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King Nicholas' Great Stand
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Author |
File Description |
MixenDixon |
Posted on 07/19/10 @ 12:54 PM
File Details |
Version: |
The Conquerors 1.0c |
Style: |
Fixed Force |
"Aelikora is the last stronghold in Koncoo. After the cunning takeovers by the English and Arabs, this is the only place to make a final stand. From here, you must defeat the English and Arab forces to prevent the destruction of Koncoo."
In this map, you start with just over one hundred soldiers in a stronghold surrounded by cliffs. Some people speak, and then you are given several instructions. Because you are under siege, you have to manage with a limited supply of food and water. If you run out, you lose. You cannot train units at the military buildings, but you can hire them for gold. You will have the aid of a small, Scotish army, led by Lord Oswyn, but will be facing a large English force as well as some Arab mercenaries. There is a morale system for both your troops and the English. Have fun!
Edit: Requires the AoCEditor v2.0 AI by Dreamer (http://aok.heavengames.com/blacksmith/showfile.php?fileid=9047) |
Author | Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Dtrungle
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 08/11/10 @ 10:14 AM
Playability: 3+
The idea for the gameplay sounds excellent and very enjoyable but it's execution for playing wasn't done very well. The game relies on the AI which seems to insanely fluctuates from being easy and/or hard with influences from the selected difficulty. There are times where the AI stalls and does nothing so that would definitely break the game. You're then forced to hunt them down which is obviously not intended. Furthermore, your ally is almost always ridiculously useless. There are a few times where he actually fights but it's still very poor to say the least.
Along with defending your base, you are given side objectives of maintaining your water and food supply. I've played until either losing or winning and in each case, I only had to refill the water storage once. The food shortage dilema never occurs. I've waited for the sheeps to spawn twice and nothing happened. I didn't get food from anywhere else as well. I say this because there are gaia sheeps and turkeys scattered around the map.
I manage to overcome this difficult scenario by meeting the enemies face to face instead of allowing them to meet me. Most of the time, I pick off a lot of their units before they react. There's a small shore gap leading into your side gate which is very cramped up if battle is required there. The waterpump feature would suffer because your waterpump boy wouldn't be able to walk past the enemies. I make sure this certain side is blocked off by piling the group of turkeys along the shore.
As with most 'keep the hero alive games', I hid him away in the castle and never looked back. The method of hiring soldiers wasn't done particularly friendly. You had to manually unselect the building and/or move your hired soldier away. If you did not do those, you would lose your gold but not gain a unit. As for the process of hiring a horsemen, it's exactly the same except a horse is required in a certain spot in order for the purchase to work. Players aren't given the details about where the horse should be. There are only 6 horses so that means you can only hire 6 horsemen. Also, the system can get bugged up and you may lose more than one horse per purchase because it removes all horses on a single tile.
Lastly, the placement of some objects were quite poor. Towers were in line with walls which means the enemies can sit underneath them hacking away to achieve a fast breach into the fort. Important buildings such as the water storage outpost and a few hiring buildings are in the range of enemies trebs and longbowmen. The longbowmen are mostly the problem because their range is 12 and they can destroy an outpost pretty quickly. The line of men behind the first wall was done very poorly. The swordsmen there are useless , the archers there have less range compared to a lot of the enemies' ranged units, and the trebs block the way out so the only logical thing to do was to delete the palisade walls which are also placed poorly. Finally, the area leading to the side gate is very cramped which makes it very annoying when you're trying to move a pile of villagers in and a pile of military units out.
Balance: 3+
The difficulty of the scenario depends on your chosen difficulty and the fluctuating AI. Playing this the way it is intended is extremely hard. Certain things such as the side gate will further add onto the difficulty, as well as other things mentioned in playability. If you manage to fend off the enemies, you will probably need to go roaming around looking for the one enemy unit that is exploring the land. The enemies are in post-imp while you're in castle age with limited pre-researched techs. Your archers alone deals 1 damage to the enemy because of their superior armor so you always have to pile them up and aim at one target at a time.
Creativity: 4+
This category is where the designer did a great job in producing. Defending type of scenarios are plentifull but the designer has managed to vary it up by adding the waterpump and food supply mechanism. There's a short and simple story that goes along with the game as well. The method of purchasing horsemen was expanded upon so that a horse is required which is a good thing at taking the creativity further. With that said, some of the creative elements has issues so the score is affected accordingly. Also, a little more could be done with the ally and the food/water mechanism. A lot of things can be altered as well as new additions can be added to make the scenario even more creative.
Map Design: 3
The map started off as a random map and the designer then added his playing field in. The area leading into the right gate is cramped as previously stated and that is something that designers should really try not to do. There is no terrain blending whatsoever and little to no eye candy. The designer literally placed his game onto the generated map and that was that.
Story/Instructions: 4+
The story was fine for such a short defending scenario. There was some background in the history and an epilogue in the victory page. The game starts off with some story dialogue and then it goes onto explaining the game features in detail while changing the screen view accordingly. The designer did an excellent job in checking for typos as I did not spot any. The instructions are lacking because they appear as dialogue and there's none in the tabs for players to recheck. There were those few undetailed instructions as mentioned in playability which would affect the players. Lastly, it would be helpfull if the message about the shortage of water (and food if it's working) is displayed in a way that players would notice. In the heat of battle, players will tend to forget about it and the little blurb at the top will go by unnoticed.
Additional Comments:
I know you're currently working on something a lot better so I hope my review helps you in producing a scenario of high quality. Good luck.[Edited on 08/11/10 @ 03:14 PM]
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HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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3.4 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 3.0 | Balance | 3.0 | Creativity | 4.0 | Map Design | 3.0 | Story/Instructions | 4.0 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 386 |
Favorites: [] | 1 |
Size: | 29.29 KB |
Added: | 07/19/10 |
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