stealth and the washer, and perhaps The Trenches (and just the entire EP3 as a whole) is made to shatter expectations so you'll finally use all the items you've been gathering instead of trying to just sneak around. Except all the ammo you gathered in the camp itself gets wiped in Banished, so it quickly turns into a trial and error palooza where you can only run around the map hoping not to get killed, enemies have no trouble spotting you especially since the map doesn't give you a lot of room to work with, and the enemies themselves are mostly comprised of pigmen that have no problem in gunning you down in one shot. If Banished tested my patience, The Trenches shovels the final resolve into my head. Stealth is no longer the primary solution, more a side technique to putting down everyone with either the Magnum or the deadly traps.
It is impossible to sneak through this map. I have tried every possible permutation of strategy from moving really slowly to specifically waiting until the patrols are as far as possible from where I'm going, and it's just not happening. I spent hours repeating this map over and over, NOTHING works. The dark spots are useless. The crawlspaces are covered with rats, so even ways where you could possibly evade a patrol will still inevitably get you alerts and kills. Even if you somehow beyond all hope and reason managed to stay hidden until the last bit, multiple polyps shows up to force you to run anyways. Not to mention the random patrols means that no strategy is absolute. If you come to this map expecting sneaky runs, you've come to the wrong place.
Mods Used:
The Cronus Camp for Wayward Boys: https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=68322
Good ol' HUD: https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=54123
Nash's Gore: https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=11545