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MGC09 - Lands of Rolling Green
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Author |
File Description |
RON PAUL 2016 (id: Turty) |
Posted on 12/31/09 @ 10:26 PM
File Details |
Version: |
The Conquerors 1.0c |
Style: |
Fixed Force |
Submission for the Age of Kings Heaven Minigame Contest '09.
Since I'm cutting it close on time right now and too lazy to write stuff here, I'll just write a bunch of gibberish and fix it later; it's not like anyone will care/notice (except possibly for Mashek).
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. |
Author | Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Cataphract887
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 09/30/17 @ 01:47 PM
"Lands of Rolling Green" is a fixed force minigame on a minuscule little map, but triggers not sufficiently clever and robust to account for all possible player actions undermine the experience.
Playability 4
The scenarios gameplay consists of a fixed force assault upon a town with the aid of a trojan horse battering ram. The player composes a squad to drive the ram into position, and must burst through the gap created to slay the defenders inside. Thats the theory, anyway:In practice I found it much more sensible to setup a killzone outside and lure handfuls of soldiers to their doom. Attacking headfirst into a fortress defended by massed longbowmen behind palisades wouldn't be an appealing prospect to me.
It is essential that the player push into town with all his units to properly play the scenario, and this way the commander is assassinated properly and the cutscenes work fine. During the hard playthrough, the triggers borked up to hell and back leaving many units under control of the player so that the castle popped into clear sight and also the tower sniped my units during the cutscene. On a standard play the castle failed to kill the target and he ran out to fight it, finally dying. Very weird stuff.
In summary, I found the basic gameplay enjoyable with a nice atmospheric audio component combined with a good if confusing story. This scenario does require some cooperation from the player to work correctly, and I found higher difficulty levels too frustratingly hard to beat without lure tactics.
Balance 3
The difficulty of the scenario varies widely depending on what tactics the player utilizes to address the challenge of breaking through a gate and clearing out the defenders. Its a good and interesting challenge if it wasn't for the large presence of longbowmen entrenched behind some palisades. I found this made it very tricky to succeed with a frontal assault as the scenario suggests, being unable to succeed starting on Moderate. Perhaps with many tries and careful usage of the heroes this would be possible for me, but I cant say I am particularly motivated to try. Suffice it to say that on any difficulty the lure tactic will result in a cakewalk win, so some consideration of this tactic should have been taken into account. Perhaps weaken the defenders, lower their archer capacity, and give them respawning troops so the player is encouraged to attack.
Creativity 4
The scenario brought a fairly well crafted gameplay to the table with interesting mapping and good use of a soundtrack and audio effects. The story had a considerable amount of investment placed into it, though perhaps this scenario could have used a cinematic intro or was intended to be part of a campaign. The triggerwork as mentioned already could use some work, as the player can notice a phantom castle without even trying to break the scenario on purpose, and the cutscene at the end can easily break or function in bizarre ways. This is an unfortunate lack of polish. The bitmap at the start would have been a nice tough, but its colors are improper for the game engine.
The concept of picking out a squad from a group of individuals in order to achieve the Trojan Horse surprise attack is excellent, but its implementation seems to be left on the drawing table. I found no difficulty knocking down the gate with any arrangement of men, and I didn't need to ungarrison them myself as suggested;waiting till the ram breaks on its own and tasking them on the gate seems to be sufficient.
Map Design 4
The map looked quite nice with its green forest with a substantial vegetation covering the ground with forage bushes sprinkled in, while avoiding any issues such as white outlines. Rocks and pile of stones were used to good effect with some bamboo, and a pond added a little point of interest. The plant usage was unfortunate in its symmetrical placement undermining its visual appeal somewhat, and the map did feel a tiny bit overcluttered.
Story\Objectives 4-
A substantial story is present, which lends a good deal of interest to the gameplay as our men are giving character and personality, as well as showing the love and care the author puts toward making his scenario achieve a great effect on the player. However, what I found strange was the lack of a proper introduction or perhaps even the middle of the story, as we almost seem to dropped in towards the end of a long storyline. Perhaps this scenario was intended as the second or even third scenario in a campaign, or was intended to have a cinematic added after the contest. Whatever the reason, its hard to pick up and follow the story. The scouts report and history section lacked much depth in them, and the hints could have been more clever to guide the player to victory in the designed frontal assault gameplan.
Final Thoughts:An interesting scenario well worth a play, just be sure to play along with the objectives and avoid lure tactics to avoid breaking the triggers. |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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3.8 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 4.0 | Balance | 3.0 | Creativity | 4.0 | Map Design | 4.0 | Story/Instructions | 4.0 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 262 |
Favorites: [] | 0 |
Size: | 4.81 MB |
Added: | 12/31/09 |
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