MAP14: City in the Clouds (Hell Revealed)

MAP14: City in the Clouds, designed by Yonatan Donner, is the fourteenth map of Hell Revealed. It uses the music track "Excalibur" from Rise of the Triad.

Description
According to the Hell Revealed info pack:


 * A very tough city level. This level is special in several ways. First of all, I dreamt it. Yes, some parts of this level appeared in my dream and I built them accordingly - only that in my dream, I think I had godmode on :-) The city is floating - you can watch behind the fence, and you'll see the sky. In this area, disconnected from the rest of the world, you will have to pass several guardians to leave, and don't expect an easy fight! My dreams are not friendly! :-)


 * Size: large
 * Difficulty: very hard

Walkthrough
It is obvious that this level was designed to be played from a pistol start, and when done so is easily one of the hardest maps of the WAD. The main problem is that every weapon is fiercely defended:
 * The shotgun is guarded by imps and a baron of hell, and two arch-viles and several hell knights appear when you grab it.
 * The rocket launcher is only guarded by imps and demons, but when you grab it the door closes behind you and an army of cacodemons teleport in up close and personal.
 * The chaingun is guarded by a cyberdemon and multiple arch-viles and hell knights.
 * All other weapons require first getting the blue key, which is right next to the chaingun.

Surviving the level, especially when going for 100% kills, thus requires very careful planning to survive while building up your arsenal. Here is one approach. Remember that you have a megasphere and an invincibility that you can use anytime you see fit, with a second megasphere available after the south-west building.
 * 1) Go to the building in the north-east, grab the rocket launcher, and leave without firing a single shot. The cacodemons will not teleport in until you wake the up by firing your weapon, and you likely cannot survive the cacodemon ambush at this point.
 * 2) Clear out the imps (and, if you want, the baron) in the south-east building, and grab the shotgun. Quickly leave the building; you can come back for the arch-viles and hell knights later.
 * 3) Coax the cyberdemon into killing the arachnotrons in the central yard, and kill the wandering mancubi with the shotgun; if you don't they have a nasty habit of popping around corners behind you when you are otherwise distracted. Do not bother killing any of the other caged enemies around the level, unless they directly overlook an area you need to spend a large amount of time in: you don't have the ammo to spare at the moment.
 * 4) Kill the enemies on the pavilion with the blue key (the middle building on the east side) from outside. Aim for the arch-viles first, obviously.
 * 5) Enter that building and collect the blue key. A cyberdemon will teleport in behind you (run past him for now), and multiple arch-viles will be unleashed in the corridor that used to contain all of those Specters. Use the rocket launcher to deal with the arch-viles.
 * 6) Clear out any revenants that remain on the ledge around the south-west building, then enter the building. If you are feeling lucky, it is perfectly possible to survive the arch-vile/revenant ambush by the yellow key with only the chaingun; you may find it easier, however, to skip the yellow key for now and come back once you have the BFG. Make your way to the cyberdemon room (the hell knight and baron you meet along the way can be coaxed to come down the lift one at a time, where you will have much more space to kill them). Run past the cyberdemon for now, but do not forget to hit the switch in the secret area to allow access to the BFG and megasphere.
 * 7) Finish off the cyberdemon and any surviving arachnotrons in the central courtyard, then go get the BFG. Use it to kill the cyberdemons you left behind in the blue and yellow key buildings (either of these battles is a good use for the invincibility power-up). The rest of the level is easy: there are a few arch-viles waiting for you behind the yellow and red doors, but you have more than enough firepower now to handle them. Mop up, and leave through the central pillar in the south-east.

Secrets

 * 1) In the building with the blue door go to the large room in the north with the cyberdemon. A part of the northern wall is a door to a secret compartment with a bulk cell and a switch.
 * 2) After the switch in secret #1 is pressed the south-west pillar of the 3x3-pillar-array in the southeast of the level lowers revealing a teleporter. This teleports you on to the arachnotron-walls surrounding the central cyberdemon area. Which of the walls you are teleported to depends on which side of the teleporter you step in. Step into the teleporter from the east, teleporting to the south-west wall. From there run across the air to the ledge surrounding the blue-keycard-building. There you find a green armor and on the opposite side a computer map.
 * 3) While on the ledge from secret #2 open one section of the northern wall of the building, revealing a megasphere.
 * 4) Step into the teleporter from the west end, and you will be warped to the northwest arachnotron wall.  Look west to see a light-grey building with stairs; in the center of it is a pillar with a BFG 9000.  Stand on the northeast side of the wall, turn your side so it faces the northeast corner of the light-grey building, and perform a strafe50 jump onto the sides. When you do so, immediately halt your movement.  Both of these may take many tries until you can pull them off, particularly since the north side of the building is marked as impassible, and must be avoided.  When this is done successfully, walk to the east side of the building, and turn the side of your body toward the pillar, standing near the east edge.  From there, perform another strafe50 jump onto the pillar.  If successful, this secret will be triggered and the BFG can be obtained.
 * 5) After grabbing the red key from the H-shaped building in the north you can run over the pillar on the north that contains a plasma gun.

Speedrunning
See:
 * Hell Revealed at Compet-N
 * Hell Revealed at the Doom Speed Demos Archive

Current records
The Compet-N records for the map are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on June 22, 2013.