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Author |
File Description |
Gallas |
Posted on 08/12/12 @ 10:58 AM
File Details |
Version: |
The Conquerors 1.0c |
Style: |
Fixed Force |
Screenshot:
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Pax of Mongolia ESC Remake
The Battle of Mohi (Muhi) or Battle of the Sajo' River (April 11, 1241) was the main battle between the Mongol Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary during the Mongol invasion of Europe. It took place at Muhi, southwest of the Sajo' River. After the invasion, Hungary lay in ruins. Nearly half of the inhabited places had been destroyed by the invading armies. Around 15–25 percent of the population was lost, mostly in lowland areas, especially in the Great Hungarian Plain, the southern reaches of the Hungarian plain in the area now called the Banat and in southern Transylvania.
INSTALL GUIDE:
The downloaded file contain all necessary folders for Ai's and sounds. Just unzip it to main aoe2 folder and play it. The map is a campaign, not a scenario.
Game settings:
- 1024 x 768
- Speed: fast
- Music: off
- 3 different difficult
- Total 161 triggers, 166 conditions, 792 effects
- 168x168 size
- 7357 units (6281 gaia)
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Author | Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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shieldwolf23 |
Posted on 09/15/12 @ 01:36 AM
Gallas' Battle of Muhi is his entry to this year's Ensemble Studios Scenario Remake Contest. The scenario recreates the gallant but ultimately doomed stand of the Kingdom of Hungary against the Mongol horde.
Playability: 4-
With side quests and a challenging gameplay, the player will be forced to use tactics early in the game. Additional points given for the ability to choose difficulty settings. Trigger-work is solid at best, and functional in areas that concern the player. However, Balance issues affected overall playability.
Balance: 3+
I always welcome a challenging scenario. My first take on this scenario is at Moderate. I lost. Reloaded a couple of times, same result. Maybe I was having a bad day that time, so the next time I tried, I played at Normal. Well, same result. :P I think the Mongol player has too many units with him.
Although a caveat here: It is possible for the player to survive the attack by the Mongols if he just stay in the center and let the Mongols attack roam around him. By consolidating his position in the center, he will have the chance to open the path when the time has come to run. But where is the fun in waiting? I charged and lost a couple of times. But oh, those were glorious charges! Additional deductions though for the bridge and Prince Kalman bugs.
Creativity: 4
What struck me the most was how Gallas recreated the Hungarian's circular camp. That was clever. It enhanced the map while lending itself to tactical use. As HockeySam also pointed, there were some nice tricks you have employed too.
Map Design: 3+
Again, the circular camp. It boosted an otherwise simple map, which can use a little more terrain mixing. I suggest more terrain types (specially in the grassy areas), as well as a sprinkling of Gaia objects (veggies, more tree types) here and there to make the map more beautiful.
Story/Instructions: 3+
The story is pretty straight-forward, although the side quests give additional depth to the scenario. However, there were times I have wished you have proof-read the scenario in English (I'm sure the AOK community would be glad to help you on that - I will be). Deductions on grammatical and sentence construction errors.
Additional Comments:
Here's a couple of things you may want to look into:
1- You may provide the player allied/ uncontrollable units that help you fight the Mongols, especially on towns.
2- On the bridge battle, maybe have a trigger that tasks-objects all Mongol units to retreat in an area considerably far from the bridge. You might want to loop this trigger, up until the second bridge battle.
3- Prince Kalman - either let the player control him or as HockeySam said, make him invincible towards the end. |
HockeySam18
Staff
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 09/16/12 @ 03:08 PM
ESRC12: Battle of Muhi is Gallas' entry to the Ensemble Studios Remake Competition, hosted by Jatayu. While a good scenario, it is somewhat unpolished and could definitely use some improvement. Despite this, it was a lot of fun to play and definitely a worthwhile download.
Playability: 3+
The chief factor in determining playability is how much fun you have playing the scenario. There were several things playing into this. First off, I love historical scenarios, especially accurate or mostly accurate ones. However, as I have observed and Gallas himself has admitted, his top priority was creating a completely accurate account of this event. Where I take issue here is that I believe that in some ways this hurt the playability, chiefly with how short the scenario was. I know that the real battle of Muhi was very short for such a massive engagement, but I think that the author could have done a better job making the scenario slightly longer to increase the fun factor. Short scenarios generally have little replayability, although the author helped this by including difficulty dynamism. The gameplay was pretty varied, so I had a lot of fun playing the first time. To increase playability, I have a few suggestions: First, as Shieldwolf23 mentioned, it would be nice to have a part where you try to defend the villages, and the longer you hold the Mongols off the more reinforcements your army gets, or a morale penalty for the Mongols. Second, you might consider implementing separate tactical choices that might affect the outcome of the battle, which would make things more interesting and also increase replayability. I know that you want to be as accurate as possible, but sometimes historical accuracy must be sacrificed for playability.
Balance: 4-
Let me begin by saying that I played on the toughest setting for this scenario. I felt that the part with the scouts at the beginning was well balanced. The battle on the bridge could have been tougher; all I really had to do was stick my troops on my side of the bridge and wait for the victory message and the scenario to continue. However, I take into account in this review that the author meant that part to be easy, just as it was for the Hungarians in real history. The scenario got a lot harder from then on, however. Since I knew what was coming from reading the History section and historical knowledge, I recruited huge armies from the villages and massed them at the camp. The battle at the camp was made really difficult by the fact that Ugrin (not controlled by the player) idiotically walked right into a horde of cav archers each time and was killed, causing a huge morale penalty. When the battle is lost, Bela and his Templar Guards flee to the mountains, where you have to fight Mongols guarding the pass. This part is perfectly balanced, as it takes careful micromanagement to sacrifice the guards and dismount Bela at the right spot so he can escape.
Creativity: 4
This was one of the high points of the scenario. It starts with Gallas' simple choice to play the opposite side of the battle from what ES did. Several cool tricks were used, my favorite being using TS to "garrison" Bela inside a mounted version of himself to help make a really cool ending. As Shieldwolf23 mentioned, the design of the camp was also excellent and creative. I also liked the tight design of the villages with many buildings joining each other. The use of several different objectives and the mix of FF and B&D also contributed to this. Well done!
Map Design: 3+
The map design was slightly disappointing. Although Gallas admits that he is not very good at map design, I have a firm belief that anybody can be good as long as they practice, try new things, and check out the works of the greats. To partially quote another reviewer, I was dismayed by the design, as some parts (the wagon camp and the Sajo river) looked better than a 5, while other parts looked ignored (the large patches of grass). Gallas, I contend that you are good at map design, as somebody who wasn't would not be able to produce the aforementioned strong points of the design. A little more time spent (although I am aware that there was a deadline) and some more terrain mixing would go a long way.
Story/Instructions: 4-
Although there was not much present in the way of a story, the historical Battle of Muhi was dutifully chronicled by the author and I came away from playing this scenario with a lot of knowledge of this event. A detailed History section, as well as information presented throughout the scenario and in the victory message shows that the author is an expert on the material and did his best to impart it to us, the players. I was always sure of what to do next, and saw no issues with the instructions. There were some spelling errors and grammatical mistakes, but not too many as to ruin the experience. This facet of the scenario itself made it a treat to play.
Additional Comments:
This is a very good (albeit short) historical scenario. Although there are some bugs (most notably the Kalman issue), it was a very fun play and I thoroughly recommend the download. Should the author decide to update and make certain changes, I'm sure it would greatly improve the scenario. If so, I will definitely replay and re-review. Overall, a fine job and a worthwhile download. |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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3.5 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 3.5 | Balance | 3.5 | Creativity | 4.0 | Map Design | 3.0 | Story/Instructions | 3.5 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 706 |
Favorites: [] | 0 |
Size: | 4.60 MB |
Added: | 08/12/12 |
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